The Handala group made hundreds of what they claim are Patel’s personal emails available to download on their website. Some emails contain pictures of Patel that cannot be found elsewhere online. Others include what appear to be his phone number and personal email address. The New Republic was unable to independently verify the images and emails shared by Handala. A call to the phone number went to a generic voicemail.
March 27, 2026
Kash Patel
New Republic - Our podcaster FBI director has had his email hacked by the country we’re currently bombing. The Department of Justice confirmed to Reuters that Kash Patel’s personal email was breached on Friday after a group of Iran-linked hackers named “Handala Hack Team” began boasting that they had taken over the account.
Health
While 10.8 percent of Americans smoked in 2023, only 9.8 percent smoked in 2024, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The findings reflect a continual shift away from cigarettes over the last 60 years, as more research was made public regarding ties to cancer and premature death.
Over seven million sudent loaners to be hit by Trump regime
Independent UK - Over 7 million student loan borrowers enrolled in a Biden-era repayment scheme have been ordered to pick a new plan or risk being automatically placed on one vastly more expensive.
Borrowers enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, known as SAVE, will begin receiving notices about switching to other ways to repay starting Friday, according to the Department of Education.
The Trump administration has long targeted SAVE, which was struck down by a federal court last week. Loan servicers will now begin issuing notices giving borrowers 90 days to select a new repayment plan, department officials said. They will then resume making payments as soon as this summer.
Around half of those on the SAVE plan have incomes low enough to qualify for its zero-dollar monthly payment. A standard plan would see them ordered to pay fixed payments over 10 years, leading to huge increases.
Labor
Independent, UK - Thousands of workers at one of the nation's largest meatpacking plants are extending their strike into a third week, demanding higher wages and improved healthcare.
Experts say it is too early to know if the walkout, which began on 16 March at the Swift Beef Co. plant in Greeley, Colorado, will impact beef prices for shoppers.
JBS USA, the plant's owner, said Friday it is operating at limited capacity, shifting beef production elsewhere to meet customer needs.
ICE
Newsweek - Todd Lyons, acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director, has been hospitalized twice with stress-related issues under the Trump administration, Politico reported Friday. The official had also become so stressed on one occasion that a bodyguard borrowed a defibrillator from a government office in case Lyons needed medical help while on the road.
New Republic - Senate Democrats approved a deal early Friday morning that would fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, ensuring that Transportation Security Administration workers would get their long-awaited paychecks but forfeiting proposed reforms to immigration enforcement.
Senate Democrats and Republicans approved legislation that would fund most DHS agencies except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol. The bill would restore funding to TSA, which has been hemorrhaging employees as paycheck after paycheck has gone unpaid, causing severe disruptions at airports across the country.
However, Democrats failed to secure key reforms to immigration enforcement, including banning ICE agents from wearing masks and requiring them to obtain judicial warrants in order to perform searches. “That ship has sailed, and they kind of kissed that opportunity goodbye,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said.
Trump at his cabinet meeting today
Occupy Democrats
On cognitive tests: “I aced it. I got them all right… President Obama, he wasn't a smart man. I know all about him. He wasn't a smart man. Highly overrated.”
On his post-presidency plans: “After the presidency, I think I may go to Venezuela and run for president against Delcy. It's an option!”
When Sec. Burgum told him about oil being brought to America: “Forget that. When are they gonna do the statue of me?”
On Iran: “I'm the opposite of desperate. I don't care. In fact, we have other targets we want to hit!”
On the National Guard in DC: "I never wanna take [the National Guard] out of D.C. I mean, maybe somebody later on will do it, but I never wanna…We see these beautiful, strong people, and they're so nice. They help, they open the doors for people, they carry bags, they pick up paper on the ground."
Credit card debt
Newsweek - As living costs continue to strain household budgets, millions of Americans are increasingly relying on credit cards to cover everyday expenses, driving debt to record levels and leaving many struggling to keep up with payments.
With credit cards being used by nearly three-quarters of Americans and accounting for the majority of retail spending, a report suggests that rising debt and borrowing costs are becoming a central pressure point for household finances nationwide.
New analysis from The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers has found roughly 111 million people, or more than 40 percent of U.S. adults, are unable to pay off their credit card balances each month. Instead, they carry debt forward, often facing interest rates exceeding 22 percent on average, which compounds what they already owe.
Donald Trump
Lily Becker - In an offhand remark about Iran at the White House on Tuesday, President Donald Trump showed how much his approach to foreign policy differs from his predecessors’. “We killed all their leadership,” he said. “And then they met to choose new leaders, and we killed all of them. And now we have a new group and we can easily do that. But let’s see how they turn out.”
Independent UK - President Donald Trump has falsely claimed to have won “the gay vote” during the 2024 presidential election, despite only picking up 12 percent of support from the LGBT+ community. In a lengthy phone interview on Fox News’s panel show The Five on Thursday, the president said: “Now I think I did very well with the gay vote, OK? I even played the gay national anthem as my walk-off, OK? And I think it probably helped me. But I did great. No Republican’s ever gotten the gay vote like I did and I’m very proud of it, I think it’s great. Perhaps it’s because I’m from New York City, I don’t know…”
Bloomberg - Cracks are emerging in Trump’s MAGA base as the Iran war drags into its fifth week, turning the typically unified Conservative Political Action Conference into a debate over foreign policy and rising costs.
- Some Trump loyalists and conservative media figures are openly opposing the war, citing broken promises and blaming Israel, even as most Republicans still back the president’s actions.
- The administration has said it started the war because of threats posed by Iran, but there are signs of disagreement between the US and Israel over its aims.
- The worry for Republicans is that surging oil and gas prices, plus uncertainty over the war’s end, risk political fallout for Trump and the GOP going into November’s midterm elections.
Census
The Hill - The population of some of the largest U.S. metro areas is falling amid a decline in immigration, according to new estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The data found that most U.S. metropolitan areas saw slower growth between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025, than during the previous year. Metro areas along the U.S. border with Mexico saw the sharpest population declines, shifts the agency said were driven by a nationwide drop in net international migration.
....Los Angeles County, while still the largest in the country by more than 4.5 million, declined the most, by nearly 54,000. Miami-Dade County in Florida, San Diego and Orange counties in California, and Kings County in New York also garnered the joint distinction of being in top 10 in population and numeric decline.
The Census Bureau said slower growth, or even decline, in the populations of the largest counties can be traced to more births than deaths and negative net migration.
While the U.S. birth rate increased by 1 percent from 2023 to 2024, it is still multiple percentage points lower than it was throughout the second half of the 20th century and early 2000s.
Taxing billionaires
Capital & Main - Washington isn’t the first state to pass a so-called millionaire tax, and it won’t be the last. Massachusetts’ millionaire surcharge has been in place since 2023, California may be voting to tax billionaires this fall, and at least a half-dozen other states are actively considering ways to balance budgets or help their working classes via taxes on the ultra-wealthy.
So no, the Evergreen State’s action is not unique. But that’s not the same as saying it doesn’t matter. Instead, the measure, approved a week ago by Washington legislators after a grueling session that included a 24-hour filibuster by opposing Republicans, ought to be seen for what it is: the latest in a series of attempts by states to tax the growing uber-rich class in ways the Trump administration won’t.
So no, the Evergreen State’s action is not unique. But that’s not the same as saying it doesn’t matter. Instead, the measure, approved a week ago by Washington legislators after a grueling session that included a 24-hour filibuster by opposing Republicans, ought to be seen for what it is: the latest in a series of attempts by states to tax the growing uber-rich class in ways the Trump administration won’t.
TSA will get paid, says Trump
The Hill - President Trump announced on Thursday evening that he will sign an executive order to “immediately” pay TSA officers despite the partial government shutdown. The funds will come from the One Big Beautiful Act that Republicans passed last summer.
Catholic churches gaining parishioners
NY Times - People are joining the Roman Catholic Church in surprising numbers. This Easter the Archdiocese of Detroit will receive 1,428 new Catholics into the church, its highest number in 21 years. The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston will have its most in 15 years. In the Diocese of Des Moines, the count is jumping 51 percent from last year, from 265 people to 400.
The first year after the election of Pope Leo XIV, the first pontiff from the United States, many Catholic churches across America are welcoming their highest numbers of new Catholics in recent years....
Bishops are buzzing about the surge, and confounded by what is behind it. “Of course we think the Holy Spirit is,” Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington said. “But we are kind of stymied.”
National Guard use in cities challenged
Congressional Insider - A half-billion-dollar National Guard mission inside America’s cities is colliding with court limits, Pentagon budget strain, and a base that’s tired of “forever wars” abroad and open borders at home.
CBO estimated Trump-era National Guard deployments to six major cities for immigration-related missions cost about $496 million through the end of 2025, with potential ongoing costs of roughly $93 million per month if continued.
The Guard deployments expanded beyond border support into interior-city operations tied to immigration enforcement and protection of federal personnel, drawing protests and legal scrutiny.
A Supreme Court ruling drove withdrawals from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland in December 2025, underscoring limits on using military forces for domestic law enforcement.
The Pentagon has diverted more than $2 billion from military projects to support DHS and is seeking another $5 billion for 2026 immigration-related support, fueling questions about readiness and transparency.
The Congressional Budget Office reported that National Guard deployments ordered by the Trump administration to Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis, Portland, and Washington, D.C. cost about $496 million through the end of 2025. CBO also estimated the burn rate could reach roughly $93 million per month if missions continue. That dollar figure matters to voters watching inflation and energy costs, because it puts a hard price tag on interior deployments—not just border security.
Iran
Time - The problem confronting Washington: the U.S. is fighting a war without a shared definition of victory. Time posed the question to more than two dozen lawmakers this week. The exercise laid bare startling disagreements over the main objectives of a spiraling conflict that’s costing the U.S. tens of billions of dollars and destabilized energy markets. Some in Congress described a narrow, achievable objective. Others outlined sweeping, almost utopian outcomes. The scattershot answers sounded at times like descriptions of entirely different wars.
Bloomberg - Iran and Israel exchanged missile fire and Tehran targeted several Gulf states, underscoring the willingness of the two sides to keep fighting even after Donald Trump’s latest push for peace talks. As the situation continues to develop, stay up to date with our live blog.
Trump's war against DEI
The Hill - The Trump administration is expanding its push against the use of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in university admissions, opening investigations into three medical schools.
Stanford University, The Ohio State University and the University of California, San Diego received letters Wednesday asking for seven years of data concerning applicants’ race, standardized test scores, relations to donors, ZIP codes and other information, The Hill’s Lexi Lonas Cochran reports.
The government is also demanding documents related to DEI use in admissions and other university communications regarding race, donor status and other information gathered during admissions. They were given a deadline of April 24 to comply.
The administration has prioritized trying to obtain various admissions data from universities during Trump’s second term, expressing concern that academic institutions are using other methods to get around a 2023 Supreme Court decision banning the use of affirmative action in admissions. Many universities have handed over admissions data or changed policies to abide by federal officials’ requests, while 17 Democratic-led states are suing to stop their universities’ admissions data from being collected.
No Kings protests grow
Maine Morning Star - Thousands of protests are scheduled across the United States on Saturday as part of the “No Kings” movement opposing President Donald Trump’s administration. Organizers expect millions of people to turn out for this third round of No Kings demonstrations, with more than 3,000 local-level events mapped on the movement’s official website.
Previous No Kings protests, held in June and October of 2025, were among the largest single-day demonstrations in U.S. history, according to Harvard University’s Crowd Counting Consortium, a data project that documents political protests and other demonstrations around the country.
Driving the No Kings movement at the national level are prominent progressive organizations, including Indivisible, 50501 and MoveOn. But demonstrations are organized at the local level by coalitions of hundreds of progressive groups that run the gamut from civil rights organizations to labor unions, religious communities to nonprofits dedicated to issues such as education, climate, gun control and immigration.
Meanwhile . . .
The Hill - The Treasury Department plans to add Trump’s signature to paper currency to mark the country’s 250th anniversary. This will be the first time a sitting president’s signature will appear on currency.
The Department of Education announced it will move out of its current headquarters to a smaller building occupied by the Department of Energy. Officials said the decision will save $350 million in maintenance costs to the current building
Aging
NY Times - Many people’s brains deteriorate as they age, becoming riddled with malfunctioning proteins that result in cell death and the loss of memory and cognition. But other people’s brains remain almost perfectly intact, their thinking as sharp at 80 as it was in their 50s. A paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature provides a new potential explanation for this discrepancy, and it taps into one of the hottest debates in neuroscience: whether human brains can grow new neurons in adulthood, a phenomenon called neurogenesis.
The study found that so-called super-agers — people 80 and up who have the memory ability of someone 30 years younger — had roughly twice as many new neurons as older adults with normal memory for their age, and 2.5 times more than people with Alzheimer’s disease. The research focused on an area of the brain called the hippocampus, which is important for learning and memory and is thought to be the primary birthplace of new neurons.
“This paper shows biological proof that the aging brain is plastic,” even into a person’s 80s, said Tamar Gefen, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who contributed to the research.
March 26, 2026
Social Security
Newsweek - A new warning from budget experts says millions of future retirees could face steep Social Security benefit cuts, amounting to roughly $18,000 a year for some households if Congress fails to act before the program’s retirement trust fund runs out of money.
The Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund is less than seven years from insolvency, according to testimony submitted this week to the Senate Budget Committee by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).
Under current law, insolvency would trigger an automatic 24 percent across-the-board cut in benefits once the trust fund’s reserves are depleted.
“To put it bluntly, Social Security is going broke, and this statement suggests we need to plan for some combination of increased funding and decreased benefits,” Drew Powers, the founder of Illinois-based Powers Financial Group, told Newsweek.
Popuation
Newsweek - Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on March 26 showed that some of the nation's busiest counties have seen a population decline between 2024 and 2025, with many metro areas also experiencing a drop in their population growth.
It also found that population growth slowed in the majority of the nation’s 3,143 counties and the District of Columbia as nearly 8 in 10 saw growth slow or reverse direction in 2025, and that many already seeing a population decline saw losses accelerate.
Most of America's metro areas saw a drop in population growth, and the three metro areas with the highest rate were along the U.S.-Mexico border. The bureau noted that the shifts were largely a result of lower levels of net international migration, which declined nationwide.
New voters in South Dakota will have to prove to vote in state and local races
NY Times - New voters in South Dakota will have to prove that they are United States citizens in order to cast a ballot in state and local races under a bill signed on Thursday by Gov. Larry Rhoden.
The new law, which does not apply to South Dakotans already on the voter rolls, comes amid a national push by Republicans to tighten voting rules and root out voting by noncitizens, which is already illegal and believed to be rare.“This bill ensures only citizens vote in state elections, keeping our elections safe and secure,” said Mr. Rhoden, who is seeking election to a full term this year and is facing a crowded Republican primary field. He replaced Kristi Noem, who left the governor’s office last year to become homeland security secretary under President Trump.
South Dakota is one of a handful of Republican-led states to advance its own proof of citizenship measures this year as President Trump pushes Congress to pass the SAVE America Act.
Iran
[White House] press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the U.S. is negotiating to end the war in Iran, but declined to say with whom it has held talks. While the prospects of a diplomatic deal look dim right now, Middle East veterans say there is a pathway for an agreement if the two sides want to engage. Stay up-to-date with news and analysis. There are early warning signs that this war has succumbed to some of the same pitfalls that plagued Iraq and other overseas conflicts.
Congressional Insider - Germany just escalated the political pressure on Washington by calling the US-Israeli war on Iran illegal—while Americans at home are asking why a second Trump term is drifting into another open-ended Middle East fight. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier labeled the US-Israeli campaign against Iran a “disastrous mistake” and a breach of international law, an unusually blunt rebuke of the Trump administration. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz struck a more mixed tone: condemning Iran’s terror networks and nuclear ambitions while urging diplomacy and warning about regional escalation.
Donald Trump
The Hill - President Trump said Wednesday at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) annual fundraising dinner that he avoids using the word “war” to describe the conflict in Iran. “I won’t use the word ‘war’ because they say if you use the word ‘war,’ that’s maybe not a good thing to do,” Trump told the crowd of GOP lawmakers at Union Station in Washington, D.C. “They don’t like the word ‘war’ because you’re supposed to get approval. So, I’ll use the word ‘military operation’, which is really what it is. It’s a military decimation.”
New Republic - When the FBI raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022 and found that the former president had stolen hundreds of classified documents from the White House, stashing them in the club’s closets and showers, one question stood out: Why? Was Trump coordinating with Russian intelligence? Hiding proof of aliens?
As it turns out, the answer was more self-serving: Former special counsel Jack Smith concluded that Trump took the documents to help advance his business interests, according to case records obtained by Democrats and reviewed by MS NOW.
“Trump possessed classified documents pertinent to his business interests—establishing a motive for retaining them,” one memo from Smith’s office read. “We must have those documents.”
The documents Trump kept included a classified map he showed to passengers on his plane, and one document so sensitive that only six people were allowed to view it.
Following the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, Judge Aileen Cannon, who has a history of ruling in Trump’s favor, dismissed the federal lawsuit against him by arguing that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. Cannon slapped a gag order on Smith and most of the documents related to the investigation. The special counsel resigned after Trump was reelected in 2024.
Progressives
MS NOW - A few weeks ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, surprised many on the left when he broke with establishment Democratic protocol and likened Israel to an “apartheid state.” But then, in another twist, he said in an interview that he regretted using the term — and that he “reveres” the state of Israel. Newsom’s striking criticism of Israel, swiftly followed by a reversal, reflects how potential Democratic White House hopefuls are uneasily trying to figure out what a “moderate” position on Israel might look like in 2028. It also raises the question of whether Israel’s “apartheid” status is the best litmus test for progressives to focus on when it comes to demanding different U.S. policies toward the country.
Independent, UK - California Governor Gavin Newsom has revealed that his kids don’t want him to run for president in 2028, at least for now. Newsom is widely considered to be a potential Democratic candidate for the next presidential election, but has said publicly he’s yet to make up his mind about running. Sitting down with Politico’s Jonathan Martin for an interview in San Francisco released Tuesday, Newsom said he will make his decision based on what’s best for his family.
Pete Buttigieg claims to have received about 100,000 contributions in his race for the White House.
Olympic Committee Announces a Broad Ban of Transgender Athletes in Women’s Events
NY Times - The International Olympic Committee banned transgender athletes from competing in the women’s category at the Olympics, after telling its members to conduct mandatory genetic testing for women’s competitions.
The decision, the most consequential since Kirsty Coventry was elected last year as the first woman to serve as president of the I.O.C., followed a board meeting and months of speculation over the organization’s policy on one of the most contentious issues facing global sports...
As Ms. Coventry, a decorated Olympic swimmer from Zimbabwe, campaigned to lead the organization, she frequently said how important it was to protect the women’s category amid broader — and often bitter — debates about the participation of transgender athletes in sporting competitions.
Polls
Newsweek - Among independents only, Trump’s approval stands at 25 percent, while 68 percent disapprove, leaving him with a net approval rating of minus 43. The numbers represent a dramatic shift from late last year. In December, Quinnipiac found Trump with 35 percent approval and 58 percent disapproval among independents, a net rating of minus 23.
Newsweek - A well-known data analyst said Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s latest approval polls show that men—who constitute his core voter base—are “abandoning” him.
“Trump won in 2024 because of men. They are abandoning him right now. He won men by 13 pt in 2024, but his net approval is now -7 pt with them,” CNN polling expert Harry Enten wrote on X. “Men under 45: Trump won by 5 pt in 2024. Now he's 19 pt underwater with them. On cost living, he's now 30 pt underwater with men!”
Airports are not the only government shutdown victims
NBC News - The partial government shutdown is affecting more than just airports. Among the other agencies enduring the consequences of a shutdown:
→ FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund is rapidly depleting, the agency said. If the fund is depleted, FEMA will be unable to fund many disaster recovery efforts.
→ DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has scaled back or paused its work to reduce systemic risk over time and make proactive assessments, among other initiatives, said Nicholas Andersen, the agency's acting and deputy director.
→ And the Coast Guard has not had enough funding to operate and pay its workers for 85 of the past 176 days. It also can't pay over 5,000 utility accounts, "putting us in danger of widespread shutdowns to critical infrastructure," said Adm. Thomas Allen, Coast Guard vice commandant.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he has not made a final decision about whether senators will leave for their two-week recess at the end of the week if there is no deal. More
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