A representative of Seattle Sperm Bank admitted to selling unused sperm vials to the FBI during an industry conference, purportedly for the agency to research splat patterns, multiple sources told LGBTQ Nation.
The sources say the admission came from the representative – who one source identified as Seattle Sperm Bank General Supervisor Angelo Allard – during an October 2022 meeting at the California Cryobank campus in Los Angeles. Allard did not reply to LGBTQ Nation’s multiple requests for comment, nor did Seattle Sperm Bank CEO Fredrik Andreasson, nor the bank’s communication team.
For decades, commercial sperm banks (on which many LGBTQ+ people rely to build their families) have faced ardent criticism over a host of ethical issues fueled by a lack of industry regulations. Donor-conceived people, recipient parents, and donors themselves have long sounded the alarm on the industry’s shady practices – from failing to enforce reasonable family limits to outright lying about donor medical histories. These activists continue to fight for legislation that would keep the banks in check.
This ongoing tension is why the 2022 meeting occurred in the first place. Sources say sperm banks hosted the gathering as a sort of olive branch to the reform advocates, though some who attended felt the banks were not actually willing to listen. Reportedly in attendance were lawyers, medical experts, activists, and scholars.
Although these activists have long known about the unethical practices of the industry, many were still shocked at what they heard.
Anti-fertility fraud activist Eve Wiley called it a “nails on a chalkboard moment” and said that the admission brought “a collective gasp in the room.” It was “unlike any other procedure any of us had heard,” she said.
She said the comment was skated over pretty quickly and that the man next to the speaker “was kind of like, ‘Dude, stop,’ giving, you know, the death stare essentially.”
A fertility expert who was also present in the room confirmed the story to LGBTQ Nation, saying they are “not sure what precipitated it” but that a “gentleman who was involved at a sperm bank raised his hand and basically said they sent sperm to the FBI at the request of the FBI for training purposes.”
“On one level it makes sense, you know, that you would need sperm to train on or to do some analysis of,” they said, “but I guess none of us had ever considered that law enforcement might reach a sperm bank and do this, certainly without consent from the parties themselves who could be genetically identified and put into a database if this were done.”
They said the representative seemed completely taken aback that anyone found the information troubling.
“They just stated it so matter-of-factly, like, ‘Yeah, this is what we do.’ And it was almost as if they didn’t see any privacy protections that needed to be discussed, any issues with that, any hesitation about turning information over to law enforcement in that manner, even for training purposes.”
Another expert who attended the meeting also heard the admission. They told LGBTQ Nation in an emailed statement that they remembered the representative from Seattle Sperm Bank “telling the group that they… provided the FBI with unused sperm for them to use for ‘practice.”’ The source (the same one who identified the speaker as Allard) said they do not remember the representative saying the sperm was “sold,” though.
A transcript of a Zoom chat obtained by LGBTQ Nation shows those who attended virtually discussing the admission in the chat. Folks called the revelation “shocking” and “incredibly concerning,” with some questioning if the DNA was being added to a criminal database.
LGBTQ Nation reached out to the National FBI office and received the following response from Seattle Field Office public affairs specialist Steven Bernd: “Our policy prohibits us, except in rare circumstances, from disclosing investigative techniques of an FBI investigation. However, I can plainly state that I did not find any information to suggest that the FBI has been purchasing sperm from a sperm bank.”
It’s not clear, however, whether the sperm would have been sold to the local or national office. Additionally, Bernd took less than an hour to reply to our request for a statement, raising the question of how much digging he did before saying he “did not find any information.”
The queer connection
Also reportedly present at the meeting were several LGBTQ+ family-building organizations, though none have corroborated the FBI admission with LGBTQ Nation.
Ron Poole-Dayan, executive director of Men Having Babies, stated over email that he had “no specific recollection” of the admission being made. The representative who attended the meeting from Family Equality no longer works for the organization, and a spokesperson said, “No current staff members have additional information to share.” Representatives from Colage, an organization for the children of LGBTQ+ people, and GLAD, an LGBTQ+ legal advocacy organization, did not respond to a request for comment.
Wiley called it “shocking” and “disheartening” that no LGBTQ+ organizations have come forward.
Laura High, a donor-conceived person and activist who was not present at the meeting, expressed disappointment that these organizations have not taken action.
“Especially right now we need to be able to rely on these organizations to keep the queer community safe,” she told LGBTQ Nation over email. “And the fact that they stayed silent on this incredibly clear violation of rights that clearly puts the queer community in jeopardy, especially under this regime is terrifying.”
High said many people in the activist community have told her they do not want to contribute to this story going public for fear of not being invited to future meetings or losing a seat at the table, and she wonders if perhaps that’s why these organizations also have not spoken up.
“But why on earth would you want to be sitting at that kind of table that clearly has no problem putting the queer community or any marginalized group in utter danger?” she said.
What’s at stake
The prospect of a bank selling sperm to the FBI without informed consent raises a number of ethical concerns, though the legality of it all is murky.
Donor contracts from Seattle Sperm Bank obtained by LGBTQ Nation state, “I understand that once I agree to participate in the donor program and have been accepted into the program, I may not impose restrictions on the manner in which my donor sperm may be used.”
“Technically, people can buy sperm for any purpose… but sperm samples are not intended for that purpose,” explained the fertility expert. “They’re intended for people to buy to family build. That is the assumption.”
“I think there would be a lot of people who would object, for example, if law enforcement just started suddenly going through trash in search of hair or saliva or discarded toothbrushes or fingernail clippings to include people in databases for ‘training purposes.’”
They said the lack of informed consent is one of the biggest issues. “I’ve talked to sperm donors, and they were not informed that this was going on.” LGBTQ Nation independently received direct confirmation from one Seattle donor who said they were never told this was a possibility.
Wiley said she is most concerned with sperm being mishandled or planted as evidence in a crime.
“What if someone steals that sperm and then sells it on the black market, and they plant that?” she said. “And is DNA being extracted and then being used in a database to catch criminals?… It’s hard to say what can happen.”
As someone who has spent her life fighting fertility fraud, Wiley has witnessed firsthand the horrific ways gametes can be mishandled. “It’s unbelievable,” she said, adding that “in the absence of laws and that legal landscape being the wild wild west, it’s really frustrating.”
High said trans people also have specific safety concerns, since they often preserve their sperm or eggs at these banks before starting gender-affirming care.
“We know this administration is targeting the queer community,” High said, “Especially the trans community, who actively uses the fertility industry to store their DNA before they medically transition.”
She said there is also particular concern for people of color. “We are well aware that people of color are actively and heinously targeted by the police force,” she said. “Secretly handing over sperm from Black donors or any donor of color does not just affect that donor, but potentially their entire family. We have a long and terrible history in this country of people of color getting set up for a crime by the police force.”
“This industry who’s already very famous for excluding recipient parents and donors of color is demonstrating that they are also willing to put those donors at risk for severe injustice… Seattle has given the FBI the ability to have a genetic tracker.”
There is also the matter of the DNA of the children conceived from each donor being in the hands of a government agency. One recipient parent, Romy Razuri, who told LGBTQ Nation she became an activist in the space after she had reason to believe Seattle Sperm Bank failed to report critical pieces of her donor’s medical information, called it “creepy.”
“It just doesn’t sound right. I mean, no matter how you look at it and if you try to make sense of it… Whatever the reason is, it’s just not okay.”
Asked if the information made her feel worried about her kids, she replied: “I mean, anything at this point related to donor conception makes me feel scared for my kids.”
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“In almost every single case, the reason was anti-trans discrimination in the form of pressure to ‘detransition’ from one’s family, friends, or community.”
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A report on the largest survey ever of trans Americans’ health was released on Wednesday, June 11, and its findings reaffirmed what many academics, health care providers and trans people already know: gender-affirming care saves and improves lives, but transphobia often dissuades people from pursuing or continuing it when they need it most.
Over 84,000 trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming people aged 18 and up responded to the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey, spearheaded by Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE). Of respondents who had transitioned, 9% had gone back to living as their sex assigned at birth at some point in their lives, at least for a short while—but in almost every single case, the reason was anti-trans discrimination from one’s family, friends, or community.
“Social and structural explanations dominated the reasons why respondents reported going back to living in their sex assigned at birth at some point,” the report found. “Only 4% of people who went back to living in their sex assigned at birth for a while cited that their reason was because they realized that gender transition was not for them. When considering all respondents who had transitioned, this number equates to only 0.36%.”
Meanwhile, respondents who received gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) or gender-affirming surgery overwhelmingly reported feeling “more satisfied” with their lives—98% and 97% respectively.
Graphic courtesy of the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey – Health and Wellbeing Report
This watershed report contradicts the popular narrative being circulated by mainstream media, far-right politicians and anti-trans groups that transgender people are “detransitioning” en masse due to life-shattering “transition regret.” In reality, it shows gender diverse people are living rich and vibrant lives—so long as they are provided the space, support and care they need from their health care providers and communities.
The survey found a trans person’s overall health and wellbeing also heavily depends upon rates of familial support, a factor that has a profound influence over a trans person’s lifetime experience of suicidality.
Graphic courtesy of the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey – Health and Wellbeing Report
The survey has been released in increments as researchers at A4TE wade through the unprecedented amounts of data from trans people who lent their voice to the project. It is a much-needed, comprehensive overview on the challenges—and victories—seen in trans health care since the prior iteration of the study. The report is especially vital considering the Trump Administration moved to remove transgender people from the U.S. Census and other government websites, rendering trans communities potentially invisible, and robbing researchers of crucial data informing public policy decisions.
“Having real concrete and rigorous data about the realities of trans people’s day-to-day lives is also a vital part of dispelling all of those assumptions and stereotypes that plague the public discourse about our community,” said Olivia Hunt, A4TE’s Director of Federal Policy, during a press briefing this week.
The report also touched upon trans people’s access to health care, which increased between 2015 and 2022; the quality of care, as trust between doctors and trans patients has improved; disparities between trans people across racial groups, which showed trans people of color are generally more prone to experience discrimination compared to white trans people; and the mental health challenges facing the trans community, as 44% of respondents met the criteria for serious psychological distress, compared to less than 4% of the general U.S. population.
Many of these issues have likely been exacerbated since the data was collected. The lead-up to President Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office incited a new wave of anti-trans animus, impeding access to care and stirring up transphobic vitriol and harassment.
“From 2015 to 2022, state-level policy environments became more protective in some ways for trans people; however, in 2022 alone, when the USTS was administered, 315 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced across the country, many of which harm trans and nonbinary people’s access to healthcare, participation in sports, access to public facilities, or other facets of public life,” the report says.
“This political landscape has only worsened since the administration of the 2022 USTS, with the introduction of 571 anti-LGBTQ nationwide in 2023 and 489 in 2024,” it continues. “At the time of writing, data on trans and nonbinary people has been erased from federal health surveys. As funding for LGBTQ research is stripped away, the USTS has become an ever more critical resource on the lived experiences of trans and nonbinary people.”
Nonetheless, trans life and trans joy has persisted, as testimonies featured in the U.S. Trans Survey demonstrate.
“I have thrived in the past 12 months in transition, I have a genuine smile on my face most days & laugh with genuine joy,” wrote Charlotte, a trans woman, in her survey response. “I have grown into the woman I was meant to be.”
And as Roo, a nonbinary person, wrote: “Once I learned what it meant to be trans, I never looked back. I traded in my Regina George-esque life for a future with a balding head and a predisposition for a beer gut. I’ve never been more happy to be alive—every single day. ”
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Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Harald Ringbauer et al. writing in Nature report on a genetic study of the ancient Phoenicians that is really going to anger Lebanese Christian nationalists. In fact, it contains a profound lesson for nationalists and nationalism in general, which is that the whole thing is a scam thought up in the last 250 years.
The 19th century racist thinker Ernest Renan saw a racial distinction between “Aryans” and “Semites.” From that point of view, the Punic wars between Rome and Carthage had a racial element, since Phoenicians were classed as “Semites.” But it turns out it was all a tiff among people we would now class as Italians.
The Phoenicians had been thought to be a unified civilization that began in what is today Lebanon. Well, they did start off in what is today Lebanon. But the “unified civilization” bit turns out to be a misconception.
The Phoenicians developed an alphabet. Like most alphabets, the letters had originally been pictograms. The Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic, as well as the Greek and Roman alphabets (we still use the latter) derived from the Phoenician. For instance a picture of waves stood for water (ma’), and that became our M, which still looks like waves. Or a circle stood for eye (`ayn), which became our ‘o.’
Since the Phoenicians founded city-states all around the Mediterranean and left inscriptions in that alphabet, scholars had assumed that they were a related people. Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean were called “Punic,” but the language and customs were the same.
Regarding the Lebanese origins of this civlizational complex, Ringbauer et al. write, “We find that individuals from the Levantine Phoenician site of Akhziv in present-day Israel cluster together with previously published Bronze and Iron Age Levantine individuals, including from Megiddo in present-day Israel and the Phoenician cities of Sidon and Beirut in present-day Lebanon.” That is, they looked at ancient individuals from around the Levant and found that they all had shared haplotypes, i.e. they were Canaanites. Phoenicians, Hebrews, Nabataeans, etc. were all Canaanites culturally and genetically.
Now imagine the scientists’ astonishment when they looked at DNA from individuals who had lived in Phoenician cities such as Ibiza off Spain or Carthage in Tunisia to find that it did not display the ancient haplotypes or genetic sequences associated with Levantine peoples.
They write, “However, a mitochondrial genome from Carthage and whole-genome data from 12 individuals from the nearby rural Punic site of Kerkouane show substantial south European ancestry as well as indigenous North African ancestry. Partial North African ancestry was also found in genome-wide data from eight individuals from two Punic sites in Sardinia, combined with a broad eastern Mediterranean ancestry. Together with analysis of the whole-genome sequence of an individual from Ibiza, which was also interpreted to harbour eastern Mediterranean ancestry, this suggested that Punic people had complex ancestry.”
They observe of these “Phoenicians of the middle and western Mediterranean, “They are broadly distributed with a primary mode overlapping Bronze and Iron Age individuals from Sicily and the Aegean, regardless of sampled location.” There were only three exceptions: two persons from Sicily and one from Sardinia showed Canaanite genetic heritage.
In all the other 119 samples from “Punic” sites, the genetic heritage was mixed, showing patterns similar to those in ancient Greece and Sicily. After around 550 BC, when Carthage was founded by the “Phoenicians” in what is now Tunisia, some North African [Amazigh] genetic heritage starts to circulate among some of them. But this was a minority population. The authors observe, “Even in North Africa, 10 out of the 27 individuals from Kerkouane and 5 out of the 17 individuals from Carthage can be modelled with no indigenous North African ancestry, and 84% of individuals from these sites have more than 50% Sicilian–Aegean ancestry, making it the dominant ancestry component also in North African Punic sites.”
Also, the Iberians were mostly not Iberians. “Only two Iberian individuals, from Ibiza and Cádiz, had confidently high proportions of Bronze Age Iberian ancestry… Instead, Punic sites in the western Mediterranean share similar ancestry distributions of predominantly Sicilian–Aegean or North African origin.”
So how did all this happen? The authors hypothesize that Lebanese Phoenicians colonized Sicily, which had earlier had Greek colonies, and the Sicilians adopted Phoenician language, religion and culture. They they were the ones who struck out west, establishing Phoenician colonies in the central and western Mediterranean.
Ringbauer and his colleagues explain, “A critical question raised by our results is how and when Canaanite–Phoenician culture and language were adopted by people without any detectable Levantine ancestry. One hypothesis is that, after Levantine Phoenicians founded settlements in the central and western Mediterranean in the early first millennium bce, these communities continuously incorporated people with Sicilian–Aegean ancestry.”
Glass head pendant, Phoenician or Carthaginian, ca. 450–300 BCE. Metropolitan Museum. Public Domain.
Reporting on the study for a Nature briefing, Ewen Callaway quotes Ringbauer as asking how it was that many Mediterranean peoples abandoned their own local cultures for that of the Phoenicians. “Does this mean Phoenician culture was like a franchise that others could adopt? That’s one for the archaeologists.”
Of course they were a franchise. So were the ancient Greeks, whose culture was adopted by so many Egyptians in places like Alexandria. As late as the 200s and 300s, there are no Arabic or Aramaic inscriptions in and around Damascus, only Greek ones. Ashkenazi Jews in Europe were also a franchise, which was joined by many gentiles — especially but not only women.
Nineteenth century European theorists of nationalism confused language groups with kinship groups, assuming that people who spoke a language were a “race,” perhaps even a “pure” one.
Today many Lebanese Christians claim to be “Phoenicians,” as though it was a pure “race” unconnected to the “Arabs.” And they take pride in Carthage, a Phoenician city, and in the Phoenician outposts of Spain, imagining they were all “Lebanese.” Ringbauer has knocked that down.
There are no nations or races of that sort. There are no “Aryans” and “Semites.” This was a linguistic distinction that was stupidly racialized. Racial “nation” was all a fevered racist fantasy. Even modern genetics only traces two lines of ancestry, the Y chromosome and the mitochondrial DNA of the X chromosome, whereas we have millions of ancestors. We’re all mongrels, all mixed up, and people in the Mediterranean basin all have a common ancestor from not so long ago. All humans have one likely only 200,000 years ago.
I admit my life was different but from the time I was five I knew I was attracted to males. Specifically both sexually and emotionally. One of the hell spawn female siblings even held me down to pound the point that I was “queer” into me. I did not understand why it was wrong, after all they were the ones telling me what to do and farming me out to their teen boyfriends. I craved being held by the boys and not so much the girls. But all the other gay and lesbian people I have talked to knew early also. Preteen time frame. 7 or 8 and up they knew they were gay and either knew they had to hide it or knew they couldn’t so had to live with being attacked for it. These people who think it is a choice, a fad, or a phase need to ask themselves the famous question. When did they know they were cis and straight and was it a choice they made. No they just felt it all their lives, they simply knew it. Same for the LGBTQ+. The only difference is straight cis kids see themselves everywhere from birth. Mommies and daddies, they see themselves in the older kids around them, in the news, movies, TV shows, and the books they read. It feels so natural to them they just don’t question it. They are lucky. Until recently like in the last decade LGBTQ+ kids did not see themselves reflected in society. No movies had kids like them, no books in the library had kids like them. Some kids did not even know the words for how they felt. It was changing in the last ten years. Schools made a push for inclusion and tolerance, movies showed LGBTQ+ kids, books had them as plots or characters. Kids could see themselves and be proud. That is what the haters, the anti-trans / anti-gay bigots want to remove. The ability of kids who are different from the majority to see themselves represented positively in society. It is why they write and pass don’t say gay bills, and why they ban books. It is why they try to ban drag shows and pride events. These people who demand a straight cis world with only them showing in public are terrified of a world where people can be different. To them those who are the other must be destroyed, ideas of acceptance and tolerance must be erradicated and removed. All because they don’t feel different from the majority so the difference must not be real. But it is and we need to realize the scars left on kids who grew up in the times when they never seen themselves represented in society. We must not go backward in time, regressing to a time of hate. Hugs
LGBTQ+ youth advocates gathered outside the Monmouth County Courthouse in Freehold on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023, where a school policy that would impact lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth was being reviewed in Superior Court. | Amanda Oglesby / Asbury Park Press / USA TODAY NETWORK
A new poll from Pew Research Center sheds some light on just how early LGBTQ+ people are aware of their identities. The study of LGBTQ+ adults in the U.S. found that most respondents understood their identity before the age of 14, with a substantial portion knowing about their identities before the age of 10.
Among gay and lesbian adults, 36% said that they felt they were gay or lesbian before the age of 10 and 35 first felt they were gay or lesbian from ages 10 to 13. Only a minority – 29% – had their first feelings about their sexuality after the age of 14.
The numbers were similar for transgender people. Approximately 33% felt they might be transgender before age 10, and 25% felt the same way between ages 10 to 13. Only 19% had their first feelings about being transgender after the age of 18.
Bisexual people tended to know the latest, but even a majority of bisexual people said that they had their first thoughts about being queer before age 18. Half – 50% – had their first feelings of being bisexual before age 14.
The question often comes up in discussions of LGBTQ+ youth, with many on the right insisting that people can’t know their identities before adulthood. Often, these people claim that only LGBTQ+ people can’t know their identities before adulthood, but then support heterosexuality and cisgender identities in young people.
But these statements fly in the face of LGBTQ+ people’s lived experiences, which often include years of hiding their identities before they create a safer space for themselves to live authentically as adults.
While LGBTQ+ respondents generally first thought about their queer identities when they were very young, most waited until they were older to tell others. While 71% of gay and lesbian people said that they first knew about their sexuality before age 14, only 13% said that they told someone before that age. Approximately 58% of trans people first thought they might be trans before age 14, but only 15% told someone before that age.
This also contradicts the rightwing narrative that young people are saying that they are trans or gay to gain social acceptance and not because they actually identify as such. In reality, young people are saying that they’re straight or cisgender when they actually aren’t, likely to try and get social acceptance.
Pew broke down the results even more and showed that gay men generally felt that they were gay at a younger age than lesbian women, with 40% saying they were younger than 10 years old when they first thought they were gay, as opposed to 29% of lesbian women.
| Pew Research Center
Bisexual women, on the other hand, likely knew earlier than bisexual men. 53% of bi women said they felt they might be bi before they were 14 years old, while just 40% of bi men said the same.
| Pew Research Center
The poll was conducted in January of this year and involved a sample of 3,959 adult LGBTQ+ Americans. The survey asked about a wide variety of topics, including support from family and friends, ties to the larger LGBTQ+ community, and social acceptance.
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Palantir employees, including CEO Alex Karp, made millions in campaign donations in 2024. In April, the company won a $30 million contract to develop software to help ICE manage deportations. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
In early April, hundreds of military and tech companies exhibited their products at the Border Security Expo, which brought “government leaders, law enforcement officials, and industry innovators” together. During the two-day event in Phoenix, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons said he would like ICE to operate more like a business: “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.” He added that “the badge and guns” should do “the badge-and-gun stuff, everything else, let’s contract out.”
The event illustrates how companies are rushing to secure government contracts as the Trump administration ramps up its spending on ICE to reach its deportation goals. The House approved a spending bill in early May that sets aside $175 billion for immigration enforcement – about 22 times ICE’s annual budget – and includes $45 billion for detention, $14.4 billion for transportation and removal operations and $8 billion for hiring new ICE staff. The Trump administration ordered DHS to hire an additional 20,000 ICE officers.
OpenSecrets previously reported on the private prisons and air carriers that are poised to benefit from President Donald Trump’s plans to increase deportation. This final article in the series focuses on other for-profit companies benefiting from deportations.
New contracts
In April, ICE awarded software company Palantir Technologies a $29.8 millioncontract for developing ImmigrationOS, a tool to help ICE with identifying and prioritizing the deportations of individuals who are considered a risk, such as violent criminals; tracking who is self-deporting; and managing cases from the individual’s entry through detention, hearing and deportation. Palantir is expected to provide a prototype of the ImmigrationOS tool by Sept. 25. The tool is an extension of systems that Palantir has already delivered as part of its almost $128 million contract signed in 2022.
Deployed Resources, an emergency management company that has provided mobile restrooms, sinks and tents to music festivals such as Lollapalooza and emergency relief following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Hurricane Sandy, has been awarded over $4 billion in government contracts to build and operate border tents since 2016, according to ProPublica. The company earned a $3 billion contract with ICE in 2022 for running tent detention facilities around the border. On April 11, ProPublica reported that ICE awarded a new contract worth up to $3.8 billion to Deployed Resources. On April 17, however, the billion-dollar contract was canceled for reasons unknown. The next day, ICE submitted a $5 million proposal for Deployed Resources to deliver unarmed guard services for 30 days at an ICE facility in El Paso, Texas. ProPublica also revealed that ICE has housed detainees at a tent facility in El Paso operated by Deployed Resources since March. The facility was previously used by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, but the Trump administration used the Department of Defense to award Deployed Resources an unannounced $140 million contract to run the site for ICE, citing the declaration of an emergency at the southern border. The facility can house up to 1,000 detainees, and ICE started transferring detainees on March 10, according to ProPublica.
Axon Enterprise, a company that develops technology and weapons for public safety, law enforcement and the military, took part in the Border Expo. The company was awarded a year-long $5.1 million contract on March 10 to deliver body cams and equipment. A day later, the company was awarded a $22,376 contract to deliver tasers that have been used specifically in deportations. ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division bought $2.6 million worth of Axon tasers in 2020 and 2021.
Parsons Government Services, a “technology provider,” was also at the Border Expo. The company was awarded a contract worth up to $8.9 million for COVID-19 testing supplies in February, as well as an $87,467 contract in March and a $118,758 contract in April with ICE, both to provide “mobile biometric collection devices in support of the biometric identification transnational migration alert program.” The company is already wrapping up a one-year, $4.2 million contract for the transportation and guard services of ICE detainees in Newark.
General Dynamics, a weapons company, was awarded new $101,034 and $80,050 contracts in March to purchase non-lethal ammunition for training purposes for ICE’s Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs.
Sig Sauer Inc., a firearms company, was awarded more than $200,000 worth of contracts with ICE for firearms and firearm accessories in the first months of 2025: $57,163 in February, and $19,824, $35,106 and $90,854 contracts in April.
Paragon Professional Services, was awarded a $1.1 million contract on April 1 for transporting people who are detained by ICE in the New York City area and a $458,400 month-long contract to provide transportation of ICE detainees in Baltimore on April 17.
Follow the money
Palantir spent $5.8 million on lobbying the federal government in 2024. The company’s employees also made almost $5 million in campaign contributions during the 2024 elections. The largest contributions included $1 million to Make America Great Again Inc, $1 million to MAGA Inc and $344,914 to the Republican National Committee. Palantir’s CEO, Alexander Karp, contributed to Democratic as well as Republican candidates during the 2024 elections. In 2023, Karp contributed $163,800 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $154,920 to their Republican counterparts. Karp increased his contributions to the Republican Party after Trump was elected: On Dec. 12, 2024, Karp contributed $1 million to MAGA Inc., the Trump-supporting super PAC. In the first months of 2025, Karp contributed $360,000 to Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) Grow the Majority PAC and a combined $310,100 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Palantir also spent $170,000 on lobbying in the first quarter of 2025.
Even though the company has no lobbying history, Deployed Resources has hired more than a dozen former government insiders, according to ProPublica, including some high-ranking ICE officials. Marlen Pineiro joined Deployed recently, after working for the Department of Homeland Security in Central America developing policies with Panama, and a decade as a senior official at ICE, according to her LinkedIn profile. A month after Trump’s victory, former ICE field office director Sean Ervin announced he was joining Deployed Resources as a senior adviser for strategic initiatives.
Axon Enterprise contributed to both the Democratic and Republican parties. The CEO, Patrick Smith, donated $25,000 to the Scalise Leadership Fund of 2024, a joint fundraising committee run by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). James Norton, the vice president of the company, contributed several thousand dollars to Republicans in the past two years. Axon Enterprise spent $1.5 million on lobbying in 2024 and $510,000 in the first quarter of 2025, a $180,000 increase compared to Q1 2024. One of Axon’s lobbyists, Helen Tolar, also served as a transition advisor to Doug Collins, Trump’s secretary of veterans affairs.
Employees and PACs related to Parsons Government Services’ mother corporation, Parsons Corporation, contributed $592,053 in the 2024 elections, with $27,715 to Kamala Harris and $13,076 to Donald Trump. The company spent $950,000 on lobbying in 2024, mostly on defense issues. In the first quarter of 2025, the company ramped up its lobbying to $590,000, a $370,000 increase from the same quarter in 2024. Parsons Corporation has its own PAC, which spent $247,600 on Republican federal candidates in the 2024 elections, and $151,250 on Democratic candidates.
Sig Sauer Inc.’s PAC contributed $87,715 in the 2024 elections, mostly to Republican candidates. The company’s CEO, Ron Cohen, contributed $25,000 in 2024 to Preserve America, a super PAC supporting Donald Trump. The company spent $530,000 on lobbying in 2024 and $260,000 in the first quarter of 2025, a $180,000 increase from the first quarter in 2024. It did not lobby on specific bills in 2024.
General Dynamics contributed $3.4 million in the election, both to Republicans as well as Democrats. The company also spent $12.2 million on lobbying in 2024, mostly regarding defense issues. It spent $3.3 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2025, a $340,000 increase from the previous year.
Paragon Professional Services LLC is a subsidiary of Bering Straits Assn., which contributed $15,305 in the 2024 elections, both on Democratic as well as Republican candidates. The company lobbied to the tune of $280,000 in 2024, mostly on the Coast Guard Authorization Act and the Department of Defense Appropriations Act. It has spent $60,000 on lobbying in 2025 so far. CEO Gail Schubert spent several thousand dollars on Republican candidates in Alaska.
Why does it matter?
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So below I will add the pictures of the torture device my husband insisted I needed. We have not been walking like we used to. There seems to always be a reason why but my husband worries about how thin my legs have gotten and that I have started to have swollen ankles and feet sitting at my desk so much. So
we got this device.
Now comes the punishment part. The first time I tried it I did 3 sets of 5 minutes of stepping, rested 10 minutes between sets. Two or three hours later as I was doing the dishes my legs started to really hurt and get stiff. I couldn’t bend my legs. My thighs were swollen. I was in agony so bad I couldn’t finish the dishes. I have not used it since. Can anyone tell me the proper amount of time to use it and how many minutes to rest between and how many sets to do. Thanks. I do want to get healthy and build back up my legs that have atrophied but I don’t want to die doing it. Hugs
Galactic bones, filaments of radio-wave-emitting particles, run through our galaxy, and one of them has a fracture. New analysis suggests collision with a neutron star may have caused it.
A photo of the galactic bone known as The Snake. Photograph: NASA/CXC/Northwestern University
If you look at the Milky Way through a powerful telescope, you’ll notice that close to the center of the galaxy there are elongated filaments that seem to outline its spiral shape. Scientists have a nickname for these structures: “galactic bones.” Recently, astronomers found that one of the Milky Way’s bones is “fractured,” and they believe they’ve now found a possible culprit: a neutron star that may have collided with it.
According to NASA, these bones are huge elongated formations of energized particles that spiral along magnetic fields running through the galaxy. The particles release radio waves, and so are detectable using radio telescopes.
Scientists have found several such bones in the galaxy, but one of the most striking is called G359.13142-0.20005, also known as “the Snake.” It is a 230-light-year-long filament that appears to have a fracture. It is also one of the brightest. One of the first explanations was that some as yet undetected body had disturbed the filament.
A study by Harvard University, published in the journal Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society, set out to test this hypothesis. The research team involved found signs of a pulsar, a neutron star spinning at high speed, in the same region as the broken bone. These stars are extremely dense, and are the small remnants left after the explosion of a supermassive star.
Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which orbits Earth, along with the MeerKAT telescope array in South Africa and the Very Large Array in New Mexico—two systems that detect radio waves—scientists found what appear to be traces of a pulsar in the filament. Based on data from these observatories, they estimate that this pulsar impacted the bone at a speed of between 1,609,000 and 3,218,000 kilometers per hour. The suspected collision is thought to have distorted the magnetic field of the bone, causing its radio signal to deform.
The structure G359.13, with the fracture visible on its right-hand side. Photograph: NASA/CXC/Northwestern University
In the above image provided by NASA, the Snake can be seen, and there is a body that appears to be interacting with the structure, in the middle of its length. It is possibly the aforementioned neutron star.
Pulsars are alternative versions of a neutron star where, in addition to being compact objects, they rotate at high velocities and produce strong magnetic fields. At the moment there is no instrument that can see them directly due to their size and distance, but radio telescopes can detect the electromagnetic waves they emit and hear them by converting these into sound.
This story originally appeared onWIRED en Españoland has been translated from Spanish.
May 25, 1774 A group of African slaves in Massachusetts Bay colony petitioned the British royal governor for freedom as their natural right: “. . . we have in common with all other men a natural right to our freedoms without Being depriv’d of them by our fellow men as we are a freeborn Pepel [people] and have never forfeited this Blessing by aney compact or agreement whatever.”
May 25, 1925 John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. Scopes, a football coach and substitute high school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, agreed to be arrested and put on trial for teaching evolution. He was challenging the legitimacy of a four-day-old state law barring Darwin’s theory from the public school curriculum. The Scopes “Monkey Trial” ACLU
May 25, 1948 Garry Davis, formerly a member of the U.S. military, renounced his American citizenship to become a Citizen of the World. Davis continued to promote “world citizenship” for over 50 years; 400,000 have, at one time or another, joined the movement. watch trailer “THE WORLD IS MY COUNTRY” Read more about Garry Davis NY Times
May 25, 1963 Leaders of 32 African nations met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to set up the Organization of African Unity (OAU), giving them a united voice for the first time in the continent’s history. The primary aim of the OAU was to end European colonial control in the countries where it still existed at the time: Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), South Africa, Mozambique and Angola. OAU flag Read more
May 25, 1986 An estimated 7 million Americans participated in Hands Across America, forming a line across the country from Los Angeles to New York to raise public awareness of the issues of hunger and homelessness in the U.S. Participants paid ten dollars [almost $20 in 2009] to reserve their place in line; the proceeds were donated to local charities to feed the hungry and help the homeless.
May 25, 2003 Four activists, members of the Catholic Worker movement and known as “Riverside Ploughshares,” were arrested for pouring blood and hammering on the USS Philippine Sea’s Tomahawk cruise missile hatches. The ship was visiting New York City for the annual “Fleet Week.” “With hammers we have initiated the process of disarming this battle ship, of transforming this carrier of mass destruction into a vessel for peace…” pouring blood and hammering.. Details of the Riverside Ploughshares action
Molly Sprayregen (She/Her )May 21, 2025, 12:00 pm EDTKyle Neal
Alex Bollinger (He/Him)May 29, 2025, 3:30 pm EDTLGBTQ+ youth advocates gathered outside the Monmouth County Courthouse in Freehold on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023, where a school policy that would impact lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth was being reviewed in Superior Court. | Amanda Oglesby / Asbury Park Press / USA TODAY NETWORK
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