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Senate Democrats moved June 25 to propose more than tripling the current federal minimum wage, introducing legislation that would raise it to $25 an hour over the next five years.

The "Living Wage for All Act," led by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, would phase in the increase based on company size and eliminate the tipped minimum wage, underscoring an aggressive push by progressives to address rising costs as the federal rate has remained at $7.25 since 2009.

"There is no reason that somebody should go to work full-time in this country and not be able to pay their bills," Murphy said at a news conference. "It is time that everybody who works makes a dignified wage."

Under the proposal, companies with 500 or more workers would have until 2031 to reach a $25 hourly minimum wage, while smaller businesses would have until 2038 to meet the same threshold. The bill would also eliminate lower wages for restaurant servers and other workers who rely on tips.

The legislation comes as economic concerns remain top of mind for many Americans. About 60% disapprove of President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a recent PBS News/NPR/Marist poll, and 45% say they are not planning to take a summer vacation in 2026.

The Senate effort builds on a broader push among Democrats to raise pay.

In April, a group of House Democrats led by Reps. Delia Ramirez of Illinois and Analilia Mejia of New Jersey introduced similar legislation seeking to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour.

The federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25 an hour since 2009, following a three-step increase under the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007.

While the federal rate has not changed in more than a decade, 30 states and Washington, DC, now have minimum wages above that level.

Russia is planning an armed “provocation” on Polish soil to test Nato’s resolve, the United States has warned.

Polish critical infrastructure could be targeted by missiles and drones or Russian soldiers could cross the border into Nato territory.

Washington has issued several warnings to Warsaw about the plot, sources close to Karol Nawrocki, the Polish president, told Onet, the Polish news outlet, which, along with The Telegraph, is owned by Axel Springer and is part of its Global Reporters Network.

The goal of the Russian provocation would be to escalate tensions and force Western allies to suspend aid to Ukraine. It could be launched in a matter of months.

Polish security sources have also not ruled out a more conventional attack, such as a small ground incursion of Russian soldiers across Nato’s eastern flank.

According to Onet’s security sources, provocation scenarios could include a drone attack on critical infrastructure, such as power stations, or simulated air strikes that would force Poland to activate its air defence systems.

One Polish intelligence source said that in the most extreme scenario, a “hybrid attack in the border region” could occur.

The same source said an armed incursion involving Russian or Belarusian soldiers was conceivable.

This could be presented by Russia as an accidental straying into Polish territory because of a GPS failure, or as a dubious rescue mission to retrieve a helicopter suffering from a malfunction.

Russia would count on the fact that, instead of opening fire on Russian or Belarusian soldiers in such a situation, Poland would be forced by the US to negotiate with Russia or Belarus rather than respond forcefully, Polish sources told Onet.

A scenario in which the Russians would withdraw from Poland as a result of those negotiations, rather than because they were forced to do so by military means, would be seen as a win from Moscow’s perspective.

An end to Western support for Ukraine could even be a central Russian demand of such talks in return for withdrawal from Poland.

The US “systematically informs Poland about ever-new Russian plans for a conventional attack on Nato’s eastern flank, from which Poland is by no means excluded”, said a source close to the Polish president.

A second source, an ambassador to one of Poland’s allies in the Nato alliance, also confirmed that a provocation in one of the Baltic states and/or Poland is a serious risk, as did a third source in the Polish defence ministry.

A fourth Baltic security source confirmed to The Telegraph that such plans were under discussion in Moscow. Russia may then attempt to claim the provocation was carried out by Ukraine afterwards.

Any ground-based attack by Russia could be staged either from Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave to the north of Poland which hosts nuclear weapons, or from Belarus to the east.

Such methods are Russia’s only realistic means of staging a provocation. Because its forces are tied up in Ukraine, it lacks the capacity to wage full-scale war on Nato allies.

While Poland remains a staunch security ally of Ukraine, relations have become strained in recent months because of differing views on Second World War-era history and the two countries’ competing farming industries. It is feared Moscow may seek to widen that rift.

The Telegraph also understands that a recent naval exercise in Latvia, in which the US navy and marines played a central role, was designed to remind Moscow that any attack on the eastern flank would be a de facto attack on American troops.

In a worst-case scenario for Nato, Russia’s aim would be to undermine Polish sovereignty, expose Nato as a paper tiger, and force the withdrawal of Western support for Ukraine – all without triggering a conventional war with the alliance.

A member of the Polish ministry of defence’s leadership confirmed to Onet the possibility of a Russian provocation, but noted that Poland had already conducted exercises aimed at warning Moscow of a devastating Nato response.

From Moscow’s perspective, a provocation directed at Poland would be a better option than a provocation against one of the Baltic states, European security sources said.

Onet’s sources stressed that any Russian provocation would not resemble a “classic” or conventional war, and that Moscow had not yet fully committed to conducting one.

Poland shares borders with Belarus, a Russian puppet state controlled by Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Vladimir Putin, and the exclave of Kaliningrad.

The Telegraph understands that Nato could respond to any Russian provocation with direct attacks on Kaliningrad, which has been cited as a potential target by Holger Neumann, the German air force chief.

Last month, the head of the Luftwaffe told The Telegraph that Germany would defend “every inch” of Nato territory including Poland if it were forced to act defensively.

He singled out Kaliningrad, St Petersburg, which hosts key naval assets, the Kola Peninsula, where Moscow is amassing nuclear weapons, and the Black Sea – home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet – as potential targets in the event of a conflict.

For U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the fight over transgender rights has become a test of whether Democrats understand the stakes of this political moment.

The Washington Democrat believes the attacks on transgender people are following a familiar pattern. She sees a powerful political movement targeting a vulnerable community to distract from the failures of those already in power. Before transgender people, she says, Republicans went after immigrants and, before that, marriage equality. The target changes. The tactic endures.

As the country moves toward the midterms, with President Donald Trump again using the federal government to narrow the rights of LGBTQ+ people, Jayapal is urging Democrats to hold their ground. Running from transgender people abandons those who need protection while doing little to shield Democrats from Republican attacks, she said.

“I have critiques of my own party because I think often what we do is we tend to move away from whatever feels controversial,” Jayapal told The Advocate. “So in this case, LGBTQIA rights, it’s like, OK, don’t talk about trans folks too much, don’t give a defense, be reasonable, be moderate.”

She rejects that premise. “I happen to think it is reasonable and moderate to stand up for any marginalized community,” she said, “trans people being at the center of so many of those attacks today.”

The scale of the campaign is hard to dismiss. The American Civil Liberties Union’s 2026 state legislative tracker is monitoring 530 anti-LGBTQ+ bills this year, many aimed squarely at transgender people. They span nearly every arena of public life: gender-affirming care, school sports, bathrooms, identity documents, forced outing in schools, curriculum censorship, and efforts to redefine sex in law in ways that exclude transgender and nonbinary people from civil rights protections. The ACLU says such state-level attacks have escalated dramatically since 2015.

Jayapal sees that escalation as a civil rights emergency and a governing strategy. “The misinformation and the hatred that the right is driving of a tiny community that has literally done nothing to hurt anybody,” she said, “has just been really, really hard and cruel and awful to have to watch and to have to fight every single day.”

The central midterm question, she believes, is whether Democrats can defend transgender people without letting Republicans dictate the terms. “I think people want fighters,” she said, “and they want fighters who will build big coalitions to take on the real villains.”

Jayapal, who represents Seattle and the surrounding areas in Washington’s 7th District, is chair emerita of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus’s Transgender Equality Task Force. In February, she reintroduced the Transgender Bill of Rights with Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Reps. Sara Jacobs and Mark Takano of California.

The resolution frames federal protection for transgender and nonbinary people in affirmative terms rather than as an endless series of emergency responses, calling on the government to advance protections so people can live authentically and with dignity.

“I’ve also laid out a vision in my Trans Bill of Rights of what it really means to get to full trans equality,” she said. “When I first introduced the bill many sessions ago, I worked on it with leading trans activists and advocates from around the country. We really saw it as a roadmap forward.” It began with about 20 co-sponsors; it now has 107, and she expects that number to keep climbing.

“There are many civil rights protections that we need to embed and reaffirm, even though we thought that maybe they were there,” she said, “but we’re seeing where the attacks are.”

Jayapal’s prescription is to explain transgender rights with more force, patience, and humanity. On sports, she said Democrats should make clear that athletics benefit all children and that conservative policies would require invasive enforcement. “I think we have to counter the misinformation that’s out there about trans kids in sports and make it clear that all our kids get to play sports,” she said.

She also wants Democrats to talk about privacy. “I don’t think they want their daughters to be surveilled in school and have to have incredibly invasive examinations of their private parts to determine whether or not they’re women,” she said. “That’s the only way that these policies get implemented.”

Still, she distinguishes between operatives pushing the laws and parents who are confused or afraid. With parents, the work begins with listening. “Just because somebody may have an initial different opinion from me, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have valid concerns,” she said. Most of the time, she finds common ground. “We’re parents, we’re worried about our kids, we want the best for our kids,” she said.

Patience, though, is not silence. “I also don’t think that means we can’t call out hate when we see it,” she explained. “I want other kids to be happy and free to be who they are because I want my kid to be happy and free to be who they are.” Jayapal, who has spoken before about having a transgender child, said the era’s rhetoric is personally painful and that she lets people see both her control and her anger. “It’s hurtful to me as a parent.”

That principle shapes how she talks about Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first out transgender member of Congress. Allies, Jayapal said, must help carry the load. “It shouldn’t be incumbent just on Sarah to call these things out. That’s why I’m happy to be an ally in that fight.” McBride, she said, has endured repeated disrespect from Republican colleagues and sometimes simply asks allies to be present. “How do we stand in support of and alongside so that it’s not coming to the only trans woman in Congress to be the one who’s always standing up? She deserves to be who she fully is.”

If Democrats retake the House, Jayapal said, they must do more than reverse Trump’s policies — they must deliver on housing, food, health care, and affordability, with legislation that explicitly includes transgender people. She pointed to her Medicare for All bill and its inclusion of protections for transgender care. “We need to pass those kinds of comprehensive, inclusive policies.”

She said that people who can’t afford the basics are more vulnerable to scapegoating. “People are going to be much more likely to blame somebody else if they can’t get their own housing,” she said. The Democratic answer, then, must pair economic populism with civil rights.

Asked what she would tell transgender people who wonder whether anyone in Congress sees them, she said, “I see you. I love you. I’m going to fight for you. I’m not going to throw you under the bus. Your freedom is not a threat to anyone else’s.”

She added, “Don’t give up, because hopelessness and powerlessness are tools of the oppressor.”

The debate over banning Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) gained new impetus this week when the Society for Civil Rights (GFF) presented a legal assessment which concluded that the party was "demonstrably unconstitutional" and that an attempt to ban it could be successful.

The GFF was originally founded by a Green Party politician, who still serves as its Secretary General, but the board is made up of lawyers and law professors. The NGO's team of legal experts and researchers said they spent a year combing through 77,000 parliamentary documents, 55,000 press releases and 2.9 million social media posts to "examine the AfD according to academic standards." The researchers said that the report represented "the first comprehensive assessment on the unconstitutionality of the AfD" that would "significantly improve the basis for a discussion on a ban."

However, any attempt to ban the party is likely to be politically explosive, not least because the AfD is currently the most popular political party in Germany, with up to 29% vote share nationwide in some polls.

A ban would only be possible if a motion is filed to the Federal Constitutional Court, and only three constitutional bodies have the power to do that: The federal government or either of the two chambers of Germany's parliament: The Bundestag or the Bundesrat.

Presenting the GFF report in Berlin on Thursday, project leader Bijan Moini, said, "the AfD opposes the principle of democracy by seeking to suppress its political opponents. And it opposes human dignity because its racially charged political concept, much like that of the NPD, establishes different classes of people."

But the NPD is perhaps not the best example to use: Two attempts to ban the National Democratic Party of Germany, which harbors many outright neo-Nazis, have already failed — most recently in 2017.

Nevertheless, the GFF is confident that proceedings to ban the AfD could be successful.

Moini points to the three defining characteristics of the free democratic order: Human dignity, democracy, and the rule of law. "The Federal Constitutional Court has made it clear: If a party opposes one of these features, it opposes the free democratic basic order as a whole," he said.

Moini is convinced that the AfD fulfills these criteria. For one thing, Moini says the party's public statements show that it has a racist view of who constitutes a German citizen, which on its own could be deemed unconstitutional. "What is decisive, however, is not that the AfD is shaped by such a concept of the people, but that it intends to put it into practice," Moini said.

By a similar token, Moini argues that the AfD's threats to prosecute governing politicians amount to an attack on democratic processes: "It calls … for prison sentences for decisions that it does not agree with politically," he said. "The breeding ground for these demands is an ideology that views political opponents not as equal participants in democratic competition, but as traitors to the people."

The GFF report provides numerous examples of this, citing Weidel's promise in 2019 that she would "personally ensure that Angela Merkel ultimately ends up in court." In 2022, Stephan Brandner, one of the AfD's more prominent Bundestag members, said that one day, "a feisty justice minister and a feisty prosecutor" would take on both Merkel and her successor Olaf Scholz.

Moini believes statements like these are enough to demonstrate the AfD's alleged unconstitutionality, because "the basis for these demands is not potential criminal offenses, but democratically legitimate decisions regarding migration policy, the COVID-19 pandemic … the nuclear phase-out, and Ukraine policy."

There doesn't seem to be the political appetite for a ban at the moment: The last time the Bundestag addressed the issue, in January 2025, only 124 out of 733 members were in favor of calling for a ban. The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and many members of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) were opposed to pursuing a ban.

For her part, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel dismissed the report, pouncing on the fact that the AI system Claude Opus had been used to analyze some AfD officials' statements (though the report also said that the AI analyses had been checked by a human).

"As suspected, the NGO's 'report' was generated using AI, and the allegations are completely far-fetched," Weidel wrote on X. "It's a joke like no other. Instead of pursuing sound policies, the other parties are taking potshots at us in a scandalously amateurish manner."

A U.S. Army officer who secretly gave abortion medication to a pregnant junior enlisted soldier, causing the loss of her unborn child, was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty at a court-martial.

Capt. Brandon Jones-Adams, 34, pleaded guilty to intentionally killing an unborn child, domestic violence, fraternization and conduct unbecoming of an officer during a military trial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, according to a Thursday statement from Michelle McCaskill, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Office of Special Trial Counsel.

Jones-Adams secretly administered Mifepristone to the soldier — who was carrying the pair’s child — resulting in an abortion.

“Capt. Jones-Adams’ actions were deliberate, calculated, and malicious. By committing these crimes, he inflicted profound harm on his victim and betrayed the trust place[d] in him as an Army officer,” said Circuit Chief Lt. Col. Tyler Heimann, Sixth Circuit, Army Office of Special Trial Counsel in a statement.

Under the terms of his plea agreement, a judge could have sentenced Jones-Adams to between four and 12 years in prison. The officer, assigned to the 23rd Brigade Engineer Battalion, 1-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 7th Infantry Division, Multi-Domain Command Pacific, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and dismissal from the Army, which is the dishonorable discharge equivalent for officers.

Jones-Adams will start his sentence at the Northwestern Joint Correctional Facility, according to McCaskill.

AI GPU maker Nvidia just announced a “hotter than a hot tub” liquid cooling system that it says will cut water and electricity use. According to the company, this new solution will run coolant — composed of 75% water and 25% propylene glycol — at 113 degrees F (45 deg C). By comparison, the water in hot tubs hovers at 100 to 104 degrees F (38 to 40 deg C). This feels counterintuitive, but the company says that the “cool” water is enough to handle the heat generated by Nvidia’s Rubin chips and exit the system at 131 degrees F (55 deg C).

Traditional water-cooling methods, especially those that use chillers, often account for nearly 40% of a data center’s power consumption. Aside from that, these systems must often deal with water loss through evaporation. On the other hand, air-cooled facilities also use a considerable amount of electricity, plus they also generate noise pollution. On the other hand, Nvidia says that this new solution uses a lot fewer resources because of its higher base temperature.

Since 113 degrees F is often higher than ambient temperature, data centers can simply rely on outdoor dry coolers to expel the heat to the environment. This is also a closed-loop system; Nvidia claims an up to 100% reduction in water consumption — it’s “filled once and runs closed for the life of the facility.” This solution is most effective in regions with cooler climates, but it should still be effective in warmer areas as long as the ambient temperature is below 113 degrees F.

Data centers that face occasional temperature swings that exceed this limit may still be required to turn on their chillers. Nevertheless, this should still reduce resource consumption, as it only needs to run them a few times per year. Aside from that, this should also allow these systems to run more efficiently, as the chillers don’t have to work as hard to hit the target temperature. It’s estimated that increasing a chiller plant’s target temperature by 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C) would reduce electricity costs by 4%. This means that data centers would save significantly on power consumption if they set their chiller units to the 70 to 75 degrees F (21 to 24 degrees C) that traditional chillers run, according to Vertiv, to the 113 degrees F (45 degrees C) that Nvidia recommends for its Rubin chips.

This solution addresses several of the issues that many local governments raised that led to the delay of more than 75 data centers earlier this year. However, it will likely take time for this cooling system to roll out to new and existing projects, so we expect the delays and resistance to continue until Nvidia’s liquid cooling system gains wider adoption. Furthermore, this only addresses the water use of the data center itself — the GPU servers themselves still require massive amounts of electricity.

A federal judge handed Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union a significant victory on behalf of transgender young people and their families on Wednesday, temporarily blocking the Trump administration from obtaining identifying information and sensitive medical records belonging to people who received gender-affirming care as minors in New York City.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla restrained the Department of Justice from seeking, receiving, using, or disseminating the information through grand jury or administrative subpoenas. She also prohibited NYU Langone Health from turning over protected records.

Failla provisionally certified a class covering people who received treatment for gender dysphoria while younger than 18 at New York City health care institutions, including NYU Langone and Mount Sinai Health System, from January 1, 2020, through May 5, 2026.

The ruling follows months of retreat by New York hospitals under federal pressure. NYU Langone ended its Transgender Youth Health Program in February after the administration threatened federal funding for institutions providing gender-affirming care to minors. Mount Sinai curtailed care days later. Then, in May, NYU Langone notified patients that federal prosecutors in Texas had subpoenaed records and provider identities, prompting three families and two young adults to sue before the hospital could disclose them.

The judge found that the patients would face irreparable harm without intervention and were substantially likely to prevail on claims that the subpoenas violated their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. Disclosure by NYU Langone would also likely breach New York’s physician-patient confidentiality protections, she concluded.

"The subpoena expressly targeting members of a particular and uniquely vulnerable group both shocks ⁠the conscience and rises to the level of the most egregious official conduct," Failla said during a hearing earlier in the day, according to Reuters.

The Justice Department has said the records are connected to an investigation into possible drug “misbranding.” The plaintiffs argue that the inquiry is a pretext for the administration’s campaign to eliminate gender-affirming care.

“Using subpoenas to attain the identities and sensitive health information of transgender young people … should send chills down the spine of every American,” Lambda Legal attorney Omar Gonzalez-Pagan said in a statement.

Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project, said families should be able to trust doctors to protect their private information from “impermissible and harassing demands.”

Judges on both U.S. coasts will determine where transgender inmates are housed and what protections from discriminatory treatment they still enjoy. The cases are unfolding as transgender inmates across the nation argue that being housed in prisons inconsistent with their gender identity constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The Washington state Supreme Court this week heard arguments from Amber Kim, a trans woman, who claims the state violated her constitutional rights by transferring her to a men’s prison. The transfer reversed a 2021 decision to move Kim from a men’s facility to a women’s prison after the state enacted a policy guaranteeing incarcerated people access to gender-affirming care, according to The Seattle Times. The state is now one of several under investigation by the Trump administration for housing transgender women in female corrections facilities.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Florida said a trial can proceed regarding the treatment of transgender inmates housed in men’s facilities. However, Chief U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor said the court won’t hear arguments over whether those inmates must have access to hormone therapy and will consider only social accommodations, such as haircuts and grooming standards, citing jurisdictional issues.

Those developments come after a judge in Washington, D.C., this month said the federal Bureau of Prisons must continue providing gender dysphoria medication to transgender inmates, at least for now. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth issued an injunction blocking a Trump administration policy that would stop providing hormone therapy to adult inmates.

The same D.C. judge also ruled this month that the Trump administration cannot move forward right now with plans to transfer 14 trans women into a men’s facility. He said that the inmates challenging the move would likely prevail with an argument that such a transfer would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

That federal case sets a backdrop for the case in Washington. Kim has remained in solitary confinement since her transfer to a male facility, choosing isolation out of fear for her personal safety. She also argues that returning her to a men’s prison constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The agency transferred her back to a men’s facility after she had sex with a cellmate, something her attorney argued was a “routine infraction” that could have been addressed within the prison rather than by transferring her to a men’s facility and putting her safety at risk.

Deputy Solicitor General Emma Grunberg said the state still found the incident to be “problematic sexual activity,” even though there has been no allegation that the encounter was not consensual. But Grunberg also said housing decisions are reviewed routinely.

When the case was argued before the state Supreme Court, Justice G. Helen Whitener questioned why the state handled the matter in a way it would never consider for a cisgender inmate. “Why is DOC’s treatment of Ms. Kim not considered arbitrary?” Whitener asked.

Harmeet Dhillon, who runs the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the Trump administration, sent a letter in May to Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson arguing that the housing of transgender women in women’s facilities violates the rights of cisgender female inmates and that the state “has failed to protect female prisoners from sexual and physical violence, harassment, voyeurism, and intimidation from male prisoners who identify as female.”

The Washington Supreme Court likely will not issue its ruling for months.

The Florida case before Winsor will begin on July 6. The judge said the trial won’t address hormone therapy because provisions have allowed the inmates suing to maintain access to care, even though the written policy still prohibits it. He will consider whether the plaintiffs, who include transgender men and transgender women, must be afforded social accommodations, including “clothing and grooming accommodations.”

He also noted that in September 2024, the Florida Department of Corrections changed its policy and stopped providing transgender female inmates with access to makeup, bras, and other accommodations, and stopped allowing them to wear long hair. In allowing the case to go forward, Winsor made clear in an order the threshold plaintiffs must reach to be successful in the case, including proving that Florida officials acted with “subjective recklessness as used in the criminal law,” and knew enforcing the new policy would put inmates “at substantial risk of serious harm.”

“This is a heavy burden, but the ‘whole point’ of the subjective requirement is ‘to isolate those who inflict punishment within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment,’” Winsor wrote.

The Supreme Court found Thursday that the government's prosecution of a marijuana user for owning guns was inconsistent with the Second Amendment.

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The decision was unanimous.

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"The Court's decision is narrow," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote. "It does not address efforts to ban addicts or those presently intoxicated from possessing a firearm; other prophylactic laws Congress might adopt after determining that users of a particular drug pose a special risk of misusing firearms ... provision disarming individuals convicted of felonies; or whether the government could bring a prosecution ... accompanied by individualized proof that the defendant's drug use renders him a danger to himself or others, or proof that a certain drug always renders its users dangerous."

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The case stems from the arrest of Ali Hemani. In 2022, federal agents found a pistol and 60 grams of marijuana in a search of Hemani's home. When asked, Hemani told the agents that he uses marijuana "about every other day," according to court filings. On the basis of his drug use and gun ownership, the government convicted Hemani of violating the law at issue in this case. This is the same law that was used to convict President Biden's son Hunter in 2024.

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Hemani challenged the law as unconstitutional, contending that it violated his Second Amendment right to bear arms and is unconstitutionally vague.

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The law prevents "unlawful" drug users from owning guns, but as his lawyers pointed out in filings to the Supreme Court, "the statute does not define "unlawful user."

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"Is someone who uses a controlled substance once a year "an unlawful user"? What about someone who uses that substance every six months, or every two weeks?," they argued. "Does it matter how much one consumes, or only how frequently one does so? The statute does not say."

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To enforce the law against Hemani, they argued in court filings, "would empower the government to deprive tens of millions of Americans who pose little if any risk of firearm misuse of a fundamental constitutional right."

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The government contended that the law was not vague, and that it only used the law against "habitual users" of illegal drugs. Further, the government said that laws like this one are similar to laws from the founding, when states restricted the gun rights of "habitual drunkards." But Hemani's lawyers responded that the phrase "habitual user" is no less vague than "unlawful user."

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The Supreme Court agreed with Hemani's concerns.

A federal judge on Tuesday granted a request for a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of H.B. 752, a new Idaho law that would have threatened transgender people with up to five years in prison for using public restrooms consistent with their gender identity instead of their biological sex at birth.

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H.B. 752 had been set to take effect July 1. The court’s order limits enforcement of the law, protecting access to some restrooms while the legal challenge continues.

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Signed into law earlier this year by Idaho Gov. Brad Little, H.B. 752 prohibits people in Idaho from using sex-designated public restrooms not matching their sex at birth in public. The law applies to government-owned buildings and private businesses open to the public, including libraries, rest stops, malls, gas stations, restaurants, entertainment venues, hospitals and other businesses. It would make a first offense a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison and a second offense a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

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In April 2026, six transgender Idaho residents filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging H.B. 752, arguing it violates constitutional rights to due process, equal protection and privacy.

The state of Israel is “the most successful land‑back project, the greatest decolonization project,” a New Zealand Māori activist told the first-of-its-kind Building Indigenous‑Jewish Friendship conference in Toronto.

“From my Māori perspective, a key point is that there was always a continuous Jewish presence in the land; they kept the fires burning, and that is what indigeneity looks like to us,” Dr. Sheree Trotter told roughly 70 activists, academics and community figures convened at Toronto’s Beth Torah synagogue on Monday.

The conference was the culmination of a weekend of local Indigenous-Jewish programming that included nearly 40 Indigenous people marching in the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto’s Walk with Israel, a Sunday dinner-talk with Concordia University professor Csaba Nikolenyi on early 20th-century Zionism, and a Sabbath lecture by Justice Harry S. LaForme at Temple Sinai.

“Indigeneity is demonstrated by historical, collective continuity with a distinct ethnic identity, language, culture, rituals or traditions, economic, social, legal, and religious and spiritual belief systems that predate subsequent invaders or colonizers,” LaForme told Temple Sinai congregants.

LaForme is Anishibaabe, and a member of the Mississauga of the Credit First Nation. In 1994 he was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Justice, and in 2004 was appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal and is the first Indigenous lawyer to be appointed to an appellate court in Canada.

Karen Restoule, an Ojibwe from Dokis First Nation and director of Indigenous affairs at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, told attendees at Beth Torah that “political movements” have co-opted “Indigenous identity” and the term is “increasingly being treated as a universal political language, borrowed when convenient and deployed in conflicts that arise from very different histories.”

“Increasingly, indigenous identity is being treated as a metaphor, a branding exercise, a political strategy. Indigeneity isn’t any of that; it is a lived reality rooted in specific people and place.”

She added: “Jewish people really need to own their indigeneity for themselves. Even if you don’t live in Israel, your people originate there, and you are part of an indigenous people to that land.”

The conversation often focused on building a shared framework for allyship — positioning dialogue and relationship-building as tools to counter misinformation about both communities. Sponsors also included the Israel Consulate of Toronto and Western Canada, Kanada House, Indigenous Embassy of Jerusalem, Allied Voices for Israel.

Robert Walker, assistant director of HonestReporting Canada, told the Post that “radical activists have weaponized everything from international law to indigenous lingo in their attempt to rewrite reality. That only works in a vacuum.

“The time has passed to permit this shameless inversion of reality to continue unchallenged. First Nations and Jews are both indigenous peoples who have a right to reclaim the truth from those who try to twist it.”

An annual event put on by members of Congress to honor fallen servicewomen was canceled this year after the Navy, Air Force and Space Force bowed out, citing Pentagon and White House policies on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, according to the Democratic members of the caucus leading the event.

The Bipartisan Women’s Caucus’ 28th annual wreath-laying ceremony is typically held at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The Democratic Women’s Caucus announced the cancellation on Monday.

A spokesperson with the Democratic half of the caucus told Task & Purpose that the Navy and the Air Force (answering for the Space Force) declined to participate due to White House and Department of Defense policies that bar participation in diversity, equity and inclusion or identity-related celebrations. The spokesperson said that the Army cited scheduling conflicts due to the service’s birthday, but it “had never been an issue prohibiting them from participating before.”

The spokesperson for the caucus said that the Marine Corps did not respond to the invitation. However, a defense official told Task & Purpose that the Marines had planned to attend the event until it was canceled and that the Corps has “supported it each year as long as anyone can remember, to include 2025.”

An Air Force spokesperson confirmed to Task & Purpose that the service declined to participate “in compliance” with a January 2025 Executive Order on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs and policies across the military and Department of Defense-issued guidance that directs the services to not use official resources to “host celebrations or events related to cultural awareness months.”

Army officials did not respond to Task & Purpose’s requests for comment in time for publication. Navy officials declined to comment and directed questions to the Department of Defense, which referred those questions back to the individual services.

Instead of the wreath-laying ceremony, members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus held a press conference on the Hill Wednesday morning. The vice chair of the caucus, Rep. Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio), said the annual Arlington event is done to honor the service of women veterans, which should not be controversial.

“Their contributions are a part of American history, and we should be expanding opportunities to recognize that service, not restricting it,” Sykes said. “It comes just days before Women’s Veterans Recognition Day, which is actually tomorrow, a day specifically set aside to recognize the contributions of women who have served our country. Instead of preparing to celebrate these women, we are here explaining why a ceremony dedicated to honoring them was effectively canceled.”

“Today’s cancellation is not happening in isolation,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.), a former Air Force officer, said. “For months we’ve been watching women’s contributions to our military be questioned, be diminished, and be erased. We’ve seen accomplishments that women leaders have had being removed or demoted. We’ve seen programs supporting servicewomen dismantled, and we’ve seen the false suggestion that women who have met every single military standard somehow still do not belong.”

The Department of Defense, for the first time in almost 10 years, has dramatically reduced its number of recognized religious faiths and belief systems by approximately 180. The reforms mark the first time the list has been officially revised since a memo was issued March 27, 2017, decreasing the total number of faiths from 211 to its new number of 31.

This latest revision to the faith codes comes at the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to the Tata-signed memo, done to “streamline the DoW collection of religious preferences collection for service members to enhance the delivery of targeted religious support from the Chaplaincy.” It calls for the previously instituted faith and belief codes to be revised within a 60-day period from the issuance of the memorandum.

“The new list will provide chaplains with clear, readily available information that will better enable them to anticipate the religious support needs of service members and to provide religious support activities that align with service members’ personal faith and practices,” Tata wrote.

He added that members will not be limited to the list of “religious affiliation codes” when selecting information for their dog tags. The revised list, according to documents obtained by Military.com, includes Agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, Islam (Muslims), Judaism, Sikh, and a wide range of Christian-based groups like Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans and Methodists.

This restructuring of faith codes, which help identify service members as well as the military in planning for appropriated religious coverage to include them, has now excluded minority faith/worldview groups including Atheists, Asatru, Deists, Druids, Eckankar, Heathens, Humanists, Magick, New Age churches, Pagan, Rosicrucianism, Shaman, Spiritualists, Troth, Unitarian Universalists and various Wiccans.

Here is the full list:

Agnostic (AN)

Baha'i faith (BH)

Buddhism (BU)

Christian - Assemblies of God (AG)

Christian - Baptist (BA)

Christian - Brethren (BR)

Christian - Catholic (CA)

Christian - Church of Christ (CC)

Christian - Church of God (CG)

Christian - Church of the Nazarene (CN)

Christian - Episcopal/Anglican (EA)

Christian - Evangelical (EV)

Christian - Jehovah's Witnesses (JW)

Christian - Lutheran (LU)

Christian - Methodist (ME)

Christian - Non Denominational (ND)

Christian - Orthodox (OX)

Christian - Other (CO)

Christian - Pentecostal (PE)

Christian - Presbyterian (PR)

Christian - Quaker (QU)

Christian - Reformed (RE)

Christian - Scientist (SC)

Christian - Seventh Day Adventist (SA)

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (CJ)

Hindu (HI)

Islam (Muslim) (IS)

Judaism (Jewish) (JU)

No Religion (NR)

Other Religions (OR)

Sikh (SI)

U.S. Special Operations Command will begin fielding the MK24 Medium Range Gas Gun Assault before the end of the fiscal year, furthering SOCOM’s shift away from legacy cartridges like the 7.62mm NATO round, according to a recent report.

Last August, SOCOM awarded the Iowa-based LMT Defense a 10-year contract to the tune of $92 million for the MRGG-A. At SOCOM’s request, the rifle features a swappable barrel, allowing operators to change between firing 7.62mm and 6.5mm Creedmoor cartridges.

“This thing isn’t just a gun, it’s a deployment package,” said Joe Hajny, an LMT Defense spokesman, about the multi-caliber chambering in an interview with Classic Firearms at this year’s Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show.

Hajny added that SOCOM prioritized “the quick barrel change.” He explained the logic is that when SOCOM operators are “out with the partner forces that don’t have access to 6.5, the field environment might switch, they could change the caliber if need be.”

With that, he said an operator can change the barrel in about a minute. As for the barrel itself, Hajny explained that it measures in at 14.5 inches, so the rifle feels more like an M4 carbine but operates like an M110 semi-automatic sniper rifle, which also uses the 7.62 cartridge.

Other services have also been shifting away from legacy cartridges like 7.62 and 5.56. The Army, for example, has been transitioning to its Next Generation Squad Weapons chambered in 6.8x51mm.

In 2021, SOCOM hosted an assessment event with its partner Special Operations Forces Works, or SOFWERX, to identify small arms weapon systems capable of greater accuracy at ranges past 1,200 meters.

Along with the MRGG-A, SOCOM expressed interest in a new sniper rifle and lightweight machine gun. After years of testing, the organization contracted Geissele Automatics for the MRGG Sniper rifle in 6.5 and Sig Sauer for the LMG-Medium in .338 Norma Magnum.

In a recent interview with The War Zone, Lt. Col. Alan Wood, SOCOM’s program manager for lethality, explained that like the 6.5mm, the .338 is “more effective on target” at “greater ranges” and the system overall — the rifle and ammo — could weigh “hundreds of pounds” less than the heavy .50-caliber round. Yet, SOCOM has paused fielding on the LMG.

As for the MRGG-A, Wood said, “It’s just a phenomenal, accurate weapon system for our SOF operators. All the components are super excited about this one.”

A divided federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. has blocked Donald Trump’s administration from removing transgender service members from the U.S. military, a major victory for trans troops who have been subjected to “demeaning” and “disparaging” orders from the president and the Pentagon, judges wrote.

The administration’s “arbitrary” policy is fueled by the administration’s “animus” towards trans people, according to Monday’s 2-1 ruling.

“Some of those disqualifications are completely unexplained and have no reasonable justification,” Judge Robert Wilkins wrote for the court. The policy is instead “driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender,” according to the ruling.

“As a result, this is not a case where we are left to speculate why the government drafted such broad, undifferentiated classifications,” he wrote. “Unless we are going to fall for the old Groucho Marx line — ‘who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?’— we have direct evidence in this case that animus motivated the classifications.”

Though the judges determined that the administration unlawfully removed trans service members, the ruling will allow the Pentagon to continue denying new trans recruits while the legal challenge is ongoing.

The decision largely upholds a March 2025 ruling from District Judge Ana Reyes, who found the policy “unabashedly demeaning” and “soaked in animus” without any basis in fact.

Appellate court judges analyzed a series of policy memos and other statements from officials who sought to defend the policy’s legitimacy against their countless public statements “disparaging” trans people, according to Wilkins.

The judges could not “ignore the disparaging statements repeatedly made by the decision makers,” Wilkins wrote.

“What has been clearly and repeatedly explained are the foundational premises of the Hegseth Policy: persons with a ‘false gender identity’ are unfit for the military, and persons with a history of gender dysphoria are also unfit because they lack ‘honesty, humility ... and integrity,’” he noted.

“All of these things, when taken together, demonstrate that the government’s stated reason for issuing the Hegseth Policy as based solely upon gender dysphoria was pretextual, and that instead, the Hegseth Policy was premised, at least in part, on a non-legitimate state interest to harm the politically unpopular group of transgender persons,” according to the ruling.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sent a letter to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's office submitting his resignation, London-based anti-regime outlet Iran International reported on Sunday.

An anonymous official told Iran International that the letter had called out the fact that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had effectively taken over large portions of the government, and that the president and other high-ranking officials had been cut out of vital decision-making.

Pezeshkian, the letter emphasized, was unable to run the government or fulfill his responsibilities under the circumstances, and as such, requested to resign.

Anonymous sources told Iran International that the primary source of the differences between Pezeshkian and the head of the IRGC, who is believed to currently hold the lion's share of power in the regime, was "the way the war was managed and its destructive consequences on the people's livelihoods and the country's economy."

Buried in the House's version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released on Tuesday, is section 224, entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” The provision would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received from the U.S. since its founding in 1948.

Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation. The U.S. and Israel already work together heavily on missile defense, but this provision would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more. It also proposes “network integration” and “data fusion.” In other words, the U.S. military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data.

If fully enacted, this proposal would provide a higher level of military-industrial integration than the U.S. has with any other country in the world. To be sure, the U.S. has worked closely with its NATO partners on co-production and shared supply chains, most notably via the Defence Production Action Plan. And, as the number one arms dealer in the world, the U.S. provides weapons to militaries across the globe. But that is mostly a one-way street, with the U.S. providing weapons to foreign buyers who only occasionally make parts for those weapons themselves, as in the case of the F-35’s global supply chain.

Section 224 would be a different beast entirely. It would fuse the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors in multiple areas vital to the battlefields of the future, like autonomous systems and cyber. It would also bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the U.S. beyond what it already has through the Israel lobby and its robust network of social media influencers. It would give the Israeli government the opportunity to greatly expand one of the most powerful levers of influence in U.S. politics: jobs in the U.S. By expanding or starting new co-production facilities like it already has in Mississippi and Arkansas, the Israeli government could boast of providing jobs on U.S. soil, thereby securing allies among members of Congress who represent the districts where those jobs lie.

This unprecedented level of U.S.-Israeli military integration stands in stark contrast to the traditional aid model of defense cooperation, in which Israel already stood out as the top recipient of U.S. military assistance. As laid out in a recent Quincy Institute brief, authored by Steven Simon, this shift from an aid model to a military integration model has troubling implications, namely:

>The shift will strip away the political and diplomatic oversight mechanisms that make the relationship publicly accountable, moving it from a visible annual aid vote into the opaque machinery of defense acquisition, where oversight is limited and political accountability is minimal. The result would be a defense relationship that is simultaneously deeper and less transparent.

This all comes at a time when the Israeli military has repeatedly used U.S. weapons in strikes that have violated international humanitarian laws in Gaza, and as Israel has repeatedly violated ceasefires (as has the U.S. itself) in the Trump administration’s unnecessary war with Iran.

California lawmakers may be backing away from a controversial age-verification requirement bill that alarmed Linux and open-source developers earlier this year, after a new amendment bill proposed exempting most open-source operating systems from the state’s upcoming Digital Age Assurance Act. In practice, that would likely exempt most mainstream Linux distributions — including Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, and Mint — from compliance requirements scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027.

The proposed amendment specifically states: “Operating system provider” does not mean a person or entity that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.

Under the original law, operating systems would be required to request a user’s age or birth date during device setup, then expose an “age bracket signal” to apps and app stores. The law, which defined brackets such as “under 13,” “13–15,” “16–17,” and “18+,” immediately raised questions about how such requirements would apply to decentralized, open-source software ecosystems.

Privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, criticized the legislation as invasive and warned it could create infrastructure for broader identity tracking online. Linux developers also questioned how California could realistically enforce such requirements on infinitely forkable open-source software projects.

Unlike Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android, most Linux distributions are not centrally controlled commercial platforms. Many are community-run projects maintained by volunteers, often without user accounts, telemetry systems, or even formal corporate ownership structures. Critics argued the law’s wording was so broad that it could technically force open-source operating systems to become age-verification platforms.

The House passed the Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act on May 21, delivering the first real increase in Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) since 1993, and a $10,000 permanent boost in Special Monthly Compensation for catastrophically disabled veterans. The bill addresses a decades-long gap in benefits for Gold Star families and veterans with the most severe service-connected injuries.

But the way Republicans chose to pay for it, by imposing new VA home loan fees on disabled veterans with ratings of 70 percent or below, turned what could have been a unifying moment into a sharp partisan fight.

To comply with PAYGO rules on a bill estimated to cost over $7 billion, Republicans proposed eliminating the VA home loan funding fee exemption for disabled veterans with ratings of 70 percent or below on their second and subsequent home purchases. Democrats and the Veterans of Foreign Wars argued that move breaks an 80-year promise to disabled veterans, who have never been required to pay that fee since the program's creation in 1944.

House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-IL) said, "Promises made, promises kept." He defended the offset at the December hearing, saying "Opening the funding fee is a realistic way to get this done. This bill costs over $7 billion and this is a path forward."

Ranking Member Mark Takano (D-CA) disagreed, saying "A veteran should never foot the bill for another veteran's benefits," and added, "This Administration allocates funds to its priorities, billions of dollars for tax breaks for the wealthy. But still, they need disabled vets to pay for our most vulnerable veterans and survivors?"

The Veterans of Foreign Wars, represented at the December hearing, opposed the offset, stating that "Disabled veterans have already paid in service, injury, and hardship. They should not be asked to pay again through fees."

Thirty Democrats crossed the aisle to vote yes, concentrated largely in competitive districts across California, Florida, Michigan, and New Hampshire. Only three Republicans voted no: Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO), Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), and Rep. Keith Self (R-TX).