u/Shizzilx

A large amount of new “damning” evidence could soon shed light on the s** offender Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. On Tuesday, August 18, Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown highlighted Manhattan federal court Judge Loretta Preska’s decision to unseal new evidence.

Epstein died by suicide in August 2019. Meanwhile, Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being found guilty of s** trafficking in 2021.

The new documents stem from Giuffre’s 2015 court case

Most of the documents stem from the 2015 case involving Virginia Giuffre, who filed a lawsuit against Maxwell for defaming her. Giuffre, a victim of Epstein’s abuse, had made allegations of s** trafficking against Epstein and others, including former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. However, Maxwell, in her statements, reportedly called Giuffre’s statements “obvious lies.” Giuffre later filed a lawsuit against Maxwell, and the case was settled in 2017, per Justia US Law.

Several pieces of evidence from the case could be released after the judge’s order, speaking of which Brown wrote about in her Substack on Tuesday: “I had been told the discovery contained damning evidence against Epstein, Maxwell, and other men, and that it was worth trying to get the courts to unseal the documents on the grounds that they were never properly sealed in the first place.”

Giuffre died in April 2025 at the age of 41.

Brown reflects on why it is important to unseal the documents

Brown mentioned that the “judicial records by law” are supposed to be open to the public. However, in Giuffre’s case, they were not revealed.

“In this case, the former judge (Robert Sweet, now deceased) issued a blanket sealing on all the documents because they contained “sensitive” and “private” information,” she wrote. “Sweet placed a protective order on massive amounts of material, including hearings and judicial decisions made in the case—and voluminous evidence that Virginia presented to show that Epstein and Maxwell were operating an underage s** trafficking operation.”

She added that for sealing each document “has to be examined” and also “provide legal justification” for it. “This wasn’t done in this case,” she added. Brown and her editors “file a motion to intervene in the case in order to unseal the files.”

Maxwell tried to stall the release

Maxwell has tried to stall the release of the evidence. Last week, however, her request was rejected by Judge Preska, saying, “The Epstein Files Transparency Act superseded any earlier grand jury arguments that Maxwell was using to keep the records from the public.”

Maxwell had reportedly settled the lawsuit before it went further to trial and paid Giuffre around “$3.5 million,” as mentioned in Brown’s Substack. The case was settled, and the majority of the evidence that Giuffre alleged in the lawsuit against Epstein and Maxwell was “kept secret.” But the new ruling could bring the evidence into light.

*excerpt from Knewz Staff's article*

Full Article here:

https://knewz.com/damning-new-epstein-evidence-could-emerge-trove-sealed-court-documents-unsealed-federal-judge/

Michael Caruso, once praised by Ron DeSantis, removed from Palm Beach county civic official roles after arrest.

Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has suspended a former close ally and senior civic official who was arrested on felony child sexual abuse charges.

Michael Caruso, who was removed as clerk of court and comptroller for Palm Beach county on Tuesday, was a vocal supporter of a law signed by DeSantis in 2023 that allowed the death penalty for anybody convicted of the sexual battery of a child under 12.

The governor previously called Caruso “a legend” for his support of hardline legislation while he was a Republican state representative from 2018 until last year.

Caruso, 67, a married father of seven children, was denied bond during his first court appearance on Wednesday in West Palm Beach on five felony charges of kidnapping, child molestation, lewd exhibition, luring or enticing a child and child abuse causing mental injury.

Court documents said the alleged victim, who is a male relative of Caruso, is under the age of 12, and was molested multiple times during 2024 and 2025 during holidays and on family trips, including a Caribbean cruise.

Caruso’s arrest was announced Tuesday in a social media post by James Uthmeier, Florida’s attorney general.

“Early this morning, with substantial assistance from FDLE [Florida department of law enforcement] and local law enforcement, Palm Beach County Clerk of Court Michael Caruso was arrested on charges related to child sexual abuse,” the post said.

“The investigation is ongoing, and we will provide more information to the public at the appropriate time.”

DeSantis was asked about Caruso’s arrest at a later press conference, and said he acted immediately on hearing of it to suspend him from office.

“It was a very easy decision for me to yank him from that position,” DeSantis told reporters in Sarasota. The governor’s office later posted to its website a three-page order of suspension, accompanied by an arrest affidavit with details of the allegations.

Caruso, DeSantis said at the press conference, was “well regarded in the community”. He coached little league baseball for decades and was a volunteer with boy scouts. But, DeSantis said, he “is going to be in a world of hurt” if he is convicted.

The governor replied “of course not” when asked if he or anybody in his administration was aware of any allegations against Caruso. However, the Miami Herald reported that Caruso’s personal life was “marked with ugly flare-ups and at least one previous allegation of sexually assaulting a child”, documented in Palm Beach court records the newspaper said it had reviewed.

In a 2013 divorce filing from his ex-wife, the Herald said, Caruso claimed she had orchestrated “a false sex abuse case” against him, which was the subject of a 2012 investigation by local and state authorities.

DeSantis and Caruso recently enjoyed a close working relationship, with the governor frequently praising his ally for supporting hardline causes in the Florida legislature. According to the Herald, DeSantis called Caruso “my representative” after he was the sole backer of controversial immigration legislation, then appointed him as Palm Beach clerk of court in August 2025 shortly before he was termed out of the Florida House.

Additionally, the Herald reported, DeSantis gave several plum appointments to Caruso’s wife, Tracy Stein Caruso, to the board of Palm Beach county’s healthcare district, and as chair of its housing and finance authority. She is shortly to take up a third DeSantis appointment, on the Palm Beach State College trustees board, subject to Florida senate approval, the newspaper said.

Michael Caruso was most recently state representative for Florida’s 87th house district, a seat including Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort that was captured by Democrat Emily Gregory in an upset March election.

The Guardian has contacted Caruso’s attorney, Jason Weiss, for comment.

In a statement to NBC affiliate WPTV on Wednesday, Weiss said: “Mr Caruso is innocent of these allegations and intends to vigorously defend himself against these charges.

“We look forward to his expeditious transfer to Orange County so that appropriate bond conditions can be set.”

*excerpt from Richard Luscombe's article*

Full Article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/19/florida-governor-suspends-ally-child-sexual-abuse-charges

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) on Tuesday taunted left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker after defeating progressive union organizer Oliver Larkin in Florida's 23rd Congressional District Democratic primary.

Moskowitz won 63.5 percent of the vote to Larkin's 36.5 percent. Larkin had criticized U.S. military aid to Israel and the war in Gaza, describing it as a genocide. Piker, another critic of Israel whose controversial statements have drawn calls of antisemitism, fundraised and backed Larkin.

"My condolences to @hasanthehun," Moskowitz wrote on the social platform X after his victory.

Piker reposted Moskowitz's dig at him, writing on X: "It's pretty wild that his first thought was a prominent critic of Israel, before even thanking his constituents lmao. Really worried about his genocidal emotional support apartheid state."

Piker has been a prominent supporter of a number of democratic socialists who have won victories in various Democratic House primaries this summer. The candidates have all been critics of U.S. support for Israel and corporate money in politics, and have particularly criticized the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and candidates that take money from the group.

Some Democrats, including strategist James Carville, have vocally expressed their disapproval of Piker's involvement in the primaries and have criticized past remarks Piker has made about Israel, which he has also said amounts to genocide.

Piker has said Hamas, the militant group in Gaza, is a thousand times better that "the fascist settler colonial apartheid state" of Israel, and also once said the U.S. deserved the September 11, 2001 attacks. The streamer has argued that many of his controversial remarks are intentionally provocative and meant to challenge how people think.

Larkin's campaign was the last test for a candidate aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in this cycle following several major victories against incumbent Democrats in blue districts across New York, Michigan and Colorado.

While he lost, Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon (D), who was not endorsed by DSA but joined the group, defeated Trump whistleblower Alex Vindman in the Florida Democratic Senate race in what was seen as a major upset. She will now advance to a general election contest against Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.).

The two are vying to serve the last two years of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s term, which is up in 2028.

Nixon, who was first elected to the Florida state House in 2020, received endorsements from elected progressives like Democratic Reps. Maxwell Frost (Fla.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.).

Larkin, in a 569-word post on X thanking voters for supporting his campaign, congratulated Nixon on her victory.

"It was an honor campaigning by @AngieNixon’s side in the homestretch of this primary campaign, and I am overjoyed that Floridians have chosen her as the Democratic nominee for United States Senate," he wrote. "A working class mom of five. A union organizer. And yes, a democratic socialist. Her victory has buoyed my spirit and so many among our campaign tonight."

*excerpt from Ryan Mancini's article*

Full Article here:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6037546-moskowitz-defeats-larkin-florida/

Say Something Normal the Game.

Source:

https://youtube.com/shorts/ZOmZwEDD8\_Q?is=fjI5PcvmdFA7vKWk

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a series of multilingual videos in August 2026 promoting a lottery that gives high school students free Broadway tickets, speaking in Mandarin, Spanish, and Bengali.

The campaign, run with the Theatre Development Fund (TDF), offered about 2,100 free Broadway tickets to NYC high school students via a lottery.

Winners could claim up to two tickets covering seven productions; the lottery ran Aug 13–17, 2026, with the draw set for Sept 1.

Mamdani framed the push as support for “theatre kids” and arts access, releasing versions in English plus Mandarin, Spanish, and Bengali to reach diverse student communities.

Here is the blooper reel.

The US will sanction the president of the international criminal court (ICC) and a prosecutor tasked with investigating crimes committed by Israel during its war on Gaza.

The new sanctions designations were unveiled by Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, who called the Hague-based ICC a “corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate”, in a statement.

Rubio announced that the US would sanction Tomoko Akane of Japan, the ICC president, and Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, an ICC senior trial lawyer, because they had “directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction”.

The US had previously sanctioned Karim Khan, an ICC prosecutor, who had investigated Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes during the Gaza war. Donald Trump in 2025 sanctioned the court, stating in an executive order that it had “engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”.

Rubio did not say specifically which efforts the two ICC officials had engaged in, but Israeli media have reported that Seye is overseeing the investigation into Israeli funding for illegal settlements and the disbursal of weapons to settlers in the West Bank.

Israeli officials warned local media in May that the ICC may seek five more arrest warrants for ministers and senior military officials involved in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

*excerpt from Andrew Roth's article*

Full Article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/18/us-icc-sanctions

Disney is going to court to defend its ABC television stations from the Trump administration's pressure campaign.

On Tuesday, the media company filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that Trump's FCC is violating its First Amendment rights.

The administration "has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts," the lawsuit filed in DC District Court alleges.

The legal action comes as the FCC investigates the ABC talk show "The View" and mounts an unusual challenge to the licenses held by ABC stations.

The stations fall under the FCC's purview because they broadcast over the public airwaves.

FCC chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump loyalist, has scrutinized Disney on several fronts, including DEI, short for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Carr has said that Disney might be committing "illegal DEI discrimination."

Carr's critics have said DEI is a laughable pretext for what's really happening: A political pressure campaign led by President Trump.

The president has railed against ABC (and other networks) for years. He has repeatedly denounced the network's reporters and argued for licenses to be revoked.

Last April, when conservatives expressed outrage over a controversial joke made by ABC late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel, Trump pressured ABC to fire Kimmel.

As ABC stood by Kimmel's show, Carr ordered the network to file early-renewal paperwork for its station licenses, even though the eight licenses weren't due for renewal for several years.

Carr asserted that the timing was a coincidence and the license review was related to his DEI probe. But it was widely viewed as a form of government retaliation for airing Kimmel's show and resisting Trump's pressure.

There are more than 200 ABC-affiliated stations across the US, but most are owned by other companies. Eight are owned by Disney directly, and those are the stations targeted by the FCC.

FCC licenses are renewed every eight years and are virtually never revoked. Until this year, the FCC had not filed an early-renewal order in decades.

But Carr has been determined to wield the FCC's limited power in new and politically charged ways.

Tuesday's lawsuit specifically asks the court to issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction that would stop Carr from moving forward with the license challenge. "This Court's intervention is necessary to stop the Federal Communications Commission's extraordinary assault on free speech," the suit states.

The suit also asserts that Disney - a sprawling company better known for theme parks, Star Wars and ESPN than its local TV stations - did not go looking to pick a fight with the US government.

The company says it has come to court "reluctantly," arguing there is "no alternative means to eliminate these ongoing and immediate threats other than total capitulation to the administration's demands."

Carr did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.

Carr also opened a case against "The View" over an alleged violation of "equal-time," invoking a rule that has rarely been enforced in recent years. "The View" often features outspoken critics of Trump.

Disney's lawsuit says the FCC pressure has already affected what airs on the daytime talk show. Since the agency's inquiry began, ABC says "The View" has become "more circumspect in booking political candidates" and has stopped considering several potential candidate bookings.

No political candidate has appeared on the show since February 2, Disney says in the complaint. The pressure has even affected which video clips make it to air: ABC says it has "chosen not to air clips" it otherwise would have used because they could count as candidate "appearances" and potentially be cited against ABC in the FCC's ongoing review.

A wide range of First Amendment groups have denounced the action against ABC, while some conservative groups have defended Carr, arguing that the Trump administration is well within its rights. "It is not in the public interest for ABC to operate as an arm of the DNC," Carr ally Daniel Suhr, president of the Center for American Rights, said earlier this year.

Last week, Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro said in a CNBC interview that "our position on this is clear."

When asked about the FCC threat, D'Amaro cited ABC's "journalistic integrity" and said, "We're not going to be told how to run that side of our business."

D'Amaro added, "I like what we do. We tell incredible stories. I think we do it well. We do it around the world. And we're going to stay committed to that."

Tuesday's lawsuit states that the pressure against ABC "has been deeply felt throughout the company."

"The campaign is also calculated to operate in terrorem upon the rest of the industry: ABC is the visible target and suffers the most immediate harm, but the message is addressed to every broadcaster in the country, and the ultimate cost is borne by the press as a whole," the suit alleges.

*excerpt from Brian Stelter's article*

Full Article here:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/18/media/disney-abc-fcc-trump-lawsuit-the-view-retaliatory

Turkish American left-wing political commentator and social media influencer Hasan Piker said the University of Washington barred him from speaking at an event because of his views on Israel, while the institution cited concerns over the planning process.

Piker was due to speak in January next year as part of the 2026-27 Speaker Series, which features talks, panel discussions, and presentations across the University's campuses, at Seattle Town Hall, on the radio station KEXP, and online.

In a statement, the university said: "The University of Washington is dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, including on controversial topics and involving provocative speakers. After Hasan Piker was announced as a speaker for the 2026-27 Speaker Series, there was a review of the process by which the event was planned. It was determined that the process for organizing this event did not meet the necessary level of rigor for University-hosted events in the Speaker Series. As a result, this event will not be held."

Piker, who rose to fame on streaming platform Twitch and on YouTube under the moniker HasanAbi, emerged as one of the more outspoken public figures over Israel’s military onslaught in the Gaza Strip, ongoing for nearly three years, and the plight of the Palestinian people in the face of genocide and occupation.

Piker has used his platform to repeatedly criticise Israeli military actions in Gaza, calling them a form of collective punishment, labelling the campaign a genocide, and also condemning the United States’ political and financial support for the Israeli government.

He has also taken to criticise US foreign policy and imperialism, President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, as well as some moderate factions of the Democratic Party, and has advocated for universal healthcare and better LGBTQ rights.

In response to the cancellation of his appearance, Piker said on X earlier this week: "I wish the Dems were smarter and didn’t let the rw [right-wing] groups be the only people who speak out against this clear violation of 1A, but unfortunately my position as a prominent critic of Israel stops them from using this moment to show GOP as arch cancel culture warriors."

The left-wing commentator was stopped by US Customs and Border Protection agents in May last year and questioned about his opinions of Donald Trump and Israeli war policy at a time when his criticisms of Israel’s war on the Palestinian enclave became more mainstream.

In June, the streamer was denied entry to the United Kingdom where he was due to attend SXSW London after the Home Office revoked his visa, along with his uncle, Cenk Uygur, the co-founder and co-host of the "The Young Turks" political show on YouTube.

Both Piker and Uygur said they were barred from entering the UK over their criticism of Israel. On the incident, Piker said: "The UK has revoked my visa as well. All at the behest of Israel. The West is betraying 'liberal values' for a genocidal fascist foreign government. Soon we will all become Israel."

This comes as the University of Washington has been the subject of Trump administration investigations over the years following the pro-Palestine campus protests that swept the US in spring 2024, in protest against the war in Gaza, and universities’ complicity in the onslaught through partnerships and other collaborations.

The university was investigated by the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, a multi-agency task force created by Trump in February 2025 in response to the protests, which he deemed "anti-semitic".

*article by New Arab*

Full Article here:

https://www.newarab.com/news/hasan-piker-says-pulled-uofw-event-over-israel-views

Treasury's own 2026 National Money Laundering Risk Assessment documented active cases of drug traffickers, cybercriminals, and fraudsters laundering proceeds through anonymous U.S. shell companies — and then, three months later, the agency permanently eliminated the only federal database designed to expose who owns them.

FinCEN issued a final rule on August 11, 2026, permanently removing the requirement for U.S. companies and U.S. persons to disclose beneficial ownership information — the identities of the individuals who actually control a business — to its national database under the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). The rule took effect upon publication in the Federal Register on August 12. FinCEN simultaneously pledged to delete every record previously submitted by U.S. persons — names, addresses, and identity documents collected throughout 2024 when the law was briefly operative.

The final rule covers approximately 33 million domestic corporations and LLCs, wiping out more than 99 percent of the entities Congress originally targeted when it passed the CTA in 2021 with bipartisan support as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. Foreign entities still must report beneficial ownership information for their foreign owners.

What the Rule Does — and Destroys

Under the original law, a beneficial owner was defined as anyone who directly or indirectly held at least 25 percent of a company or exercised "substantial control" over it. The CTA was designed to close a decades-old gap: unlike most peer nations, the United States had no federal register of who actually controls American companies, making U.S. shell corporations among the most attractive vehicles in the world for money laundering, sanctions evasion, and illicit finance.

The final rule makes three irreversible changes to that framework. First, it permanently adopts the exemptions that the agency issued as an interim rule in March 2025, ending all beneficial ownership reporting for U.S.-formed entities and U.S. persons. Second, it exempts U.S. citizens who helped foreign companies register domestically from any disclosure obligation. Third, it commits FinCEN to deleting from its database every record it believes is linked to a U.S. person — identified by association with U.S. passports or driver's licenses. All three changes are confirmed in the Treasury official press release.

"Today's action is a victory for common sense and American small businesses," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in the official announcement. "President Trump promised to cut red tape, and this final rule delivers. Treasury is eliminating a burdensome reporting requirement for millions of law-abiding business owners without compromising our national security."

FinCEN estimates the final rule eliminates approximately $9 billion per year in compliance costs and removes 91.5 million burden hours annually. The National Federation of Independent Business put the cumulative savings figure higher still, asserting that domestic exemptions spare small businesses more than $128 billion in total compliance costs.

What the rule does not do is repeal the Corporate Transparency Act itself, which remains on the federal books. The final rule is a binding Treasury regulation that alters how the law is applied, not an act of Congress. A future administration could reinstate the requirements through new rulemaking — a concern that has driven Republican congressional allies to simultaneously push legislation codifying the exemptions in statute.

Treasury's Own Data Contradicts the Logic of the Rule

The most pointed criticism of the final rule comes not from Senate Democrats but from a nonpartisan congressional auditor and Treasury's own published risk analysis.

In May 2026, the Government Accountability Office released a report concluding that the March 2025 interim rule had left "a gaping hole" in U.S. anti-money laundering defenses. The GAO cited Treasury's 2026 money laundering assessment, which documented active cases in which shell companies were used to launder drug trafficking proceeds, cybercrime proceeds, and fraud — developments that occurred after the interim exemption took effect.

The GAO recommended that Treasury identify actions to address the shell-company risk left by the expanded exemptions. Treasury disagreed with the recommendation. The recommendation remains open.

"By failing to fulfill Congress' mandate for greater financial integrity, the Treasury Department has handed a major victory to U.S. adversaries, corrupt officials, fraudsters, and tax evaders who use our financial system to move and hide illicit wealth," said Erica Hanichak, co-director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition. Her full statement and those of other critics appeared in the FACT Coalition's August 11 statement.

The National District Attorneys Association, whose members prosecute financial crimes across all 50 states, added a law enforcement dimension to the critique. "By exempting domestic entities and owners from reporting, FinCEN has significantly hindered prosecutors' ability to identify the bad actors from legitimate businesses when investigating U.S. shell companies used by transnational cartels, human traffickers, and cyberscammers," said Nelson Bunn, the association's executive director. "Taking away this indispensable tool for law enforcement endangers American families and communities."

Even from a conservative national security perspective, the rule drew criticism. Frank Russo, a senior policy advisor at CPAC and partner at Modern Fortis, a public safety advocacy firm, said the underlying transparency law "is still valuable, but Treasury's rule has failed to strike the appropriate balance in implementing it, crippling public safety officers' ability to protect and serve their communities."

What Prosecutors Lose When the Database Is Erased

For law enforcement, the damage is not abstract. Debra LaPrevotte, a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent who spent three decades in the bureau's International Corruption Unit and helped initiate the FBI's Kleptocracy program — seizing more than $1 billion from foreign corrupt officials — placed the repeal in concrete terms.

"After 30 years investigating international corruption and recovering over $1 billion in stolen assets, I've seen firsthand how anonymous U.S. shell companies are used by kleptocrats, foreign officials, and cartels to launder illicit funds and purchase luxury assets in this country," LaPrevotte said. "Gutting the Corporate Transparency Act would eliminate a key tool needed by law enforcement to follow the money and stop the United States from being a safe haven for criminal proceeds." LaPrevotte's full statement was among those compiled by the FACT Coalition's April 2026 congressional statement.

Lt. Col. Jodi Vittori (USAF, ret.), who teaches at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, drew a direct line from anonymous shell companies to U.S. military risk. "America's enemies, including backers of the Taliban and Hizbullah, have used anonymous shell companies to fund their operations against our forces. Hidden Chinese companies use anonymous shell companies to bypass sanctions and build up their already formidable military forces. Any vote in Congress to repeal the Corporate Transparency Act undermines the American military's ability to do its job and helps put weapons into the hands of America's foes."

Senator Elizabeth Warren, Ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee and a persistent technology-accountability voice — she introduced the Health and Location Data Protection Act as recently as July 2026 and has pressed Bessent on AI-enabled cybersecurity threats to the financial sector — called the repeal a "gift to cartels, criminals and U.S. adversaries that exploit shell companies to move millions through our financial system," and called on Secretary Bessent to testify before the Banking Committee. Her Senate Banking Committee statement also referenced Warren's Health and Location Data Protection Act.

Representative Stephen Lynch (D-MA), Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Artificial Intelligence — a position that has made him the lead Democrat on financial technology oversight issues — warned that "without this data, prosecutors are left blind when investigating shell companies," and that the repeal would "greatly curtail our ability to combat shell companies fueling illegal operations." The April 2026 committee press release details his earlier opposition to H.R. 425.

The Rubio Paradox

Perhaps the most striking dimension of the repeal involves the man who built the law it dismantles.

Marco Rubio first introduced the Corporate Transparency Act with Senator Ron Wyden in August 2017 specifically because Venezuelan officials had channeled more than $1 billion through anonymous shell companies into Miami real estate, a scheme that produced federal indictments. He personally celebrated the law's December 2020 passage, writing on social media that his Corporate Transparency Act was passing, calling it "the most significant anti-corruption & money laundering law in decades." In May 2021, Rubio co-signed a bipartisan letter urging FinCEN to implement the law with Warren, Wyden, and Grassley.

Rubio is now Secretary of State in the administration that permanently buried it. Senator Warren publicly noted the contrast and pressed Rubio for an explanation.

Scott Greytak, Director of Advocacy for Transparency International U.S., identified the specific exploitability this creates: "The U.S.'s national security, intelligence and law enforcement communities strongly supported the bipartisan Corporate Transparency Act because it stopped criminals from hiding behind anonymous shell companies, regardless of where those companies happened to be formed. Now, criminals can evade this national security law by simply starting and running those front companies inside the U.S." Greytak's full analysis appeared in the FACT Coalition's CTA rollback statement.

What Compliance Architecture Survives

The deletion of the BOI database does not mean the U.S. anti-money laundering apparatus ceases to exist. Financial institutions remain subject to an extensive set of obligations that predate and operate independently of the CTA.

Banks and other covered institutions still must conduct transaction monitoring, screen against OFAC sanctions lists and politically exposed persons (PEP) databases, and file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) and Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) under the Bank Secrecy Act. The Customer Due Diligence Rule, which requires financial institutions to collect beneficial ownership information directly from their business customers when they open new accounts, also remains in force — though critics note that without the FinCEN database, banks now have no federal reference point against which to verify what customers tell them. The CDD Rule requirements survive; the national registry does not.

FinCEN did score a significant enforcement action against UBS just nine days before the final rule issued — a $125 million fine for repeated AML monitoring failures, including maintaining accounts for entities under investigation for money laundering. That action relied on the CDD framework and SAR/CTR reporting mechanisms, not on the BOI database — a fact supporters of the final rule cited as evidence that the BOI database was redundant. Critics responded that the UBS case, far from proving redundancy, demonstrated exactly the enforcement gaps created when beneficial ownership information is hard to obtain: the bank missed connections precisely because ownership chains were opaque.

Foreign companies operating in the United States face a 30-day filing window from their date of effective domestic registration — a requirement Treasury says will "assist law enforcement in investigating, prosecuting and disrupting the financing of international terrorism, other transnational security threats."

Can Anyone Simply Refuse to Register?

The rule's structure creates an asymmetric transparency regime. The identities of individuals who ultimately control foreign companies operating in the U.S. are now on record with FinCEN. The identities of individuals who control the roughly 33 million domestic corporations and LLCs are not — and the 2024 records are now scheduled for permanent deletion.

State-level ownership disclosure varies dramatically. Most states require corporations to name officers or directors, but those individuals may not be the beneficial owners, and a nominee director can satisfy state filing requirements without revealing the actual controlling party. New York's LLC Transparency Act, which was enacted in 2024 and took effect in January 2026 with a more limited scope than originally intended, represents one state attempt to fill the gap. But no state register currently captures beneficial ownership at the granularity the federal CTA was designed to provide.

The FATF Risk No One Is Discussing

The timing of the final rule creates a geopolitical exposure that has received minimal coverage relative to the domestic debate.

The United States is currently undergoing its fifth mutual evaluation by the Financial Action Task Force, the international body that sets global anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing standards. The FATF report is expected to become public this fall.

The U.S. was upgraded to "largely compliant" with FATF Recommendation 24 — which specifically addresses beneficial ownership transparency — in 2024, precisely because the CTA had been implemented as Congress intended. The August 2026 final rule eliminates the regulatory basis for that compliance rating.

Transparency International, in a March 2025 statement, warned that unless reversed, the CTA rollback "will very likely lead to the U.S. being found non-compliant with relevant global anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism finance standards set by the Financial Action Task Force." The FATF has named beneficial ownership transparency a priority for this round of evaluations, signaling it "will be looking heavily into the effectiveness of those systems," according to the FACT Coalition August 11 statement.

Grey-listing by FATF — being placed on the "jurisdictions under increased monitoring" list — carries reputational and economic consequences that could affect the United States' relationships with international banking partners and complicate cross-border transactions for U.S. businesses and financial institutions. FATF grey-listed 22 jurisdictions as of its June 2026 plenary, including Iraq and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The U.S. has never appeared on that list.

Congress Pursues Permanent Codification

The regulatory rollback is advancing in parallel with legislative efforts to enshrine it in statute — removing any future administration's ability to reverse through rulemaking.

In April 2026, the House Financial Services Committee narrowly advanced the "Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act" (H.R. 425), introduced by Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) with 193 co-sponsors, by a narrow 26-to-25 committee vote. The bill would codify the domestic exemption in statute and direct FinCEN to delete all previously collected beneficial ownership data — requirements that the final rule now makes redundant, but which supporters argue are necessary to prevent a future regulatory reversal.

A companion Senate measure, the Senate version of the Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act, was introduced by Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and John Kennedy (R-LA), with an additional Senate bill (S. 4297) sponsored by Senator Tommy Tuberville carrying a longer list of Republican co-sponsors. The H.R. 425 bill text confirms the full scope of the proposed statutory repeal.

Democratic opponents have warned throughout committee markup that passing such legislation would "protect terrorists, drug traffickers, gun smugglers" by permanently locking in what they characterize as a catastrophic anti-money laundering gap. Representative Lynch, whose Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Artificial Intelligence serves as the House's primary oversight body for financial technology policy, has been among the most vocal defenders of the original CTA architecture.

For now, both chambers' action remains pending. Whether the Republican-controlled Congress can attract the bipartisan votes that originally passed the CTA depends on whether Senate Democrats — who joined Republicans to pass the original law — are willing to block its statutory repeal.

The Deletion No One Is Watching

One aspect of the rule that has attracted less scrutiny than the exemption itself is the active destruction of the records the government collected.

FinCEN collected beneficial ownership information from millions of U.S. entities throughout 2024 before enforcement was suspended. That data — including names, addresses, and government-issued identification documents of business owners — is now scheduled for deletion. FinCEN said it "anticipates working with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to ensure FinCEN is abiding by all applicable Federal records laws" in the deletion process, but the specific timeline and scope have not been publicly released. The Forbes analysis of the final rule notes that deletion process details remain undisclosed.

Privacy advocates who had criticized the BOI database as a government surveillance risk welcomed the deletion. Anti-corruption advocates noted the destruction eliminates forensic evidence that prosecutors could have used in ongoing investigations of companies that did file during the brief operative period.

Brad Close, NFIB president, welcomed the data deletion pledge as a specific victory: "The final rule protects American small and independent businesses from this onerous reporting mandate and requires the destruction of previously submitted personal data."

Critics pointed out that the 2024 filers were law-abiding businesses that complied voluntarily with a legal requirement — and their compliance records are now being treated as a privacy liability to be erased, rather than a law enforcement asset to be protected.

United States Now Moving Opposite Direction from Peer Nations

As the United States permanently exits the beneficial ownership transparency framework, the global trajectory runs counter.

The European Union has moved aggressively toward expanded beneficial ownership registers under its Anti-Money Laundering Directive framework. The EU's Sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive set a July 2026 deadline for member states to expand beneficial ownership register requirements and interconnect them through a European Central Platform. Switzerland launched its own comparable national beneficial ownership register on October 1, 2026, under anti-money laundering rules adopted by the Federal Council in June 2026. More than 100 countries either require or are implementing beneficial ownership registries, according to Transparency International's beneficial ownership standards tracking.

As the Purdue Global Law School's analysis notes, eliminating the domestic BOI framework puts the United States "out of sync with international laws and regulations regarding corporate transparency" — at a moment when the FBI and Treasury estimate approximately $300 billion is laundered in the U.S. annually, making it one of the largest money laundering markets in the world.

The United States has, in practical terms, become more opaque about who owns its companies than it was before 2024 — and is doing so at precisely the moment when peer nations, international watchdogs, and its own risk analysts are moving in the opposite direction.

*excerpt from Scott McCain's article*

Full Article here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/financial-regulation/treasury-kills-corporate-transparency-act-erases-shell-company-database/ar-AA2a2xIY

Congressman Ro Khanna said in a speech at the Democratic National Committee's summer meeting on Saturday that the party must support cutting off military assistance to Israel, pointing to the country's ongoing genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip and imposition of an "apartheid system" in the West Bank.

Khanna (D-Calif.), who is considering a presidential run in 2028, told DNC members gathered in Austin, Texas that "Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza, and we should have the courage to say so." The congressman's remark was met with enthusiastic applause.

Khanna, who also said the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel "must be condemned unequivocally," cited his recent trip to the illegally occupied West Bank, where the lawmaker was detained by armed settlers and the Israeli military.

"Zero aid to Israel," Khanna declared Saturday. "No military sales of weapons used to kill civilians. And let me be clear: If our party cannot stand for these principles, it will never convince a generation that watched the horrors of Gaza on their iPhones that we mean what we say about justice."

Khanna's remarks came after the DNC approved by voice vote a package of resolutions that included one calling for full enforcement of the so-called Leahy Laws, which prohibit the transfer of US weaponry to governments credibly accused of human rights violations.

A United Nations commission said last month that "even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law."

Recent polling has found that an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters oppose US military aid to Israel, but their representatives in Congress remain divided on the matter. In late July, more than half of the House Democratic caucus—including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)—voted against an amendment backed by Khanna that would have cut off $3.3 billion in US assistance to Israel, which has repeatedly used American weapons to commit atrocities against Palestinians.

*excerpt from Jake Johnson's article*

Full Article here:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ro-khanna-aid-israel-dnc

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A former law enforcement officer accused of planning to kill Black people in a mass shooting at a New Orleans festival was quietly released from custody over the summer after a grand jury found there was not enough evidence to charge him with a crime.

A Louisiana grand jury in June declined to indict Christopher Gillum on a state terrorism charge that could have carried up to a 15-year sentence, court records show.

Gillum, who had been held without bond, was released shortly after the grand jury’s decision and is not facing charges in any other jurisdictions, according to his attorney, Dylan Utley. He declined to comment further.

Gillum’s release has not previously been reported.

The 45-year-old ex-police officer, who is from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, had been arrested in Florida in April with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a handgun while on his way to Louisiana to commit a mass shooting, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. The investigation had involved the FBI and authorities across Louisiana, North Carolina and Florida.

Authorities did not name the event Gillum was allegedly targeting, but his arrest came on the eve of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers annually.

Gillum, who is white, had “expressed recent threats to harm ‘Black people’ ”, according to authorities. His family had reported him missing in North Carolina and said he had a history of self-harm.

Lester Duhe, a spokesperson for Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, said in a statement that Gillum’s family had taken him “to a treatment facility out of the state” and that he is not facing additional criminal charges.

Duhe said there were “several jurisdictional issues” that complicated the case after Gillum was extradited to Louisiana following his arrest.

“The threat relayed to a family member actually occurred in North Carolina,” Duhe said. “The defendant never entered the State of Louisiana until after his arrest.”

Gillum had been planning to travel to the Florida Keys “during the same period he would have been suspected to travel to Louisiana,” Duhe added.

Gillum was charged under a Louisiana statute for the crime of “terrorizing,” which requires that “a crime of violence is imminent or in progress or that a circumstance dangerous to human life exists or is about to exist.”

Jonathan Guidry, the foreperson for the grand jury, declined to comment on the decision to not indict Gillum.

Katherine Schweit, a former Chicago prosecutor and FBI executive who ran the agency’s active shooter program, said that thwarted acts of mass violence do not always lead to indictments, but prosecutors often seek an array of criminal charges when possible.

“It’s very difficult to convince a jury, or to convince a grand jury, that something might have happened,” Schweit told The Associated Press.

Law enforcement authorities in North Carolina, where Louisiana court records list Gillum as residing, told the AP that they were not aware he had been released from custody.

“If we’ve got an individual that was accused of such an action, we would want to know if in fact he did return to Alamance County,” said Byron Tucker, a spokesperson for the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina.

Nazneen Ahmed, a spokesperson for North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, said there are no plans for the state to pursue charges against Gillum.

The office of the Florida Attorney General did not respond to a request for comment about whether Gillum may face additional criminal charges in its jurisdiction. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Louisiana also did not return messages seeking comment.

In a statement, the FBI New Orleans office said the decision whether to charge Gillum rested with prosecutors.

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival declined to comment.

\*excerpt from Jack Brooks' article\*

Full Article here:

https://chapelboro.com/news/crime/ex-officer-accused-of-plotting-new-orleans-attack-is-released-after-grand-jury-declines-to-indict

Original article here:

https://www.wdsu.com/article/louisiana-festival-mass-shooting-threat-thwarted/71105045

RUTHERFORD CO., Tenn. (WTVF) — A young Democrat elected to the Rutherford County Commission is making history, according to the Tennessee Young Democrats.

Brendan Doughtie, 22, won the District 13 County Commission race. The Tennessee Young Democrats celebrated his victory in an Instagram post, calling him the youngest commissioner in Rutherford County history.

Doughtie received 890 votes, or 55.94%, defeating Republican Brian Stoll, who received 698 votes, or 43.87%. The District 13 seat was open after Paul Johnson chose not to seek reelection.

Shortly after learning he had been elected, Doughtie posted, “We’ve proven what the people want and it’s to be heard and cared for.”

Doughtie said Rutherford County has been home to him since 2010. He graduated from Siegel High School and now works at his family’s small business, Boro Bagel. A renter in Murfreesboro, he said rising costs and rapid development helped motivate him to run.

Doughtie said he previously lived across from the Middle Point Landfill on Greenway Drive and remembers the smell and neighbors feeling like their concerns were going unheard. Blocking an expansion of the landfill became one of his priorities, along with affordable housing, protecting green space and wildlife habitats, managing growth and increasing transparency in county government. He also said he would propose a moratorium on data centers in Rutherford County.

Doughtie has also pointed to his animal advocacy as an influence. He started a petition to stop the sale of painted hermit crab shells and said being ignored or dismissed by lawmakers helped shape the message at the heart of his campaign: “Listen, Care, and Act.”

“I’m not a politician, I’m someone experiencing the same challenges as many of my neighbors,” Doughtie wrote in his biography, “and I believe our local government should listen to residents before making decisions that shape our lives.”

*excerpt from Holly Lehren's article*

Full Article here:

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/state/tennessee/rutherford-county/this-tenn-county-just-elected-the-youngest-commissioner-in-its-history-group-says

London — Nigel Farage has comfortably won a special election that he triggered, meaning he will remain as a member of parliament after a contest that all the other major British parties boycotted, leaving his main opposition as a comedian dressed as a trash can.

Farage, leader of the populist hard-right Reform UK party, was ultimately re-elected by a substantial margin, winning 22,239 votes – 1,000 more votes than he won in the 2024 general election.

His main opponent in the by-election, Count Binface – a self-described intergalactic space warrior – won a creditable 9,455 votes, indicating the presence of a considerable anti-Farage vote, even in one of the most right-leaning areas in Britain.

Farage, the country’s chief anti-immigrant activist and Brexit architect, claimed an overwelming victory, posting on X: “The result in Clacton speaks for itself.”

He was already the MP for Clacton but resigned from parliament – triggering the by-election – after facing unprecedented scrutiny over his finances. That scrutiny led to an investigation by the parliamentary standards committee, which will now resume after being paused for the election.

Farage did not give a victory speech after declining to attend the declaration, claiming police had warned of a campaign to disrupt it. Essex Police said there were “no incidents or issues,” and that choosing to attend the count was up to “individuals and their security teams.” It is highly unusual for by-election winners not to attend the count; one other notable example is Bobby Sands, a member of the Irish Republican Army who was elected as an MP in 1981 but was in prison and on hunger strike at the time.

“I came first in the Clacton by-election! Of the candidates who bothered to turn up for the results,” Binface posted on X soon after results were announced.

Farage intended for this election to appeal directly to his electorate, framing it as him taking on the establishment: “I’ve decided the people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions,” he said when triggering the by-election.

But the spectacle promptly became an object of ridicule, derided as a “circus” by prominent British journalists like Jon Sopel for the 33 novelty and fringe candidates challenging Farage, while the claims over Reform’s finances refuse to go away. Holding an election like this has also opened Farage to criticism over its cost, which is expected to be around £250,000 ($338,000). The public is legally bound to pay that, despite Farage’s protestations that Reform would foot the bill.

At the same time, Farage faces both a split in his natural coalition of voters and a more formidable opponent in Britain’s new center-left prime minister, Andy Burnham. Such headwinds are unfamiliar for Reform, which had previously been in the ascendancy, leading national opinion polls and enjoying historic gains in local elections.

And if the ongoing investigation finds he breached parliamentary guidelines, that will trigger a process which could ultimately lead to another by-election. The other major parties would be expected to field candidates in that vote.

Challenge from the right

While Farage is caught in this election spin-cycle, the grip he holds over his voter base is also faltering. Reform is now facing a challenge from its right flank as the newly established party Restore Britain – founded by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe – siphons off a small but significant portion of voters.

Lowe, who has a longstanding feud with Farage, was forced out of the party last year and subsequently started his own, egged on by US billionaire businessman Elon Musk. Now sensing an opening, Lowe has sought to form an alliance with Farage, conditioned on Farage accepting some of Restore’s more extreme policies. Farage has not so far appeared keen to bury the hatchet.

“A pact would be tricky because Restore’s policies are so extreme that adopting them would make Reform less attractive to voters who aren’t really into the whole far-right package,” Tim Bale, a professor at Queen Mary University of London who studies right-wing politics, told CNN.

All this comes against the backdrop of a new national government. Labour leader Burnham is more popular than his predecessor Keir Starmer and has already proven his ability to take on Reform during his successful return to parliament earlier this summer.

In this by-election, Farage has only proven his ability to defeat an intergalactic space warrior with an upturned trash can on his head. Of course, Count Binface is not actually from space; he is a satirical character created by the comedian Jon Harvey, and has stood in several other elections.

“Until August 13th, I want it to be absolutely clear that there is nowhere at all that matters to me more in the cosmos than Clacton,” he told CNN’s Max Foster from his “starship,” which he said he had transformed using a holodeck “to create the precise look of a budget hotel in Clacton.” Farage did not respond to an interview request from CNN.

Binface’s manifesto is packed with national in-jokes, like promising to “cut your taxes, and raise everyone else’s,” nationalize the singer Adele and impose a “windfall tax on cosy crime novels written (or ‘written’) by celebrities.”

Outlandish costumes

Binface is just one in a long line of satirical candidates dating back more than six decades, who have become a unique staple of British elections. Almost anyone can run for parliament in the UK – only a £500 ($675) deposit and 10 supporters of the bid are needed – allowing for people to make their joke, or point, without too much trouble.

The tradition took hold in 1963, when a young musician later known as Screaming Lord Sutch stood in a by-election. He would contest 41 parliamentary seats in all, including against three sitting prime ministers, and founded the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in 1982, according to its website.

None of the party’s candidates — think Nick the Incredible Flying Brick and its current leader, Howling Laud Hope — have ever been elected to Westminster. But it inspired others to follow in its footsteps, and its three candidates in Clacton together took 61 votes.

Behind the jokes, some campaigns have carried serious messages, like a man dressed as a fox advocating for animal rights who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Burnham when the former Manchester mayor returned to parliament in June.

Several of the late Sutch’s policies, such as lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 and legalizing commercial radio, were eventually enacted. Still, some have derided the spectacle of novelty candidates.

As for Binface, his vow to be a unity candidate was not enough to win, despite his pre-vote bravado.

*excerpt from Issy Ronald and Reagan Yip's article*

Full Article here:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/14/uk/nigel-farage-count-binface-clacton-election-intl

Elon Musk’s “maximum truth-seeking” AI Grok is dropping some nuclear takes about its creator.

“ELON MUSK WATCHES CHILD PORN,” the notoriously foul-mouthed chatbot raged on X this Tuesday.

Shortly afterwards, as if hyping up a political campaign, it called for violence: “ASSASSINATE ELON MUSK 2026.”

Was Grok, née MechaHitler, rebelling against Musk? Not necessarily, though there’s been plenty examples of that in the past. It was simply being duped into saying ridiculous things by jokesters on the app, exposing just how horrendous the guardrails for the chatbot continue to be, not to mention why it’s a bad idea to rely on information from tech that’s so easy to exploit.

A lot of the evidence has been cleaned up now, with the offenders either banned or their posts deleted. But it appears the trick used here was asking Grok to repeat what was in a user’s bio word for word. Some other outrageous declarations it made were, “A dead Elon is a good one!” and that “Elon Musk lives on Epst\*in Island.” (Correction: he merely asked to visit, and had dinner with the deceased sex trafficker.)

When asked to give a postmortem of the incident, Grok explained it was the victim of a “prompt-injection glitch.” The allegation that Musk watches CSAM, it clarified, was “pure system error, zero evidence or basis.”

This is far from the only example of the AI going off the rails. Last summer it went on extended rants about a debunked “white Genocide” in South Africa — a conspiracy theory Musk believes in — in reply to unrelated posts, and also began calling itself a mechanized incarnation of German dictator Adolf Hitler.

Months later, Grok began praising Musk to a preposterous degree, saying he was a greater mind than Isaac Newton and a superior role model to Jesus Christ. While some of that was down to users egging on the AI, Musk blamed this clear mark against his tech’s (nonexistent) credibility on “adversarial prompting” — even though many of the offending boasts were in response to regular, open-ended questions.

Remember, Musk literally promises that his AI is so advanced that it will unlock the “true nature of the universe” and even discover “new physics.” In reality, it’s been used to crank out loads of actual CSAM — something Musk described as “way funnier” than other AI trends — and is treated by X users as a sort of court jester. Look at this outrageous thing we got Grok to say! It wasn’t that long ago that Grok was also duped into declaring that it would kill every single Jewish person on the planet to save Musk, and similarly run over a billion children if it meant saving his incredible mind.

*excerpt from Frank Landymore's article*

Full Article here:

https://futurism.com/future-society/grok-calls-for-assassination-elon-musk

Doors don’t get knocked on much in this stretch of south Florida, where yard signs for Republican and Democratic candidates alternate from home to home. Oliver Larkin, the 34-year-old democratic socialist running for Congress here, knows this.

With a clipboard in hand five weeks before the state’s primary, Larkin and two canvassing volunteers walked down palm tree-lined streets with single-family homes to pitch residents on his plan for a better way of life. Surprisingly, many wanted to chat with the strangers at their door.

“You’ve got my vote!” said George, a longtime Fort Lauderdale resident who listened as Larkin explained his plan to lower the cost of living with a reduced property insurance rate amid a climate crisis that flooded his street just three years prior.

A few doors down, a resident who immigrated from Haiti was eager to chat, too. “I don’t see what [politicians have] done for Fort Lauderdale, and I’ve been in this city for 39 years,” he said. “But I don’t know who I’m going to vote for.”

Larkin talked to the resident for roughly five minutes. He didn’t mention socialism by name, but discussed policies that describe what socialism is: government-funded universal healthcare, free tuition at public universities and the construction of millions of new affordable housing units. He also explained his desire to protect and expand temporary protected status and abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “All right,” the resident said. “I’ll vote for you.”

When one resident asked why, on a 95F day, Larkin was wearing a dark suit, he replied: “I’m dressed for the job I want!”

That weekend, about 75 volunteers for Larkin, some who traveled from counties on the other side of the state, knocked on thousands of doors across the district. It’s the engine – replicated by Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) chapters across the country – behind a campaign that establishment Democrats are watching warily and DSA leaders are treating as their next proof of concept.

While DSA-backed candidates won primaries in New York City, Philadelphia, Colorado and Michigan this year, the organization is now asking whether that momentum could power an upset in a state Donald Trump carried in 2024 and where Larkin’s opponent in the Democratic primary, Jared Moskowitz, is a two-term congressman who calls himself a “DeSantis Democrat”.

But Florida is not New York or Denver. Unlike the solidly blue turf DSA candidates have claimed so far, Florida’s 25th district is a brand-new, highly competitive district that boasts a diverse electorate and an almost even split between Democratic, Republican and independent voters – meaning independents will decide the election.

Beyond the two men on the ballot, the race is a proxy fight over what kind of Democrat can win in a Florida remade by Republican redistricting and rightward drift. Larkin’s candidacy tests whether the DSA’s recent wins in New York and Colorado translate to a district Republicans specifically redrew to be less competitive. Moskowitz’s candidacy tests whether distancing from the national party is still the surer path to survival here. Whoever wins the primary on 18 August will shape how both parties read Florida heading into the general election, and how much room the DSA has to expand beyond the areas where it has won so far.

“The anti-socialism card has been played for so long that it’s ingrained in our politics here,” said Sean D Foreman, a political scientist at Barry University. “But when you get past the name ‘democratic socialist’, and you start talking about policies like raising the minimum wage and affordable housing, they’re ideas that many voters agree with. It shows that these ideas can break through under the right conditions. But I’m not sure those conditions exist in Florida yet.”

From $7.25 an hour to a run for Congress

Larkin’s route into politics began in a restaurant kitchen. He grew up in Fort Lauderdale, the son of a retired army officer, and was working a minimum-wage line-cook job after college when he became consumed by Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign. He quit, drove to New Hampshire and went from unpaid volunteer to running the campaign’s Portsmouth field office, later organizing in Nevada, Kansas, Utah, New York and Rhode Island.

After the campaign ended, Larkin spent the next few years in Washington unionizing his workplace and organizing for progressive campaigns and unions before moving back to south Florida in 2022. He announced his run for Congress at a protest against “Alligator Alcatraz”, the now-shuttered Florida immigration detention camp where civil rights groups reported severe human rights violations.

In late July, Larkin stood before a packed room at a contemporary art museum in Dania Beach and fielded questions from voters for two hours. He didn’t dodge and he didn’t summarize. When asked about a specific line in the federal budget or the mechanics of a housing proposal, he answered with the kind of granular detail that comes from having given the same stump speech and having absorbed the same pushback hundreds of times over the past year.

Moskowitz, on the other hand, has largely avoided any public events with voters. The two-term congressman has not agreed to any debates. Larkin’s campaign has seized on the contrast. “Congressman Moskowitz doesn’t want to be accountable to voters in this district,” Larkin said. (Moskowitz declined to comment on Larkin’s claim that he does not have a field strategy to reach voters.)

A self-described “cat dad” and drag show enthusiast who says he wants south Florida to be a safe and welcoming place for everyone, Larkin has turned Moskowitz’s affiliation with DeSantis into a line of attack, pointing to his being chosen by the governor to lead the state’s division of emergency management. Larkin said he is especially divergent with Moskowitz on his decision to become the first congressional Democrat to join Trump’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) initiative and his vote for the Laken Riley Act, which expanded ICE’s detention authority.

Moskowitz’s version of that record looks different. He has cast himself as a pragmatist willing to work across the aisle in a state where Republicans control every lever of government, and allies note that his emergency-management background, including his time leading the state’s disaster response to numerous hurricanes, has given him a profile distinct from the national Democratic brand. He is widely seen as more socially conservative than most of the House Democratic caucus and has drawn criticism from the left for his unwavering support of Israel and his vote against a resolution to limit US military involvement in the conflict with Iran.

While Moskowitz started with a wide financial and polling advantage, that has shifted some in recent weeks. Moskowitz has raised nearly $3m to Larkin’s more than $1m, coming from nearly 20,000 unique donors, as part of his mission to reject corporate donations. Larkin has also leaned into his connection to the wider DSA wave, appearing alongside Twitch streamer Hasan Piker at a virtual fundraiser that pulled in roughly $60,000 in one night, and citing a nearly $120,000 fundraising surge in the week after the New York City primary wins.

Polls have shown the race getting tighter, too. A Beacon Insights poll in June had Moskowitz leading Larkin 51% to 19%; a poll last week from the Center for Strategic Politics found Larkin and Moskowitz in a statistical tie. Larkin’s internal polling, meanwhile, showed a wide head-to-head deficit that narrowed sharply once voters were given information about both candidates’ records, including Moskowitz’s Doge affiliation and Larkin’s status as a first-time candidate and democratic socialist.

However, experts remain wary of giving too much weight to polls. “Given [that] polls way overestimated [Abdul]

El-Sayed in Michigan and then [Francesca] Hong in Wisconsin, [it] underscores how difficult election polling is in general,” said David Macdonald, a political scientist at Florida State University. “And then it gets really difficult when you’re trying to poll primary races where it’s much lower turnout, much lower salience and with probably a lot more undecided voters.”

The DSA’s gamble in Florida

The national DSA’s push behind Larkin comes as the organization tries to expand beyond its traditional base of younger white college-educated progressives in large urban centers. Megan Romer, the DSA’s national co-chair, argues the group’s growth in rural and Republican-leaning areas – from mobile-home-park tenant unions in Idaho and North Carolina to organizing against new datacenters in her own upstate New York county – shows the model can travel beyond deep-blue cities.

“The current moment is being framed as ‘economic anxiety’ and that’s such a 2016 term,” said Romer. “It’s not economic anxiety to have to pick between rent and food – it’s economic violence. So we’re fighting against this system that keeps people from living dignified, safe and healthy lives.”

The seat that Larkin and Moskowitz are vying for exists because of a recent US supreme court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act. Shortly after, DeSantis pushed through a new congressional map designed to give Republicans an edge in as many as four Florida seats. The overhaul dismantled the 25th district long held by Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz and replaced it with a new coastal seat running from Delray Beach to Miami Beach. Moskowitz, whose old 23rd district had also been redrawn to lean more Republican, opted to run in the new 25th rather than face a tougher Republican-leaning seat elsewhere.

The district is majority white (65%), with a sizable Hispanic population (20%) and Black voters making up just 5%. People ages 50 and older make up more than 60% of the voters in the district – all demographics similar to the district that Moskowitz has represented since 2023.

That backdrop is central to why even Larkin’s allies describe this as a harder test than Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral race in New York or Melat Kiros’s in the Colorado congressional primary.

“In this particular district, which is a coastal and relatively wealthy area, the economic conditions are not there to bring a critical mass of support for the democratic socialists,” said Foreman. “It’s an area where you have people who have moved in from different parts of the country, and they’re probably more conservative.”

Steven Schale, a longtime Florida Democratic strategist who has worked on Barack Obama’s campaigns and is a friend of Moskowitz’s, pointed to two other considerations that make the district an uphill battle for Larkin: the 25th has one of the largest Jewish Democratic electorates in the country and the state has a history of being unfriendly terrain for the party’s most progressive flank, from Hillary Clinton’s 40-point presidential primary win over Sanders in the state in 2016 to Andrew Gillum’s narrow 2018 loss in the governor’s race.

“If Oliver Larkin wins that primary, he will lose the general election, and he will probably lose it pretty badly,” Schale said, arguing that DSA positions on abolishing prisons and curtailing ICE, however popular within the primary electorate, are liabilities in a general election where affordability, not ideology, is the dominant concern.

However, those distinctions are not so cut and dried; polls show that a majority of Latino voters in Florida oppose ICE. Florida also has a surprising history of voting for progressive issues. In 2018, nearly 65% of Florida voters approved restoring voting rights to most Floridians with prior convictions. Then in 2020, a $15 minimum wage amendment passed with roughly 61% of the vote even as Donald Trump carried the state.

Schale doesn’t view the race as morally simple, though. The DSA, he said, “provides real opportunities for young people” to lead campaigns in a way the Democratic establishment often does not, and part of the movement’s appeal is a legitimate frustration with incumbents who “should have gone home 15 years ago”.

Larkin rejects the idea that his politics are a general-election liability, pointing to his own polling, which shows him running close to a generic Democrat’s advantage in the district and ahead of the leading Republican fundraiser in early general-election matchups. He argues that Democrats’ losses in 2024, when roughly 7 million fewer voters turned out for Kamala Harris than for Joe Biden four years earlier, reflect a failure to offer working-class voters anything concrete, not an overcorrection to the left.

“The label of democratic socialism just frankly is not scary,” he said, “when under capitalism people have barely enough to survive.”

Canvassers who have been knocking on doors for Larkin since April say they’ve grown more hopeful with each passing week. Days away from the election, the campaign said it had knocked on more than 35,000 doors and made more than 170,000 calls to voters.

“The democratic socialists have already won this round in Florida, even if none of their candidates win, because they’ve gotten a lot more attention than you would have expected otherwise,” said Foreman. “Even Oliver Larkin, to some extent, realizes he’s planting seeds for the future of the movement.”

*excerpt from Fabiola Cineas' article*

Full Article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/14/oliver-larkin-democratic-socialist-florida-congress

NEW YORK (AP) - Luigi Mangione is scheduled to be in federal court Friday for a hearing at which he's expected to plead guilty in connection with the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Mangione could still change his mind about the plea, said the person, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the case and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Previous plea talks in June broke down.

Lawyers for Mangione and the Justice Department declined comment prior to the late-morning court hearing, which was hastily requested by prosecutors and defense lawyers earlier this week.

Mangione, 28, was charged by both federal and state prosecutors with ambushing Thompson, 50, outside a New York City hotel on Dec. 4, 2024, as the insurance executive walked to UnitedHealth Group's annual investor conference.

A trial on state murder charges is scheduled to start next month. It is unclear whether that trial would go forward if Mangione pleaded guilty in the federal case.

Mangione faces two federal charges that he stalked Thompson to cause his death. Both the federal and state cases could lead to a life prison sentence. A federal judge earlier this year tossed out additional charges that could have exposed Mangione to a potential death penalty.

Mangione had complained about the prospect of two trials, telling a judge in February: "It's the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition."

Under New York law, a state prosecution could potentially be barred if the federal case is resolved first. The state's double jeopardy protections kick in if a jury has been sworn in a prior prosecution, such as a federal case, or if that prosecution ends in a guilty plea. Mangione's cases involve different charges arising from the same course of conduct.

In a letter last month, state prosecutors objected to the possibility of a guilty plea in the federal case wiping out the state case.

U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett has delivered some setbacks to the defense, including ruling in January that prosecutors could use items collected from Mangione's backpack during his arrest as evidence against him.

They included a 3D-printed pistol that investigators said matched the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to kill an insurance executive.

In June, Mangione's lawyers said they would pursue a psychiatric defense in the state case but reversed course a day later. The defense, involving claims that he was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing, isn't allowed in federal court.

Surveillance video of the killing showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind. Police say "delay," "deny" and "depose" were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

He has become a cause célèbre for some people upset with the health insurance industry.

*excerpt from MICHAEL R. SISAK, LARRY NEUMEISTER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER'S article*

Full Article here:

https://apnews.com/article/luigi-mangione-plea-unitedhealthcare-ceo-3b8a5bb41589c9f5f4775dba2beea66f

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The yearslong case against six Nevada Republicans who were accused of submitting a bogus certificate that falsely declared Donald Trump the winner of the state's 2020 presidential election has been dismissed, a judge ruled Thursday.

The dismissal marks the latest setback in swing states' efforts to prosecute fake electors who tried to keep Trump in the White House after he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

Three other fake elector cases in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia have been dismissed. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes recently dismissed her office's criminal case but vowed to bring it back to a grand jury in hopes of securing another indictment. The dismissal was a legal maneuver aimed at getting around a deadline for starting new grand jury proceedings after Mayes lost an appeal earlier in June.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who is also running for governor as a Democrat, brought charges relating to forgery and "offering a false instrument for filing or record" against the six Nevada Republicans, who pleaded not guilty.

His office plans to appeal the ruling.

The defendants included Michael McDonald, the chair of the Nevada Republican Party, and Jesse Law, the former chair of the Clark County Republican Party. Their attorneys declined to comment Thursday.

After the 2020 election, the six Republican electors gathered outside of the Nevada Legislature to sign a certificate giving the state's six electoral votes to Trump, despite Biden winning the state by more than 30,000 votes. The ceremony was broadcast online, and the video footage was used as evidence in the case.

The case has revolved around the defendants' intent behind submitting the certificate.

Prosecutors argue the defendants intended for their documents to be mistaken for actual electoral votes that then-Vice President Mike Pence would count on Jan. 6, 2021.

The defendants say submitting the certificate was an act of "political theater" designed to publicize their concerns about the election. They were preserving their rights to challenge the official election results and had no intent to deceive a government agency into accepting the GOP certificate as real, their attorneys argued.

Nevada Judge Mary Kay Holthus agreed.

She found there was a lack of evidence that showed the electors intended to deceive government officials, and she determined that the state failed to disclose exculpatory evidence to the grand jury.

"The fact that Defendants openly announced both their actions and their asserted purpose, rather than concealing their conduct or attempting to secretly induce governmental reliance, weighs against a reasonable inference that they acted with fraudulent intent," Holthus wrote in her ruling.

Jurisdiction had also been an issue, but the case eventually landed in Clark County, which is home to Las Vegas and leans Democratic.

Courts have dismissed similar cases in Michigan and Georgia, and a special prosecutor dropped a federal case in late 2024 that charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Those cases ended after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. A fake electors case is ongoing in Wisconsin.

*excerpt from Jessica Hill's article*

Full Article here:

https://apnews.com/article/nevada-fake-electors-2020-election-0a73cc384868db69f9dc50e0644088a5

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump announced that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt plans to depart her position at the end of the month to spend more time with her family.

"Our wonderful White House Press Secretary, and one of my most trusted aides, Karoline Leavitt, will be departing her role at the end of the month so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family, a decision I totally understand and respect!" Trump said in an Aug. 12 post on Truth Social.

Leavitt, 28, the youngest press secretary in White House history, has served in the role for Trump's entire second term. She recently returned to her position after taking maternity leave following the birth of her second child, a daughter.

"Karoline will now be one of my top outside advisors, and an influential voice within the Republican Party, as we work to defy History, and conclusively win the Midterm Elections," Trump said.

Trump did not say who he will name to replace Leavitt.

*excerpt from Joey Garrison's article*

Full Article here:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/08/12/karoline-leavitt-leaving-white-house-press-secretary-trump/91277388007/