Polls

028 DEM PRIMARY POLL: Kamala Harris 22% (+1) Gavin Newsom 21% Pete Buttigieg 12% Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 10% - Echelon Insights |

The Hill -   The decline in Americans who strongly approve of Trump’s job in office accounts for most of his falling approval rating — 20 percent strongly approve of the president, down from 26 percent one year ago.  Meanwhile, the share who “somewhat approve” of the president dipped from 19 percent in last April to 17 percent today.

NY Times -   Percentage of Americans who say that, as children, they knew a compassionate, nonjudgmental adult: 35

Percentage of these Americans who say that their mother was such a person: 50.  That their father was: 5

Record high number of books banned by libraries

The Guardian -  The American Library Association (ALA) has reported a record high in the number of books banned in US libraries.  In 2025, 5,668 books were banned – representing 66% of the total number challenged – with an additional 920 censored through access restriction, such as relocation on the library shelves.

The most-banned book in 2025 was Sold, a 2006 novel by Patricia McCormick about sex trafficking in India. Other frequently challenged titles include The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and Empire of Storms by Sarah J Maas.

... The ALA also found that 40% of the materials challenged this year involved representations of LGBTQ+ people or people of colour.

Housing

10 U.S. Cities Where Rent Is Skyrocketing

Meanwhile...

Study Finds - A growing number of Americans are deciding they’re done. Done with the friend who never apologizes. Done with the family member whose phone calls leave them drained. Done with the group chat that feels more like an obligation than a connection. According to a new survey released for Mental Health Awareness Month, 38 percent of Americans have gone “no contact” with a friend or family member in the past year, cutting off communication entirely rather than working through whatever went wrong.

Kamala Haris

Occupy Democrats -   Kamala Harris unleashes the most brutal takedown of Trump to date — shredding him for his rank incompetence, for getting dragged into a pointless war by Netanyahu, and for covering up the Epstein scandal....

"We are dealing with the most corrupt, callous, and incompetent presidential administration in the history of the United States. Period," the former vice president told a Democratic women's group in Michigan.

"And so on this list of what is empirical evidence of that point, let's talk about this war," she said. "He entered a war, got pulled into it by Bibi Netanyahu, let's be clear about that, entered a war that the American people do not want, putting at risk American service members."

Trump regime

Independent, 'UK -   Long lines at airports may soon return as bosses at the Department of Homeland Security warn that they will quickly run out of funds to pay security staff.

“That money is dried up, if I continue down this path, the first week of May, because my payroll at DHS is just over $1.6 billion every two weeks,” newly instated DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Fox & Friends on Tuesday.

“There is no more emergency fund, so the president can’t do another executive order for us to use money, because there’s no more money there,” he added.

According to Office of Management and Budget data, as of this week, less than $1.4 billion remains in the DHS’s $10 billion budget.

Long lines at airports could return soon as bosses at the Department of Homeland Security warn that they will soon run out of funding to pay security staff.

The government shutdown affecting the DHS and Transport Security Administration workers has been ongoing since mid-February and is the longest in U.S. history, with approximately 100,000 employees reportedly at risk of not being paid until summer.

The lack of payment has resulted in heavy understaffing, causing huge lines out of airports and other major disruptions. According to Politico, by early March, nearly 500 TSA officers had already resigned.

Alternet America - The man whose job was to make sure America’s nuclear and chemical weapons stayed secret sat down to dinner with a woman he’d just met and told her everything. Andrew Hugg, the U.S. Army’s Chief of Chemical Nuclear Surety, was escorted out of the Pentagon and placed on administrative leave after O’Keefe Media Group released undercover footage of him spilling sensitive national security information to a woman he thought was on a date with him. She was not on a date with him.

Over dinner, Hugg discussed potential U.S. action against Iran’s leadership, described how nuclear launch decisions are made, confirmed that the U.S. still possesses nerve agents, confirmed an army chemist had recently died from exposure to an agent, and acknowledged that U.S. airstrikes had killed children in Iran. He said all of this to a stranger.

At some point during the evening, Hugg looked across the table and said: “You’re not a spy, right? Your eyes have mesmerized me so much… The easiest way to get intelligence… send a pretty girl, talk to the guy.”

Bloomberg - The Trump administration is said to be nearing a rescue package for Spirit Airlines that could give the US government the option to own as much as 90% of the carrier once it emerges from bankruptcy.  It’s the latest unorthodox move by Trump into the kind of state-driven economic policy more commonly seen in places like China. During his second term, Trump has shown an extraordinary willingness to take financial positions in private-sector companies his administration deems essential for the US, such as chipmaker Intel. The strategy has drawn scrutiny from critics who question whether the approach could skew markets and create risks for taxpayers.

Climate change

Nearly half of Americans, 152.3 million people, live in places with unhealthy levels of air pollution, new study finds (More) | See most polluted cities (More) | ... and cleanest (More)

Ohio Is Where Wind and Solar Projects Go to Die, and Other Findings From New Research on State Permitting

Inside Climate News - Nearly half the nation’s children live in places with dangerous levels of air pollution, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Lung Association.  That’s 33.5 million children—46 percent of the country’s kids—living in areas with failing grades for at least one measure of air pollution that is particularly harmful to developing lungs.

The report also found that people of color are more than twice as likely as white people to live in a community with failing grades for all three measures. Latinos are more than three times as likely to live in such communities, unchanged from last year’s report.

Since 2000, the ALA’s annual State of the Air reports have detailed the nation’s air quality, which improved for decades following the passage of the 1970 Clean Air Act. But in recent years, heat and wildfires worsened by climate change are reversing some of that progress. 

Gabrielle Canon Guardian - Scientists and officials are keeping a close eye on conditions brewing in the Pacific Ocean that could spike temperatures and smash global heat records in the year ahead.  It’s still too early to get a definitive picture, but there are signs that a so-called super El Niño could develop this year, supercharging extreme weather events around the world. Some forecasts are suggesting it could become one of the strongest ever recorded.

Alongside heating from the human-caused climate crisis, this could put the world on track to once again temporarily breach the 1.5C average temperature rise over preindustrial levels – the critical climate threshold that experts have warned comes with a host of catastrophic consequences. Some models show that temperature anomalies could even push past that point next year and go beyond a 2C increase for the first time in recorded history.

Are we heading for ‘super El Niño’ – and what could we expect?

Chance of El Niño forming in Pacific Ocean may push global temperatures to record highs in 202

 

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Colleges

Portland Press Herald - Amid growing political pressures on American higher education and the rising cost of college, some southern Maine students are heading across the border. The number of American study permit holders in Canada reached its highest point in a decade in 2025. Last year, after President Donald Trump took office and began slashing grant funding and threatening schools with investigations, Canadian universities began seeing rising interest from American students

The Strategy That Built America’s Middle Class Still Works, So Why Won’t Democrats Deploy It?

Hartmann Report -   There was a time when Democrats boldly promoted programs that literally built the world’s first over-50%-of-the-population middle class, and weren’t afraid to take names and kick ass.

Franklin D. Roosevelt transformed America with his New Deal programs, including legalizing unions, Social Security, the minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, ending child labor, Federal emergency relief (FERA), the FDIC, SEC, FCC, TVA, NLRB, FHA and Fannie Mae, and the National Archives (among others)....

President Lyndon Johnson similarly added to the middle class, while keeping the top income tax rate at a fierce 74% on individuals and 50% on corporations. His Great Society programs included Medicare, Medicaid, Meals on Wheels, Title I aid to low-income-district schools, Pell Grants, Head Start, Job Corps, Community Action Agencies/Community Services Block Grants, VISTA, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, ending racial quotas on immigration, Food Stamps, HUD, NEA, NEH, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (NPR/PBS).  More

Health

Congressional Insider -   A breakthrough lung cancer treatment approved for England’s NHS nearly doubles survival for patients battling one of the deadliest forms of the disease, filling a treatment gap that has persisted for over two decades.

Approximately 530 English patients annually will benefit from the immunotherapy maintenance treatment following chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The approval represents the first advancement in limited-stage SCLC treatment in over 20 years  Treatment is immediately available through NHS following official recommendation

ICE

NBC News - According to the two DHS officials, ICE field offices across the country have been instructed that its officers should no longer enter homes without a judicial warrant. ICE officers also have drastically curtailed the number of arrests they make during immigration court proceedings by taking people into custody only when a person is a target for deportation, one of the officials and the immigration attorneys said.

Trump regime moves to reclassify marijuana

The Guardian -   The Trump administration has moved to reclassify marijuana, more than four months after Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the attorney general to move it from schedule I to schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act.  The schedule I classification meant marijuana was alongside heroin, LSD, MDMA and synthetic opioids, whereas a schedule III classification put it in the same category as ketamine, anabolic steroids and testosterone.

Trump’s acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, signed the order on Thursday and said in a post on X that the Department of Justice was “delivering on President Trump’s promise to improve American healthcare”.

Virginia judge blocks redistricting vote results

Roll Call -    A Virginia judge sided Wednesday with Republicans challenging the commonwealth’s new redistricting process for the third time, a day after voters approved a new map that would favor Democrats.  After a hearing Wednesday, Judge Jack Hurley Jr. of the state Circuit Court of Tazewell County issued a ruling blocking the certification of the redistricting referendum approved by Virginia voters Tuesday, according to former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cucinelli.

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones vowed Wednesday to appeal the decision in a statement posted on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.  “As I said last night, Virginia voters have spoken, and an activist judge should not have veto power over the People’s vote,” Jones’ statement said. “We look forward to defending the outcome of last night’s election in court.”

House committtee releases names of 26 current & former members investigated for sexual misconduct

HeadlineUSA -   The U.S. House Ethics Committee released a list of names of 26 current and former members of Congress who it’s investigated for sexual misconduct.  It did so after members of Congress have called for two members to be expelled, both from Florida: U.S. Reps. Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and Republican Cory Mills, The Center Square reported. 

Mills is the only member with an open investigation for “sexual misconduct and/or dating violence.” He currently has a restraining order against him issued by a Florida judge. U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-SC, filed a resolution to remove him from office, which failed. 

Navy Secretary leaving his job

Headlineusa  - Navy Secretary John Phelan is leaving his job, the Pentagon abruptly announced Wednesday, the first head of a military service to depart during President Donald Trump’s second term but just the latest top defense leader to step down or be ousted.

No reason was given for the unexpected departure of the Navy’s top civilian official, coming as the sea service has imposed a blockade of Iranian ports and is targeting ships linked to Tehran around the world during a tenuous ceasefire in the war. Another Trump loyalist is taking over as acting head of the Navy: Undersecretary Hung Cao, a 25-year Navy combat veteran who ran unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate and House in Virginia.

Phelan’s departure is the latest in a series of shakeups of top leadership at the Pentagon, coming just weeks after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the Army’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George. Hegseth also has fired several other top generals, admirals and defense leaders since taking office last year.

NPR - There were signs of tension between Phelan and Hegseth, seemingly stemming from both personal conflicts and disagreements over how the shipbuilding effort was being handled, NPR’s Greg Myre tells Up First. Upon arriving at the Pentagon, Hegseth immediately began dismissing senior officials, often without explanation, demonstrating his desire to reshape the Pentagon leadership.

Donald Trump

Headquarters

 - Republicans have introduced the following bills to honor Donald Trump: — Carve Trump’s face into Mount Rushmore — Replace Benjamin Franklin with Trump on $100 bills — Make Trump’s birthday a national holiday — Conduct “Trump Derangement Syndrome” research at the NIH — Give Trump a “Congressional Gold Medal” — Mint a $250 bill featuring Trump’s face — A resolution saying Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize — Rename Washington, DC public transit from WMATA to “WMAGA” — Award a “Donald J. Trump Peace Prize” from the State Department — Honor Trump’s efforts to annex Greenland — Rename the Kennedy Center the "Donald Trump Center for the Performing Arts" — Rename Dulles International Airport to the “Donald J. Trump International Airport” — Erase Trump’s 2019 impeachment — Erase Trump’s 2021 impeachment

New Republic - Donald Trump’s erratic behavior has gotten him exiled from critical peace negotiations with Iran. The president was removed from such talks by his own aides last month, who feared that his unpredictable style could hamper the discussions, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The decision was informed by the president’s behavior during the search and rescue operation for the aircrew of the downed F-15 fighter jet late last month, when the president reportedly screamed at his aides for hours.* As a result, his aides “kept the president out of the room as they got minute-by-minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful, instead updating him at meaningful moments,” a senior administration official told the Journal.

Shortly after the second airman was recovered, the president was back to beating his chest. In a rapid-fire series of hair-raising Truth Social posts on Easter morning, Trump pledged he would completely annihilate Iranian civilization within a couple of days. He was reportedly under the impression that appearing unstable would spur Tehran to negotiate, according to the Journal.

Alternet -   While the financing of President Donald Trump’s planned $400 million White House ballroom has been shrouded in mystery for months, government watchdog Public Citizen has obtained important new information about the project’s funding.

Public Citizen on Tuesday unveiled a copy of the funding agreement the Trump administration has used for the ballroom project after months of legal wrangling that forced the group to file a lawsuit to compel enforcement of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request it made last year.

As summarized by The Washington Post, the ballroom contract’s provisions “allow wealthy donors with business before the federal government to contribute anonymously to a sitting president’s pet project, while exempting the White House from key conflict of interest safeguards and limiting scrutiny by Congress and the public.”

While dozens of big-name corporate donors—including Amazon, Apple, Lockheed Martin, Google, Altria, and Union Pacific Railroad—have been public about their donations to the project, the fact that some donors can choose to remain anonymous is raising serious concerns among ethics experts.

Charles Tiefer, a retired law professor at the University of Baltimore with a long history of scrutinizing government contracts, told the Post that the contract’s anonymity provisions could give the Trump administration an escape hatch from future congressional scrutiny.

“If Congress knocks on the door,” Tiefer said, “the White House is going to slam it shut and say, ‘You’re not allowed to know these donors.’”

Data: Gallup. Chart: Sara Wise/Axios

Word

Sky - Speaking today, the Pontiff said: "The destiny ?of humanity risks being tragically compromised without a change of direction in the assumption of political responsibility and ?without respect for institutions and international agreements."  

"His [God's] holy name must not be profaned by the will to dominate, by arrogance or by discrimination. Above all, it must never be invoked to justify choices and actions of death," the Pope added.

Polls

Newsweek -   A new poll from Echelon Insights on Tuesday shows potential top Democratic and Republican primary contenders for the 2028 presidential election, showing former Vice President Kamala Harris still leading the pack of potential Democrats and Vice President JD Vance still leading potential Republicans.... Harris has 22 percent of the potential vote compared to Newsom's 21 percent, Buttigieg's 12 percent and Ocasio-Cortez's 10 percent. The poll shows 10 percent are unsure.

The poll also shows Vance with 42 percent of the vote compared to Secretary of State Marco Rubio's 14 percent, Donald Trump Jr.'s 10 percent, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' 8 percent. The survey also shows 13 percent are unsure.

‘Petro-masculinity’ vs. the environment

Americans Seeking European Passports

Newsweek -   For many Americans struggling with the higher cost of living and tired of the growing political tension at home, their European family trees offer a chance to escape the country—or at least to have a Plan B in case things get really bad.  Millions of people in the U.S. can trace their ancestry back to the so-called "Old Continent," even if these ties date back multiple generations. 

Long-lost connections to Europe gives them the right to apply for citizenship in the country that their ancestors left behind, granting them the right to live and work in the continent as a birthright, through a legal pathway called citizenship-by-descent.

Between 2023 and 2025, U.S. applications for citizenship-by-descent in Europe rose by up to 500 percent, according to firms facilitating the process such as Arton Capital and Latitude. 

During that period 80 percent of the applications targeted Italy, but the nation has since tightened its rules, making it harder for Italian Americans to obtain citizenship through their ancestors

22 towns ban smoking

Newsweek -   As of March 2026, 22 [Massachuetts] communities—home to more than 600,000 people—have passed what are known as Nicotine Free Generation ordinances. The laws work by raising the legal purchase age for tobacco by one year, every year, effectively ensuring that anyone born after a specific cutoff date—most commonly January 1, 2000—can never legally buy tobacco products in those towns, for the rest of their lives. Though they can still smoke in spaces where that is legal.

The movement traces its roots to Brookline, which in 2020 became the first place in the U.S. to pass such a law.

A convenience store owners' association challenged it in court, arguing it conflicted with the state's minimum purchase age of 21 and unconstitutionally discriminated against people born on or after January 1, 2000. In early 2024, Massachusetts's Supreme Judicial Court sided with Brookline, ruling that towns had the legal authority to enact such bans. That decision opened the floodgates. Within two years, 21 more communities had followed.

Globally, only a small number of jurisdictions have successfully enacted generational tobacco bans: the Indian Ocean island nation of the Maldives, and these 22 towns in the New England state.

The communities that have adopted Nicotine Free Generation regulations are: Amherst, Belchertown, Brookline, Chelsea, Concord, Conway, Dover, Hardwick, Hopkinton, Leverett, Malden, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Melrose, Needham, Newton, Pelham, Reading, Somerville, South Hadley, Stoneham, Wakefield and Winchester.

Donald Trump

Newsweek -   A House Democrat introduced a bill on April 20 that would bar a sitting president from naming public buildings after themselves, following a wave of Trump-linked renaming efforts. The proposal comes amid backlash over President Donald Trump's name and likeness being added to prominent cultural institutions and federal programs during his second term.  If enacted, the bill would block Trump and future presidents from attaching their names to public buildings while in office.

The Hill  - President Trump said Wednesday that “certain” conservative justices on the Supreme Court have “gone weak, stupid, and bad,” tearing into them for a recent decision on tariffs and skepticism over his effort to limit birthright citizenship.  Trump slammed “Republican” justices in a lengthy Truth Social post, arguing that they “don’t stick together” like their liberal counterparts.

“The Democrat Justices stick together like glue, NEVER failing to wander from the warped and perverse policies, ideas, and cases put before them,” he wrote, claiming conservatives on the court have given Democrats “win after win” by doing the opposite.  

“No, certain ‘Republican’ Justices have just gone weak, stupid, and bad, completely violating what they ‘supposedly’ stood for,” the president added.

Washington Post - The Trump administration’s contract governing hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations to build President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom shields donors’ identities, excludes the White House from conflict of interest protections and was disclosed only after a lawsuit and a judge’s order, records obtained by The Washington Post show.

The agreement establishing the legal and financial framework for the planned $400 million undertaking — the most significant change to the White House in decades — was signed in early October, less than two weeks before demolition crews started destroying the East Wing. Public Citizen, a government watchdog organization, sued to obtain the contract between the White House, the National Park Service and the Trust for the National Mall, the nonprofit managing donations for the project, and shared the document with The Post.

“The Trump administration’s failure to disclose this contract was flatly unlawful,” said Wendy Liu, a Public Citizen attorney and lead counsel on the lawsuit, filed after the Park Service and the Interior Department failed to fulfill a public records request for the document. “The American people are entitled to transparency over this multi-million-dollar project.”

Reuters - The fallout from President Donald Trump’s unpopular Big Beautiful Bill keeps hitting impoverished red states harder than others a hospitals and voters come to terms with yawning debt and healthcare cuts threatening critical hospitals.

Mississippi Today reports state lawmakers face a “daunting task” trying to fill the holes Trump blasted into the state budget with his looming federal cuts. Unhappy with their options, the Republican-dominated legislature failed to address some of the most pressing issues with Trump’s cuts during the legislative session, so the looming blast holes are still waiting.

Mississippi is one of many impoverished state with a high percentage of uninsured population who do not reimbursement hospitals for visits. But Mississippi Today reports Medicaid is expected to lose $1 billion over the course of the next decade as a result of “Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill signed into law in July.” To further complicate matters, Republicans let federal enhanced premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act Marketplace insurance expire late last year, making health care much more expensive for “hundreds of thousands of Mississippians.”

Weather

Washington Post -    A massive ocean hot spot is stretching across a 5,000-mile swath of the Pacific — from Micronesia to the coastal waters of California. Across this zone, waters are as much as 6 to 8 degrees above average.

And it has the attention of climate scientists, who say it could boost temperatures, humidity and the threat for tropical storms in the West during the months ahead. Climate scientist Daniel Swain described this increasingly extreme marine heat wave as an “exceptional event” that’s breaking records.

The unusual ocean anomaly — the largest on the planet — could expand and intensify to cover the entire Pacific coast of North America by late summer, he wrote.

Newly nominated FED chair

New Republic - Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego should be commended for some excellent fact-checking of Trump crony Kevin Warsh on Tuesday.

Warsh is Trump’s pick to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve after Jerome Powell’s term expires in May. During Warsh’s Senate committee confirmation hearing, Gallego tried to suss out whether Warsh was going to put the president’s political interests ahead of the country’s economic health.

“Earlier today, you said to Senator [John] Kennedy that President Trump never demanded you to cut interest rates in your job interview. Is that your sworn testimony?” Gallego asked.

“That is, Senator,” Warsh said.

“Well, someone here is lying, then,” Gallego replied. “It’s either you or President Trump. Because in an interview with The Wall Street Journal of December 12, President Trump confirmed he pressed you on your commitment to support interest rate cuts.”

Gallego helpfully cited the Journal article for Warsh: “During a 45-minute meeting … the president pressed Warsh on whether he could trust him to support interest-rate cuts if he were chosen to lead the central bank, according to people familiar with the meeting. Trump, in the Journal interview, confirmed that reporting.”

Warsh responded by claiming the reporters who wrote the story—Meridith McGraw, Nick Timiraos, and Brian Schwartz—were fibbing:

“Senator, there’s, of course, a third alternative. You cite a couple of reporters for a leading financial newspaper.… I think those reporters either need better sources, or better journalistic standards.”

MS Now - There was one question hanging over the room during Tuesday’s meeting of the Senate Banking Committee. According to the hearing schedule, the gathered senators were there to adjudicate Kevin Warsh’s nomination to become the next chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Matters of monetary policy were discussed, but the focus would inevitably return to whether Warsh, if confirmed, would stand up to President Donald Trump and ensure the independence of the Fed from political pressure.

 

It’s an issue that barely came up in the most recent confirmation hearings for a new chair, nine years ago. The good news is that Warsh was adamant about having no interest in merely doing Trump’s bidding as chair. “I do not believe that independence of monetary policy is threatened when elected officials state their views on rates,” Warsh declared in his opening remarks. “Fed independence is up to the Fed.”

 

Much more troubling, however, was Warsh’s response to a simple question from the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.: “Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?” It is not the sort of complicated economic issue that he’d expect to oversee, though it still had a simple factual answer. And his response wasn’t encouraging given the pressure Trump has placed on Warsh’s predecessor and the current Fed Chair Jerome Powell. More

Work

The American Prospect  -  The American labor movement will soon have something it’s never had before: a centralized strike fund. Union Now, the new nonprofit and brainchild of Association of Flight Attendants-CWA International President Sara Nelson, began officially fundraising at a kickoff rally on Sunday, April 12th, in Manhattan. National leaders of the Democratic left were there in support; both Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani made rousing speeches, which suggests that the supporters Union Now hopes to enlist will go beyond those who are already union activists.

The Union Now fund will be a centralized, national clearinghouse to get money directly into the hands of workers, Nelson told the Prospect. Too often, workers want to organize but can’t because of money. Some are working two jobs so don’t have the time; some get fired illegally for attempting to organize. Funds from Union Now will supplement the incomes of those still employed so they can spend time organizing rather than on that second job, Nelson said, and financially support those who have been illegally fired while they contest the dismissal or get a new job. Grant applications will be available following the inaugural fundraising; Union Now is deciding how it will approve grants and is considering using a workers’ council to do so.

Britain moves to ban smoking

NY Times -  Britain aims to raise a “smoke-free generation” by permanently banning the sale or supply of tobacco and vape products to anyone born in 2009 or after, with a bill that was approved by Parliament on Tuesday. The bill applies to people currently 17 years old or younger and aims to keep them from ever picking up the habit in their lifetime. The proposal is expected to soon go into law after the final formality of approval by King Charles III.

Immigration

Congressional Insider -    A wave of immigration-judge firings is colliding with a 3.7 million-case backlog, raising a blunt question: is Washington fixing a broken system—or just swapping one set of “elites” for another?

....The Justice Department has fired more than 20 immigration judges without public explanation as the court backlog exceeds 3.7 million cases.

The dispute highlights a broader tug-of-war over border enforcement, executive control of immigration courts, and the meaning of “due process” inside an overwhelmed system.

Global electricity sources

Data: Ember; Chart: Ben Geman/Axios

Axios - Global electricity generation from renewables edged past coal in 2025, per new analysis by Ember, a clean energy think tank.

The inflection point with renewables — mostly hydro, solar, wind and bioenergy — helped to keep CO2 emissions from power essentially flat even as consumption rose, it found.

A separate report Monday from the International Energy Agency reached a similar conclusion. It showed coal, long the world's largest power source, barely hanging onto the title last year. Coal and renewables both had about a 34% share, with the former an inch ahead, IEA found.

 Both reports show solar's growth is doing lots of heavy lifting in 2026, even though it remains a small share of total global generation (8.7% last year by Ember's tally).

Space

1440 - NASA unveiled its Roman Space Telescope yesterday, an instrument that could allow researchers to observe an area of the cosmos 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope. See the telescope here.  Roman could help scientists find exoplanets by identifying distortions in starlight that may indicate a planet passing in front of stars. The telescope also aims to answer questions about the formation of the universe as well as dark matter and dark energy (what’s the difference?). The observatory, estimated to cost over $4B, will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Florida as soon as this fall.