Summary:

The Federal Communications Commission has alerted the Walt Disney Company and its ABC unit that it will begin an investigation into the diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the media giant.

The FCC, the agency that regulates the media and telecommunications industry, said in a letter dated Friday that it wants to “ensure that Disney and ABC have not been violating FCC equal employment opportunity regulations by promoting invidious forms of DEI discrimination.”

“We are reviewing the Federal Communications Commission’s letter, and we look forward to engaging with the commission to answer its questions,” a Disney spokesperson told CNBC.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who was recently appointed by President Donald Trump, began a similar investigation into Comcast and NBCUniversal in early February. The inquiry comes after Trump signed an executive order looking to end DEI practices at U.S. corporations in January. The order calls for each federal agency to “identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations” among publicly traded companies, as well as nonprofits and other institutions.

Summary:

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is under scrutiny after reports surfaced that he might have opened an account with the Russian email service mail.ru.

This comes as a new twist as the Signal chat scandal involving senior Trump administration officials continues to unfold.

Following reports that top advisers to US President Donald Trump used a commercial communication app to discuss a military strike on Yemen and included a journalist in the chat by mistake, reporters from the German magazine Der Spiegel questioned how easily accessible the personal data of key US officials might be.

Through an editorial investigation, they discovered that mobile phone numbers, email addresses, and even passwords belonging to high-ranking US officials had been found online.

Among those exposed were Hegseth, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, putting the security practices of Trump’s top security officials into question.

Journalists used public databases – including those pertaining to data breaches – to uncover the information. The leaked contacts were linked to various online platforms, including Instagram, LinkedIn, Dropbox, WhatsApp and Signal.

For Hegseth’s data, Der Spiegel reporters simply contacted a commercial provider of contact information primarily used by companies for sales, marketing and recruitment purposes.

The reporters submitted a link to his LinkedIn profile and received Hegseth’s Gmail address, phone number, and other details in return. The same technique was used to obtain Waltz’s information, which was found alongside passwords in open databases connected to Microsoft Teams, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp.

Gabbard, meanwhile, appeared to take more precautions, but journalists still located her email addresses on WikiLeaks and Reddit.

Hegseth’s alleged Russian email address

After the investigation, Finnish disinformation researcher Pekka Kallioniemi published a screenshot from an alleged database compiling past data breaches that purportedly showed an email address owned by Hegseth under the mail.ru domain.

He questioned on social media why the Pentagon chief would have a Russian email account, though he did not confirm whether it was genuine or fabricated.

Trump is about to announce his new tariff package on what he termed ‘liberty day’. Commentators, politicians, diplomats and CEOs are scrambling to work out what is coming. Trump, characteristically, has kept everyone waiting. But although the details aren’t clear, the direction of travel is.

Summary:

According to the website, federal grants worth $80,482,341, $9,798,986, $9,332,952, $8,633,114, $5,999,019, $5,270,574 and $1,549,589 are slated to be cut from the Kentucky State Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and grants worth $262,367,100, $50,662,718, $14,738,869, $10,882,234, $10,697,915, $10,352,840, $7,126,596, $4,741,123, $4,105,448, $2,994,627 and $1,868,495 are slated to be cut from the Indiana State Department of Health. The website says the cuts were announced on March 23, 2025.

The website says the $14,738,869 grant cancellation at the Indiana State Department of Health comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, although the allocation came to the local health department. This grant is one of two grant cuts listed with information, saying the grant allowed state and territory governments to purchase local, unprocessed foods from local producers, targeting historically “underserved” farmers, producers, fishers and small businesses.

The food purchased would then be distributed to schools and childcare institutions participating in the national school lunch program or child and adult care food programs.

Another similar grant for $7,126,596 that’s now slated to be cut allowed tribal governments to purchase unprocessed food from underserved farmers for distribution to families in need.

No other grant cuts on the website found by WAVE listed any description for what was being cut.

In his Team Kentucky update on Thursday, Gov. Andy Beshear acknowledged some of the grant cuts.

“We have received notice of grants being cancelled,” Beshear said. “It’s an unlawful cancellation and we’ll challenge it. These are contracts that we have. The contracts can only be terminated for cause, which means somebody did something wrong and they are trying to define cause as the pandemic. That’s not a legal argument.”

Beshear said the grants cancelled could mean the closure of health clinics.

“I am worried about the cuts,” Beshear said. “These are Americans, they have families. They chose to do civil service and now they are being told that their services are no longer needed. Some of them are being told it’s their fault, which is not true.”

Beshear said he was worried that the cuts could have an impact on the state’s response to bird flu as well, especially if the virus begins spreading person to person.

WASHINGTON—Using “national security” as an excuse, and accusing federal worker unions of obstructing virtually everything, worker-hating Republican President Donald Trump ordered more than 30 federal agencies, most of them large, to trash their union contracts—now.

Elon Musk produced a unified symbol for class war, corruption and techno-fascism. His car is hell on wheels.

Anti-Tesla protesters keep directing eggs, dog poop, Molotov cocktails and invectives against “the Swastikar” and its maker Elon Musk.

Yes, some people have set Teslas ablaze. But the “Tesla Takedown” movement is proof the anger burns in more than the violent fringes. Urging folks to sell their Tesla cars and stock and join picket lines, organizers have named Saturday a “global day of action.”

The protests rail against Musk’s huge conflicts of interest in his appointed role as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency. As well they should. The true goal of DOGE, a blitzkrieg effort to trim government ranks, is to bring on a Trump-led Second American Revolution. And that means less democracy and more oligarchs like Musk.

. . .

But the implications extend far beyond Washington D.C. or even U.S. borders. Which is why people around the world have made a hairpin turn. The electric vehicle that once seemed to herald a green-tinged, better future has become a symbol of the forces ruining their lives.

MBFC
Archive

Summary:

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — In the wake of a 22-day strike by correction officers at prison facilities run by New York State, the New York City-based Legal Aid Society released a report on Friday about what they called the strike’s human cost. According to incarcerated people quoted in the report, ongoing inhumane conditions in dozens of upstate prisons include food shortages, lack of medical care and mental health services, and restrictions on showers, court access, or protective custody.

Governor Kathy Hochul and officials at the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services considered the strike an illegal violation of the Taylor Law banning New York State employees from striking. Nor did the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, the union for the correction officers, publicly endorse the strike.

Officers said their issues included understaffing, mandatory overtime, contraband, dangerous prisoners, and compliance with the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act—the HALT Act—that made it more difficult to control the prison. That law, enacted to limit the use of solitary confinement—which some law enforcement representatives argue does not even exist in New York—has faced consistent pushback from NYSCOPBA since taking effect in 2022.

According to Hochul, she negotiated many offers to get the striking guards back to work. Even so, they and their families eventually lost health insurance, and ultimately, over 2,000 lost their jobs.

On Thursday, fired and blacklisted correction officers gathered at the State Capitol to call out the unsafe working conditions that they said still affect those in the field and the lack of due process in their terminations.

But on Tuesday, another Capitol rally demanded stronger oversight of operations at state prisons and jails after the recent deaths of Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi—and four others at Rikers Island, which is city-run, not state-run.

The strike began in mid-February after the death of Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility, which led to increased oversight like mandatory body cameras for correction officers. A majority of DOCCS staff stopped working at Attica, Sing Sing, Auburn, Mid-state, Clinton, Five Points, Great Meadow, Greene, and other correctional facilities statewide.

Some prisoners said they believe the strikers bristled at the increased scrutiny rather than genuine safety concerns. “They have to answer for what happened, said one person housed at Marcy Correctional Facility and quoted in the Legal Aid Society’s report, which is available to read at the bottom of this story. “They don’t want to be held accountable.”

The Trump administration is discussing a surprising option to help fulfill his campaign-trail promises: Allowing the richest Americans' tax rates to rise in return for cutting taxes on tips, a senior White House official tells Axios.

It’s the latest sign that Republican leadership at the FTC is not pushing back against President Donald Trump’s unprecedented attempts to assert control over the historically independent agency.

Staff at the Federal Trade Commission have been instructed to no longer refer to the agency as “independent” in complaints, according to an email obtained by The Verge.

“Moving forward, when describing the Commission as the Plaintiff in a Complaint, please track the below edit,” Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Christopher Mufarrige said in a March 21st email viewed by The Verge. The email was sent to the bureau’s associate and regional directors, and copied to deputy directors of the unit. “The FTC is an independent agency of the United States Government created by the FTC Act.”

A wave of lawsuits filed by Israeli plaintiffs against pro-Palestinian American citizens, advocacy groups, and media outlets is paving the way for the AIPAC-backed “nonprofit killer bill” to take effect. The claims—largely unsubstantiated—appear designed to justify what critics say could amount to a near-total shutdown of political expression around the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Summary:

President Trump on Thursday renewed a call to defund NPR and PBS a day after top executives from the public broadcasters faced an intense grilling from GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“NPR and PBS, two horrible and completely biased platforms (Networks!), should be DEFUNDED by Congress, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote late Wednesday on Truth Social. “Republicans, don’t miss this opportunity to rid our Country of this giant SCAM, both being arms of the Radical Left Democrat Party. JUST SAY NO AND, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform’s Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee peppered NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS President Paula Kerger on Wednesday with accusations of bias against conservatives and questions about their funding.

NPR took in just over $11 million in federal funding last year, money Maher said is crucial to bringing public broadcasting to local communities, particularly in rural swaths of the country.

Blocking Garland’s nomination
Allowing Garland to become a feckless AG
Acquitting Trump twice
Stacking the court 6–3
Abusing the filibuster
Sabotaging election security
Fueling division and dysfunction

Mitch McConnell didn’t just enable Trump—he architected the road to American fascism.

Burn in hell, Mitch.

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