It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, January 28, 2026
Trump Labor Department Takes a Page From Hitler’s Playbook
This fascist propaganda dishonors the government agency whose charge is to support the workers of this country. It has no business deifying any President, particularly one already drunk with power. A detail of an image issued by the US Dept of Labor, featuring stylize pictures of Trump reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. (Image: US Dept of Labor)
Something is rotten in the Department of Labor. I’m not talking about the recent news that Secretary of Labor Chavez-DeRemer is being investigated about claims she used taxpayer money for personal trips disguised as business-related. Or that she allegedly engaged in an improper tryst with a subordinate.
If true, these are serious issues that call for appropriate responses. But, from my perspective as an attorney who committed a 39-year career to a government agency I continue to care deeply about, they pale in comparison to something that’s out in the open, carefully curated for all to see: the Department’s latest social media campaign.
Just take a look at the past few weeks’ postings on the Labor Department’s Facebook or X accounts. One might ordinarily expect to find content that reflects the Department’s worthy mission of lifting up all workers in the United States, regardless of race, religion, or national origin. That might include reminders about employers’ responsibilities under wage and workplace safety laws Congress enacted over the past several decades, or maybe spotlight a series of particularly impactful enforcement actions that vindicated workers’ rights.
Don’t hold your breath. Instead, watching a jarring graphic with a dystopian soundtrack, you’ll be instructed to “Remember who you are, American.” Those words are placed below the header, “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage”—a slogan promptly recognized by visitors to the Facebook site as a haunting echo of the 1930’s Nazi propaganda poster featuring Adolf Hitler and the slogan “One People, One Nation, One Leader.”
That’s only one of a steady drumbeat of similar phrases, like “Faith in God. Law and Order. Pride in Our Homeland…central tenets of the American Way of Life.” We learn that “[u]nder President Trump, the globalist dominance of our government is over,” and that a year ago “our country was dead.” Now, however, we’re “the hottest country anywhere in the world because we finally have a President who puts America first.”
We’re instructed not to “believe the fake news lies.” Multiple entries feature paintings and posters depicting 1940’s-era churchgoers and families with beatifically smiling children, all white. And most prolifically, we’re treated to one hero-like depiction of Donald Trump after another, mostly in bold silhouette, with captions like “Americans First,” “NEVER SURRENDER,” “Second to None,” “Trust the Plan, Trust Trump,” “PATRIOTS IN CONTROL,” and “One of One.” We learn that “No President has cared more about hardworking Americans than President Trump.”
There’s so much wrong with all this it makes the head spin. Most blatant is the unmistakable resemblance to the style and messaging of the Nazi propaganda machine. As described by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, during the Third Reich “public adulation for Adolf Hitler was an ever present feature in the public square of German life.” Hitler was portrayed “as the living embodiment of the German nation,” radiating strength as the savior of a beaten-down German nation, and idolized as a “gifted statesman who brought stability, created jobs, and restored German greatness.” Take a look at the Labor Department’s Facebook page and see if that description resonates.
Add to that: the posts’ repeated targeting of undefined “globalists”—a recognized “dog whistle” for racist, anti-Semitic and anti-government conspiracy theorists—as the shadowy characters responsible for our country’s woes, not unlike Nazi propaganda demonizing Jews and other “outsiders”; the Christian imagery and language, smearing the line that separates church and state, and implicitly, if not explicitly, promoting white Christian Nationalism; the full-on outrageous assertion made on X, just days after the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent, that “Mass Deportations are Improving Americans’ Quality of Life.”
Appalling as all this is, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. Substantively, in addition to the countless other ways Trump’s presidency has been a disaster for this country, he has been no friend to US workers—undermining their wages and economic security, weakening job creation, and assaulting their rights to organize. Federal worker ranks have been terrorized and dissembled by DOGE, and soon tens of thousands will be judged not by merit alone but by their loyalty to Trump. Religious prayer services have been introduced at the agency’s headquarters. Labor Department employees are demoralized. And for months, an enormous banner with Trump’s face has been hanging off the front of the Francis Perkins Building, sternly looking down at the passersby below.
Still, the Facebook/X campaign brings the Department to a new low. It dishonors the government agency whose charge is to support the workers of this country. It has no business deifying any President, particularly one already drunk with power. Nor should it be promoting a white, Christian nationalist vision for this country, that was built by immigrants -- people of all colors, places of origin, and beliefs. As a Labor Department veteran, I’m ashamed. And as a first generation son of Jewish refugees who lived through the horrors of Nazi Germany, I’m aghast, at seeing historyrhyme, if not repeat.
This poem no one should have to recite to their grandchildren.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Michael Felsen Michael Felsen concluded a 39-year career as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Labor in 2018, serving as New England Regional Solicitor from 2010-2018. He currently writes and consults on labor issues, and serves as an adviser to several worker-related nonprofits. Full Bio >
THEY WERE FISHING BOATS!
Trinidadians Sue US for Caribbean Boat Bombing That Killed Relatives ‘In Cold Blood’
“People may not simply be gunned down by the government, and the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary risk making America a pariah state,” said one attorney in the case.
Fishermen are seen workig in this photo taken on November 4, 2025 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Relatives of two Trinidadian men killed during the Trump administration’s internationally condemned bombing spree against boats allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday against the United States.
Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, were killed in one of the at least 36 strikes the Trump administration has launched against civilian boats in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean since last September. According to the lawsuit and the Trump administration’s own figures, at least 125 people have been killed in such strikes, which are part of the broader US military aggression targeting Venezuela.
The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts by lawyers from the ACLU, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School on behalf of Joseph’s mother Lenora Burnley and Samaroo’s sister Sallycar Korasingh. The complaint alleges that the US violated the Death on the High Seas Act, which allows relatives to sue for wrongful deaths at sea, and the Alien Tort Statute, which empowers foreign citizens to seek legal redress in US federal courts.
According to the lawsuit: On October 14, 2025, the United States government authorized and launched a missile strike against a boat carrying six people traveling from Venezuela to Trinidad. The strike killed all six, including Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, two Trinidadian nationals who had been fishing in waters off the Venezuelan coast and working on farms in Venezuela, and who were returning to their homes in Las Cuevas, in nearby Trinidad and Tobago.
The October 14 attack was part of an unprecedented and manifestly unlawful US military campaign of lethal strikes against small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean... The United States has not conducted these strikes pursuant to any congressional authorization. Instead, the government has acted unilaterally. And Trump administration officials, including President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have publicized videos of the boat strikes, boasting about and celebrating their own role in killing defenseless people.
“These premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification,” the lawsuit asserts. “Thus, they were simply murders, ordered by individuals at the highest levels of government and obeyed by military officers in the chain of command.”
Burnley said in a statement announcing the lawsuit: “Chad was a loving and caring son who was always there for me, for his wife and children, and for our whole family. I miss him terribly. We all do.”
“We know this lawsuit won’t bring Chad back to us, but we’re trusting God to carry us through this, and we hope that speaking out will help get us some truth and closure,” she added.
Korasingh said, “Rishi used to call our family almost every day, and then one day he disappeared, and we never heard from him again.”
“Rishi was a hardworking man who paid his debt to society and was just trying to get back on his feet again and to make a decent living in Venezuela to help provide for his family,” she added, referring to her brother’s imprisonment for taking part in the 2009 murder of a street vendor. “If the US government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him. They must be held accountable.”
Trump officials have offered very little concrete evidence to support their claims that the targeted vessels were smuggling drugs. Critics allege that’s why attorneys at the US Department of Defense reportedly inquired about whether two survivors of an October bombing in the Caribbean could be sent to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) maximum security prison in El Salvador, which has been described by rights groups as a “legal black hole.”
The survivors were ultimately returned to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador. Some observers said their repatriation showed the Trump administration knew that trying the survivors in US courts would compel officials to explain their dubious legal justification for the attacks, which many experts say are illegal.
Trump officials also considered sending boat strike survivors to the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but that would allow their lawyers to sue for habeas corpus—a right granted by the US Supreme Court in its 2008 Boumediene v. Bush decision during the era of extrajudicial imprisonment and torture of terrorism suspects, as well as innocent men and boys, at the facility. The Trump administration has even revived the term “unlawful enemy combatant”—which was used by the Bush administration to categorize people caught up in the War on Terror in a way that skirts the law—to classify boat strike survivors.
The Trinidadian and Tobagonian government has also been criticized for hosting joint military exercises with the United States in the Caribbean Sea amid Trump’s boat-bombing campaign.
ACLU senior counsel Brett Max Kaufman said Tuesday that “the Trump administration’s boat strikes are the heinous acts of people who claim they can abuse their power with impunity around the world.”
“In seeking justice for the senseless killing of their loved ones, our clients are bravely demanding accountability for their devastating losses and standing up against the administration’s assault on the rule of law,” he added.
CCR legal director Baher Azmy argued that “these are lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theater, which is why we need a court of law to proclaim what is true and constrain what is lawless.”
“This is a critical step in ensuring accountability, while the individuals responsible may ultimately be answerable criminally for murder and war crimes,” Azmy added.
Hafetz said that “using military force to kill Chad and Rishi violates the most elementary principles of international law.”
“People may not simply be gunned down by the government,” he stressed, “and the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary risk making America a pariah state.”
Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, contended that Trump’s “lethal boat strikes violate our collective understanding of right and wrong.”
“Rishi and Chad wanted only to get home safely to their loved ones; the unconscionable attack on their boat prevented them from doing so,” Rossman added. “It is imperative that we hold this administration accountable, both for their families and for the rule of law itself.”
‘The US Is Becoming a Pariah’: Trump Officially Ditches Paris Agreement, Again
“Trump is trying to drag the rest of the world backwards by launching conflicts for oil and bullying other countries into deepening their reliance on dirty, dangerous fossil fuels,” warned one campaigner.
Activists stand with a coffin to symbolize the dying of coral reefs in Berlin, Germany on December 12, 2025, a decade after the signing of the Paris Agreement. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump faced a fresh flood of fury on Tuesday as he formally withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreementa second time, part of the broader anti-climate agenda he’s pursued since returning to power.
The US initially completed the one-year withdrawal process in November 2020, as ballots from the general election were still being counted. After winning the race, former President Joe Biden swiftly rejoined the climate treaty, but Trump reclaimed the White House four years later—with help from Big Oil—and moved to abandon the pact again on his first day back in the Oval Office.
“Thanks to President Trump, the US has officially escaped from the Paris Climate Agreement, which undermined American values and priorities, wasted hard-earned taxpayer dollars, and stifled economic growth,” a White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said in a Tuesday statement celebrating the “America First victory.”
Advocates for ambitious action on the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency struck a much different tone about the president exiting the 2015 deal, which aims to limit global temperature rise this century to 1.5ºC, relative to preindustrial levels. Oil Change International US campaign manager Allie Rosenbluth declared that “Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is a betrayal of the communities at risk from climate disaster, especially those on the frontlines of the crisis in the Global South.”
“Trump is entrenching petro imperialism and enriching his fossil fuel CEO donors, at the cost of a livable planet,” she said. “The US is the largest historic emitter and the current planet-wrecker-in chief, responsible for a greater increase in oil and gas extraction than any other country since the Paris Agreement. Now, Trump is pulling out of the agreement that commits it to help solve a crisis it largely created—deepening global risk of climate-fueled hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, and floods.”
Rosenbluth argued that “under Trump, the US is becoming a pariah on the world stage and should be treated as such by the countries claiming to defend climate multilateralism and international cooperation. It is clinging to fossil fuel dependency as many other nations embrace the clean, affordable energy sources of the future. Trump is trying to drag the rest of the world backwards by launching conflicts for oil and bullying other countries into deepening their reliance on dirty, dangerous fossil fuels.”
“Trump can withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, but can’t change that millions of people will fight for climate justice, including leaders from the Global South and US states and localities,” she added. “While Trump turns the US into a rogue state, we must redouble global efforts to end the fossil era and fight for safety and dignity for all.”
In an interview with the Guardian, Basav Sen, climate justice project director at the Institute for Policy Studies, suggested that US disengagement has already encouraged others to take action.
At the United NationsClimate Change Conference (COP30) in Brazil last November—which the Trump administration did not attend—Colombia, the Netherlands, and Pacific Island nations announced plans to host historic talks on phasing out fossil fuels. Sen said, “I have to believe that the reactionary position of the US acted as further impetus for those countries to step up.”
Still, the Trump administration’s position means “it will be that much harder for low-income countries, who are very dependent on fossil fuel production and exports, to be able to make their transitions with the US saying that we won’t fund any of it,” he said. Sen also stressed that “if the domestic market in the US continues to be dominated by fossil fuels through the fiat of an authoritarian government, that will continue to have an impact on the rest of the world.”
In the lead-up to COP30, Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard urged other governments “to resist aligning with the Trump administration’s denial of the accelerating climate crisis and instead demonstrate true climate leadership.”
On Tuesday, Marta Schaaf, Amnesty’s program director for climate, economic and social justice, and corporate accountability, said that “the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement sets a disturbing precedent that seeks to instigate a race to the bottom, and, along with its withdrawal from other major global climate pacts, aims to dismantle the global system of cooperation on climate action.”
Despite “increasingly deadly and expensive” weather disasters, Trump has left not only the Paris Agreement but also dozens of other international treaties and organizations intended to coordinate on key issues, including human rights and the climate crisis.
“The US is one of several powerful anti-climate actors,” Schaaf acknowledged, “but as an influential superpower, this decision, along with acts of coercion and bullying of other countries and powerful actors to double down on fossil fuels, causes particular harm and threatens to reverse more than a decade of global climate progress under the agreement.”
“While the US may no longer be a party to the Paris Agreement, it still has legal obligations to protect humanity from the worsening impacts of climate change as confirmed by the International Court of Justice in its landmark 2025 advisory opinion,” she emphasized. “US-based climate advocates and activists now find themselves on the frontlines of a fight with implications for current and future generations everywhere.”
“Global solidarity and support to ensure accelerating momentum to address climate change has never been more urgent,” Schaaf added. “Those who witness the harms caused by climate change and who can speak safely—must speak up. Other governments too must push back against all coercive efforts by the US. Ceding ground now risks losing it for years. Neither the planet nor the people living on the frontlines of proliferating unnatural disasters have that much time.”
As Trump Terrorizes Immigrants, Spain Offers Permanent Residency for 500,000 People
Responding to the deadly US crackdown, one Spanish leftist leader said, “If they kidnap children and murder, we give papers.”
Immigrants and supporters march, shout slogans, and hold placards with messages including, “Borders Kill” and “We Are Reclaiming Human Rights,” during a July 1, 2022 protest in Madrid. (Photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)
As President Donald Trump terrorizes immigrants and Americans alike with his deadly mass deportation blitz while warning European leaders to tighten their borders by raising the racist specter of “civilizational erasure,” Spain’s government is moving against the xenophobic tide by offering hundreds of thousands of migrants a chance at permanent legal residency.
The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the leftist Podemos party reached an agreement Monday following the collection of more than 700,000 petition signatures in favor of a legislative initiative to legalize up to 500,000 undocumented migrants.
Those who can prove that they were in Spain for at least five months before December 31, 2025 and have no criminal record will be eligible for permanent legal residency with permission to work.
Spanish Migration Minister Elma Saiz (PSOE) said during a press conference that “today is a historic day” for starting the process of legalizing hundreds of thousands of immigrants in a country that has made great strides in overcoming its legacy of racism and xenophobia.
The far-right Vox party called the legalization plan “madness” that promotes “barbarity.”
However, Saiz said that legalization will help Spain “recognize, dignify, and give guarantees” to people who already live and work in the country.
“We’re reinforcing a migratory model based on human rights, on integration, and on coexistence that’s compatible with both economic growth and social cohesion,” she added.
Responding to arguments that legalizing so many migrants would severely strain Spain’s social safety net, Podemos Secretary General Ione Belarra said on social media, “What overwhelms public services are your cuts and privatizations.”
Belarra also said that some opponents of legalization are angry that they will no longer be able to exploit migrants by paying them less than legal workers.
Podemos Political Secretary Irene Montero said Tuesday that “we have a legal obligation to guarantee [migrant] rights and that is what this regularization is, which we hope will reach all the people without papers in Spain who were here before December 31, 2025.”
Spain’s population is approximately 49.4 million. Legalizing half a million immigrants would be the equivalent of granting permanent residency to about 3.6 million migrants in the United States. There were believed to be about 7.1 million foreign nationals living in Spain at the beginning of last year, of whom an estimated 840,000 were in the country without authorization.
Sánchez’s PSOE-led government has been supportive of immigrants since coming to power in 2018, offering safe harbor for migrants arriving in Europe by sea when other European Union nations have moved to restrict their entry. More than 10,000 migrants died trying to reach Spain in 2024, according to the Spanish advocacy group Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders).
Meanwhile, Trump’s latest National Security Strategy, released last month, urges the US to “cultivate resistance” to immigration in Europe, espousing racist “great replacement” ideology while warning of “the real and stark prospect of civilizational erasure.”
“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less,” the document states.
Responding to Trump’s deadly anti-immigrant crackdown—which has killed both immigrants and US citizens—Montero said Tuesday that “in the United States at the moment there are millions of people who are afraid in their own homes because Trump’s migration policy enters people’s homes and takes them away.”
“We cannot accept that there are people who live in fear and without rights,” she added. “We cannot accept racist violence. Racism is answered with rights. If they kidnap children and murder, we give papers.”
FANDUEL TAKING BETS
'Not so great!' CNN data guru floored by soaring odds 'Melania' doc flops
U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attend "Les Miserables" opening night at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
The Amazon-sponsored "Melania" documentary appears on track to land with a thud, CNN data analyst Harry Enten told anchor Erin Burnett on Tuesday.
As evidence for the impending failure, Enten pointed to early data from Kalshi, a gambling website with which CNN has a partnership deal.
"Tonight, early ticket sales for the new documentary 'Melania' not pointing to a blockbuster at this time," said Burnett, bringing on Enten. "The president, though, says tickets are selling fast ... so, Harry, will the president be right?"
"I don't think the president is going to be right," said Enten. "And you know what we're expecting right now in terms of how the movie is going to be received, just take a look at the projections for the Rotten Tomatoes for 'Melania', the chance of the score, in fact, being below 20 percent. That's not good, Erin. That's not good. Being below 20 percent a majority chance, according to the prediction market odds."
"And why is it, why do they feel that the odds might not be so hot to trot?" he continued. "Well, it comes back to the fact that's the same reason that we don't think that it's going to necessarily be selling out a whole heck of a lot of tickets. Why? Because what's the projection for opening weekend for Melania? It's just $1-5 million, which is again, not so great. That's a forecast. Take a look at 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' the top documentary of all time. In the first weekend it was $41 million. For Melania? Not anywhere close."
Melania's film crew member hopes for flop as insiders share behind-the-scenes tales
Members of the team behind the Melania Trump documentary are hoping the film bombs at the box office, according to a report.
Insiders have suggested the filming of the Brett Ratner-helmed documentary, "Melania," was chaos behind the scenes. Part of the problem was getting access to Melania and the Trump family, but some issues were caused by Ratner himself, according to Rolling Stone. The film director has not worked on a project since 2014's Hercules and was subject to a number of sexual assault and harassment allegations in 2017.
One insider, speaking to Rolling Stone, said, "People were worked really hard. Really long hours, highly disorganized, very chaotic."
Another added that the shoot "wasn't easy money. It was very difficult because of the chaos that was around everything. … Usually [for a documentary] it’s like, ‘Oh, follow the subject.’ Well, it’s Melania Trump. With the first lady and Secret Service, you can’t just do things you usually do."
Other members of the production team now regret putting their name on the documentary, with one person saying they are "much more alarmed now than I was a year ago."
Another source who spoke to Rolling Stone suggested almost two-thirds of the crew who worked on the film in New York had requested their name be pulled from the credits of the documentary.
A third anonymous source who worked on Melania said, "I feel a little bit uncomfortable with the propaganda element of this. But Brett Ratner was the worst part of working on this project."
Another source suggested they hope the film does not perform well. They said, “Unfortunately, if it does flop, I would really feel great about it.”
Amazon MGM Studios said they greenlit the project because it would be of interest to audiences. A spokesperson told Rolling Stone, "We licensed the film for one reason and one reason only - because we think customers are going to love it."
Judge shoots down Trump's halt on massive Martha's Vineyard Offshore Wind project
A federal judge has dealt the Trump administration yet another courtroom defeat over offshore wind, ruling Tuesday that construction can resume on the nearly complete $4.5 billion Vineyard Wind project off Martha's Vineyard.
Judge Brian E. Murphy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction allowing developers to restart work, marking the fourth legal setback for the administration's aggressive push to kill the nation's burgeoning offshore wind industry, The New York Times reported.
The Trump administration had abruptly ordered all work halted on Vineyard Wind and four other East Coast projects just before Christmas, citing a classified Defense Department report alleging national security risks. But Judge Murphy, appointed by former President Joe Biden, wasn't buying it. After reviewing the classified material under seal, he said the administration failed to "adequately explain or justify the decision to halt construction." Vineyard Wind is 95 percent complete and already pumping power into Massachusetts' grid. Once finished, it'll power over 400,000 homes and businesses. The roughly $2 million daily losses have been piling up during the shutdown.
The White House fired back through spokeswoman Taylor Rogers, insisting the pause was necessary because "our number one priority is to put America First and protect the national security of the American people." She vowed "ultimate victory."
Three other offshore wind projects, Revolution Wind, Empire Wind, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, have won similar court victories. Gov. Maura Healey called Tuesday's ruling "an important development" protecting thousands of well-paying jobs.
Epstein accomplice drops courtroom bombshell: 25+ secret payoffs with no criminal charges
An undated photo shows Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The photo was entered into evidence during the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, accused of sex trafficking, in New York City. Courtesy via U.S. Attorney's Office/Handout via REUTERS
Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein, may be serving time in a cushy Texas federal prison, but the convicted child sex trafficker just detonated a political time bomb from behind bars, according to a new Daily Beast report Tuesday.
In a recent habeas petition, Maxwell dropped a bombshell claim that four potential "co-conspirators" and "25 men" scored "secret settlements" tied to Epstein's abuse — without facing any indictment.
The report said Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department are doing everything possible to avoid one glaring question: "Who are these men, and why are they still being protected?"
Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in November, forcing the Justice Department to release unclassified records. Yet the DOJ has toiled along, redacting, delaying, and otherwise slow-walking compliance "like it’s trying to outlast public attention."
The report noted that billionaire Leon Black, a Trump ally and former Apollo CEO, paid $62.5 million to settle Epstein-related claims in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
"No criminal charges, just a very large check and a quiet exit," the report said.
Black testified in 2018 about being with Trump during a 1990s Russia trip, including allegedly visiting "a strip club together." He paid Epstein roughly $170 million for "tax planning" while denying knowledge of sex trafficking.
CANADIAN,EH
Rock legend gifts entire music archive to Greenland in sharp Trump rebuke
Neil Young performs during a rally held by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 12, 2025. REUTERS/Carlin Stiehl
Rock legend Neil Young gifted his entire music archive to Greenland residents.
Young, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, said he hoped the offering “will ease some of the unwarranted stress…you are experiencing from our unpopular and hopefully temporary government,” Pitchfork reported Tuesday.
The musician hasn't held back his thoughts on the Trump administration and has criticized its actions against American citizens, and now Greenlanders.
On his Neil Young archives, the artist offered the message of solidarity "as a gesture of kindness and respect, we stand with you along with a strong majority of Americans."
Young has used both his music and social media commentary to take swings at Trump and his administration. Young has also taken legal action against the Trump campaign on multiple occasions for the unauthorized use of his songs at campaign rallies, most notably his 1989 hit "Rockin' in the Free World," demonstrating his strong opposition to Trump's political movement and his willingness to defend his artistic work from association with Trump's agenda.
‘Pretti’s Death Will Not Be in Vain’: Nurses Plan Nationwide Week of Action Against ICE Terror
“ICE messed with the wrong profession. We nurses will fight to abolish ICE and bring about a vision for a healthy society based on nurses’ values of caring, compassion, and community.”
Nurses hold a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside of Oakland, California on January 26, 2026. (Photo by Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images)
The largest union of nurses in the United States is holding protests across the country this week to protest the killing of one of their own, Alex Pretti, by federal officers in Minneapolis and to demand the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose agents are terrorizing communities nationwide.
Demonstrations organized by National Nurses United (NNU) have been planned in more than a dozen states—from California to Florida to New York—as grassroots backlash against the Trump administration’s lawless mass deportation efforts, detentions, and violent crackdowns on dissent continue to mount.
“Pretti’s death will not be in vain. ICE messed with the wrong profession,” NNU said in a statement. “We nurses will fight to abolish ICE and bring about a vision for a healthy society based on nurses’ values of caring, compassion, and community.”
NNU, which represents more than 225,000 nurses in the US, said in the hours after Pretti’s killing that federal agents “have executed one of our fellow nurses, Alex Pretti, who saved veterans’ lives as an intensive care unit RN for the Veterans Health Administration.”
“He not only advocated for his patients inside the VA as a member of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), but also took his advocacy to the streets to stand up for his community as nurses do,” the union said. “We demand justice and accountability for his murder.”
While demanding ICE’s elimination as a federal agency, the nurses’ union is also pushing senators to oppose any government funding legislation that includes money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE.
“Call your senators and tell them to oppose any appropriations package that includes the Homeland Security Appropriations bill,” NNU wrote in a social media post on Tuesday. “Congress must not give a penny to ICE. Our taxpayer dollars must not be used to murder and terrorize our communities!”
Ahead of a possible government shutdown at the end of the week, the US Senate is set to consider a legislative package that includes six appropriations bills, including a $64.4 billion DHS funding bill that contains $10 billion for ICE. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said Democrats won’t provide the votes Republicans need to advance the appropriations package if the DHS bill is included.
Members of the Senate Democratic caucus are demanding that the DHS funding be stripped from the broader appropriations package and considered on its own, along with concrete reforms to ICE.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a close ally of union nurses, put forward a series of demands on Monday, including repeal of the $75 billion ICE funding that Republicans and President Donald Trump approved last summer, unmasking of ICE agents, and immediate removal of federal immigration agents from Minnesota and Maine.
“ICE is out of control, ignoring the law and our Constitution,” said Sanders. “Congress must vote NO on any additional funding for DHS.”
Minneapolis Health Care Workers Are Organizing to Defend Their Patients From ICE
Organizing and rights trainings have helped health care workers protect their colleagues and their patients.
Demonstrators participate in a rally and march during an "ICE Out” day of protest on January 23, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Brandon Bell / Getty Images
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have created a crisis in Minneapolis hospitals since escalating anti-immigrant operations in the Minnesota city in early December.
Health care workers who spoke to Truthout report that the number of agents in hospitals has risen sharply since the beginning of the year, with ailing or injured detainees regularly brought into emergency departments at multiple city hospitals at all hours, including overnight. Meanwhile, workers told Truthout that those federal agents have intimidated hospital staff and disregarded federal law, medical best practices, and hospital policies, often with limited pushback from hospital administrators. Where administrators have seemed reluctant to intervene, however, rank-and-file health care workers are stepping up to protect their colleagues and their patients — thanks to organizing and training efforts that began long before agents descended on the Twin Cities.
“This is a human rights crisis that we will be talking about for years to come in health care and what happened in these hospitals, and at the same time, grassroots organizing is the only thing that has prepared us to begin to respond,” Jamey Sharp, an area health care worker and member of the health justice committee at immigrant advocacy organization Unidos MN, told Truthout.
Several high-profile cases of ICE agents violating patient rights in Minneapolis hospitals have already made headlines.
Several high-profile cases of ICE agents violating patient rights in Minneapolis hospitals have already made headlines. On December 31, 2025, agents entered the Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) Emergency Department without a valid judicial warrant in an attempt to detain a patient receiving care. The agents reportedly remained by the patient’s bedside for over 24 hours, denied their right to family visitation, and, at times, shackled them. The agents left after hospital security “asked for documentation to support their continued presence,” according to a statement from the hospital.
Additional reports have since surfaced of agents shackling at least one other patient in the same hospital, even after health care workers confronted them. Workers at three other area hospitals who spoke to Truthout on condition of anonymity described daily ICE presence on their campuses, as well as multiple cases of agents seemingly guarding patients at their bedsides and violating their rights to have private medical conversations with their care teams.
“I don’t think anyone could have expected the onslaught of ICE agents descending on our metro the way that it has,” Alycia Garubanda, an acute rehab therapist at another Minneapolis hospital, told Truthout. “But we’ve adjusted to meet the moment.”
For many health care workers across the metro area, meeting the moment has meant drawing on knowledge gained from “know your rights” trainings that Unidos MN began offering in March 2025. According to Unidos MN, more than 300 health care workers have participated in the trainings thus far, including many union members. Sources who spoke to Truthout agree that collaboration between community rights groups and local unions, including the Minnesota Nurses Association and chapters of the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), has been central to the success of these trainings and other organizing wins.
Nathan Paulsen, a mental health worker and steward with AFSCME 2474, a Twin Cities union of frontline staff at Hennepin Healthcare, including HCMC, told Truthout that community groups have vital expertise and understand the needs and perspectives of targeted communities. “The labor movement is at its best when we have unity, share resources and knowledge, and grow bonds of trust — not only with one another within the labor movement, but stretching those relationships into the community as well,” he said.
“The labor movement is at its best when we have unity, share resources and knowledge, and grow bonds of trust.”
The “know your rights” trainings for Minneapolis health care workers focus largely on preparing them for two scenarios: how to respond if federal immigration agents arrive at their workplace without a patient to conduct a raid, and how to respond if agents arrive with a patient. That second situation is behind the current surge of agents in Minneapolis hospitals, according to Sharp and two sources familiar with local emergency departments who spoke anonymously to Truthout. When agents bring someone to an emergency department, it could be because the person has suffered a medical emergency or otherwise requires care while already in detention; because a person who was recently arrested reported a medical condition requiring medication or clearance before detention; or because agents injured or brutalized a person during their arrest.
“The main point that we try to help people understand at these trainings is that civil detention [i.e., immigration detention] is very different than criminal custody,” Sharp explained to Truthout. “People who are in civil detention deserve to have all of the rights that any other civilian would have when they go to the hospital.” According to Unidos MN, those rights include family visits, keeping family members apprised of a patient’s condition if that patient so chooses, private conversations with the patient’s care team, independent medical decision-making, and freedom from being shackled or bound.
Three health care workers at different Minneapolis hospitals, who spoke to Truthout anonymously, said they have observed federal agents seemingly denying patients these rights in their hospitals. “They’re not being afforded the same rights as our other patients,” one emergency department nurse said. But with the knowledge and connections gained from “know your rights” trainings, a growing number of health care workers now know that they can push back and report suspected abuses.
Through the trainings, workers have built communication and rapid response networks, developed a system for whistleblowing on violations of patient rights, and learned how to press for improved hospital policies. Employees have also developed a mutual aid network to support each other in various ways, including arranging to arrive at and leave work in groups to deter harassment from federal agents. “The foundation for all of this work, movement, and advocacy is not only a knowledge of rights, but a willingness to embody them with specific actions and participation in a shared project to establish robust rules first and get ICE out of our hospital and state next,” Paulsen told Truthout.
Those communication and rapid response systems kicked into gear following the reports that agents were guarding a patient’s bedside at HCMC on December 31, 2025, without a valid judicial warrant. After Unidos MN was notified, it organized a press conference.
Paulsen told Truthout that many AFSCME 2474 members were among the roughly 100 employees, elected officials, and rights advocates who gathered outside HCMC on January 6 “to call attention to the cruelty and injustice of allowing ICE to roam freely in our neighborhoods and in the hospital.” Under pressure following the press conference, HCMC used model policies and best practices provided by Unidos MN to implement new guidelines to better protect patients from warrantless harassment.
Hospitals across the city have done similar in recent months following demands from organized health care workers and community groups. For many workers, improving their workplace policies began with reviewing models. Sharp told Truthout he encourages health care workers to review a model policy from People’s Care Collective, a coalition of California unions and rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California: “It’s not only a best practice, but also legal and possible,” said Sharp. Unidos MN has also produced a shorter version of similar guidelines.
While Minneapolis health care workers continue to observe federal agents in their workplaces and are concerned about ongoing abuses, those who spoke to Truthout said they feel better prepared to confront these situations following training and organizing with colleagues.
“These ICE agents have pushed, they’ve shackled patients to beds, and they’ve done a number of things to break the law.”
“These ICE agents have pushed, they’ve shackled patients to beds, and they’ve done a number of things to break the law. [They are] trying to see how much they can get away with,” Sharp told Truthout. “But now we have health care workers who feel empowered, [and] that ultimately leads to a better chance that people will at least have one or two people looking out for them and their rights and fighting for them during these impossible situations.”
It is a difference that benefits both patients and staff. Garubanda, the acute rehab therapist, told Truthout that Minneapolis hospitals boast diverse workforces, and the presence of federal agents has scared some of her colleagues of color into bringing their passports to work. “It has been alarming to me to see my colleagues who are immigrants, East African, Latino, or women who wear hijab, terrified to come to work.” Recently, news broke that the Department of Homeland Security is also auditing HCMC employee records, further fueling fears that agents plan to target workers.
Among the guidance in Unidos MN’s best practices for navigating ICE presence in hospitals is a rule that staff requests for unit reassignment when ICE is on campus must be accommodated immediately. The policy also recommends barring agents from staff-only spaces, such as break rooms or locker rooms. At HCMC, agents have reportedly been observed in staff break rooms and parking lots.
“We’re health care workers with moral and ethical obligations to our patients. We have to push for better rights, care, protections, safety measures.”
For health care workers across the U.S. who may be wondering how best to prepare their own workplaces in case federal agents head their way next, Minneapolis health care workers who spoke to Truthout had a unified message: If you haven’t already begun to organize, train, and strengthen policies, the best time to do so is now.
“Speak up within your institution, speak up in department meetings, speak up any time that a group of health care workers is together,” suggests Garubanda. “These institutions want us to feel like we can’t say anything, like we’re not allowed to talk. That’s ridiculous; we’re health care workers with moral and ethical obligations to our patients. We have to push for better rights, care, protections, safety measures for patients, families in our communities, and also staff members.”
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1,000+ Organizations to Congress: ‘No Funds for ICE and Border Patrol’
“How many more people have to die, how many more lies have to be told, and how many more children must be used as bait and abducted?”
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent is seen amid protests over the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 24, 2026. (Photo by Arthur Maiorella/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A broad coalition of more than 1,000 advocacy organizations sent a letter on Tuesday pushing members of Congress to immediately stop all funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, agencies at the forefront of the Trump administration’s violent mass deportation campaign and crackdown on dissent.
“We the undersigned 1,025 organizations write to express our horror, outrage, and deep grief about the news that federal agents have executed a human being in broad daylight on the streets of Minneapolis,” reads the letter, headlined “No Funds for ICE and Border Patrol.”
“How many more people have to die, how many more lies have to be told, and how many more children must be used as bait and abducted before Congress fulfills its responsibilities and stops these out-of-control agencies from continuing to violently attack our immigrant communities and communities of color, as well as their many allies and supporters?” the coalition asks.
“We demand an immediate halt in all funding for these deadly operations until the violence, abuses, and deaths in American communities and in immigration detention centers stop,” the letter continues. “Congress must refuse to provide one dollar to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Border Patrol through the appropriations process and immediately take action to revoke the tens of billions already given through last summer’s reconciliation bill.”
The message, organized by Detention Watch Network, was released as US senators prepared to consider a package of six appropriations bills that includes a measure proposing more than $64 billion in funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE and CBP. The DHS funding package includes $10 billion for ICE, which is currently the highest-funded US law enforcement agency.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said his caucus will block the appropriations package if it includes the DHS funding bill, which Republicans still support despite the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis. The Washington Postreported Tuesday that DHS agents “have fired shots during enforcement arrests or at people protesting their operations 16 times since July, and as in the recent shootings in Minneapolis, in each case the Trump administration has publicly declared their actions justified before waiting for investigations to be completed.”
“Most of the incidents involve officers firing at drivers during enforcement stops in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, where DHS has surged federal immigration officers,” the Post noted. “At least 10 people have been struck by bullets—including four US citizens. Three people have been killed.”
Democrats have proposed stripping the DHS appropriations measure from the broader funding package and considering it as a standalone bill, with passage conditioned on ICE reforms.
“What you do now will be remembered for future generations—take a stand today while you still have the power to do so.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) outlined a number of proposed reforms, including “no more masked secret police” and specific requirements that ICE agents obtain “a warrant from an independent judge before barging into people’s homes and snatching people from their communities.”
“That’s just the start,” Warren wrote on social media. “There’s more we can do to rein in ICE. Stripping the DHS bill from the Senate budget package this week is one of the best options we’ve got to slam on the brakes, condition any funding, and put some basic controls in place to stop this violence.”
In their letter on Tuesday, the advocacy coalition demanded that senators “act decisively and show DHS and the communities you serve that this cruelty and lawlessness is unacceptable and must end now.”
“When federal agents are patrolling the streets of American cities and gunning people down in broad daylight, the bare minimum response is to stop the funding that enables these violent agencies to carry out these atrocities,” the coalition wrote. “You have the power and responsibility to stop this. What you do now will be remembered for future generations—take a stand today while you still have the power to do so.”
Demonstrators participate in a rally and march during an "ICE Out” day of protest on January 23, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Brandon Bell / Getty Images
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