Credit card bans increasing for gambling payments

The Sun -    Consumers may see credit cards banned as a payment method for betting under a new policy that is slowly making its way across the country.  Using a credit card to place sports bets is not allowed in at least nine states, and another is looking to join the list.

Ohio gambling regulators are aiming to ban credit card deposits to fund online sports wagering accounts, with the state potentially joining the growing number of bans nationally.

...The idea comes as part of a larger package of bills sought by sports-betting critics, who argue that gamblers’ ability to place bets using credit cards heightens their risk of addiction and financial ruin. 

Climate

Newsweek -   Dangerously hot conditions are expected to hit parts of California and Arizona from Sunday through early next week, with forecasters warning of temperatures topping 110 degrees during Mother’s Day weekend.  The timing raises concerns as many families plan outdoor celebrations, increasing the risk of heat-related illness.

Millions across major metro areas, including Phoenix and communities in southern California deserts, could feel the impact as conditions intensify.

Past recessions

Polls

El Paso Times -   President Donald Trump's approval rating continues to trend more negatively in several recent polls. In an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released May 6, the poll found record-high disapproval for Trump at 59%, compared to 37% who approve. The poll also found high levels of disapproval of how Trump is handling Iran and how the president is handling the economy.

The poll also found that the majority of Americans say their local cost of living is not very affordable (44%) or not affordable at all (12%), while eight in ten Americans say they feel either a major (33%) or minor strain (48%) on their household budget due to the current price of gas...

Trump's approval rating has been net negative for about a year, fluctuating but trending more negative over the last several months. Here is Trump's average approval rating on May 6, according to aggregators:

New York Times: 38% approve, 58% disapprove

Silver Bulletin: 39% approve, 57.6% disapprove

RealClearPolitics Poll Average: 40.3% approve, 56.8% disapprove

A national survey by Pew Research Center that was conducted April 20-26 found that public confidence in Trump on several key issues facing the nation has declined:

41% now say they are very or somewhat confident Trump can make good decisions on immigration policy, down from 46% in August and 53% shortly after his 2024 reelection.

38% now express confidence in Trump to use military force wisely, down from 46% last summer.

FBI Director Patel

Occupy Democrats

  - Kash Patel  is reportedly so paranoid about losing his job that he’s polygraphing his own FBI staff. Be on the lookout, Kash Patel is now reportedly in full meltdown.

The FBI Director — already under fire for deploying SWAT agents as his girlfriend's personal chauffeurs, chugging beer in the Olympic locker room on a government jet, and suing The Atlantic for $250 million over revealing allegations of his problematic drinking — has now ordered polygraph examinations of more than two dozen current and former members of his security detail and IT staff, according to sources briefed on the situation.

The reason: he's terrified of leakers. And, apparently, of losing his job.

Sources tell MS Now that Patel has been "described as being in panic mode to save his job" and has walled himself off from some senior FBI leaders this week — raising alarm inside the bureau about his ability to stay on top of pressing threats and investigations.

This comes one day after MS Now revealed Patel ordered FBI agents to open a criminal leak investigation into The Atlantic's reporting about his drinking habits — an investigation agents were deeply uncomfortable conducting, believing it lacked legal justification and that they'd be fired if they refused.

Patel has apparently done this before. Dozens of agents were previously polygraphed after a story leaked about Patel making a request to obtain a gun.

So, the director of the FBI — America's premier law enforcement agency — is running a paranoid internal surveillance operation against his own staff, avoiding his senior operational leaders, opening criminal probes into journalists, and, according to multiple sources, desperately trying not to get fired by a president already frustrated with his headlines.

Trump and the White House have reportedly been furious about the bad press. In November 2025, they are said to have privately discussed removing him

Headline USA -   FBI Director Kashyap Patel reportedly has his own personalized branded bourbon. And when a bottle went missing in March, he threatened to “polygraph and prosecute his staff.”  The Atlantic revealed latest details on Patel’s enthusiasm for alcohol on Thursday, a little over two weeks after Patel sued the outlet for publishing a story that portrays him as a drunkard. The Atlantic reported that Patel has a collection of Kentucky distillery Woodford Reserve bottles engraved with the words “kash patel fbi director,” as well as a rendering of an FBI shield.

Middle East

Independent, UK -  New CIA analysis suggests Iran can withstand the US blockade for three to four more months, challenging claims that Tehran needs the conflict to end imminently.

The confidential report indicates Iran's resilience stems from storing oil in floating tankers, managing oil field flows, and potentially smuggling oil via overland routes.

This assessment aligns with previous reports suggesting Iran has approximately 120 days of crude oil availability for China, with the CIA estimating 90 to 120 days of economic endurance.

US intelligence also reveals Iran retains significant missile stockpiles (70 per cent of pre-war levels) and mobile launchers (75 per cent), contradicting statements about its rapidly diminishing weapons.

NBC News -  The U.S. and Iran exchanged fire near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, raising questions about the negotiations to end the conflict. President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the attacks happened as three U.S. military ships were transiting through the strait and claimed that there was “no damage done to the three Destroyers, but great damage done to the Iranian attackers.” 

In an interview with ABC News, Trump said the ceasefire was still in effect. “It’s just a love tap,” he said. 

The Iranian military said it fired at the ships only after the U.S. military violated the ceasefire and attacked an Iranian oil tanker.

Trump later told a group of reporters that negotiations with Iran for a peace deal were “going very well, but they have to understand if it doesn’t get signed, they’re going to have a lot of pain.” He also said a deal “might not happen, but it could happen any day.”

Workers

Washington Post - The share of American men in the labor force reached a record low this spring, fueled by baby-boomer retirees and young men who are dropping out to study or because they are disabled or sick. (The only time it has been lower was during the first two months of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.)

The labor market has weakened since early 2025, with most job opportunities concentrated in areas typically dominated by women, including health care and private education. At the same time, several male-dominated industries, including manufacturing, transportation and mining have shed jobs, leaving a mismatch between typical skill sets and job opportunities for men.

“It’s not all retirement and education. … There are guys just dropping off the planet. They’re not looking after their kids. They’re not in school. They’re not in the labor force,” said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan. “Across the board when we look at men, we see challenges that they face that leave too many men disconnected.”

....The downward turn in 2026 deepens a decades-long slide for men’s participation in the workforce. Among men 16 years and older, 67 percent were working or looking for a job in April, down from 73.5 percent two decades earlier.

The Hill - The U.S. economy added 115,000 new jobs in April, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department, beating the expectations of economists. The jobless rate held firm at 4.3 percent last month. Economists expected the U.S. to have added roughly 67,000 jobs in April, according to consensus estimates.

Farming

Shortlysts -   Lawmakers are advancing a new wave of legislation to stop foreign adversaries, especially China, from buying American farmland and property near military or critical infrastructure sites. One proposal introduced by Representative John Moolenaar would expand federal authority to block land purchases from countries deemed national security threats, while another bill, the Stop CCP Land Act, pressures states to adopt their own bans or risk losing access to certain federal funding programs.

The legislation targets several countries, including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, on the belief that current federal oversight leaves major gaps around farmland purchases, infrastructure access, and land located near sensitive military facilities.

For years, there has been growing concern across the United States about Chinese land acquisitions, particularly near air bases, telecommunications infrastructure, and agricultural regions. Several states have already passed restrictions on foreign ownership, but supporters of the bills contend that individual state laws alone are not enough to address what they see as a national security issue.

Health

Maine Biz -  Maine ranks No. 17 in the U.S. for hospital patient safety in a report evaluating how well facilities protect patients from medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections.

Leapfrog Group, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety performance.   In Maine, more than a third of its hospitals earned an A grade.

The five medical facilities ranked the highest are: MaineHealth Medical Center in Biddeford, MaineHealth Midcoast Hospital in Brunswick, MaineHealth Pen Bay Hospital in Rockport, Northern Light Maine Coast Hospital in Ellsworth and Northern Light Mercy Hospital in Portland.

Five others earned a B grade: Maine General Medical Center in Augusta, MaineHealth Maine Medical Center in Portland, Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, St. Joseph Hospital of Bangor and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston.

C grades went to Cary Medical Center in Caribou, Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, and Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital in Presque Isle.

Maine garnered no grades lower than C.

Health -   Horizon Organic recalled 3,500+ cases of lowfat chocolate milk due to potentially compromised packaging. The recall affects 8-oz shelf-stable cartons with best-by dates of Aug. 14–15, 2026, sold in four western states. Consumers should not drink the milk and should dispose of it or return it for a refund.

Russia

Bloomberg - Russians are growing gloomier about their prospects more than four years into the war in Ukraine. As Vladimir Putin prepares for his most downbeat Victory Day parade in years on Saturday, previously loyal commentators are pointing fingers at the Kremlin amid signs of waning support for his power structures.

Anti black voters in the south

The Guardian -   The reaction speed of southern states to the US supreme court’s decision last week in Louisiana v Callais has been breathtaking for voting rights activists. One week after Callais, Louisiana’s governor has ordered the state’s ongoing congressional election to be set aside while state lawmakers redraw maps to eliminate a Democratic-majority – that is, a Black-majority – seat covering Baton Rouge.

Alabama’s Republican-majority legislature is drafting legislation in a special session that will allow it to set aside the results of a completed primary later this year if courts lift an injunction on its redistricting.

Florida was amid a special redistricting session as the ruling was handed down, passing a congressional map for 28 districts that packs Black and brown voters into four districts on the south Florida coast and Orlando, eliminating every other Democratic majority.

Mississippi will convene two weeks from now in a Confederate-era capitol building that it hasn’t used in 100 years, ostensibly to eliminate the Democratic majority in the one Mississippi district held by a Black representative.

South Carolina’s Republican majority in the statehouse voted Wednesday to extend its legislative calendar, allowing time to consider whether they should eliminate the state’s sole Democratic-majority, Black-majority district, held by long-serving representative James Clyburn.

Immigration

Independent, UK -   A California-based immigration judge has filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit against the Department of Justice, alleging retaliation tied to protected activity such as reporting misconduct or refusing unlawful directives. Immigration judges work for DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), a structure that blurs the line between neutral judging and executive-branch enforcement priorities.

Reports describe a broader pattern: 103 immigration judges terminated nationally since Trump took office, with 28 in California.

The lawsuit lands amid rising scrutiny of courthouse arrests and limits on public access at immigration courts, especially in Sacramento.

 

The Guardian -  The US government has targeted thousands of parents like LT for deportation since Donald Trump took office in January 2025. A Guardian analysis of government records has found that, during the first seven months of his presidency, the administration arrested the parents of at least 27,000 children. During this period in 2025, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was deporting about twice as many parents each month compared with 2024.

The records do not detail how many of these children were detained or deported with their parents, and how many families were split up. But the data provides one of the starkest views yet of how Trump’s mass deportation scheme has affected parents and children. In thousands of cases, DHS sought to deport parents who had a different citizenship or nationality than their children, creating major legal and logistical barriers to keeping families together.

The Guardian’s analysis also revealed:

During the first seven months of 2025, the administration arrested 18,400 parents – including 15,000 fathers and 3,000 mothers. They are the parents of 27,000 to 32,000 children.

The administration arrested the parents of at least 12,000 US citizen children.

Nearly 7,500 fathers and 1,000 mothers who were arrested had a different nationality than at least one of their children. In about half of these families, siblings had different citizenships from each other.

On average, the Trump administration has been arresting about 2,300 parents each month and deporting 1,400 parents every month. The Biden administration, in comparison, deported about 700 per month in 2024.

New Surgeon General

Independent, UK -   Dr. Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and Fox News contributor, is Donald Trump's third nominee for surgeon general. She has been deleting social media posts that were critical of the Trump administration's handling of issues like autism and vaccines, according to a CNN report. The deleted posts, some from 2025 and earlier this year, are still viewable via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

Her past criticisms included questioning Trump's  reassurances about his health and his warnings to pregnant women against taking Tylenol.  More recently, Saphier has also criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. regarding vaccine schedules and the measles outbreak.

Media

Alternet -  The editor of the Wall Street Journal is sounding the alarm about a new trend with powerful people suing news outlets before anything is even published about them. The Journal was recently sued by President Donald Trump after it reported that he'd contributed a comment and drawing to the infamous "birthday book" made for trafficker Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. Trump's lewd drawing of a nude woman outlined the text of a conversation between him and Epstein about the special "secrets" they share. Trump denied the drawing, and it was ultimately revealed publicly.

Last month, a federal judge dismissed Trump's $10 billion defamation suit against the Journal, its parent company and owner Rupert Murdoch.  

The Guardian reported on Wednesday that these kinds of suits are becoming the norm as part of a public-relations strategy for powerful people ensnared in scandals. “One of the biggest challenges to us now isn’t so much what happens afterwards,” said Emma Tucker while speaking to the Truth Tellers journalism summit. “It’s what happens before you even publish. That is a massive challenge for us."

“Increasingly, it is the case that before you even get to publication, lawsuits come raining down on you – a whole torrent of legal letters comes your way," she continued. "Deep-pocketed people [are] doing this as a PR strategy, because then other journalists then write up ‘look, so-and-so is suing the Wall Street Journal for some reporting that they’re doing.'"

The Trump lawsuit "epitomized how difficult and expensive these stories are. But at least the defamation came after we’d published. These days, increasingly, we’re getting legally challenged before we even get to publication."

Polls

Pollmax 

ICE

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told a crowd at the 2026 Border Security Expo in Phoenix that his agency is “removing people to countries that I didn’t even know existed.” He said this proudly. He was describing the administration’s third-country deportation program, which has been sending immigrants to African nations they have no connection to. He called it “a huge game changer” in implementing Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

Meanwhile. . .

Brooke Lierman, Comptroller, Maryland  - Elder financial fraud is affecting many Maryland families. In 2024, one in 20 older Marylanders reported being targeted, with losses totaling $47 million, nearly five times higher than just a few years ago. The average loss per victim is about $83,000.

Semafor -  President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled a new counterterrorism plan on Wednesday that focuses in part on rooting out what it describes as left-wing extremist groups operating domestically and overseas.  It’s the first counterterrorism proposal released by the president since 2018, reflecting many of his second-term priorities. Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s counterterrorism czar, told reporters that the administration would “use all the tools constitutionally available” to target various organizations, prioritizing “violent, secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American … or anarchist, such as antifa.”

How state legislators are doing in primaries

Donald Trump

Washington City Paper -  As convicted felon and President Donald Trump positions to take control of D.C.’s beloved public golf course, East Potomac Golf Links, another public course he ran in New York offers a potential view of what could come. Ferry Point, a municipal course with views of the East River and Manhattan skyline that Trump operated from about 2015 to 2021, is out of reach for most middle-income golfers—a round of 18 holes for a resident cost about $172 on weekends; nonresidents paid as much as $219. As prices increased there, usage declined under Trump’s management, dropping by about 18 percent in three years. An 18-hole round at East Potomac, meanwhile, is less than $50. 

The difference in lawn care costs

Patricia Davis, Lawn Starter  - Washington, D.C., homeowners pay $17.80 per 1,000 square feet for a mow — nearly 3X the national average. Less than 100 miles away, Richmond homeowners pay $5.70 per 1,000 square feet for the same service. We dove into LawnStarter’s historical data for our State of Lawn Care in America Industry Report — analyzing 2+ million mowing jobs across 2,000+ cities — to identify some lawn care industry trends across pricing, tipping, weather disruptions, and seasonal patterns.

• Mowing costs per 1,000 square feet increased more than the national average (+4.8%) between 2024 and 2025 in Maryland (+6.1%) and Virginia (+5.6%), but were not as dramatic in D.C. (+2.8%). 

• Mowing prices in D.C. are nearly 3X the national average at $17.80 per 1,000 square feet. Prices are much lower in Richmond at $5.70 per 1,000 square feet. 

• Virginia Beach spends almost $100 more per year on lawn mowing ($505) than the national average ($407). Baltimore spends almost $100 less on mowing ($309) than the national average.

• Lawn care pros in Richmond are more likely to get lucky with a tip thanks to the city’s high average tip rate — 30.4% of mowing jobs receiving tips — and high average tip amount, $10.50. Richmond tips an average of 18% of the total job price.

Richmond has an above-average effective tip per mow, at $3.13 per mow, while D.C. pros have an effective tip of $2.10 per mow.

Read the full story here

Artificial Intelligence

The Hill -  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has become a stark voice on AI in Washington warning of the technology’s more severe risks and calling for cooperation with China at a moment when the two superpowers are increasingly at odds over the technology.

The 84-year-old senator is one of the few federal lawmakers taking up the cause of the AI skeptics — or “doomers,” as some have labeled the group — who have voiced concerns about AI’s “existential risk to humanity.”

While both Democrats and Republicans alike have embraced the idea that the U.S. is locked in a fierce competition with China, Sanders is arguing the technology’s risks require the opposite approach.

“We’re building a runaway train here,” Sanders told reporters on a call last week. “It’s moving down the track at rapidly expanding acceleration, and we don’t know where it ends up. We don’t know what its impact will be.”

“Do I think Congress is prepared to deal with it? I do not,” he added. “So I’m going to do everything I can to try to generate support for action, bring people together and come up with some rational solutions.”

Sanders began ramping up his messaging on AI late last year, when he first called for a moratorium on data center construction as a means of giving “democracy a chance to catch up” amid the “unregulated sprint” to develop the technology.

He and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation in March that would bar construction of all new data centers until “strong national safeguards are in place,” such as measures preventing mass job displacement and limiting increases in consumer electricity prices.

This comes as data centers have increasingly encountered local pushback and Americans have become more wary about AI.

... “These technologies right now are of growing concern to the American people,” Sanders said on the press call, adding, “It’s not because the American people are Luddites. They see positive aspects of AI and robotics.”

“They worry very much that the people who are investing in this technology … the very richest people on Earth, really do not stay up nights worrying about working families, but simply want to get wealthier and more powerful, which is my view as well,” he continued.

His position on AI, particularly the call for a slowdown, stands in sharp contrast to much of the rest of Washington, which has been chiefly focused on ensuring that the U.S. remains ahead of China on the technology.

....While Democrats have largely opposed the preemption push and called for more guardrails on the technology, few have supported the idea of pumping the brakes on AI.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) dismissed the moratorium approach as “idiocy” at an Axios event in late March, warning this “simply means China’s going to move quicker” and arguing “this is one where we can’t lose.”

....Outside of the nation’s capital, Sanders enjoys more support among a contingent of researchers who have long warned of the risks from AI, particularly superintelligence, a form of the technology that surpasses human intelligence.

“If we just go ahead and do something that’s foolhardy before figuring out how to control this stuff, we’re in a worse position than the neanderthals,” said Max Tegmark, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

..... Sanders suggested that the AI race bears a resemblance to the nuclear arms race of the Cold War era, pointing to talks between then-President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on nuclear disarmament in the 1980s as instructive.

“One might think that, given the very real threat to humanity, countries might come together to regulate this technology through an international treaty, like we did with nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War,” Sanders said.

Climate

1440  - A tsunami last year in southeastern Alaska was the second-largest in recorded history, a study published yesterday revealed. Waves reached 1,578 feet high, second only to a 1958 tsunami in Alaska that produced up to 1,720-foot waves.

At 5:26 am on Aug. 10, 2025, a mass of rock measuring 83 million cubic yards—24 times the volume of the Great Pyramid of Giza—fell into Alaska’s Tracy Arm fjord (what is a fjord?). The study’s authors blamed climate change, saying the melting glacier next to the mountain left the rock unsupported and vulnerable to collapse. Waves sloshed in the fjord for days and produced seismic activity equivalent to a 5.4-magnitude earthquake, shaking the planet.

NPR - The U.S. Forest Service is entering this year's fire season with significantly less work completed than in previous years to manage the dry, flammable vegetation that can lead to catastrophic fires. Last year, the Forest Service reduced vegetation on almost 1.5 million fewer acres than in 2024, according to an analysis of the agency's data by NPR and firefighting experts. This is a significant decrease from more than 4 million acres of hazardous vegetation work completed during the last year of the Biden administration. As conditions have grown hotter, the buildup of dense vegetation has fueled extreme fires that have torn through vast stretches of land. The Forest Service lost 16% of its workforce as of last summer as part of the Trump administration's efforts to reduce the government's size.

🔥 Controlled burns improve forest health and give wildland firefighters a better chance of fighting forest fires in challenging conditions. 
🔥 The Forest Service has long said that prescribed burns are a priority. In 2022, the agency set a goal to reduce flammable fuels on an additional 20 million acres over the next decade.
🔥 Prescribed burning fell to about 900,000 acres in 2025, according to an NPR analysis of agency data. In both 2023 and 2024, it reached over 1.6 million acres.
🔥 Forest Service chief Tom Schultz testified that the agency had hired approximately 9,700 firefighters as of early March, a slight increase from last year. Firefighting experts say these new hires don't necessarily replace key support staff that was lost.
🔥 As wildfires become more extreme, agency personnel have less time to reduce vegetation, setting the stage for even larger blazes, experts say.

The billion dollar ballroom budget item

The Hill -   A Republican proposal to spend $1 billion in taxpayer money on security for the White House ballroom has become a political landmine in the Senate debate over funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol for the next three and a half years.

Before the Senate Judiciary Committee released its bill, Republican senators warned that using taxpayer money to pay for the ballroom would be a dumb move in an election year where GOP candidates are already facing headwinds over the issue of affordability. While the legislation clearly states that the money is for security enhancements and may not be spent on “non-security elements” of the construction project, that distinction is being lost in the media headlines and broader debate over the sensitive issue.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) says he supports the construction of the White House ballroom, but he wants it paid for by private donations, which President Trump originally pledged when he tore down the historic East Wing.  “If the White House and Secret Service believe that they need money for construction beyond these private funds they’ve raised, I’m willing to hear them out. There are plenty of things that we can cut to pay for it, like wasteful earmarks or all the fraud we’re uncovering in states like California and Minnesota,” Scott said in a statement.

Gas prices

NY Times

Kamala Harris

NBC News  - As former Vice President Kamala Harris considers another run for president, she is also signaling that she has no problem with a public airing of what went wrong last time — telling donors she believes the Democratic National Committee should release its buried autopsy of her failed 2024 campaign, according to a person who has heard the conversations.

The push for the postmortem’s release is one way she’s staying involved in political affairs. She has also toured the country, given speeches to state parties, developed the framework for a policy platform and sounded out fellow Democrats about her next chapter. Publicly, Harris acknowledged that she is “thinking about” another presidential bid. 

Interviews with more than a dozen people close to the former vice president paint the picture of a politician who is both moving forward in ways that would be helpful for setting up a run and also declining to view every decision she makes through the prism of how it affects her chances of electoral success.

Take a closer look at the case Harris is building for herself and her potential shortfalls.

Middle East

NPR

Iran is evaluating the Trump administration's latest proposal to end the war, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said yesterday. President Trump says the U.S. is on the verge of a deal, and the Iranians are desperate to make one. But there has not yet been a definitive Iranian response to the U.S. proposal. Trump has said that the U.S. has won the war, but very few of his objectives in the conflict have been met, NPR’s Mara Liasson tells Up First. The U.S. has not pulled its military forces from the area. Trump has again said Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. But the president hasn't been happy with what Iran has told him on that matter so far, Liasson says. Many U.S. allies and adversaries are concluding that Trump is making up his talking points about the conflict as he goes, she adds. They believe that he wants to withdraw as soon as possible because the war in Iran is politically damaging him and his party during a midterm year.

NBC News  - President Donald Trump’s abrupt reversal on his plan to force open the Strait of Hormuz came after Saudi Arabia, a key Gulf ally, suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operation, according to two U.S. officials.

Trump surprised allies in the region on social media on Sunday by announcing “Project Freedom,” the U.S. military mission to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz to break Tehran’s chokehold on the critical waterway. The move angered the leadership in Saudi Arabia, which informed Washington it would not allow the U.S. military to fly aircraft from Prince Sultan Airbase, southeast of Riyadh, or fly through Saudi airspace to support the effort, the officials said. A call between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not resolve the issue, the two U.S. officials said, forcing the president to pause Project Freedom in order to restore U.S. military access to the critical airspace. Other close Gulf allies were also caught off guard.

Trump had announced the operation over the weekend, and his top national security leaders spent much of Tuesday talking up the effort in public briefings at the Pentagon and White House, onl y to have the president suddenly halt the operation roughly 36 hours after it began.Here’s where things stand in the U.S. and Iran’s efforts to reach a peace deal.

And these are the reasons why it could take more than a peace deal with Iran to resume shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, France’s aircraft carrier strike group is moving south of the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea in preparation for a potential French-British mission in the strait.

Urban transit

The Guardian -  For major American cities to bring their public transit up to “world-class” status, it would cost an enormous $4.6tn, involving 7,500 miles of new dedicated infrastructure for trains and buses, over the next 20 years, a recent report found. American cities languish badly compared with global leaders such as Sydney, Hong Kong and Barcelona, based on the number of transit vehicles per 100,000 residents, according to the Transportation for America study.

Press freedom disappearing

The Guardian - he World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), for the first time placed more than half of all countries in the “difficult” or “very serious” categories for press freedom.  It found that while in 2002 a fifth of the global population lived in a country where press freedom was categorised as “good”, that had now fallen to less than 1% of the world’s population.

Climate change

Inside Climate News  - Colorado’s top wildfire officials said they expect a significantly increased risk of wildfire this summer—and while they’ll partner with neighboring states as much as they can, resources for fighting the blazes will be tested.

A dismal snowpack this winter is likely to leave a parched landscape and tinderbox conditions from Colorado’s thickly forested ski mountains to its grassy eastern plains. Officials here are anticipating an exceptionally dire next few months in their state and beyond. 

“The increased fire risk extends to the multi-state region,” Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, said during the state’s annual wildfire outlook briefing in Broomfield on April 30, where officials laid out Colorado’s 2026 Wildfire Preparedness Plan. 

The upcoming summer will be challenging across the West, he said, with an “elevated fire risk” threatening Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, alongside Colorado. 

Inside Climate Change -   In a little-noticed memo early last year, Illinois scientists made a dire prediction. “Bulletin 76,” a communication from University of Illinois researchers, warned that intense rain made worse by climate change was going to get a lot more severe in the next 25 years.

“What is considered safe and adequate today may not hold true in the future,” they wrote of the threat to homes, buildings and people.

The threat has been building for years. Over the past century in Chicago, the likelihood of heavy rainstorms has increased sevenfold. These storms can drop more than 8.5 inches of rain in 24 hours.

Designed decades ago, Chicago’s sewers can handle just 2 inches in that short period of time before flooding becomes likely.

That means every neighborhood in Chicago is at risk of flooding, and that threat rises with every big storm.

Why we need a wealth tax

Robert Reich - Google co-founder Sergey Brin, one of the three or four wealthiest people in the world, with a net worth hovering around $260 billion to $277 billion, is devoting some of his wealth to fighting California’s wealth tax on billionaires.  So far, he’s spent $57 million trying to defeat the measure.  Brin’s actions — along with Elon Musk’s $250 million “investment” in getting Trump reelected in 2024 — should be Exhibits A and B in why America needs a wealth tax.