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An Afghan man who worked with the United States military for more than a decade died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody due to an allergic reaction—but the release of his death certificate brings more questions than answers.Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal suffered “an adverse drug reaction” to an unidentified substance, which triggered anaphylaxis and exacerbated his asthma, according to his death certificate. The document was certified on June 25 and released Monday, three months after his death. AfghanEvac, an advocacy group, reported that the death certificate falsely states that Paktiawal died on March 12—a day before he was even taken into custody. It also lists the effects of methamphetamine, which Paktiawal’s friends and family say he did not use. “If my brother never used that drug in his life, how did it get into his body while he was inside an ICE building?” said Naseer Paktiawal, the deceased’s brother. The family has still not received an autopsy report explaining Paktiawal’s death certificate. In a June 24 letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Dallas County Criminal District Attorney’s Office said it would continue to withhold his full autopsy report because of a pending federal criminal investigation.Paktiawal was detained by federal immigration agents in Richardson, Texas, on March 13 while dropping off two of his children at preschool. After 24 hours with ICE, he was dead. The evening of his arrest, Paktiawal complained of shortness of breath and chest pain while being held in the ICE’s Dallas field office. He was then transferred to Parkland Hospital, where he received treatment and remained for observation. The next morning, medical staff observed that his tongue had become swollen. Later, after cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other lifesaving measures, Paktiawal was declared dead. Before emigrating to the United States in 2021, Paktiawal was a member of the Afghan special forces who were hired by the U.S. government. He worked with them for more than a decade. According to ICE, Paktiawal was “paroled into the U.S. by an immigration officer,” or granted temporary permission to enter the country under Operation Allies Refuge, an evacuation effort for allied Afghan nationals that took place under the Biden administration. ICE claimed they had no record of his military service, and said his parole expired in August 2025. The agency also claimed that Paktiawal had previously been arrested for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program fraud and theft.More than 50 people have died in ICE custody since President Donald Trump returned to office—a marked increase from past administrations—but Paktiawal’s death is the first to be ruled an accident.

As Abdul El-Sayed surges, Mallory McMorrow drops out, and Haley Stevens digs in, Michigan is revealing a national realignment inside Democratic politics.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s old firm recently cut a $1.6 billion rare earth metals deal, and Democrats in Congress are investigating his role in the apparent conflict of interest. Bloomberg reports that the deal, finalized last month, likely benefited Lutnick’s two sons, who took over Cantor Fitzgerald after their father left to join the Trump administration. The financial services company served as a placeholder agent for the deal between the Department of Commerce and USA Rare Earth, or USAR, and Democrats expressed their concerns in a letter to Brandon Lutnick, Howard’s younger son and the firm’s chairman, dated Monday. “It is imperative your company provide complete transparency about the substantive conflict of interest concerns raised by the circumstances of this investment,” said the letter, written by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, and Ron Wyden in addition to Representative Zoe Lofgren. “Secretary Lutnick appears to have played a part in facilitating the USAR deal with Commerce.”Wyden and Warren serve on the Senate Finance Committee, while Van Hollen serves on the the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies.* Lofgren is the ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. They also sent a letter to USAR detailing their concerns.  In January, the Trump administration agreed to take a 10 percent stake in USAR, and the Commerce Department offered the company funding and loans. These terms “raise serious questions about Secretary Lutnick’s exposure to federal conflicts of interest and bribery laws,” the legislators wrote in the letter. One year ago, USAR was a much smaller company. After meeting with Secretary Lutnick and other administration officials, it secured government help in January and has since purchased a rare earth mine in Brazil and acquired, either in partial stakes or in totality, processing businesses in France and the United Kingdom. These Democrats are hoping to get details about the meetings between Cantor Fitzgerald and the Commerce Department. But, even with congressional hearings, they may not get much in the way of answers, considering how much the president and his administration traffic in corrupt, self-serving business deals. * This article has been updated to clarify Van Hollen’s committee membership.

A plausible response to the process to reverse the ban on US striker Folarin Balogun’s ban: FIFA has always been corrupt, might as well make it work for us.

The populist movement propelling Graham Platner’s senatorial campaign is eyeing former state senator Troy Jackson.

Rules on the reconciliation process stipulate that non-budgetary items cannot be included in such measures.