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Questions remain on whether the slush fund debate could be revived sometime in the future.

The House Ethics Committee recommended a censure of Republican Representative Chuck Edwards of North Carolina Monday following reports of sexual harassment. The Committee released a 25-page report on its investigation, and concluded that Edwards had violated House rules related to “sexual harassment and hostile workplaces.”“Edwards engaged in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers,” the report states.This result follows reporting from Axios in May, which alleged that Edwards had singled out two young female staffers for special attention.This is a developing story.

The Department of Homeland Security has drastically ramped up efforts to add DNA from nearly one million immigrants to a massive criminal database. Most of them have no criminal history; some of them are kids. In 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement added up to roughly 920,000 DNA profiles into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, a database used for conducting criminal investigations, WIRED reported Monday. That’s equivalent to more than 2,700 new profiles every day for an entire year. We know that most of the people added to the database have no criminal record because most of the people who have been detained by ICE as part of President Donald Trump’s massive deportation crusade have no criminal record. New research from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, published in a report titled “Raiding the Genome: How the United States Government Is Abusing Its Immigration Powers to Amass DNA for Future Policing” uncovered a huge increase in the rate of DNA collection from undocumented immigrants. Customs and Border Protection has historically been responsible for collecting DNA from immigrants entering through the U.S.-Mexico border. Between October 2020 and December 2024, CBP collected the DNA of at least 1.36 million people, more than one dozen times the rate of ICE’s DNA collection during the same period. Even so, CBP’s prior collection rate has been dwarfed by the new data provided by ICE. Among the scores of immigrants whose genomes are now being tracked by the government are the children held at the family detention center in Dilley, Texas, the source of multiple reports documenting unsafe living conditions. “None of the families at Dilley have been convicted of a crime,” Representatives Joaquin Castro, Greg Stanton, and Nanette Barragán said in a joint statement to WIRED. “They do not belong in a database meant for violent criminals, especially children.”The ICE facility in Dilley has been the source of horrific reports about living conditions. Records released to Georgetown by CBP identified 492 children under age 14 whose DNA was sent to the FBI in 2025—including 33 seven-year-olds, 32 six-year-olds, and 21 five-year-olds, WIRED reported. And breaking with past precedent, ICE has also begun charging immigrants who refuse to submit a DNA sample when they are taken into custody. WIRED identified two prosecutions filed in 2025 against people in immigration custody who’d refused DNA collection. In response to questions from WIRED, a DHS spokesperson defended DNA collection and claimed the agency had collected DNA from children in order to verify family relationships. That program is distinct, however, from the DNA collection program centered in WIRED’s reporting.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s supposed deal to end President Trump’s $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” in his settlement with the IRS has a lot of loopholes.As Blanche seems to have stifled a Republican revolt and secured his Senate confirmation, Democrats on Capitol Hill sounded off against the settlement revision, which was announced late Sunday night.As Democrats pointed out, there are some major problems with the rewritten IRS settlement. First, there is no guarantee that Trump won’t later create a separate fund to reward his allies. Second, the IRS agreement granting Trump, his family, and Trump Organization immunity from IRS audits is still in place. Blanche’s only revision is that the immunity deal can’t apply to the future. And third, Blanche’s deal wasn’t signed by all parties, namely Trump, as the original IRS settlement was.“Nothing here stops DOJ from using taxpayer money to pay off January 6th insurrectionists. And it leaves the IRS shield protecting Trump and his family from past audits fully intact,” Democratic Senator Alex Padilla posted on X Monday. “Todd Blanche has always been Trump’s personal lawyer—and this ‘deal’ proves he’s unfit to serve as Attorney General. Congress must pass my legislation to permanently ban any payouts to J6ers.”California’s other Democratic senator, Adam Schiff, also criticized the deal, pointing out that it “doesn’t prevent payouts to violent insurrectionists in the future.”“It doesn’t prevent the admin from bringing the slush fund back from the dead next week or using DOJ’s Judgment Fund for the same illicit purpose,” Schiff posted on X. “It leaves in place a tax-immunity deal that could help Trump skip taxes on the $2.3 billion he made last year, and still leaves it vague who and what is covered.”Representative Daniel Goldman echoed concerns about the IRS audit immunity provision, pointing out that “the ridiculous tax immunity deal still applies to all tax years up to and including this year.“Remember, the lawsuit was a total sham that was withdrawn and this was an addendum that had no relevance or connection to the lawsuit ‘settlement,’” Goldman posted.Trump does not want the weaponization fund to die, complaining that people who were “horribly treated” deserve compensation. Sunday’s deal seems aimed at placating superficial opposition from Republicans who are on their way out of the Senate at the end of this year, without actually addressing the many corrupt issues with Trump’s IRS settlement.

Paramount provided the gifts while the federal agency was reviewing or about to review mergers involving the company.

The previous commentaries have described how people in cities, states, and communities have been expanding fossil free energy production and reducing energy use through Greentech initiatives. These are essential aspects of reducing climate-destroying greenhouse gas emissions, but in themselves they will not halt the destruction of the climate through the burning of fossil fuels. That [...]