US politics

US politics

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is ordering state agencies and public universities in Texas to halt new petitions for H-1B visas. In a letter to Texas state agency heads on Tuesday, Abbott wrote that there had been "recent reports of abuse" in the program, which is designed to bring high-skilled foreign workers to the United States. "Texas state agencies and institutions of higher education collectively employ hundreds of thousands of Texans and have a significant role in shaping the State's labor market," Abbott wrote.

Workers in industries labelled as reputationally risky, as well as a broad range of religious and ethnic groups, have been denied access to financial services. United States President Donald Trump's $5bn lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase resurfaces his accusations of debanking the act of removing a person or organisation's access to financial services. The complaint, filed in a Florida court on Thursday, alleges that the bank singled him out for political reasons and closed several of his accounts.

Government Accountability Office investigators tracked telework at the Social Security Administration from July 2019 through May 2025 and found a sharp cliff after the White House memo. Telework hours fell from 35 percent of total hours in January through March 2025 to 13 percent in April through May 2025, a drop that matched the new posture. That speed matters, because SSA employees had built their lives and budgets around flexibility.

Trump's Lawyers Should Be Disbarred: Time for accountability.

For many, one particular breakdown is a final, damning cause for despair: Minnesota's apparent inability to investigate and potentially prosecute the federal agents responsible. The Department of Homeland Security on Saturday reportedly blocked Minnesota officials from examining the scene of Alex Pretti's shooting. Access was refused even after state officials got a judicial search warrant. As a result, key forensic evidence was almost certainly lost. This comes after state officials were excluded from the investigation into Renee Good's death.

Target's incoming CEO, who starts next week, sent a video message to staff in which he described the violence and loss of life in the local community as "incredibly painful;" he did not mention Trump or ICE directly. Others have been more blunt. Big names in tech and venture capital, as well as small business owners around the country, have expressed outrage at the Trump administration and ICE on their own social media pages, using words like "murderer," "shameful," and "a conscious-less administration."

The factual bullshit from Trump-administration officials about Minnesota is, at least, easily detected: Hear claim, watch video, reject claim. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem declares that Alex Pretti "brandished" a firearm. ( He did not.) White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller tells us Pretti was "an assassin" who "tried to murder federal agents." (Pretti never drew his weapon, got pepper-sprayed, and wound up at the bottom of an ICE dogpile.)