JMIR news: Investigating neurodevelopmental unknowns and privacy risks of AI toys

Underregulated AI toys under scrutiny

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(Toronto, June 2, 2026) JMIR Publications today released a News and Perspectives article investigating the potential implications of AI–enabled toys for children's well-being and development. Authored by JMIR Correspondent Simon Spichak, “Policymakers and Researchers Zero In On the Impact of AI Toys” explores the rapid proliferation of consumer toys integrated with LLMs, the severe lack of research regarding their impact on early neurodevelopment, and the growing privacy and transparency concerns raised by experts and policymakers.

Impact on Early Neurodevelopment 

Despite an estimated 22 million AI-integrated toys being sold globally in 2025, there is almost no research on how these tools affect a young child's cognitive and socioemotional development, Spichak reports. While nurturing human talk and interaction is known to build a child's brain, according to pediatric cochlear implant surgeon Dana L. Suskind, it remains unclear whether mimicking human speech through AI toys provides similar developmental benefits. In fact, a recent study by the University of Cambridge's AI in the Early Years project found that the AI toy they selected (Curio Interactive Inc’s Gabbo) missed the mark with pretend and social play—crucial developmental activities for its young users. 

Privacy and Safety Concerns 

Ethicists and policymakers are raising alarms over the security risks of these devices. AI toys are often equipped with cameras, microphones, and facial recognition features, but they frequently lack important privacy measures, creating what bioethicist Łukasz Kamieński describes as a "totally unregulated area". Spichak reports that without proper safeguards, there are also risks of these toys engaging minors in inappropriate conversations, as well as subtly passing on misinformation and propaganda to young users.

The Need for Guardrails and Transparency 

While some educators believe AI interactivity could eventually be beneficial in the right context, experts emphasize the immediate need for rigorous regulation. Developmental psychologist Emily Goodacre, coauthor of the AI in the Early Years project, advocates for mandatory labeling on AI toys that detail the underlying LLM models, training data, and safety guardrails so parents, families, and educators can be properly informed. The current consensus urges caution; Suskind stresses that a deeper understanding of the interactions of AI companions on young brains—and better guardrails—is needed before they’re ready to be safely deployed.

 

Please cite as:

Spichak S. Policymakers and Researchers Zero In On the Impact of AI Toys. 

J Med Internet Res 2026;28:e102064

URL: https://www.jmir.org/2026/1/e102064

DOI: 10.2196/102064

About JMIR Publications News and Perspectives

JMIR Publications is a leading open access publisher of digital health research. The News and Perspectives section is the newest addition to its portfolio, established to bring the rigor and integrity of academic publishing to scientific journalism. The section features well-researched, expert-driven content from the Scientific News Editor, Kayleigh-Ann Clegg, PhD, and a network of specialist JMIR Publications Correspondents to keep the digital health community informed, inspired, and ahead of the curve.

About JMIR Publications

JMIR Publications is a leading open access publisher of digital health research and a champion of open science. With a focus on author advocacy and research amplification, JMIR Publications partners with researchers to advance their careers and maximize the impact of their work. As a technology organization with publishing at its core, we provide innovative tools and resources that go beyond traditional publishing, supporting researchers at every step of the dissemination process. Our portfolio features a range of peer-reviewed journals, including the renowned Journal of Medical Internet Research. 

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The content of this communication is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, published by JMIR Publications, is properly cited.

---

Journal

Journal of Medical Internet Research

DOI

10.2196/102064 

Method of Research

Commentary/editorial

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Policymakers and Researchers Zero In On the Impact of AI Toys

Article Publication Date

2-Jun-2026

From Libyan Deserts To 3D-Printed Guns: The Weapons That Never Go Away

A side photo of the FGC-9 MKII Stingray. 

Photo Credit: Hot Sauce, Wikimedia Commons

June 2, 2026 
UN News
By Vibhu Mishra

Years after conflicts fade from the headlines, the weapons used to fight them often continue to circulate – crossing borders, fuelling crime and undermining an often-fragile peace. Now, ghost guns, 3D-printed firearms and increasingly sophisticated trafficking networks are creating new challenges for governments worldwide.

The issue is under scrutiny as delegates gather at UN Headquarters this week to tackle the global spread of illicit firearms – weapons that continue to fuel violence in communities long after wars end.

At the centre of discussions are emerging technologies that experts warn could make these illegal weapons easier to manufacture and harder to trace.


“Wars end – but unfortunately, the weapons that are used in that particular conflict would [then] not be under full control,” the UN’s top disarmament official, Izumi Nakamitsu, told UN News.

“They continue to circulate. They are sometimes hidden. They are brought across borders.”
‘Ghost guns’ and 3D firearms

One of the fastest-growing concerns involves so-called ghost guns – firearms assembled from parts or kits and lacking serial numbers – that are near impossible for authorities to trace.

Advances in 3D-printing technology have created additional challenges by allowing components – and in some cases entire and fully operational firearms – to be produced outside traditional manufacturing and regulatory systems.

The increasing availability and affordability of such technology has heightened concerns among governments that illicit firearms could become easier to make and harder to regulate.

“Those weapons or weapon parts, if they are disassembled and then trafficked, [are] more difficult to trace,” Ms. Nakamitsu said.
What are small arms and light weapons?

Small arms – such as pistols, revolvers and assault rifles – can be carried and operated by a single person. Light weapons include systems such as grenade launchers, machine guns and portable anti-aircraft or anti-tank weapons, that can be operated by a small crew.

Because they are relatively inexpensive, durable and easy to use, these weapons can remain in circulation for decades.

Ammunition is also a critical part of the challenge. Even when weapons are already circulating illicitly, continued access to ammunition can prolong their use in conflict, crime and terrorism.
When wars end, the guns remain

One frequently cited example is Libya, where weapons looted or diverted during and after the 2011 conflict which ended the rule of Muammar Gadaffi later surfaced across the wider Sahel region, including in Niger, Burkina Faso and Nigeria.

Some were subsequently found in the hands of extremist groups, illustrating how arms from one conflict can destabilise neighbouring countries years later.

“The end of the conflict does not mean the end of the circulation of those weapons…it stays and it continues to harm people,” Ms. Nakamitsu said.
From crime to conflict

The impact varies by region but is widespread.


In Latin America and the Caribbean, illicit firearms are closely linked to organized crime and some of the world’s highest homicide rates. According to UN estimates, firearms account for between 70 and 80 per cent of violent deaths in parts of the region.

In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the proliferation of small arms can undermine peacebuilding effortslong after fighting subsides. Weapons retained by armed groups, militias or communities for self-protection can contribute to renewed violence and instability.
Beyond security concerns

The consequences also extend well beyond conflicts.

Illicit weapons are linked to human rights abuses, terrorism, and sexual and gender-based violence.

“It is not just a security issue. It is also about peacebuilding. It is about human rights. It is also about development,” Ms. Nakamitsu said.
The UN response

Recognising the dangers posed by small arms and light weapons, UN Member States adopted an action programme in 2001, committing to strengthen national legislation, improve stockpile security, combat illicit trafficking and expand international cooperation.

A major milestone followed in 2005 with the adoption of the International Tracing Instrument, which established global standards for marking, recording, and tracing the illegal weaponry.

The framework helps investigators identify where illicit weapons originated and how they entered illegal markets, while reducing the risk of diversion from legal stockpiles.


The UN supports implementation through technical assistance, policy guidance and capacity-building programmes aimed at helping governments secure weapons stockpiles, improve tracing systems and strengthen border controls.
Why it matters

Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan famously said small arms could well be the world’s real “weapons of mass destruction” because of the enormous number of deaths and injuries they cause.

The challenge is ultimately about more than deadly weapons. It is about reducing violence, protecting communities and preventing conflict from reigniting.

Ms. Nakamitsu said reducing the circulation of illicit firearms would benefit communities everywhere.

“It is a real issue for many people. We want proper control and regulation of small arms in all societies. That would definitely make everyone’s life safer and more secure.”

Navigating The Maritime Gray Zone – Analysis

File photo of China's Yuan Wang 2 ship, used for tracking and support of satellite and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

 Photo Credit: Gadfium, Wikipedia Commons

June 2, 2026
By Indo-Pacific Defense Forum

China’s posture in the Indo-Pacific includes the deployment of research vessels under civilian guise but designed for military exploitation. Increasingly, these vessels collect marine data in the region’s disputed waters. Although Beijing calls the survey trips scientific research, the excursions often mask intelligence gathering of military value — particularly near the United States territory of Guam, the Philippines and self-governed Taiwan.

Understanding this dual-use phenomenon is crucial for anticipating operational challenges, advising policy, and supporting deterrence and resilience for the U.S. and its Allies and Partners. This is true especially for those along the so-called first island chain, a string of major Pacific archipelagos that runs from Japan south through Taiwan, the Philippines and on to Borneo, forming a strategic barrier off China’s mainland. China, however, also increasingly collects extensive data farther from its shores, stretching from the Indian Ocean to the South Pacific.

“In truth, all maritime data collection is dual use — it could have useful oceanographic, climate, scientific uses; but it can also have military uses. I’m overall suspicious about China’s intent in the region,” Bruce Jones, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution, told FORUM. He is studying China’s ocean research effort.

China operates one of the world’s largest fleets of civilian oceanographic research vessels, analysts say. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reported in 2024 that “of the 64 active vessels, over 80% have demonstrated suspect behavior or possess organizational links suggesting their involvement in advancing Beijing’s geopolitical agenda,” indicating dual-use capabilities at scale.


The strategic opaqueness of China’s research ship operations challenges monitoring, complicates defensive postures and advances excessive maritime claims, analysts say. The vessels frequently operate in contested waters, gathering data on bathymetry (water depth), seafloor structure and oceanographic conditions — information that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can leverage for submarine operations, amphibious planning, and mine and antisurface warfare.

In November 2025, for instance, China deployed three dual-use research vessels in the Indian Ocean. India’s maritime surveillance agencies monitored the ships, which included the Shi Yan 6, Shen Hai Yi Hao and Lan Hai 201. “Such deployments typically prompt diplomatic caution and potential denial of port calls at Indian facilities, as seen in earlier instances involving similar Chinese missions,” Indian Defence News reported. The Indian Coast Guard and Navy reported the constant presence of Chinese research vessels in recent years near India’s waters.

The Haiyang Dizhi 8, as another example, conducted oil and gas surveys off Vietnam’s coast for four months without authorization, highlighting how the vessels can penetrate contested maritime zones under the cover of scientific legitimacy, according to the CSIS’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. The Xiang Yang Hong 6 also exemplifies China’s dual purposes. The vessel and five others made 25 passes in parallel lines off Taiwan’s east coast in 2024, conducting systematic seabed surveys, according to Starboard Maritime Intelligence data cited by The New York Times newspaper in July 2025.


“It’s hard for us to view this situation as normal,” Kuan Bi-ling, the minister of Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council, told The New York Times.

The same ships have been active around Guam — home to vital U.S. military installations — collecting data relevant to submarine operations. “It appears that China is trying to collect bathymetric data on that part of the ocean without appearing like it is conducting a bathymetric survey,” Ryan D. Martinson, an assistant professor and expert on Chinese research ships at the U.S. Naval War College, told the newspaper.

Such activities are emblematic of China’s gray-zone tactics, coercive state actions that fall short of open warfare. China views such activity as “a natural extension of how countries exercise power [to] pressure countries to act according to Beijing’s interests [and] without triggering backlash or conflict,” according to a 2022 Rand Corp. report, “A New Framework for Understanding and Countering China’s Gray Zone Tactics.”

Similarly, a June 2023 article published by the SeaLight research initiative noted that “China’s deployment of research and survey vessels in contested waters is a key component of its maritime gray-zone strategy. These vessels, often presented as civilian or scientific, are frequently state-owned or operated by entities with close military ties.” For example, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China’s Natural Resources Ministry operate research vessels and have PLA cooperation agreements, CSIS reported. The U.S.-based SeaLight uses commercially available technology to expose maritime gray-zone activities.

China has increased marine data collection throughout key Indo-Pacific waters, sometimes disregarding international law that requires coastal state consent for research inside that nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) reported in July 2025. This pattern reflects a wider lawfare campaign designed to normalize excessive maritime claims while undermining the sovereign rights of coastal states, the report said.

“There are both legal and illegal and aggressive/nonaggressive ways to enter other countries’ EEZs. China is doing a lot of all of the above,” Jones said. “Their behavior is aggressive because it’s aggressive, not because it is/isn’t a violation of the law of the sea.”

South China Sea Surveillance

China’s survey vessels, operating within the EEZs of nations such as the Philippines, obtain maritime domain awareness in contested areas. They reinforce Beijing’s ability to map and exploit the seabed, with implications for mining, anti-submarine warfare and undersea infrastructure monitoring, among other ventures.

Moreover, these activities are part of a convergence of maritime coercion. China’s gray-zone campaigns often establish localized “advantages [for China] that can be sustained over time without precipitating acute crisis,” Isaac Kardon, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment’s Asia Program, testified in June 2024 before the U.S. Congress.

This sustained presence in waters near the Philippines, Taiwan and other areas seeks to normalize China’s maritime coercion and erode the strategic threshold for escalation. “If you look at China’s coast guard and its maritime militia over the last three years — you would see a dramatic increase in the number of ships and the depth of the penetration,” SeaLight Director Ray Powell told The Wall Street Journal newspaper in March 2025. “It’s taken on the character of a maritime occupation.”

For example, China’s ships have made multiple incursions at the contested Sabina Shoal within Manila’s EEZ. In April 2024, the Philippines raised its flag at the shoal to assert sovereignty, prompting China’s deployment of a massive 12,000-ton Coast Guard vessel. Such events typify the pattern: China’s civilian or paramilitary-type vessels enter other nations’ claimed waters to consolidate their presence, gather environmental or hydrographic data, or prepare a pretext for sustained operations.

In May 2025, the Philippines deployed a Coast Guard vessel and aircraft to track a Chinese research ship operating illegally in its EEZ. Manila declared China’s activity a sovereignty violation. The incident reflects China’s strategy of ignoring its obligations as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea while pressing its arbitrary and excessive claims.


By pairing scientific vessels with China Coast Guard and maritime militia escorts, Beijing multiplies the coercive effect. The actions show the PLA’s growing use of undersea terrain data to support operations that threaten a free, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific, analysts say.

China’s alarming gray-zone maritime strategy leverages civilian, paramilitary and military assets, including research and fishing vessels, to exert control over contested zones. This multilayered coercion erodes norms and reinforces China’s maritime claims incrementally. Such operations allow the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to coerce “while avoiding a conventional military response from the United States and its allies,” notes the November 2024 Rand Corp. report “Understanding and Countering China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations.” The report recommends enhanced presence, transparency initiatives and allied coordination as deterrent measures.

Masked Intent Near Taiwan

The Taiwan Strait and its eastern approaches are at the heart of China’s coercion campaign. China’s parallel survey patterns east of Taiwan suggest mapping for submarine deployment or interdiction zones. Equally concerning are China’s surveys near Guam — a hub for U.S. power projection in the Western Pacific. Chinese research vessels resumed operations east of Guam as recently as June 2025, according to data cited by The New York Times.

Taiwan’s military intelligence noted a dramatic uptick in China’s maritime and aerial activity across the Indo-Pacific in 2024: nearly 12,000 flights and more than 86,000 missions at sea — military exercises that totaled an estimated $21 billion in operational costs and a nearly 40% increase over 2023 spending, the Reuters news service reported.

Such overt actions distract from less-visible activities such as marine data collection, which accumulates military advantage without risking immediate escalation. The extent of the drills underscores the potential scale and normalization of PLA maritime activities — an environment in which research ships can mix, gather environmental and electromagnetic data, and facilitate PLA submarine or amphibious operations near Taiwan under technical pretexts. “They are trying to normalize their military power projection and intimidation around the first island chain,” a Taiwan military official told Reuters.

Legal Double Standards

China’s marine data collection is a tool for “preparing the battlespace,” particularly when survey tracks are along likely submarine routes or amphibious approach corridors, according to USINDOPACOM. China is moving toward a more conventional approach, indicating a rising threshold of risk tolerance, including in the Pacific, The Heritage Foundation reported in September 2024. Further, PLA modernization is sharpening strategic pressures, making encounters — including those involving ostensibly benign vessels — more fraught and dangerous, according to a May 2024 report by the U.S.-based National Bureau of Asian Research.

China’s rapid expansion and deployment of its research and survey fleet, and the systematic surveys it conducts near Guam, the Philippines and Taiwan, are not merely to advance science. They signal and enable coercion and are part of a strategy to collect data of military utility, normalize excessive claims and undermine the sovereign rights of Indo-Pacific states. Vessels such as the Xiang Yang Hong 6 embody this duality — flying the flag of science but sailing as military scouts. Their data collection should be understood for what it is, analysts say: a gray-zone operation, reinforced by lawfare, to ready the battlespace for potential conflict.
Strengthening Countermeasures

To ensure a free, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific, the U.S. and its Allies and Partners must remain vigilant about China’s maritime activities — exposing Beijing’s duplicity and countering its attempts to redraw the physical and legal maps that define the maritime domain.

Regional resilience requires recognition of this threat and promotion of cooperative mechanisms to challenge China’s opaqueness and normalization of dual-use maritime activity, defense experts say.

“The U.S. is the most important oceanographic power in the world — but China is catching up and several of our Allies and Partners have very important capacity, skills, local knowledge and geography,” said Jones, the Brookings senior fellow. Countermeasures should integrate intelligence, law enforcement and economic tracking mechanisms, according to Benjamin Jensen, director of CSIS’s Futures Lab, and his colleagues. In commentary published on the CSIS website, they recommended interagency campaigns to counter China’s gray-zone incursions. A joint interagency task force or similar entity could integrate mechanisms to identify CCP influence channels in real time, they wrote.

“The goal isn’t just to shut down documented incursions — it’s to shape the environment so that China loses its ability to leverage migration, illicit finance, and cyber operations as tools of competition,” the CSIS team wrote. That means “deploying targeted counterintelligence and economic measures across the Pacific. It means leveraging the [U.S.] Department of the Treasury’s tools to disrupt illicit Chinese financial networks. It means expanding the use of contracted intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets to avoid straining existing military collection capabilities. And it means crafting an influence campaign to expose and undermine CCP operations in the information space before they gain traction.”

They cited Jade Spear, an interagency initiative that targeted illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing by China’s fleet. The operation coordinated 15 U.S. agencies to target labor violations and human trafficking, impose sanctions, revoke visas and licenses, inspect vessels, and investigate fishing companies. “Jade Spear [reimagined] the spectrum of engagement with the CCP — it’s not just about use of kinetic action, but the entire arsenal of U.S. bureaucracy can be called to action,” they wrote.


“The private sector plays a critical role —
financial institutions, tech companies and media platforms must be mobilized to prevent CCP actors from exploiting digital spaces and economic systems.”

The U.S. and its Allies and Partners require a sustained, proactive approach to prevent China from exploiting gaps in governance, security and perception management, they concluded. “The real shift must come from embracing competition as a continuous condition, not a crisis-driven response. … It’s not just about blocking Chinese influence — it’s about making the Indo-Pacific a space where U.S. alliances, institutions, and economic frameworks make CCP subversion infeasible.”
China is Mapping the Region’s Seabed for Geopolitical, Military Advantage

Chinese-flagged survey vessels are collecting marine data on an unprecedented scale. Between 2020 and 2024, 64 vessels engaged in hundreds of thousands of hours of operations worldwide, with more than 80% exhibiting dual-use behavior or ties to China’s geopolitical agenda, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a U.S.-based think tank.

China also has deployed research vessels to strengthen its presence in geopolitical hotspots. Commercial and scientific research ships, such as those operated by the state-owned China Oilfield Services Ltd., have helped the Chinese Communist Party assert its illegal claims of sovereignty over large swaths of the South China Sea and obstruct coastal states from finding and extracting natural resources, a study by CSIS found.

Chinese ships have conducted survey operations within the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of other countries without prior approval, which is prohibited under international law. This also constitutes a double standard given China heavily restricts foreign activities in its EEZ.

China appears to use marine data to bolster its excessive claims and prevent other states from exercising their sovereign rights.

Concealed Mission

China’s dual-use research fleet offers strategic advantages for potential military operations:Environmental intelligence: Hydrographic and oceanographic data supports planning for submarine routing, mine deployment, undersea sensor placement and amphibious landing.
Sensor development: Data on sound propagation and currents aid in passive acoustic detection and sensor optimization.
Access creep: Regular presence of civilian vessels normalizes operations inside a nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), making detection and interdiction politically complex.
Infrastructure placement: Data can support undersea infrastructure such as communication cables, sensors and uncrewed vehicles.

Deterrence Measures

To counter China’s maritime gray-zone activities, Allies and Partners should focus on:Transparency: Enhance intelligence sharing and public transparency on research ship movements, flagging dual-use indicators.
Policy coordination: Support interagency initiatives that combine maritime enforcement, sanctions, licensing and public-private cooperation.
Capacity building: Strengthen regional domain awareness via cooperative deployments, hydrographic surveys and shared sensor networks.
Legal frameworks: Clarify norms regarding scientific vessel activity in nations’ EEZs and clearly define boundaries for data collection.
Strategic messaging: Identify China’s dual-use research vessel surveys as part of its coercive strategy.

Sources: Center for Strategic and International Studies, Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Heritage Foundation, Rand Corp.

This article was published by Indo-Pacific Defense FORUM

Eli Lilly sues church leaders for alleged $200 million 'sham' drug program

(RNS) — A lawsuit filed by the pharmaceutical giant alleges that Bishop Jerry Maynard Sr. and Elder Readus C. Smith III, a national COGIC leader, worked with wholesalers to submit fraudulent drug reimbursement claims.

Bishop Jerry Maynard Sr. speaks at Cathedral of Praise Church of God in Christ Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (Video screen grab)

Bob Smietana
May 22, 2026 

RNS


(RNS) — A group of leaders in the Church of God in Christ have been accused in a lawsuit of defrauding a major pharmaceutical company out of more than $200 million in rebates for diabetes drugs.

In a complaint filed Tuesday (May 19) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, lawyers for Eli Lilly and Company alleged that a cost-sharing program covering millions of members of COGIC, a Pentecostal denomination, was a “sham.”

Instead of helping church members get access to Trulicity and other diabetes medications manufactured by Lilly, the program’s leaders worked with wholesalers to resell the drugs while collecting millions in rebates, the lawsuit claims.

The complaint names COGIC Bishop Jerry Maynard Sr. of Nashville, along with his son and daughter, both COGIC pastors, as well as Elder Readus C. Smith III, the general secretary of health and business for the denomination, and several wholesalers.

Most of the alleged fraud involved reimbursements submitted by DrugPlace, Inc., a pharmacy that shared office space with Community Health, a program run by the Maynards and Smith. Community Health is also known as COGIC’s Department of Health.

The lawsuit says DrugPlace purchased “enormous quantities” of Trulicity, allegedly for church members.

“After purchasing the medication, Defendants seek rebates from Lilly for purported utilization of the medication, filtering the rebate claims through a series of intermediaries,” according to the complaint. “In doing so, Defendants represent that the medication has been dispensed to patients — a necessary condition to qualify for rebates.” But the medications never made it to church members, the suit argues. Instead, they were allegedly sent to wholesalers who resold them.

Eli Lilly and Company’s corporate center in Indianapolis. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

“Defendants then falsely represent to Lilly, through intermediaries, that the resold Trulicity has been dispensed to patients in order to fraudulently cause Lilly to pay rebates,” the complaint alleges.

The church leaders and the wholesalers they worked with “supervised, participated in, conspired to participate in, and benefited from the fraudulent scheme,” according to the complaint.

Neither Smith nor the Maynards responded immediately to requests for comment.

Lilly’s concerns about DrugPlace go back more than a decade. In 2015, the pharmaceutical company cut ties with DrugPlace after finding irregularities with rebates submitted for two diabetes drugs, according to the complaint. At that time, DrugPlace received about $6 million a year in rebates.

In 2015, Lilly audited DrugPlace’s rebate program and, after the audit, decided to not renew its agreement with the pharmacy.

“Ultimately, Lilly’s audit of DrugPlace was unable to confirm that any of DrugPlace’s rebate claims were valid,” according the complaint.

But DrugPlace continued to receive millions in rebates, Lilly’s attorneys allege. From 2020 to 2025, the pharmacy submitted more than $250 million in fraudulent rebates, according to the complaint. The pharmacy did so by allegedly buying Trulicity from wholesalers, then reselling the drug and using third parties to apply for rebates.

“Defendants’ ‘cost share program’ is a sham,” the complaint alleges. “Defendants — who claim to provide prescription drug coverage for a Church with more than a million members — actually operate out of a nondescript two-room office.”

The complaint also names wholesalers in Florida and Texas, as well as the owner of Galaxy Pharmacy, a cost-sharing program with ties to the Texas chapter of a Hispanic Christian leadership group.

“In the course of investigating DrugPlace’s rebate claims, Lilly identified a Texas-based pharmacy, Defendant Galaxy, that became associated with suspicious rebate claims for Trulicity in July 2024,” the complaint alleges.

The complaint outlines Lilly’s investigation of DrugPlace’s rebates, which included auditing data of third parties as well as surveilling the offices of DrugPlace Nashville. Surveillance images were included in the lawsuit.

“There were neither customers coming to retrieve medications nor any indication of product being mailed to individual customers, such as FedEx or UPS trucks,” according to the complaint. “Rather, DrugPlace appeared to be distributing medication or other products to other pharmacies and medical practices throughout the Nashville area.”

Along with seeking damages from the defendants, attorneys for Lilly also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to bar the defendants from “submitting fraudulent rebate claims.”

(Editor’s note: RNS receives support from Lilly Endowment, Inc., which is a separate and distinct entity from Eli Lilly and Company.)

Abortion, Israel and homosexuality top clergy’s political topics, survey finds

(RNS) — What clergypersons say about such topics varies depending on their viewpoint and, sometimes, their religious affiliation, the Pew Research Center found.

(Photo by Maiko Valentino Báez Brito/Pexels/Creative Commons)

Adelle M. Banks
May 27, 2026

RNS


(RNS) — Two-thirds of U.S. adults who regularly attend religious services say their clergy have spoken about at least one key political issue — most prominently, abortion, Israel or homosexuality — in recent months.

But what clergypersons say about such topics varies depending on their viewpoint and, sometimes, their religious affiliation, the Pew Research Center found in a survey published Wednesday (May 27). Researchers asked about a total of seven political or social topics — including immigration, U.S. military action in Iran, the environment and people who are transgender.

“When people do hear the clergy speak about these topics, they report that they tend to hear more about opposing abortion than supporting abortion rights, opposing homosexuality than encouraging acceptance of people who are gay or lesbian, supporting Israel than criticizing it,” Becka Alper, a senior researcher at Pew, told Religion News Service.


The findings are based on a survey conducted in April of 1,391 U.S. adults who say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month.

Certain topics figured more prominently in religious services attended by people with particular affiliations. For example:

Catholics (49%) and white evangelical Protestants (43%) who attend worship services at least monthly are most likely to say their religious leaders have recently addressed abortion.


“Half of Catholic Mass attenders say their clergy recently spoke about abortion” (Graphic courtesy of Pew Research Center)

RELATED: Most congregations avoid discussing politics, new study shows

White evangelicals also are likely to report hearing pulpit messages about homosexuality (42%). Catholics, on the other hand, were most likely to have heard discussion about immigration (41%) in their churches.

Black Protestants attending at least monthly are mostly likely to hear clergy speak about Israel (32%), immigration (31%) and homosexuality (30%).

White Protestants who are not evangelical were most likely to hear about the environment (27%) and immigration (23%).

White evangelical Protestants (24%) and Black Protestants (16%) are more likely to say they have heard supportive messages about Israel from their clergy rather than criticism.


“66% of Americans who regularly attend religious services hear about at least one political or social issues from their clergy” (Graphic courtesy of Pew Research Center)

Overall, on the topics of immigration, people who are transgender and the environment, clergypersons were heard speaking far more from one stance over the other. For example:

Americans who regularly attended religious services heard more about the need to support and welcome immigrants (15%) than a call for stricter immigration enforcement (3%).

They heard more about opposing transgender identity (15%) than accepting those who are transgender (3%).

They reported more pulpit messages about protecting the environment (15%) than offering a critique of environmental regulations (3%).

In most of the nation’s largest religious groups analyzed in the survey, regular attenders are more likely to say their religious leaders spoke in opposition to abortion, homosexuality and transgender identity than favored abortion rights or acceptance of lesbian, gay or transgender people.

But white Protestants who were not evangelical were as likely to report that their clergy encouraged acceptance of lesbian, gay and transgender people as they were to hear pulpit messages condemning transgender identity or homosexuality.

The survey reflected what seems to be a mixed response about U.S. military action in Iran, a topic heard from clergy by 30% of Catholics, 28% of Black Protestants and about 20% each of white evangelical Protestants and white nonevangelical Protestants.

Almost 1 in 10 regular attendees (8%) overall say they have heard religious leaders speak of opposing the war, while 4% said they heard messages supporting it. In addition, 9% said their clergy spoke of the conflict without voicing opposition or support for it.

Though the bulk of the religious survey takers reported hearing at least one of the seven survey topics addressed from the pulpit at worship services they attended, some 44% of respondents said they were uncertain about the political party with which their clergy affiliated. Another 27% said their clergy are a mix of Democrats and Republicans.

That sense of political affiliation has not changed much since 2019, when 44% of respondents said they were unsure of the political affiliation of their clergy and 26% said they were a mix of both major parties.

But, in the recent survey, 36% of white evangelical Protestants describe their clergy as mostly Republican, with 3% saying their religious leaders are mostly Democrats. Among Black Protestants, 21% state their clergy are Democrats, with 8% describing them as mostly Republican.

The survey, conducted April 6-12, 2026, has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Although the survey was open to people of all faiths, it did not have sufficient respondents from some religious groups — for instance, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims or Hindus — who were regular attenders of services to allow for separate analysis of their responses.

Opinion

Congress must choose accountability and human dignity over more ICE funding

(RNS) — Instead of demanding accountability before approving more funding, Congress is poised to deepen its investment in the very systems generating widespread alarm.

Federal immigration officers deploy tear gas after the fatal shooting of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement observer on Jan. 24, 2026, in Minneapolis. 

(AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Bridget Moix
May 29, 2026

RNS

(RNS) — There’s a crisis of accountability in Washington — one in which the administration pushes the boundaries of executive power while Congress increasingly declines to exercise its constitutional responsibilities. This comes as Congress prepares to advance another massive reconciliation bill in early June that would lock in billions more for immigration enforcement while bypassing the kind of bipartisan negotiation and public accountability our democracy is supposed to require.

The bulk of the $72 billion measure would go toward funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection through 2029. Rather than using the appropriations process to negotiate reforms, safeguards or oversight, congressional leadership is once again turning to a partisan fast-track process that requires only majority-party votes.

Last year was one of the deadliest in ICE custody, and the U.S. is already on track to break that record in 2026. It begs the question why most members of Congress endorse a payday for unchecked immigration enforcement riddled with aggressive force, abuse, civil rights violations, denial of medical care, restrictions on spiritual care for detainees, and child imprisonment — all without passing one legislative accountability measure.



Bipartisan lawmakers have echoed the clear and immediate need for reform since the start of the year. House leadership for Department of Homeland Security funding recently admitted that we’ve all “learned something” from the administration’s use of the massive funding windfall in last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” and that Congress needs oversight provisions for immigration enforcement. Still, instead of demanding accountability before approving more funding, Congress is poised to deepen its investment in the very systems generating widespread alarm.

Although the bill is egregious, this moment is bigger than a single budget bill. It’s about accountability — one of the fundamentals of democracy — or a growing lack thereof. History has repeatedly shown that power without accountability inevitably erodes human dignity, weakens institutions and invites abuse. Courts have occasionally intervened to place limits on executive overreach, and some lawmakers have raised concerns about unchecked authority. Yet across issue after issue, from war powers to immigration enforcement to spending priorities, Congress has too often acquiesced rather than governed.

This is happening at a time when families across the country are struggling under rising costs of living and a fraying social safety net. Americans are paying dramatically more for housing, groceries, healthcare, childcare and gas. In some states, families are spending thousands more each year just to maintain the same standard of living. Yet instead of responding to these urgent realities, Congress has set its sights on expanding immigration enforcement and, potentially, a $1.5 trillion budget on illegal, ineffective and costly wars like the conflict in Iran.

Storm clouds gather above the U.S. Capitol.

 (Photo by Harun Tan/Pexels/Creative Commons)

These challenges do not exist in isolation. Last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” included nearly $1 trillion in cuts to federal healthcare programs like Medicaid and Medicare, alongside major reductions to nutrition assistance programs like SNAP — the effects of which are already deeply felt. In Arizona, SNAP participation has plummeted. In Nebraska, new Medicaid work requirements have created widespread fear of losing healthcare coverage. Refugees and many immigrant families have also been stripped of eligibility for basic supports that help keep families housed, fed and healthy.

At every turn, lawmakers are making choices about what — and whom — we value. And Congress is at it again, using this partisan budget process for the second time in two years to advance the rogue violence and fear plaguing citizens and noncitizens while sidestepping broader debate and compromise. Last year’s legislation allocated $170 billion to expand arrests, detention capacity and enforcement operations across the country. Communities are still grappling with the consequences.

In cities like Minneapolis and Los Angeles, aggressive and sometimes deadly ICE and Border Patrol actions have sparked widespread public concern and growing support for reform over indiscriminate enforcement. Since January 20, 2025, more than 145,000 U.S. citizen children have had at least one parent apprehended and placed in immigration detention, with more than 22,000 experiencing the detention of both of their co-resident parents. Not only are these actions punishing individuals who were following the law, they are also disrupting the U.S. labor force and communities. People of all statuses are avoiding attending worship and school and avoiding gaining medical attention at sensitive locations because of interferences and apprehensions in violations of civil liberties.

I can’t think of a less appropriate time to pour another $72 billion into ICE and CBP — especially without requiring meaningful reforms or accountability measures. Yes, this nation has laws to enforce and public interests to protect. However, respecting those needs does not mean disregarding the Light in each of God’s children.

As Quakers, we reject the false choice between security and human dignity. True safety cannot be built through fear, cruelty or unchecked power. Lasting security comes from thriving communities, functioning institutions, economic opportunity and respect for human rights.

And we are not alone in these beliefs. This month, my organization, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, joined 150 other faith organizations in urging Congress to reject this legislation. Organized through the Interfaith Immigration Coalition, the letter represents millions of people of faith across the country who believe our immigration policies should reflect compassion, justice and accountability — not political expediency.

This message is rooted in the shared concept of welcoming the stranger and a moral conviction that governments have an obligation to care for human beings, especially the vulnerable. Scripture teaches us that love does no harm to a neighbor. If that principle means anything in public life, it must mean our government cannot continue funding harm while refusing accountability for its consequences.

The reconciliation bill now before Congress is therefore a defining test — one not only of policy, but of conscience — because budgets truly are moral documents. They reveal what we fear, what we protect, what we value and what kind of neighbors we choose to be to one another.

When lawmakers return in June, my hope is that they choose a path that reflects the best of our values: compassion over cruelty, accountability over unchecked power, and human dignity over political expediency. In this moment, love of neighbor requires more than rhetoric. It requires action.


(Bridget Moix is the general secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation and leads two other Quaker organizations, Friends Place on Capitol Hill and the FCNL Education Fund. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Mexico Strengthens Security Measures Ahead Of World Cup

File photo of police officers in Mexico City. Photo Credit: Ralf Roletschek, Wikipedia Commons

June 1, 2026 
By The Watch

Mexico has deployed more than 100,000 security officers and has tightened security at high-profile tourist sites for the upcoming World Cup soccer tournament. The moves accelerated in April 2026 after an isolated mass shooting unrelated to cartel violence prompted authorities to speed up additional security measures ahead of the global event.

The quadrennial sports tournament will take place in Canada, Mexico and the United States beginning in June. The three partner nations have closely collaborated on joint security measures in preparation for a nearly six-week tournament expected to draw millions of visitors to North America. In March 2026 congressional testimony, Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of the U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he was confident the games would proceed without incident. “This summer, the strong military relationships among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico will be on full display as our forces work together to ensure a safe World Cup,” Guillot said. “The USNORTHCOM relationship with Mexican military partners stands strong and pays lasting dividends for the security of both the United States and Mexico. USNORTHCOM maintains its longstanding relationships with the Mexican Department of the Navy (MARINA) and Department of National Defense (DEFENSA) and addresses shared security challenges by, with, and through our Mexican partners.”

Mexico has worked hard to improve internal security since President Claudia Sheinbaum took office in 2024. The government has aggressively confronted transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Mexico City has extradited dozens of cartel leaders to the U.S. for trial. Increased training and collaboration between U.S. and Mexican special forces and other military units has built trust and capabilities that were demonstrated in the daring raid that resulted in the death of Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” in February.

In 2025, Mexican military personnel trained with the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division at the Joint Readiness Training Center. Mexican and U.S. Soldiers conducted mirrored patrols along the Mexico-U.S. coordinated by Joint Task Force-Southern Border. Naval exchanges and growing partnerships with U.S. National Guard forces also demonstrate strong military ties, Guillot noted in his March testimony.

The April shooting at the Teotihuacan pyramids — a UNESCO Heritage Site and one of Mexico’s most frequented tourist attractions — killed a Canadian tourist and injured a dozen more, according to The Associated Press. Sheinbaum dispatched police with bomb-sniffing dogs to the site. Overall, the government has deployed 100,000 security personnel in advance of the Cup, the AP reported. But the Mexican president said the shooting by the lone gunman, wasn’t an indication of future violence during the Cup. “Our obligation as a government is to take the appropriate measures to ensure that a situation like this does not happen again. But clearly, we all know — Mexicans know — that this is something that had not previously taken place,” Sheinbaum said April 21 during her daily morning news conference, the AP reported.

More than $1 billion has been allocated to protect the estimated 6 million fans who will attend 104 matches in 16 venues in the three countries, according to the soccer federation FIFA. The U.S. has dedicated $115 million in counter-unmanned aerial systems technology and the FBI, Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security are coordinating security for the U.S. events at a level commensurate with presidential inaugurations, FIFA states. FIFA has spent $625 million on security, the organization said.

This article was published at The Watch

Op-Ed

Trump’s Violent Memes Expose Long-Simmering Truths About US Imperialism

Trump’s white nationalist revanchism is on display as he turns state violence into entertainment.

By Michelle Chen ,

Truthout

May 31, 2026

It seemed on brand for our meme-obsessed President that the U.S. launched Operation Epic Fury with an epic video mashup. While Trump never bothered to articulate a real justification for waging war on Iran, he gestured toward a righteous mission with a montage of dramatic violent scenes, featuring heroic and antiheroic characters from Braveheart to Walter White of “Breaking Bad,” spliced like a Hollywood trailer under a banner proclaiming “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY.” The cinematic celebration of American “justice” came about a week after about 155 people, mostly children, were killed by a U.S. strike on a school in Minab, in a spate of bombings aimed at schools and hospitals across Iran.

The valorization of military power as a force of justice has always colored the nation’s imperial imaginary. Around 130 years ago, Puck magazine promoted the Spanish-American War to readers with “The Cuban Melodrama,” a cartoon depicting a gallant Uncle Sam in a feathered cap and star-print pantaloons shielding a damsel in distress with a pro-U.S.-annexation flag emblazoned on her hip, while her swarthy Spanish colonial master scowled behind a bandit’s cloak. People in the U.S. continue to see Cuba through media spectacle, detached from the reality of the war back then, and from the cruel U.S. economic siege of the island now. The White House has fired off many such spectacles to glorify or sanitize U.S. and Israeli military operations, including an action-movie–style video depicting the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and a grotesquely surreal AI-slop showcase of a genocide-ravaged Gaza rebranded as Palestine’s Vegas Strip.

The aestheticization of military brutality is not limited to warfare abroad. The administration has posted propaganda videos of immigration raids in Black and Brown communities, lionizing the ferocity with which ICE agents are tearing apart families.

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Trump’s treatment of state violence as entertainment speaks to a longstanding animating force behind U.S. jingoism and militarism: the lust for empire has been as much about projecting dominance as it is about grappling with the U.S.’s internal racial and class tensions and the surrounding infrastructure of oppression.
American Injustice

Trump’s boorish war cheerleading recalls past symbols of U.S. empire as providence, a political and media narrative that lashed the nation’s fate to the expansion of slavery, and the dispossession of Indigenous lands under the halo of “Manifest Destiny.” It also evokes the image the nation has long projected as a crusader for “freedom” while imposing its economic and political hegemony abroad. The current warmongering overseas accompanied by domestic anti-immigrant crackdowns represent twin faces of settler colonial violence, both constitutive of the nation’s founding myth: that the U.S.’s destiny is to grow — to expand westward, to open new markets, or, as Trump mused about Venezuela and Iran, to “take the oil.”

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By Khury Petersen-Smith & Azadeh Shahshahani , Truthout/InTheseTimesMarch 3, 2026

As historian Nikhil Pal Singh noted in a recent talk with fellow historian Greg Grandin (a talk hosted by Democratic Socialists of America Academy in New York City that I helped to organize), Trump’s brand of imperialism departs from the Cold War “liberal” order, which nominally enshrined civil rights and racial equality in a framework of egalitarian, free-market capitalism. Instead, Trump pushes a revanchist, white supremacist ideology that the U.S. is what Singh described as “a nation based upon a particularistic ethno-racial conception of heritage or ancestry.”

Fueling Trump’s neoimperialist adventures, Singh explained, is a drive to “revalorize white supremacy as the basis of U.S. citizenship.” The White House and the MAGA movement have channeled their white nationalist fervor into “a project of mass deportation,” to roll back the whole edifice of civil rights legality” that buttressed the liberal ideal of “a nation of equals.” But in breaking from the veneer of egalitarian democracy, Trump lets the mask slip on the brutality underwriting the American Dream.

While the conventional narrative myth of U.S. society emphasizes inclusive democracy, the ideal of liberal values has always belied a paradox of colonial and imperial oppression. As Grandin explained, “what we think of as liberalism, all the great progressive advances … has all been in many ways achieved through a trade off with empire, with expansion. Andrew Jackson’s extension of suffrage of white men was tied to indigenous dispossession. … During the Cold War, the expansion of civil rights was a tradeoff for support of containment [of Communism].”

The prosperity that came with industrialization and global commerce was premised on the entrenchment of wage capitalism and the exploitation of Black and migrant labor, which in turn paralleled the marginalization and eventual exclusion of “undesirable” foreigners who were deemed biologically and morally deficient. Today, the perception of immigrants, particularly those who are not white or Christian, as dangerous social parasites, is key to the Trump administration’s narrative of “securing” the border. Sidestepping the fact that the U.S. has in many cases exacerbated the “migrant crisis” by political intervention and economic destabilization of countries in the Global South, Trump adviser Stephen Miller warned that “migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands.”
The Long History of U.S. Nativism

Since the 19th century, the systematic exclusion and criminalization of “aliens” has been integral to the enforcement of the boundaries of whiteness (even though the category derives its power largely from its arbitrariness), giving rise to the security apparatus built along the Southern border, along with restrictive ethnic quotas that privileged white Western Europeans.

The globalization of white nationalism under Trump and other right-wing leaders reflects the enduring concept of “herrenvolk democracy,” (a reference to the Nazi “Master Race” idea) which frames democratic rights as the province of a racial in-group. In politics and culture, historian Cristina Beltrán writes, “herrenvolk democracy was a mass-based, participatory endeavor, reproduced and administered from both above and below.”

Both herrenvolk nativism and imperialism derive from the overarching concept of a nation built on the freedom of some to subjugate others, whether they live down the street or across an ocean. In enforcing the boundaries of empire and the internal social borders of race and class, a pattern of dehumanization through institutionalized violence has spanned the globe, extending from the Black Codes and racial pogroms in the post–Civil War South, to the U.S.’s first colony in Asia a generation later. It was in the Philippine-American War that the modern torture technique of waterboarding was first routinely used by U.S. soldiers on Filipino people before becoming an officially authorized practice in the U.S. “war on terror.” During the U.S. occupation of the archipelago, during which U.S. troops committed many acts of torture and sexual abuse, a soldier wrote that the land “won’t be pacified until the [anti-Black slur] are killed off like Indians.” Invoking an anti-Black slur to refer to Filipinos, he seems subconsciously to grasp that he is fighting a much deeper war, which traces its lineage from the cleansing of North America of its Indigenous inhabitants, to the enslavement of Africans, and to the suppression of so-called “savages” in newly colonized land across the Pacific.

Under Trump, the crusade to bolster U.S. hegemony continues with an added boost of racial panic. The Trump administration is pushing the narrative that white men’s dominion is existentially endangered: the white share of the population is shrinking amid broader demographic shifts, while the U.S.’s superpower status appears to be waning, at least in Trump’s narrative of populist grievance, stoking paranoia about national decline and “white replacement.”

The fusion of authoritarian repression with imperial power dynamics is evident in the chaotic expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a paramilitary-like force. In recruiting some 12,000 new agents, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has lowered training standards systematically, reducing the length of its course for new recruits from 22 weeks to just eight weeks and centering the curriculum on “more tactical and operational drills” rather than studying the immigration laws they are supposed to be enforcing. The barrage of social media posts vilifying immigrants as alleged criminals and flashy videos of vicious ICE raids formed the backdrop to DHS’s claims that the killings of two individuals during protests in Minnesota, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were somehow justified. The brazen aggression, directed in this case at white citizens, suggests that a so-called imperial “boomerang” may be in play, in which the practices of right-wing authoritarian militarism and repression in the Global South, often supported covertly by the U.S., are now mirrored within the homeland.
Anti-Imperialism From Within

Yet the historical resonance of Trump’s domestic and international tyranny points to a history of anti-imperialist, anti-fascist resistance from within. The Black Power and Third World movements of the late 1960s understood the U.S.’s racial hierarchy as an imperial project and oppressed communities as internally colonized peoples.

As the Black radical organizer Kwame Ture (who then went by the name Stokely Carmichael) explained in his 1967 address to the Organization of Latin American Solidarity in Havana, Black power was the domestic battlefront against a white supremacist empire. “Our people are a colony within the United States,” he told the gathering of liberation movement activists from across Latin America. “You are colonies outside the United States. It is more than a figure of speech to say that the Black communities in America are the victims of white imperialism and colonial exploitation.” But the connective tissue of oppression could also be a source of empowerment, he added, saying:


Black power means that we see ourselves as part of the Third World; that we see our struggle as closely related to liberation struggles around the world…. We must, for example, ask ourselves: When Black people in Africa begin to storm Johannesburg, when Latin Americans revolt, what will be the role of the United States and that of African Americans?

What would a movement for democracy and self-determination look like for working-class and oppressed communities in this country? Such a movement might emerge from the grassroots coalitions and ideological connections being forged as communities confront ICE assaults on immigrants and constitutional rights.

The Sunrise Movement, for example, incorporates ICE resistance into a global agenda for environmental and economic justice, connecting the crackdown on immigrants to the fossil fuel industry’s global expansionism. The organization targets a “self-sustaining cycle” in which fossil fuel corporations collaborate with governments to pursue mineral extraction, economic coercion, imperialist expansion abroad, and the corruption of democracy at home. Under the convergence of state and corporate oppression, “extraction drives instability, and enforcement manages the consequences.”

The United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers Union of America (UE) — which has for years organized cross-border labor solidarity campaigns — has condemned Trump’s assaults on immigrant communities within a broader critique of U.S. foreign policy and trade policy, especially as migration is oftena response to political and economic crises fomented by Washington. In its recent statement calling for a pro-worker foreign policy, the union argued, “The biggest threat to the people of the U.S. is not Iran, China, or military invasions from other countries, but a rapacious military-industrial complex, which fails to provide living-wage jobs, affordable healthcare, education, housing, and necessary social services…. Further, we must recognize our responsibility, as workers in the U.S., to workers elsewhere who are affected by U.S. foreign and military policies.”

What responsibility do denizens of an empire bear toward subjects of neocolonial oppression, whether they are being attacked abroad or exploited at home? Amid the wars raging inside and outside U.S. borders, working-class communities are realizing that the fight against empire starts at home, and the homeland itself must be liberated from the imperial framework behind its myth of liberal democracy. Turning away from brutal spectacles of “Justice the American Way,” we can start to envision a society built not on dominion, but on equity and dignity for all.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Michelle Chen  is a contributing editor at Dissent Magazine, and a contributing writer at The Nation, In These Times and Truthout. She is also a co-producer of the “Asia Pacific Forum” podcast and Dissent Magazine’s “Belabored” podcast, and teaches history at the City University of New York. Follow her on Twitter: @meeshellchen.

Trump 'dementia' claims fly amid 'completely insane' posting spree: 'Nonstop nuttery'

David McAfee
May 30, 2026
RAW STORY


U.S. President Donald Trump reacts while sitting next to the President of Poland Karol Nawrocki during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 3, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder


Donald Trump lit up Truth Social on Saturday afternoon with a stream of posts that left onlookers across the political spectrum questioning his state of mind, ranging from a drone port rendering on top of the White House to an AI image of himself appearing to blow his nose on an American flag.

The spree drew immediate reaction from all corners of social media sites. "Trump's Truth Social posting over the last hour or so is completely bats--- insane," independent journalist Aaron Rupar wrote on X. "Get a load of this nonstop nuttery."

In a later post, Rupar declared, "Trump’s behavior on social media today is so unhinged even by his standards that I can’t help but wonder what the doctors really told him the other day. This is a deeply unwell person."

Among the posts, Trump shared attacks on judges, criticisms of musical performers who bailed on his event, and a rendering of what he called a "DronePort" on the roof of his proposed White House ballroom. Regarding the latter, Bill Kristol, the veteran Republican commentator, noted the structure would also include a bunker underneath. "It's not just a childish extravagance," Kristol wrote. "It will be a kind of military encampment. All the more reason, obviously, for Congress to stop it."

Trump also posted a meme depicting Rep. Lauren Boebert and several other Republican lawmakers in a vehicle captioned "GET IN LOSER, WE'RE GOING LOSING" — this despite the fact that Boebert had recently pushed for the release of the Epstein files, a cause popular with the MAGA base.

Separately, Trump posted an AI-generated watercolor image of himself clutching the American flag to his face in a pose that critics immediately compared to using it as a tissue.

He also reshared an old post of himself declaring, "I just want to stop the world from killing itself," which prompted the PatriotTakes account to reply: "Says the guy who bombed a girls elementary school."

Political analyst Molly Jong-Fast offered a dry summary: "He's probably fine, right?"

Former Ambassador Dan Shapiro kept it simple: "It's a beautiful day in Washington. Wish he would go outside and touch grass."

Spanish-language commentator Dr. Mario Muñoz offered a blunt diagnosis of the afternoon's activity. "The gentleman with dementia who lives in the White House is bored," he wrote on X, according to a translation.

Melanie D'Arrigo, a progressive activist and former congressional candidate, similarly connected the dots between the posting spree and broader questions about Trump's fitness for office. "When a President is posting insane stuff like this, it really doesn't matter how many dementia tests he passes to tell that he's not mentally fit for office," she wrote.

'Such a baby': Trump ridiculed after 'crash out' over Kennedy Center 'narcissistic injury'

David McAfee
May 30, 2026 

RAW STORY


President Donald Trump points a finger during a meeting with Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney (not pictured) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 7, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Donald Trump's Saturday Truth Social spiral drew swift mockery from critics across the political spectrum, with a prominent journalist declaring the president was "really crashing out" and a former Republican congressman summing it up in three words.



Trump said Saturday:

"We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain. Cancel it, just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN, actually, far greater than it ever was before! It would have also been nice to see a Republican/Democrat union bring it back to life. The Kennedy Center is broken, unsafe, and $busted, and has been for many years! Judge Cooper also stated that the highly prestigious Board of the Center was not authorized to add on the name 'TRUMP' despite the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars of my time and money will be necessary for its successful reincarnation. So now, the Kennedy Center will collapse, both structurally and financially. Judge Cooper and his wife, Amy Jeffress (obfuscation anyone?), should be ashamed of themselves. Judge Cooper, like numerous other Crooked Judges on my cases, should be IMPEACHED."

Aaron Rupar, who has built a large following tracking Trump's online behavior, quoted Trump's lengthy rant calling for a MAGA rally to replace the America 250 concert and his threats that the Kennedy Center would collapse without him. "Holy s---, Trump is really crashing out," Rupar wrote.

Adam Kinzinger, the former Illinois Republican congressman who voted to impeach Trump and has since become one of his most outspoken GOP critics, had a shorter take. Quoting Rupar's post, Kinzinger wrote simply: "Such a baby."

Author Jennifer Erin Valent chimed in, "His notorious self obsession has reached the stage of derangement, and still, no one seems inclined to do a thing about it. The dereliction of duty in our time is truly staggering."

Academic Karen Piper said, "This is called a narcissistic injury."

The posts came as part of a broader meltdown that included Trump unveiling a drone port rendering for the White House roof, posting an AI image of himself appearing to use the American flag as a tissue, calling Republican allies "losers," and demanding that Judge Christopher Cooper be impeached after the jurist ordered Trump's name removed from the Kennedy Center.