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The Trump administration has canceled millions of dollars’ worth of federal grants to organizations running teen pregnancy education programs nationwide, suggesting that the widely effective underage pregnancy prevention services were inappropriately promoting premarital sex.The funding did not align with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health’s outlined priorities, according to a government fact sheet that specified the office would not support “content that encourages, normalizes or promotes sexual activity for minors.”One such organization interrogated by the assistant secretary—South Carolina nonprofit Fact Forward—was accused of including lessons with “advice on making condom use more pleasurable” and promoting discussions that normalize “use of pornography,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by The New York Times.“That information was just not true,” Rena Dixon, who runs the group, told the Times. Dixon added that Fact Forward had never used the lessons or materials to which the assistant secretary referred. Other program directors that spoke with the Times also said that the government had distorted the materials they were using in order to make erroneous claims about their education plans. Several noted that the grants they won required them to use “courses from a federally approved list shown by research to be age-appropriate and effective,” according to the Times.The federal government first got involved in preventing teen pregnancy in 2010, allocating roughly $100 million to the cause and eventually creating the Office of Adolescent Health and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, or OAH.At the time, teen birth rates were already in decline, yet the program’s influence still caused rates to fall faster than ever. The government-funded programs advanced the waning trend by investing in proper sex education and increasing access to reproductive health care in communities suffering from disproportionately high rates of teen pregnancy. But Donald Trump and his allies have nonetheless abhorred the effort. Last month, a spokesperson for Health and Human Services revealed that the agency had canceled 53 out of 67 grants—totaling $68 million—alloted to the pregnancy prevention program. The impact was broad, affecting more than two dozen states across the country.It’s unclear if the effort will hold up in court. Trump took similar actions during his first term, suddenly canceling dozens of grants issued under the Obama-era program in 2017, though his efforts did not succeed.In April 2018, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—then a U.S. district judge—ruled that HHS had violated its own regulations by prematurely ending the grants without an adequate explanation, ordering the agency to restore the terminated funds.

A recent New York moratorium gives the appearance of accountability without the structural change that would require it.

The Trump administration on Wednesday signed a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that, per The New York Times, “could lead to the country enriching its own fuel for nuclear reactors” and is estimated to “provide billions of dollars for the U.S. nuclear industry.” This news took much of Washington by surprise, given the rift between the two countries over the U.S. war against Iran. Nuclear experts have long been expecting such a deal, but President Trump’s reported concessions to Saudi Arabia raise legitimate concerns and unless addressed could lead to a Middle East filled with nuclear weapons programs. This would undermine decades of U.S. work to prevent the spread of the most destructive weapons humanity has ever created.For the U.S. to sell enriched uranium or nuclear power plants abroad, it must first reach an agreement with the country under Article 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The U.S. has 26 of these so-called 123 agreements with 51 governments, including Russia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, the European Union, and the United Arab Emirates. Most of these were negotiated so the U.S. could sell both reactors and low-enriched uranium fuel that cannot be used in nuclear weapons. Almost all of the deals omit permission for states to pursue uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing—thus reducing global risk, as highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium can both be used to produce nuclear weapons. Japan and the European Union, with their strong legal systems and acceptance of the most stringent inspection obligations conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, are the only two 123 deals that allow significant enrichment or reprocessing of U.S. materials. Saudi Arabia is not Japan or the EU, and its agreement with the U.S. sounds a lot different from the standard 123 deal. This raises concerns that Saudi Arabia is using its close financial ties to the Trump family to manipulate U.S. cooperation to pursue a nuclear weapon option, especially if Iran continues to be a nuclear threshold state. Of greatest concern is a provision that could open the door to Saudi Arabia having a uranium enrichment facility. The pact reportedly agrees that the two countries will conduct a two-year fuel-cycle study on the economic feasibility of domestic enrichment in Saudi Arabia. If the two sides agree that it’s feasible, then the U.S. would build an enrichment facility there without giving Saudi Arabian citizens access to the sensitive technology—a so-called “black box” approach. If the two sides do not agree enrichment makes sense, then Saudi Arabia would not be allowed to build its own domestic enrichment for 10 years. What happens after that is not clear. The fact that the two-year window would fall within the time remaining in Trump’s term is a sign that the fix for Saudi Arabia might be in and approval of enrichment a foregone conclusion.Another worrying provision in the deal “may limit international inspectors from going to any sites in the country that they think could be a pathway to diverting fuel to weapons projects,” the Times reported.  That the U.S. negotiated a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia is not itself a shocking development. The Biden administration held preliminary discussions with Riyadh about a 123 agreement, but with a set of very stringent provisions that are not included in the new deal. The Biden administration’s goal was threefold: Improve regional security by facilitating Israeli-Saudi reconciliation, keep China from becoming a major provider of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and the region, and boost the prospects for U.S. nuclear commercial sales while enhancing nonproliferation goals and standards. The Biden deal would have required that Saudi Arabia establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, and that Israel agree to make progress on the treatment of Palestinians and on the status of the Occupied Territories in West Bank and Gaza. The Biden concept would also have required Saudi Arabia to agree to only pursue nuclear cooperation with the U.S., cutting out China, Russia, and other states. This clause was driven largely by concern that Beijing or Moscow might not be as careful as the U.S. about sharing sensitive nuclear technology; if the U.S. were the main provider in Saudi Arabia, it could maintain greater control over any nuclear activities the country might want to pursue. (There are reports of an exclusivity clause in a secret side letter to the Trump deal, but that has not been made public.)Lastly, the Biden deal would have required that Riyadh accept the highest possible standards for nuclear transparency and inspections by the IAEA, including the Additional Protocol accepted by Japan, the EU, the UAE, and even Iran under the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal. If those goals were met, then the Biden administration was willing to consider an option for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to jointly own a uranium enrichment facility under a black box arrangement—with the facility being either in Saudi Arabia or in the United States with Saudi financing.Even these conditions raised serious concerns among U.S. nuclear experts. But it was for naught: Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel derailed the discussions. Now Trump is on the verge of striking a notably looser, less restrictive deal with Saudi Arabia. There are good reasons to be concerned that the administration has neither the motivation nor the expertise to ensure that any complex nuclear negotiation advances U.S. interests in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. The mishandling of nuclear negotiations by the first and second Trump administrations are well documented, including the decision to blow up the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal struck by President Obama and the loose wording of last month’s memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran.Any deal that gives sensitive nuclear technology to a country whose leader has openly stated he would develop a nuclear weapon if Iran did so should raise major concerns—and draw scrutiny by Congress. Under the Atomic Energy Act, nuclear cooperation agreements must be submitted to lawmakers, who then have 90 days of “continuous session” to decide whether to reject them. If Congress takes no action, then the agreement would go into force and could be ratified by the executive branch. There are not enough in-session days in the current Congress for this deal to be reviewed, which means the next Congress after the midterms will have to consider this deal. There are a number of questions that need to be answered: What conditions would be imposed on any future U.S.-Saudi enrichment facility, and what happens if Saudi Arabia violates its nuclear nonproliferation obligations? Can Saudi Arabia pursue enrichment or reprocessing if the fuel-cycle study is inconclusive or determines domestic fuel-cycle activities are not economically justified?Can Saudi Arabia acquire nuclear or other sensitive technology from China or other states?Does pursuing this deal reduce or eliminate America’s ability to encourage future diplomatic engagement between Israel and Saudi Arabia?In the end, the Trump administration and a GOP-controlled Congress is all but certain to let the proposed agreement enter into force. However, it will take many months for that to happen and many more for any nuclear contracts and deals to be put into place. But now is the time for vigilance. These next few months, between the U.S.-Saudi deal and the Iran war (the country’s 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium are still unaccounted for), may well determine whether the nearly 80-year effort to prevent nuclear weapons from spreading to dozens more countries succeeds or fails.

Arizona has seen the most staggering decline in SNAP participation, falling 49 percent among children in the state.

Lawyers working at the Department of Justice are refusing to put certain information in writing out of fear that it could be used against them.The DOJ is prosecuting two journalists over their coverage of an anti-ICE protest at Cities Church in Minnesota in January, and one of them, Georgia Ellyse Fort, is charged with three felonies, including a hate crime. Fort’s defense counsel is accusing the government of spying on her, and a judge barred the government from using toll records and cell phone simulators that include Fort’s phone activity.A Homeland Security Investigations agent, Timothy Gerber, allegedly began using customs summonses to get information about Fort, whose lawyers said that the prosecutors would not say whether the government was continuing to use those summonses. The prosecution is supposed to turn over its evidence to defense counsel in any legal case, but only described the cell phone data from Fort’s phone without turning over the data itself.In a letter to DOJ prosecutors, first flagged by independent journalist Mary Wheeler, Fort’s lawyers referred to a phone call with DOJ lawyer Ned Hedley in which they got the indication that “the government does not intend to respond to our correspondence in writing, out of the concern expressed on the call that what it represents to us could be put before the Court and/or otherwise used against it.”It’s an astounding thing for government lawyers to say, especially considering that documenting conversations is a basic requirement in the legal profession. Hedley’s words seem to indicate that the Trump administration is trying to hide something, or knows that its activities might not be legal.Fort was arrested alongside journalists Don Lemon and Michael Beute—and the case against all of them is weak. The three are accused of rioting and protesting, while they say they were merely covering the event. Refusing to put certain things in writing would seem to undermine the government’s case.

A new Medicaid rule could leave poor Americans with cancer, HIV, and other serious illnesses fighting paperwork instead of fighting for their lives.

Sen. Angela Alsobrooks called draft language “wild and unserious”

Britta Shoot Prism Journalist John Washington’s new book explains how fighting and closing detention centers is critical in the larger battle to stop immigration enforcement Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, dozens of immigrants have died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Between January and July 6 this year, at least 21 individuals have died […]

The center-left Searchlight Institute is urging Democrats to work toward universal healthcare in ways that don’t disrupt private insurance.