U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has bypassed congressional review to approve military ‌sales totaling over $8.6 billion to Middle Eastern allies Israel, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates www.reuters.com/world/middle...

A DOGE Affiliate Is Now in Charge of the US Government’s ID Platform Greg Hogan will oversee Login.gov as the government seeks to integrate driver’s license and passport information into the service, making what one insider calls “a national ID.” www.wired.com/story/a-doge...

42 House Democrats Join GOP in Passing Warrantless Mass Surveillance Bill FISA’s Section 702 allows the U.S. government to surveil electronic communications of noncitizens located outside the US to acquire foreign intelligence information, without a warrant www.commondreams.org/news/fisa-se...

US telecom agency votes to expand tech crackdown on China The agency says about 75% of all U.S. electronics are tested in China & plans to adopt a ​streamlined approval process for devices tested in U.S. labs or labs from ​countries not posing national security risks www.reuters.com/business/med...

Maryland Democrats expressed relief Wednesday that they were able to maneuver the Maryland Voting Rights Act of 2026 into taking effect Tuesday, just one day before the U.S. Supreme Court gutted racial redistricting aspects of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 marylandmatters.org/2026/04/30/m...

“No School, No Work, No Shopping”: Workers, Immigrants to Lead Thousands of May Day Protests www.democracynow.org/2026/5/1/may...

Court restricts abortion access across the US by blocking the mailing of mifepristone apnews.com/article/abor...

Utah’s New Law Targeting VPNs Goes Into Effect Next Week If a site doesn’t know a user is in Utah, their broader obligation to police VPNs remains murky. So, while SB 73 isn’t as extreme as the discarded Wisconsin proposal, it remains a dangerous precedent www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

Trump administration to pay 2 more companies to walk away from US offshore wind leases Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind have agreed to end their offshore wind leases in exchange for reimbursements totaling nearly $900 million apnews.com/article/trum...

Rising gas prices threaten meal delivery service for southeast Missouri seniors The Malden Nutrition Center has run a meal delivery program for seniors for years, but administrator Pam White said surging gas prices are now threatening the program’s survival www.kfvs12.com/2026/04/30/r...

Clarence Thomas: Voting Rights Act Doesn't Grant Racial Groups ‘An Entitlement’ to Representation Justice Thomas is leading the push to strip away protections that help ensure Black people and other communities of color have a fair seat at the table in Congress www.bet.com/article/9ajp...

AI: It saves significant time writing emails, and all it costs us is everything else on Earth Chatbots are not equipped to provide an appropriate response and can sometimes give responses that escalate the mental health crisis www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykvf...

President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized U.S. Vice President JD Vance for praising the halt of American military aid to Ukraine, saying the stance benefits Russia and weakens the United States, in comments to Newsmax published on April 29 kyivindependent.com/vances-pride...

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma set to dissolve after judge approves its criminal sentence apnews.com/article/oxyc...

Louisiana sued for suspending active election, nullifying votes to draft GOP gerrymander More than 100,000 absentee ballots had been sent to voters across the state, including students and active-duty military members www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry told Republican House candidates on Wednesday that he planned to ​suspend next month’s primary elections to allow state lawmakers to ‌pass a new congressional map, the Washington Post reported, citing 2 people with knowledge of the calls www.reuters.com/world/us/lou...

The Florida House of Representatives has passed a new, aggressively gerrymandered congressional map, part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) madcap dash to redistrict despite a voter-approved ban in the state constitution that prohibits partisan gerrymandering www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Sam Altman is “the face of evil” for not reporting school shooter, says lawyer Lawsuits: OpenAI didn’t report ChatGPT user to cops to protect Altman, IPO. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision along partisan lines, ruled that Louisiana's 2024 election map, which created a second majority-Black congressional district, was "an unconstitutional racial gerrymander." www.npr.org/2026/04/29/n...

Supreme Court Deals a Death Blow to the Voting Rights Act Republicans could ultimately eliminate a dozen Democratic congressional seats in the South as a result, leaving no Democratic representatives or majority-minority districts www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

How the Trumps’ Billion-Dollar Crypto Stake Depends on a Company That Helped Iran Evade Sanctions Binance helped build the infrastructure & holds the majority of Trump’s USD1 stablecoin & facilitated billions of $ in transactions for Iran & designated terrorist orgs www.citizen.org/article/trum...

The Trump Administration Aims to Penalize Disabled Adults Who Live With Their Families As many as 400,000 poor and disabled people and indigent older people across the United States could have their support cut or eliminated www.propublica.org/article/trum...

The State Department is rolling out a limited edition U.S. passport design featuring President Donald Trump’s face on the inside cover and other images to celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary of independence www.politico.com/news/2026/04...

Lawsuits accuse State Farm of secretly working to cut insurance payouts The epicenter of the hail litigation appears to be Oklahoma, where more than 600 lawsuits were pending against State Farm as of this spring www.npr.org/2026/04/28/n...

Paramount has noted it will be 49.5%-owned by non-U.S. investors after completing a planned merger with Warner Bros. Discovery The stat came to light in a request Monday by Paramount for approval of the foreign ownership stake by the Federal Communications Commission deadline.com/2026/04/para...

The Supreme Court case that could redefine your digital privacy Geofencing allows the government to draw a virtual fence around a geographic area where a crime was committed. After that, the government seeks a warrant to require a tech company to search its data www.npr.org/2026/04/26/g...

Trump fires the entire National Science Board The NSF has been fundamental in helping develop technology used in MRIs, cellphones, and it even helped get Duolingo get off the ground www.theverge.com/science/9187...

An appeals court on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending asylum access at the southern border of the U.S., a key pillar of the Republican president’s plan to crack down on migration apnews.com/article/trum...

He didn’t commit a crime, but Flock cam alerts keep getting him pulled over At some point, the sheriff's office provided the incorrect plate information to the Colorado Crime Information Center, which supplied the information used on the Flock hotlist www.9news.com/article/news...

Meta is tracking employee keystrokes on Google, LinkedIn, Wikipedia as part of AI training initiative A new employee tracking tool, dubbed Model Capability Initiative (MCI), allows Meta to observe and collect data from staffers’ actions on their work computers www.cnbc.com/2026/04/22/m...

The Democratic governor of ​Maine, Janet Mills, on Friday vetoed a bill that would have made it the first U.S. state to impose a moratorium on large new data ‌centers, even as local opposition to the electricity-hungry facilities grows www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

Warner Bros. shareholders voted Thursday to approve Paramount’s $81 billion takeover of the company in a major step toward closing the controversial megamerger that could put CNN under the control of the Trump-allied Ellison family www.ms.now/news/warner-...

FCC's Foreign-Made Router Ban Expands to Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot Devices Smartphones with hotspot features aren't affected, however, the FCC says in an updated FAQ www.pcmag.com/news/fccs-fo...

Trump’s ‘gold card’ visa starting at $1 million granted to just 1 person so far After it launched in December, Lutnick said that the government had sold $1.3 billion “worth” in just several days apnews.com/article/trum...

Eric Trump went on Fox Business on Thursday morning to boast about Foundation Future Industries, a company where he serves as chief strategy adviser, scoring a multimillion-dollar deal from the US Department of Defense www.commondreams.org/news/eric-tr...

Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a Democratic redistricting plan that could allow the party to pick up as many as four new seats in the midterm elections www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...

San Diego files antitrust suit, joining county’s legal fight over alleged fire truck maker monopoly Nearly identical suits filed by county, city allege municipalities across California have been harmed by anti-competitive practices www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/04/16/s...

Dozens of veterans were arrested by US Capitol Police on Monday after they occupied the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill to protest President Donald Trump’s illegal war on Iran www.commondreams.org/news/veteran...

After delays and security concerns, Dunwoody approves Flock agreement Flock employees accessed cameras in the fitness center, pool area and gymnastics room, Hunyar said www.axios.com/local/atlant...

Maryland is poised to become the first state in the country to ban "surveillance pricing." The practice refers to companies using a shopper’s personal data, such as browsing history, location, or purchasing behavior, to tailor prices to individual customers www.kshb.com/life/money/m...

Trump admin violated First Amendment by forcing Facebook and Apple to remove ICE-tracking apps, district court issues injunction lawandcrime.com/high-profile...

Microsoft and other US tech companies successfully lobbied the EU to hide the environmental toll of their datacentres, an investigation has found, with demands to block a database of green metrics from public view written almost word for word into EU rules www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

FAA Scraps Civil and Criminal Penalties for Flying Drones Near ICE Vehicles www.404media.co/faa-scraps-c...

The U.S. Senate has voted to overturn a 20-year ban on mining on about 350 square miles of federal land near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, paving the way for Twin Metals to renew efforts to open an underground copper mine near Ely www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

The Supreme Court of Montana ruled on Tuesday that trans residents of the state have a right to update their legal documents to accurately reflect their genders “Transgender discrimination is, by its very nature, sex discrimination,” Justice Laurie McKinnon www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/04/cour...

Pope Leo takes aim at 'handful of tyrants' spending billions on war amid tensions with Trump "The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants," he said, "yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters." www.npr.org/2026/04/16/n...

Utilities are spending $1.4 trillion to power the AI boom, and it's hiking up electric bills Electric and gas utilities sought to raise customer bills by $31 billion in 2025, more than double the amount sought in 2024, according to a PowerLines report www.businessinsider.com/utilities-pl...

City of Bloomington isn't renewing contract with Flock The Bloomington Common Council had already passed a resolution in March that called for additional oversight of the city's Flock cameras www.wthr.com/article/news...

7 Democrats Vote to Kill Bill Blocking Arms Sales to Israel Senate Democrats refused to back a resolution by Senator Bernie Sanders to block U.S. weapons sales to Israel. Blumenthal, Coons, Cortez Masto, Fetterman, Gillibrand, Rosen and Schumer newrepublic.com/post/209101/...

Grok’s sexual deepfakes almost got it banned from Apple’s App Store. Almost. Apple quietly asked developers to fix the problem or face removal from the App Store. www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...