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Trump admin tries to block Clean Air Act lawsuit over xAI’s gas turbines

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Trump admin tries to block Clean Air Act lawsuit over xAI’s gas turbines

The Trump administration is trying to help Elon Musk’s xAI Corp. beat a Clean Air Act lawsuit filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The US said the NAACP lawsuit threatens an xAI data center that powers Grok systems needed by the military.

The NAACP sued xAI and subsidiary MZX Tech in April, alleging that they violated the Clean Air Act by operating 27 gas turbines without an air permit in Southaven, Mississippi. The number of unpermitted turbines rose to 57 by mid-May and there were plans to install two more, the NAACP said in a June 12 filing.

“Defendants’ Colossus Gas Plant powers xAI’s nearby Colossus 2 data center, which in turn powers the chatbot ‘Grok,’” the lawsuit said. The gas turbines have fueled both health concerns and noise complaints.

US Department of Justice lawyers urged a federal judge to dismiss the case in a filing yesterday. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality determined that the turbines don’t require permits, the US filing said.

The lawsuit “threaten[s] artificial-intelligence innovation, plus the energy needed to power it,” the US filing said. “The NAACP’s attempt to cut off the power that supports Grok also threatens national security because… Grok provides critical support for the Department of War’s military operations.” The US court filing said xAI’s Grok Gov Model aided targeted strikes in Iran during Operation Epic Fury.

Grok was used with Maven Smart System to help US forces “deploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury, a testament to the greatly increased operational efficiency made possible by the Grok Gov Model,” according to a declaration by Cameron Stanley, chief digital and artificial intelligence officer for the Department of War. The Grok Gov Model has unique features not found in any other AI model, he wrote.

US helping xAI break the law, group says

The US is arguing “that xAI should be allowed to break the law solely because the Trump administration says so,” said the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which represents the NAACP in the case.

“In the filing, the Department of Justice never disputes that xAI is pumping out unlawful and harmful pollution into Memphis and North Mississippi,” the SELC said today. “Instead, the Department argues that it doesn’t matter whether xAI is breaking the law and threatening community members’ health if the Trump administration blesses the lawlessness. While the Department points to vague national security concerns as its reason to let xAI continue to illegally pollute unabated, all companies, even ones that contract with the federal government, are required to follow the law.”

A letter from Gov. Tate Reeves said that in March 2026, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality approved xAI permits to construct several permanent gas turbines. It also gave written authorization for xAI to use trailer-mounted gas turbines to temporarily power the facility until the permanent ones are built. The department “determined that such temporary gas turbines are ‘mobile sources’ not subject to the Clean Air Act’s permitting requirements,” the letter said.

The case is in US District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. The US told the court that “the Clean Air Act does not authorize citizen-enforcement actions that seek relief the governmental enforcers choose to forgo… Nothing in the statute suggests that Congress, when enacting the citizen-suit provision, deputized citizens to ‘commandeer the federal enforcement machinery,’ especially where the United States has determined that a citizen’s suit would not serve the public interest.”

Citizen suit dispute

The NAACP lawsuit relies on a Clean Air Act provision authorizing citizen lawsuits “against any person who proposes to construct or constructs any new or modified major emitting facility without a permit.”

The NAACP said in its June 12 filing that under the Clean Air Act, “Citizen suits may still proceed after state agencies determine permits are not required, or while agencies pursue parallel investigations. Just as state applicability determinations do not bar federal enforcement under the Clean Air Act, they do not shield operators from citizen enforcement. If they did, it would frustrate the very purpose of the citizen suit provision.”

The SELC said today that the Trump administration’s argument against citizen suits could have far-reaching implications. Citizen lawsuits “serve as an essential backstop—and often a last resort—for communities when government regulators fail to hold polluters accountable,” the SELC said. “The provision was passed by Congress with bipartisan support, and courts have repeatedly upheld the constitutionality of citizen suits. Now, the Department of Justice is indicating that it has a right to come in and cancel such community-led suits at any time. This threatens to open the door to significant corruption as polluters pay, or give favors, to avoid complying with the law.”

The gas turbines threaten the health of residents in an area with a large Black population, the NAACP said. “Without controls, the Colossus Gas Plant’s turbines can emit ten times the amount of nitrogen oxides pollution they should under the Act, contributing to increasing risks of heart disease, lung disease, and premature death in the surrounding neighborhoods where Black and other frontline communities live, including members of Plaintiffs NAACP and NAACP MS,” the NAACP said.

The NAACP asked the court for a permanent injunction prohibiting continued operation of the gas turbines, civil penalties of up to $124,426 per day, and reimbursement of the plaintiff’s costs and attorneys’ fees.

The NAACP’s June 12 filing said that all the turbines “required Clean Air Act permits prior to construction, best available control technology to limit pollution during operations, and emissions monitoring for pollution tracking and transparency. Defendants have not obtained a single air permit for these turbines or otherwise complied with the Clean Air Act requirements at any point from installation to now.”

The US filing pointed to support from Mississippi state regulators. “The State of Mississippi has similarly determined that continued operation of xAI’s data centers and turbines serves the State’s interests,” the US wrote. “If the NAACP successfully shuts down xAI’s turbines through this civil enforcement action, the State explained, that ‘would create an immediate and substantial disruption to the State’s economy’ and ‘disrupt the Clean Air Act’s delicate balance of cooperative Federalism.’”

U.S. Casualties in Iran Are Still Rising

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Nick Turse
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U.S. Casualties in Iran Are Still Rising


America’s Iran War casualties crept higher even as the U.S. was in the final stages of declaring a second ceasefire with Iran this weekend. 

The U.S. and Iran have agreed to a second ceasefire and the eventual reopening the Strait of Hormuz under a preliminary deal scheduled to take effect on Friday. “Iran has taken a major step toward final victory,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, said on Monday, one of several Iranian leaders taking a victory lap after outlasting the Trump administration.

Trump’s war has already killed thousands of Iranian civilians — including more than 150, most of them children –  in a strike on an elementary school. The official number of dead and wounded U.S. personnel stands at 426, an almost 11 percent increase since the first ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was struck on April 8. This tally, however, is missing hundreds of casualties, including two soldiers wounded in action earlier this month.

For months, The Intercept has reported that the Pentagon’s official tally of dead and wounded military personnel from the Iran War is a gross undercount, stemming from what another U.S. government official called a “casualty cover-up.” The Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, which tracks “deceased, wounded, ill or injured” service members for Congress and the president, is missing hundreds of known casualties. The true number exceeds 625.

When the first ceasefire was struck between the Trump administration and Iran, the tally of U.S. casualties was 385. Despite a pause in hostilities, the number slowly rose to 428, according to Pentagon statistics.

On April 21, however, the number of wounded-in-action troops declined by 15 without public comment from the War Department, dropping the casualty total to 413. Despite repeated questions over almost two months, the Pentagon has not explained the disparity in its casualty count. A defense official told The Intercept that it was impossible to tell whether Pentagon casualty analysts were “grossly incompetent” or had been ordered to manipulate the figures.    

Since the 15 wounded vanished in April, the DCAS casualty count has steadily crept upward to top out at 413, where it stood on Tuesday morning. This includes one sailor wounded in action this month. Central Command did not reply to a request for further information about the injury.

The official figures appear to be missing two soldiers who were recently wounded in action. CENTCOM spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins told NBC News last week that two crew members from a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopter downed by an Iranian drone on June 8 were receiving medical care. And a CENTCOM social media post said they were in “stable condition.” But DCAS lists no Army personnel wounded in action this month.

The official tally of war dead also appears to be an undercount. For weeks, DCAS listed 13 hostile and non-hostile U.S. deaths during the war. DCAS briefly raised the total to 14 last month before dropping it back to 13, without any explanation on the fluctuation.

The Pentagon list of the names of the dead is still missing Maj. Sorffly Davius, a signals and communication officer with the New York Army National Guard who was assigned to the headquarters of the 42nd Infantry Division and reportedly died of sudden illness while on duty in Camp Buehring, Kuwait, on March 6. Davius’s death was widely acknowledged even as it was excluded from the official count: Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., spoke about him during a memorial service that month, and Gen. Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recognized Davius while “honoring our fallen.”

While DCAS provides a running tally of “non-hostile” deaths — meaning those who died from accidents or by illness — it doesn’t include “non-hostile” injuries. The DCAS figures show that 65 Navy personnel have been wounded in action. Missing, however, are the more than 200 sailors treated for smoke inhalation or lacerations due to a March 12 fire that raged aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford. The aircraft carrier had been conducting round-the-clock flight operations to, in Caine’s words, “project combat power” in the Middle East. The ship returned to its home port in Norfolk, Virginia, last month after 326 days at sea, the longest deployment of any U.S. aircraft carrier since the Vietnam War.

The casualty numbers also don’t include a sailor who suffered a non-combat-related injury aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln as it was involved in “strike missions in support of Operation Epic Fury” on March 25.

On April 21, two Pentagon spokespersons said they were unable to field questions about why more than a dozen casualties had been disappeared by the War Department, claiming only the “duty officer” could answer the question but that person was not at their desk. “As soon as the duty officer comes back to their desk, I can get this to them,” said one of them. After almost two months, The Intercept has yet to receive a response from the duty officer.

The Pentagon did not reply to a request for clarification on Monday about whether the duty officer ever returned to their desk.

EU lawmakers clear US trade deal to avert return to trade conflict

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IwPost
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EU lawmakers clear US trade deal to avert return to trade conflict


The European Parliament approved on Tuesday cutting duties on many ​U.S. goods imports to fulfill the European Union’s side of a trade ‌deal struck last year, and avert a new round of tariff conflict between the world’s largest trading partners.

U.S. President Donald Trump, opens new tabstruck a deal with the European Union at his Turnberry golf course ​in Scotland last July under which the EU agreed to remove import duties ​on U.S. industrial goods and provide preferential access to U.S. farm ⁠produce in return for U.S. tariffs of 15% on most EU goods.

Almost 11 months ​after that framework agreement, the EU had yet to pass legislation to implement those ​duty reductions. Trump threatened to impose “much higher” tariffs if the EU did not act by July 4.

The EU should meet that deadline after the EU assembly backed implementing the import duty cuts by ​440 votes for to 151 against. They also extended duty-free imports of U.S. ​lobsters, a mini-deal struck with Trump in his first term as president. Securing parliamentary approval was the ‌legislation’s ⁠last significant hurdle.

The United States needs to put in place the broad 15% tariffs on EU goods. They were at that level until the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump’s global tariffs in February.

The Trump administration plans to replicate the Turnberry deal ​tariffs by July 24, ​when an interim ⁠10% rate regime expires.

Tuesday’s vote should avert Trump’s July 4 tariff threat, but leaves many uncertainties, opens new tab. Only on Monday, Trump said he would ​impose 100% tariffs on French wine unless Paris eliminated its digital ​sales tax.

The ⁠EU legislation passed by the European Parliament expires at the end of 2029 and includes multiple safeguards allowing the EU to suspend concessions if the United States breaches the Turnberry ⁠terms.

It ​also calls for an EU response if Washington does ​not reduce tariffs of above 15% on metal derivative products, such as washing machines and cutlery, by ​the end of the year.

Source:  Reuters

Trump’s Iran deal: Realpolitik triumphs — for now

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IwPost
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Trump’s Iran deal: Realpolitik triumphs — for now

Washington has a habit of dressing up its foreign policy in the language of moral purpose. Presidents invoke democracy, human rights, and the rules-based international order as if they were divine mandates rather than rhetorical conveniences.

So there is something almost refreshing — and certainly clarifying — about watching the Trump administration conclude a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran that is unapologetically transactional, stripped of Wilsonian pretense and justified almost entirely on the grounds of what it delivers for American interests.

The agreement announced on June 14 — confirmed by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who served as mediator — commits both sides to an immediate and permanent end to military operations, with the Strait of Hormuz set to reopen upon the formal signing in Switzerland. The details remain to be filled in, with sixty days of follow-on negotiations expected to address sanctions relief and Iran’s nuclear program.

Critics on the left will complain that Trump bombed his way to a negotiating table he could have reached diplomatically. Critics on the neoconservative right will complain that he stopped short of regime change. Both critiques contain a grain of truth. Neither quite captures what actually happened.

What happened, stripped of the spin, is a classic exercise in coercive diplomacy — the application of military force not as an end in itself, but as a means of altering the strategic calculus of an adversary.

US and Israeli strikes in 2025 targeted Fordow and Isfahan, significantly setting back Iran’s nuclear program, while the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted global trade and sent shockwaves through energy markets. Both sides absorbed costs they could not indefinitely sustain. A deal became rational.

This is realpolitik in its most classical form — not Kissingerian elegance, but the rougher American variant that Nixon might have recognized: leverage applied, concessions extracted, handshakes exchanged, ideology parked at the door.

Whatever one thinks of the means, the logic is coherent in a way that the Bush-era “axis of evil” framework never was. That framework demanded transformation; this one demands compliance.

The analogy that comes to mind is not Munich — the inevitable rhetorical grenade that hawks will lob — but rather Nixon’s opening to China. That too was a deal with a regime that Washington had spent decades demonizing. That too was denounced by ideological purists. And that too reflected a hardheaded assessment that the alternatives were worse.

One need not celebrate the Islamic Republic to acknowledge that a negotiated settlement of a conflict that was disrupting one-fifth of the world’s oil supply, killing thousands, and straining American alliances across the region is preferable to its continuation.

That said, the realist in me reaches for the appropriate caution. Neither side has shared the exact terms of the deal. It remains to be seen whether it resolves major differences over Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, the Strait of Hormuz,and Israel’s wars with Iranian proxies.

The Iranian side has shown considerable skill over decades at signing agreements, banking the concessions and revisiting compliance at moments of convenience. The Trump administration, for its part, has shown that it prizes announcements over implementation: The signing ceremony in Geneva will be theatrical, whatever the substance.

And then there is Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said Israel is not a party to the negotiated deal, while stating that he and Trump are in “full agreement” that Iran must not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons — a formulation that manages simultaneously to endorse the goal and distance itself from the method.

The Israelis, who wanted a more comprehensive dismantlement of Iranian power, are reported to view the deal in its current form as a deep disappointment. This matters. A deal that leaves Israel feeling strategically exposed creates its own set of pressures on the durability of any arrangement.

The broader regional architecture also remains unsettled. Iran’s network of proxies — battered by years of Israeli strikes, weakened by the fall of Assad in Damascus and stressed by the events of the past months — has not been dissolved by this agreement. The realist knows that power vacuums invite filling.

None of this is reason to condemn the deal. It is reason to be clear-eyed about what it is and what it is not. It is a ceasefire, not a peace. It is a memorandum of understanding, not a strategic settlement. It is a beginning of a negotiation, not the end of one.

But sometimes a ceasefire is precisely what the moment requires. The alternative — continued fighting, a closed strait, spiraling energy prices and the ever-present risk of escalation into something far larger — was not a serious strategic option for a United States that still has other theaters to manage, an economy to tend to and a China challenge that dwarfs anything Tehran can muster.

Trump’s foreign policy critics have long accused him of having no strategy, only tactics. On Iran, there is something that at least rhymes with strategy: maximum pressure to compel maximum concessions, then a deal when one becomes available. Whether the follow-on negotiations produce durable arrangements on the nuclear question and sanctions relief will determine whether this goes down as a genuine strategic achievement or merely a very loud pause.

The Washington foreign policy establishment — wedded to its own form of ideological rigidity, whether neoconservative or liberal internationalist — will struggle to credit this administration with any genuine accomplishment. That is its own form of motivated reasoning.

Realpolitik, practiced competently, does not require ideological consistency. It requires a clear view of interests, an accurate assessment of power and the flexibility to take a deal when one is on the table.

Whether Trump has those qualities in adequate measure is, as always, a genuinely open question.

Originally published on the author’s Global Zeitgeist, this article is republished with permission.

Iraq’s bid to rein in Iran-linked militias becomes key test of US ties

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IwPost
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Iraq’s bid to rein in Iran-linked militias becomes key test of US ties

The Iran war thrust Iraq’s powerful Iran-linked militias back into the spotlight, Anadolu reports.

Throughout the conflict, armed groups operating from Iraq claimed attacks against US interests, carrying out drone and missile strikes linked to the wider confrontation, underscoring how quickly Iraq can be drawn into regional conflicts despite government efforts to stay on the sidelines.

The violence also highlighted one of the biggest challenges facing Iraq’s new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who has made bringing weapons under state control a central priority of his administration.

Ibrahim al-Marashi, an associate professor of modern Iraqi history at California State University, San Marcos, said Iraq’s leadership faces an increasingly delicate balancing act.

“Zaidi will have to balance between a chastened US failing to conduct regime change in Iran and an Iran that will now lash out at any attempt of Trump using Iraq as a launch pad to destabilize Iran,” he told Anadolu.

The challenge has taken on urgency after months of regional conflict. The US and Israel carried out strikes on groups in Iraq, and by mid-May Iraqi militias had also claimed or carried out as many as 5,200 strikes in Gulf countries as well as in Jordan and Syria, according to The Atlantic. Saudi Arabia reportedly indicated that around half of the drone attacks on the kingdom came from inside Iraq.

Six American service members were killed in March when a US Air Force refueling aircraft crashed in Iraqi airspace – accounting for nearly half of the 13 US military deaths linked to the Iran war. While US and Iraqi officials described the incident as an accident, a coalition of Iran-linked Iraqi armed groups claimed responsibility.

In April, the US suspended parts of its security cooperation with Iraq and halted cash shipments generated by oil sales.

“The US wants to ensure that Iran-backed groups will not attack US interests in the region or facilitate Iranian economic activities through Iraq,” the senior Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group Lahib Higel told , Anadolu Agency.

READ: US envoy, Iraqi premier discuss Baghdad’s efforts to bring all weapons under state control

Zaidi’s biggest challenge

The issue has landed on the desk of a new prime minister with little previous national political profile.

At 40, Zaidi became Iraq’s youngest prime minister when he took office in May after emerging as a compromise candidate following weeks of political deadlock.

In January, US President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw US support for the country if Shiite politician Nuri Kamal al-Maliki returned as the prime minister, splitting politicians between those insisting on sovereign political choice and others fearing international isolation.

Since taking office, Zaidi has made the consolidation of state authority and the integration of armed groups into official institutions one of his government’s top priorities.

“Zaidi has so far sought to meet US demands to control the Iran-backed militias,” Higel said. “Whether he succeeds will define the bilateral relations.”

Iraqi authorities are reportedly developing mechanisms to integrate members of armed groups into state institutions as individuals rather than organized units, aiming to prevent factional structures from simply being transferred into the military and security apparatus, according to broadcaster Alhurra.

Washington’s growing pressure

The issue was central to discussions this week between Zaidi and Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Türkiye, whom President Donald Trump recently appointed as special envoy for both Iraq and Syria.

Higel said Barrack’s expanded role reflects Washington’s broader effort to pull Iraq away from Iranian influence and strengthen its integration with regional partners including Türkiye and Syria.

“The extension of Barrack’s portfolio to include Iraq, in addition to Syria and Türkiye, follows the administration’s pursuit to bring Iraq out of the Iranian orbit and closer to Syria and Türkiye,” she said.

On Monday, Barrack met Zaidi and the sides reiterated support for Iraq’s efforts to ensure the “complete disarmament and disbandment” of armed groups operating outside state authority, to place all weapons under government control and “ensure that Iraqi territory cannot be used by any side to threaten regional peace,” according to a joint statement released Tuesday.

Analysts say the relationship extends beyond security matters.

The joint statement highlighted plans to finalize operating licenses for Starlink, advance negotiations with Chevron on oil projects, facilitate the return of US energy companies to Iraq and move forward with efforts to rehabilitate the Kirkuk-Baniyas oil pipeline.

Iraq-US business ties center on a roughly $12 billion annual bilateral trade relationship heavily dominated by the energy sector.

According to estimates, crude oil production from Iraq’s southern fields had fallen by 70% by March, averaging 1.3 million barrels per day compared with 4.3 million barrels before the Iran war began.

READ: Iraq foils plot to assassinate National Security Service chief, senior officers

1st signs of a shift

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of Iraq’s most prominent and powerful Shia political and military forces, said earlier this month that it will form a committee to begin disengaging from the Popular Mobilization Forces, which comprises around 67 primarily Shia armed factions, and place its weapons under state control.

The announcement follows a similar move by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who dissolved his Peace Brigades and aligned them with the state.

The Kataib Imam Ali faction has also indicated a willingness to pursue a similar path.

Earlier this month, the US also praised Iraq’s efforts to place all weapons under exclusive state control, describing the position of the country’s largest parliamentary bloc on the matter as a “qualitative shift toward consolidating independence and sovereignty.”

However, analysts caution that integrating armed groups into state institutions will be far more complicated than securing public declarations.

Chatham House analyst Renad Mansour recently wrote that the armed groups most invested in Iraq’s political system appear more willing to cooperate with Baghdad’s plans, but others remain resistant.

Groups more deeply embedded in Iran’s regional network, including Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, have said they will continue pursuing their own military agendas regardless of government policy.

“There is a risk that Asaib Ahl al-Haq won’t relinquish arms completely unless other groups do as well,” Higel added.

Marashi described the recent developments as “extremely significant” but warned that formal integration alone does not guarantee meaningful state control.

“The key question is whether the Iraqi government and its allies have both the ability and the will to confront these groups,” wrote Mansour, pointing to the recent killing of a government intelligence officer by a drone strike, which Iraq’s foreign minister attributed to “factions from the inside.”

“Confrontation will likely be dangerous,” he added. ​​​​​​​

OPINION: What awaits Iraq’s militias under Tom Barrack?

Qatari Emir Cites $1.2 Trillion US Partnership as Trump Praises Doha Investment

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Qatari Emir Cites $1.2 Trillion US Partnership as Trump Praises Doha Investment


President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Qatar is investing “tremendous amounts of money” in the United States, highlighting the Gulf state’s economic relationship with Washington during a meeting with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in France.

The US president made the remarks while discussing both the US-Iran agreement and Qatar’s role in regional diplomacy. He said Washington would not invest money in Iran as part of the agreement, rejecting reports that the deal could involve large US-backed financial incentives for Tehran.

“We are not investing any money in Iran,” President Trump said. “That rumor got out there yesterday; it was ridiculous.”

Turning to Qatar, President Trump said Doha had become a major investor in the US economy. “Qatar is investing tremendous amounts of money in our country, and we appreciate that,” he said, adding that the US was expanding factories and artificial intelligence development.

Sheikh Tamim said Qatar’s trade partnership with the United States was expected to reach $1.2 trillion, citing economic ties that expanded following President Trump’s visit to Doha last year. He said Qatar was proud of its investments in the US, as well as US corporate investment in Qatar.

The figure echoes a White House announcement from May 2025, when the administration said President Trump had signed an agreement with Qatar expected to generate at least $1.2 trillion in economic exchange between the two countries. The announcement included more than $243 billion in deals, including aircraft, energy, defense, technology, and infrastructure agreements.

Qatar has played a central role in recent US diplomacy in the Middle East, including efforts related to Iran and broader regional de-escalation.

US approval of Paramount/Warner Bros. deal surprised DOJ lawyers, report says

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US approval of Paramount/Warner Bros. deal surprised DOJ lawyers, report says

When the US Department of Justice approved Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Friday, a DOJ press release said “a rigorous eight-month investigation led by the [Antitrust] Division’s career staff” showed that the $111 billion deal would not harm competition or American consumers.

But according to The Wall Street Journal, the DOJ career lawyers who led that investigation “were leaning toward recommending a lawsuit challenging it on the grounds that the combination of the two movie studios would be anticompetitive and violate antitrust law.” DOJ senior leaders closed the investigation “before career staffers who were concerned about the acquisition had an opportunity to object, according to people familiar with the matter,” the WSJ reported.

Commenting on the report that the decision to allow the deal surprised staff investigators, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote that “the American people need to know if this merger was approved as a political favor. This reeks of corruption.”

Staff investigators hadn’t yet made a final recommendation to DOJ leaders but were questioning “how the combined company could meet its commitment to make 30 theatrical releases a year, given its increased debt load,” the WSJ wrote. Even if DOJ staff investigators had submitted a formal recommendation to challenge the lawsuit in federal court, leadership could have rejected the recommendation and approved the deal anyway.

Senior DOJ leaders “believed Paramount’s debt wasn’t a reason to challenge the merger,” the WSJ wrote. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr previously expressed support for the deal even though it needs an FCC waiver because it involves large equity stakes from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

Ellison wins over Trump admin

US Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. questioned the WSJ article’s sources in a post directed at Journal reporter Sadie Gurman. “A team of career lawyers never reached out to anyone in their leadership chain of command to express this, but instead reached out to you? Please let your anonymous sources know that my door is always open,” he wrote.

The WSJ’s anonymous sources indicated that a meeting with David Ellison helped convince DOJ leaders to approve the deal. “The Justice Department’s senior leaders believed that Paramount Chief Executive Officer David Ellison, son of Trump ally Larry Ellison, persuasively addressed many of the staff’s questions about the deal during a two-hour interview last month, according to people familiar with their thinking,” the article said.

We contacted the DOJ today and will update this article if it provides a response.

Warner Bros. previously had a merger agreement with Netflix and criticized the Paramount offer as “illusory” because it required an “extraordinary amount of debt financing.” Paramount continued its attempt at a hostile takeover and eventually won a bidding war. David Ellison reportedly told Trump administration officials that he would make big changes at the Warner-owned CNN, one of President Trump’s least favorite news sources.

The DOJ’s antitrust division used to be led by Trump nominee Gail Slater, who pushed for tougher enforcement. Last year, Slater issued an unusual statement criticizing a T-Mobile/US Cellular deal that was approved by the DOJ. Slater resigned from her post as assistant attorney general in February amid reports that she was forced to leave because of disputes with key Trump officials.

Slater’s replacement, Acting Assistant Attorney General Omeed Assefi, insisted in an interview with Reuters in March that the Paramount/Warner deal will not be fast-tracked for approval because of political factors. “The idea that somehow enforcement has been politicized is ludicrous,” he said.

DOJ says merger will boost competition

The DOJ announcement of its approval said the deal is likely to increase competition in the streaming video market “by offering consumers a more robust competitive alternative” to the larger offerings. The deal would combine Paramount+ with HBO Max.

The DOJ also said the merger is unlikely to harm competition in the market for development, production, and distribution of theatrical films. “Instead, the evidence shows extensive competition within the industry, which has generated greater output and diversity of film offerings, and is likely to continue unabated,” the DOJ announcement said.

Although Paramount won over federal regulators, it will likely have to fight a lawsuit from California, New York, and other US states. The states reportedly plan to file a lawsuit seeking to block the merger in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, European Union regulators are scrutinizing the deal’s financing and impacts on competition.

US states also diverged with the Trump administration in a fight against Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary. The Biden-era Department of Justice and most US states sued Live Nation in 2024, but the Trump administration blindsided state attorneys general in the middle of the resulting trial by agreeing to stop its pursuit of a breakup.

The states continued the litigation after the Trump administration dropped out, and they won the trial. A federal jury ruled in April that Live Nation and Ticketmaster operate an illegal monopoly that overcharged fans for tickets. There is a separate proceeding to determine damages and potential remedies, which could include a breakup of the company.

Bette Midler Mocked for ‘Humiliating’ Performance at Anti-Trump Event

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Bette Midler Mocked for ‘Humiliating’ Performance at Anti-Trump Event


Bette Midler is facing brutal mockery online after her performance at an anti-Trump event in New York City drew strong reactions from critics.

The 80-year-old actress and singer took the stage Sunday at the Rise Up, Sing Out concert, which was held as counter-programming to UFC Freedom 250 at the White House.

The New York event featured several major Hollywood names, including Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro and Julia Roberts.

At the same time, President Donald Trump was in Washington, D.C., attending UFC Freedom 250 on the White House South Lawn while also celebrating his 80th birthday.

Midler performed her own version of Woody Guthrie’s “All You Fascists Bound to Lose,” changing some of the lyrics to take aim at Trump and his administration.

“All you fascists bound to lose. Lose, you fascists bound to lose,” Midler sang to the crowd and viewers streaming the event.

She continued, “We’ll battle ICE together, until they cut and run, just like in Minneapolis, and when the midterms come you’re bound to lose, you fascists bound to lose.”

Midler was joined by backup singers during the performance, but clips of the moment quickly spread online and sparked a wave of criticism.

“I refuse to believe this is real,” one person wrote on X.

Another mocked the performance, writing, “Holy moly this is sooooooo painfully bad.”

A third said, “OMG I regret to inform you liberals are ‘singing’ again. Good lord. Second hand embarrassment is real.”

Others said they were shocked to see Midler, who has long been celebrated for her powerhouse voice and stage presence, performing such a politically charged number.

“Bette Midler was an iconic, masterful performer,” one critic wrote. “I’m stunned to see how far she fell off the rails. This mess she’s singing is just so embarrassing.”

Another person called the event “like a bad PBS telethon” and described it as “humiliating.”

But not everyone joined in the pile-on. Some fans defended Midler and praised her for using her voice in a political moment.

“Bette Midler could read the phone book and I’d still be entertained,” one supporter wrote. “Absolute icon.”

Another fan said Midler still brings “joy and a touch of brilliance into the world,” adding that her presence shows “how powerful art can be.”

Before singing, Midler told the crowd she was thrilled to be surrounded by a community that was “so bright, so intelligent, so well-meaning” and “so desperate for justice.”

Midler has been one of Trump’s most outspoken celebrity critics for years. After Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, she deactivated her X account following a series of posts criticizing him.

Other celebrities also took the stage at the New York event.

Robert De Niro opened his remarks by joking, “Good evening everyone, and welcome to all of you who couldn’t get tickets to the White House cage fight.”

He later delivered a fiery speech against Trump and joined the crowd in a profanity-laced chant directed at the president.

Jane Fonda also spoke at the event, warning that “our democracy is in peril” and urging the entertainment industry to stand together in defense of free expression.

Other stars who took part included Joy Reid, YouTuber Ms. Rachel, Rufus Wainwright, Julia Roberts, Tessa Thompson, Lily Gladstone and Ayo Edebiri.

Meanwhile, UFC Freedom 250 drew attention in Washington as Trump sat near the ring with Dana White and First Lady Melania Trump. His son Barron was also seen sitting behind his parents during the matches.

The ‘super El Niño’ is here. What happens next could upend food systems worldwide.

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The ‘super El Niño’ is here. What happens next could upend food systems worldwide.

The oceanic phenomenon known as El Niño, which increases temperatures worldwide, has officially begun, according to U.S. weather forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. 

Meteorologists have warned that this could be the strongest El Niño this century. It is expected to drive extreme weather events around the world, including both severe droughts and heavy rainfall, likely leading to major disruptions in agricultural production and food security. 

El Niño is part of a cyclical, naturally-occurring weather pattern that redistributes warm air, surface water temperatures, and moisture across the tropical Pacific Ocean. During El Niño, trade winds that typically blow east-to-west from the Americas to southeast Asia slow down or sometimes reverse. Normally, these winds push warm water along the Equator — but during El Niño conditions, that warm water shifts back east. Although El Niño does not follow a specific timeline, it typically occurs every two to seven years. 

Beginning in the summer, El Niño typically peaks around December or the following January. (The pattern was named El Niño — Spanish for little boy — by fishermen in South America who noticed warmer waters around Christmas time, and associated it with the birth of Jesus Christ.) That means the most significant impacts of the cyclical weather phenomenon may not be felt until months from now. NOAA’s most recent calculations show a high likelihood of a “very strong” El Niño, meaning average surface temperatures in the Pacific jump by more than 2 degrees Celsius. (Some experts are calling this year’s a “super” El Niño, although some agencies, like the World Meteorological Organization, reject this language.)  

Because it impacts a “diverse set of geographies,” said Weston Anderson, a climate scientist at the University of Maryland, so “there is no one set of impacts.” El Niño can contribute to severe droughts in one part of the world and heavy rainfall in others — both of which can disrupt growing seasons in key breadbaskets of the world. 

But the ways in which this year’s El Niño will interact the effects of global warming — and what that means for food security — is something scientists are still actively observing and untangling. 

map of the typical impacts of El Niño to the continental U.S. and Canada during Northern Hemisphere winter.

The typical impacts of El Niño to the continental U.S. and Canada during Northern Hemisphere winter. NOAA

“That question is still really important open science,” said Jennifer Burney, a professor at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability whose work focuses on climate and food security. 

History can give us some examples. In 1877, one of the strongest El Niños ever recorded was associated with historic droughts across Asia, as well as in parts of Brazil and northern Africa. These droughts, “along with colonial policies contributed to famines in many regions which were really devastating,” said Deepti Singh, an associate professor at Washington State University who co-authored a study on this period of global famine. 

The fatalities associated with these famines, upwards of 50 million people, said Singh, “are humbling to think about.”

The last El Niño occurred in 2023 and 2024. It was one of the five strongest El Niños ever recorded, according to the World Meteorological Organization, or WMO, and is considered to have contributed to the historic temperatures in 2024, making it the hottest year on record. 

That year came with devastating consequences for growers, especially in arid regions where agricultural producers primarily rely on rainfall to irrigate their crops. Droughts driven by El Niño across southern Africa contributed to increased food insecurity and malnutrition in several countries. 

Burney noted that in some vulnerable regions, local governments may have adaptive strategies in place to grow key crops earlier in the growing season or to increase imports during El Niño years, which can help offset food insecurity. But even in those cases, local farmers who depend on growing and selling crops to support themselves and their families may still experience economic setbacks. In other words, certain policies may ensure there’s “enough food,” but “that’s not going to take care of the people whose livelihoods depend on” agriculture, Burney said. 

This year, El Niño conditions are expected to impact a number of growing areas — another setback for agricultural producers who have faced higher input costs stemming from the Iran War. Although the United States and Iran are potentially set to unveil an agreement to reopen the all-important Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil flows, farmers worldwide have already been impacted by fertilizer shortages and price hikes since the passage closed this spring. 

Weather variability fueled by El Niño will add to growers’ woes. India, where the majority of the world’s rice comes from, is projected to have a weaker monsoon season, which could reduce yields. Drier, hotter conditions could lead to diminished maize production in southern Africa. The southern U.S. states, from California all the way to the eastern seaboard, will experience a wetter year than normal, which could lead to flooding and upend crop production. 

But the exact way that this El Niño will unfurl is yet unknown. As El Niño interacts with the additional warming and moisture currently in our atmosphere caused by climate change, “there is likely to be a change in which regions are likely to be affected” by extreme weather, said Singh. Still, she added, we can expect “the severity, extent, and likelihood” of extreme weather events like droughts “to be higher” in today’s warmer climate.

Pentagon boasts of using AI to write reports mandated by Congress

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Pentagon boasts of using AI to write reports mandated by Congress

The US Department of Defense has a lot of congressionally mandated homework to do every year involving hundreds of required reports on various national security topics. But Pentagon officials have been proudly describing a new shortcut—using generative AI tools to write such reports for Congress.

Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael highlighted AI-generated reports to Congress as a key example of how the Department of Defense—stylized as the Department of War under the Trump administration—has adopted generative AI during an event hosted by the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington, DC, on June 12. The Pentagon has made AI tools, starting with Google Cloud’s Gemini for Government, widely available to members of all six military branches through the department’s bespoke GenAI.mil platform since December 2025.

“I have to report to Congress every year on this thing,” Michael said. “Let me load all the papers onto it and have it draft me a congressional report that would otherwise take 200 hours of staffing time and do it in five hours.”

More evidence of such AI usage came from previous comments by Jacob Glassman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for science and technology foundations at the US Department of Defense, during the Box Federal Summit held in Washington, DC, on April 23. According to DefenseScoop coverage, Glassman described how he told a short-staffed team responsible for delivering a congressionally mandated report to “use GenAI.mil, do the best you can.”

The team supposedly came back to Glassman a week later, claiming that the AI-generated report was “the best report we’ve written in the past five years.” As DefenseScoop notes, Glassman did not identify the report in question.

The Department of Defense has long struggled to deliver such reports to Congress efficiently and in a timely manner, especially as the number of mandated reports generally rises with every new defense appropriations bill passed by Congress. The number of reports had soared from just over 500 reports in 2000 to more than 1,400 reports by 2020, according to the US Government Accountability Office.

Officials at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs typically have to go through defense authorization statutes “almost line by line” to find the latest reporting requirements, said Elizabeth Field, former senior executive director at the Government Accountability Office, in a Federal News Network interview in 2023. Her GAO report showed how the Pentagon’s painstaking process of identifying the reporting requirements and assigning reports to the appropriate team could take between three and six months—and some of the Congressionally mandated reports are due within a year.

The perils of pushing AI adoption

Given that tedious process, it’s not surprising that the Pentagon’s current leadership may find AI-generated reports to be a tempting shortcut. But other organizations, such as law firms and major consulting firms, have already discovered the many pitfalls of relying on error-ridden AI-generated writing without adequate human vetting and oversight.

One of the latest cautionary tales involved the multinational consulting giant KPMG publishing a report about AI use in businesses that featured case studies with numerous AI-generated errors and false claims, as revealed by the research group GPTZero and reported by the Financial Times. The revelations led KPMG to pull the report titled “Redefining excellence in the age of agentic AI.”

It’s unclear what processes the Pentagon has in place to review the accuracy of its AI-generated reports to Congress. But such reports are a crucial element of congressional oversight intended to hold the US military accountable for how it uses taxpayer dollars—and so any AI-induced errors or mischaracterizations could undermine the accountability mechanism of such reports. This also comes at a time when the Pentagon has requested an unprecedented $1.5 trillion budget for the 2027 fiscal year.

Members of the US military have also been using generative AI tools to write personnel evaluation reports for non-commissioned officers and commissioned officers, generate commendation medal citations, and create counseling statements, according to a Small Wars Journal article.

The number of Department of Defense personnel using commercial AI tools such as Gemini through GenAI.mil has significantly increased from just 80,000 in December 2025 to 1.5 million in June 2026, the Pentagon CTO claimed during his remarks at the Hudson Institute. The Department of Defense has an overall workforce of approximately 3.5 million.

Google is among multiple US tech companies that signed agreements in 2025 with the US General Services Administration to make their AI tools available across federal government agencies for deeply discounted prices.

On May 1, the Department of Defense announced new agreements with “eight of the world’s leading frontier artificial intelligence companies” to deploy more AI tools on classified networks for “lawful operational use.” Those companies include SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Reflection AI, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Oracle.

The US government has not divulged how much it is paying the companies under the new contracts. But the list notably excludes Anthropic, which was blacklisted by the Trump administration after the tech company supposedly refused to allow its Claude AI models to be used in an unrestricted manner for autonomous warfare and mass surveillance.

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