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Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s mass immigration detention policy was struck down twice in a single day on Thursday, in a brutal loss for President Donald Trump.  Two separate federal appeals courts rejected the Trump administration’s bid to detain immigrants—many of whom have lived in the U.S. for years without a criminal record—without a hearing. The rulings mark the administration’s fifth and sixth consecutive losses on the case.In a 2–1 ruling by the Wisconsin-based Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the majority found that the government could not refuse bond hearings to undocumented immigrants who were already living in the U.S. In executing its mass detention policy, the government had been improperly applying a rule meant to apply to immigrants “seeking admission” at the U.S. border. Earlier Thursday, there was a 2–1 ruling by the California-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which similarly found that the government had misconstrued decades-old immigration laws to justify its actions. The majority opinion was written by Trump appointee Judge Daniel Bress.These rulings follow the same logic as decisions from the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit, the New York–based Second Circuit, the Colorado-based Tenth Circuit, and the Ohio-based Sixth Circuit. Only two federal appeals courts have sided with the Trump administration’s mass detention policy as it inevitably makes its way to the Supreme Court. Mass detention isn’t merely a step along the way to achieving Trump’s goal of mass deportation: It’s also the goal. 

Fresh off what was, in spite of everything and largely with no thanks to himself, the tremendous success of the 2026 World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino was always going to find a way to turn that success into a monument to his own vanity and greed. What is surprising is just how quickly he managed to squander whatever undeserved goodwill he had generated during the tournament. On Tuesday, just eight days after Spain won the World Cup for the second time, Infantino and FIFA announced a plan to create a $20 billion subsidiary to ‌run the World Cup and its other events, offering stakes to private investors worth up to 20 percent. The World Cup was for sale, in other words—and, to make matters even more ridiculous, that sale was going to be overseen by Josh Kushner, the brother of President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess. UEFA, which oversees European soccer, has already unanimously voted to boycott all subsequent FIFA tournaments if the measure passes. Those tournaments very much include the 2030 World Cup, which is set to partially be hosted in Portugal and Spain—and would mean 11 of the top 20–ranked nations in the world would miss out on FIFA’s premier competition. CONCACAF, which oversees soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, voted to “reject” the sell-off hours later. If the backlash grows, Infantino’s presidency—or even FIFA—could be destroyed.How we got here is much clearer, however. The 2026 World Cup, hosted primarily in the United States, was a lesson in avarice for the already power- and money-hungry Infantino. Hobnobbing at every opportunity with the president and his cronies, Infantino came away with a clear lesson: Though he is plenty corrupt and greedy, he wasn’t being corrupt and greedy enough. Modeling both his public persona and his leadership of FIFA increasingly on Trump, Infantino is now making a move that could remake the centerpiece tournament of global soccer—and make him and his allies fabulously wealthy. FIFA, not Trump or America, may have been fully responsible for the 2026 World Cup’s most irritating quirks: the commercial breaks disguised as pauses for “hydration”; the championship rings; the god-awful halftime show; and, of course, the insanely inflated cost of everything. Infantino may be an evangelist for soccer’s power as a force for harmony, togetherness, and collective prosperity, but in practice everything always comes back to the bottom line. For FIFA and its bald president, the United States was an unmissable opportunity to line pockets, and no potential source for revenue was missed. Even the grass on the pitch for the final was sold by the square. There were howls of outrage at Infantino’s brazen profit seeking throughout the tournament. FIFA is ostensibly a nonprofit, but Infantino holds onto power by distributing its revenue to its 211 member nations—many of which are allowed to spend it with minimal, or even nonexistent, oversight. For Infantino, the 2026 World Cup was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver the goods for his clients, as the World Cup is never held in a nation this wealthy and hypercapitalistic. But it also was an opportunity to put his own spin on the World Cup. For Infantino, the World Cup is a luxury experience, one available only to oligarchs and autocrats. It seems clear Infantino increasingly sees himself as the latter—the god emperor of global soccer. For all the deserved grousing about that Americanization—and about Infantino’s cozy, obsequious relationship with Trump—the World Cup was largely a success, at least from Infantino’s perspective. His refusal to speak out when teams were harassed and a Somali referee was literally prevented from entering the U.S. may have been pathetic, while FIFA’s decision to reverse a red card for U.S. striker Folarin Balogun was astonishingly corrupt, even by the organization’s standards. But the outcry that followed those incidents never fully subsumed the competition, which was largely excellent and was, by financial metrics, the most successful (i.e., profitable) in history. One way to read Infantino’s decision to partner with Kushner to quite literally sell the World Cup is that he now feels untouchable. His critics hit him hard and repeatedly during the tournament, but it did not change the fact the World Cup is bigger than any controversy or criticism. Recognizing this, Infantino decided that no one can lay a glove on him because he—not FIFA—owns the World Cup. He is behaving like a king, even more so than usual. Another, however, is that Infantino is tired of his critics and wants to cement his status as the god emperor of global soccer. On Monday, a day before the announcement that he planned to sell a portion of the World Cup to private investors, he released an extraordinarily petulant 15-slide statement on Instagram aimed at his detractors. “Sorry that the matches are now over and sorry that you missed all that joy and togetherness. Sorry that you were so consumed by hate and criticism that you missed it all,” the FIFA president posted on Instagram. “To those behind their pens and papers, behind their screens spreading hate and false rumours, I want to say that while you are sitting behind, we at FIFA are on the frontlines organising, working hard, and delivering ‌the best show in the ‌world.” Infantino is a wealthy and powerful adult, but this is the pose of a 15-year-old who overheard their supposed “friends” picking on them at a school dance. Of course, it also sounds like Trump, who increasingly appears to be Infantino’s hero, idol, and model. The backlash from UEFA—which has waged a proxy war against Infantino for years—should have been predictable. The argument against privatizing the World Cup is obvious and simple: It makes no long-term strategic or financial sense. Owning the World Cup, all of it, is what gives FIFA power. Trading that to investors for a one-time windfall makes no sense at all, especially if those investors respond by depreciating its value by staging more competitions (which seems likely). FIFA, moreover, does not need the money. The 2026 World Cup made at least $15 billion, which is more than enough for it to live off. The only argument for selling off a chunk of the tournament is that it will make the leaders of corrupt federations—and likely Infantino himself—a sizable chunk of change now. Ultimately, that’s how we got here. Infantino spent June and July jetting around the U.S., rubbing shoulders with every member of the Trump administration he could. The lesson he took was not just that he was leaving money on the table by not being more venal, but that there would be no consequences for engaging in more blatant corruption. After all, Trump has turned America into his personal piggybank, and no one is stopping him. How hard could it be for Infantino to do the same thing with the World Cup?

India’s Gen Z-led movement confronted Modi, but some see it as a missed opportunity for transformational change.

When Donald Trump came to Michigan last week to speak at a General Motors vehicle-testing facility, he likely expected to find a friendly crowd.  That wasn’t entirely the case. A group of protesters holding yellow signs that read “stop data centers” interrupted the president, chanting, “Data centers no, people pay the bill,” until they were […]

ABC accused the Federal Communications Commission Thursday of “attempted censorship” and a clear “retaliation” effort meant to send a message to every other media company in the country.“The Administration has openly and repeatedly called for the revocation of ABC’s licenses, because it dislikes the content and viewpoints expressed on ABC network programs,” ABC wrote in a fiery 119-page regulatory filing to the agency.The filing is the latest in a legal battle between the television network and the FCC, which abruptly moved to review the licenses of eight ABC-owned television stations in April. The agency initially claimed that the review was related to ABC’s diversity and inclusion hiring policies, though it came shortly after Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about President Trump that Trump didn’t like. The federal government had never before demanded such a vast review of a major television network’s licenses.ABC’s latest filing called out FCC Chair Brendan Carr by name and made clear that this fight isn’t just about the Disney-owned network: “The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price.”“Across the government, regulatory and contracting carrots and sticks have been trained on other disfavored speakers,” the filing continued. “The tools vary; the objective does not: a media industry too fearful of official reprisal to report the news freely.”Carr has rejected accusations of censorship, despite the sledgehammer he’s taken to the free press since the start of Trump’s second term.“Look at the results so far,” Carr bragged at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March. “PBS, defunded. NPR, defunded. Joy Reid, gone from MSNBC. Sleepy-eyes Chuck Todd, gone. Jim Acosta, gone. John Dickerson, gone. Stephen Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership, and soon enough, CNN is going to have new ownership, as well.”Still, despite it all, Carr claims he doesn’t view the FCC as “the speech police.”Luckily, as ABC outlined in its filing, the network has received a massive outpouring of support from viewers, current and former FCC officials, advocacy groups, and political leaders on both sides of the aisle—including warnings from conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Senator Ted Cruz. The FCC’s website has been buried in public comments supporting ABC and offering passionate defenses of the First Amendment and local television.This latest filing may not change Carr’s approach, but it could rally the rest of the industry—and the public—before the FCC makes its next move.

Democrats may fail to unite around their candidate in the general.

A lifelong Republican left his party in 2016. Ten years later, he says Democrats are making the same mistakes — and the end result could be worse than Donald Trump.