PUBLISHED: 31 March 2026 LAST UPDATED: 31 March 2026
“Everyone is on high alert, constantly watching the sky with fright and exhaustionย [โฆ] We also keep our eyes on our mobile phone connections โย the moment the signal drops, we immediately take cover in underground shelters. Weโve come to understand thatย a loss of communication signals an impending airstrike.โย Humanitarian aid worker on theย internet shutdownย that took place in Myanmarย during air strikesย near Tamu township in the Sagaing region.
The 2025 data and analysis confirm a horrific reality: internet shutdowns are increasing, not decreasing โ and their impact on peopleโs lives is devastating. Shutdowns reached a new record high in the past year, continuing the steady increase since 2020. Our new report, Rising repression meets global resistance: Internet shutdowns in 2025, documents how democratic and autocratic governments alike deploy them to silence, collectively punish, and terrorize populations, as well as to hide human rights violations and killings. At the same time, we highlight how resistance is growing and peopleโs power is rising, and offer recommendations for stakeholders to push back. From Myanmar to Iran, Tanzania to Nepal, communities are challenging repression, demanding accountability, and devising new ways to reconnect during blackouts.
In 2025, Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition documented 313 shutdowns in 52 countries, surpassing the appalling records from 2024 (304) and 2023 (289). Seven new countries joined the offender list in 2025, meaning that people in 100 countries have now experienced a shutdown since we started tracking in 2016. As 2026 began, there were 75 shutdowns in 33 countries that persisted from 2025, a significant increase from the 54 shutdowns in 26 countries that were ongoing from 2024 into 2025. This shows that perpetrators are increasingly attempting to permanently block communications platforms or even keep entire populations cut off from the internet indefinitely.
If you canโt see the highlights below, please check your privacy-enhancing browser extensions. Open in desktop view for the best experience.
(snip-go see. The site is Access Now, it’s safe, the subject of this story (internet access) is its specialty, and my Ad Blocker even shows no blocked ads on the page! Go finish reading this, because forewarned should be forearmed, as to organizing locally.)
Medicaid cuts threaten hundreds of hospitals, new report finds
Together, the hospitals provide care for nearly 7 million patients across the U.S., according to the analysis.
Across the country, hospitals have already warned they may need to lay off staff members or scale back care, including maternity and mental health care, because of Medicaid cuts.Image Source / Getty Images
More than 400 hospitals across the United States are at high risk of closing or cutting services because of the Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trumpโs โbig, beautiful bill,โ according to anย analysis from the progressive watchdog group Public Citizen.
The fallout could make it harder for millions of people to get care and put thousands of health care workersโ jobs at risk as hospitals lose a key source of federal funding. Medicaid coversย about a fifthย of all hospital spending.
Theย Medicaid cutsย come in phases, with more significant changes, including work requirements, in 2027 and limits on how states raise funds in 2028. Overall, the law is expected to reduce federal Medicaid funding byย roughly $1 trillionย over the next decade.
โWeโre seeing hospitals that are already under severe financial strain having to make decisions about how to stay financially solvent,โ said Eileen OโGrady, a researcher in Public Citizenโs Congress Watch division and the reportโs author. โThat has pretty clear implications for people who live in that community. It also has ripple effects on other hospitals in those communities.โ
The analysis draws on hospital financial data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from 2022 through 2024, covering about 95% of U.S. hospitals. The group defined at-risk hospitals as those in which Medicaid and other low-income government programs made up at least 20% of revenue and that have been operating at a loss in recent years.
The report doesnโt estimate when hospitals could close or cut services.
โClosure is the worst-case scenario, but it also doesnโt preclude hospitals from having to make really tough decisions about cutting services that might be essential to those communities but are just no longer financially viable,โ OโGrady said.
Across the country, hospitals have alreadyย made statementsย warning they may need toย lay off staffย or scale back care, includingย maternityย and mental health care, because of the Medicaid cuts.
For many patients, hospitals are the last place to turn when there are few or no other options for care.
โWhen hospitals close, patients have less access to the care that they need,โ said Gideon Lukens, director of research and data analysis on the health policy team at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research group. โThey have to travel further or wait longer in other hospitals that become overcrowded. That additional time can be the difference between success and failure of time-sensitive, potentially life-saving treatments.โ
The closures also add strain to the hospitals that take on the extra patients.ย OโGrady said doctors end up having โless patience, less time, less capacity to provide the highest quality care.โ
โIt can be very dangerous for hospitals to be under this kind of strain,โ she said.
The analysis found a total of 446 at-risk hospitals, with at least one at-risk hospital in 44 states and Washington, D.C.
About 60% of the at-risk hospitals โ 267 facilities โ are in urban areas, even as much of the debate around Medicaid cuts hasย focused on rural hospitals.ย Black and Latino people stand to be the most affected by the cuts.
The hospitals span both Democratic and Republican-led states, though the states with the largest number of at-risk hospitals are California, New York, Illinois and Washington.
Republicans also represent several congressional districts with the highest number of at-risk hospitals. House Republicans who voted for the Medicaid cuts have 196 at-risk hospitals in their districts, while Senate Republicans โ all of whom back the cuts โ represent 146 at-risk hospitals in their states, according to the analysis.
The cuts could lead to a worsening crisis, especially for rural hospitals, said Zachary Levinson, the project director of the KFF Project on Hospital Costs.
He said that by his estimates, Trumpโs law sets asideย $50 billion to support rural communities, but could reduce federal Medicaid spending in rural areas by far more โ about $137 billion over a decade.
James Jackson, the CEO of Alameda Health System in Oakland, California, said the Medicaid cuts represent an โexistential threat.โ
Alameda Health System, which gets 60% of its revenue from Medicaid payments, announced in December that it would lay off nearly 300 employees and lose more than $100 million annually by 2030. (The health network was not included on Public Citizenโs at-risk list, though the report notes its financial troubles.)
The layoffs, set to take effect in March, have since been delayed.
Proposed cuts included mental health services, care for patients with chronic conditions and an ambulatory plastic surgery program. Jackson said closing hospitals is not on the table, but the system has continued to look at scaling back services.
โI donโt think the impact is going to be a positive one,โ he said. โWe are often the provider of last recourse, so if weโre not able to provide a service, there will be a delay in receiving care at one of the other systems in the area or they may not provide it at all.โ
Trinity Health, a Michigan-based hospital system with facilities in other states, said itโs projected to lose $1.5 billion due to โrecent and future government policy changes.โ
In January, it said it was laying off 10.5% of its billing staff. One of its hospitals, St. Maryโs Sacred Heart Hospital in rural northeast Georgia,ย announced last Octoberย it was closing its maternity unit.
In a statement, a Trinity Health spokesperson shared a previous statement that said in part that โmore reductionsโ are being considered by the federal government and itโs โnot possible to simply absorb such a significant financial impact without making thoughtful, forward-thinking changes.โ
Berkeley Lovelace Jr. is a health and medical reporter for NBC News. He covers the Food and Drug Administration, with a special focus on Covid vaccines, prescription drug pricing and health care. He previously covered the biotech and pharmaceutical industry with CNBC.
I got up at 3 am this morning and was able to respond to almost all the comments.ย That gave me a few minutes while I ate some apple oatmeal for breakfast to read some news from Joe My God that he posted yesterday.ย Here they are in no particular order. Hugs
Yes it would make me want to sign up to work grueling hours and possibly die for a country that wants to use my graduation to arrest and deport my family members. Great move.ย Hugs.
I wonder what makes a person so hateful, bigoted, and racist.ย How much do you fear not being in a super majority and why? Do they worry that the new majority will treat them the way they treated the minorities when they were the majority? Hugs
More racism.ย This program they are now stopping claiming it is DEI and woke is because the first program illegally excluded black people in an attempt to be racist.ย Hugs
I was not sure whether to put this under corruption or racism.ย But as they are clearly using race, skin color, and language/accents to stop and detain people, racism won the toss.ย Hugs
OK more bigotry if not racism.ย The joy these people get from forcing kids to be cis or straight rather than let people just express themselves as they are is something I don’t understand. Seriously, why the need to go against all the medical science, medical studies that show conversion therapy to not only not work but to be very harmful to those who experiance it.ย ย It is torture and child abuse.ย Kids who are forced into it, who have to suffer through conversion therapy are much more likely to try to commit suicide.ย For what goal, to please their god?ย Their god created the trans / gay person as trans or gay.
The Army felt it was important enough breach of regulations and rules along with a waste of taxpayer money to suspend and investigate those involved.ย ย Pete Kegseth our Fox host wannabe big time war general secretary of defense over ruled their decision and undermined their authority because it looked cool.ย He is acting like a 10 year old boy playing army with his toys.ย Kegseth also illegally removed 4 officers from being promoted to flag rank.ย Two because they were female and two because they were black.ย The rest he wanted to be promoted were white men of course. Hugs
More illegal actions by the wannabe dictator and his administration who believe anything tRump mumbles is the law of the land and they do not have to follow any rule or law.ย Hugs
tRump illegally deciding that his administration can decide who gets to vote and how voting is done.ย All by his decree.ย The dear leader has spoken.ย Hugs
More crime? Why am I surprised that people that rioted and attacked the US Capitol, breaking in and causing mass damage might not respect the laws?ย In that act they assaulted police, staff, and tried to kill congress members.ย Hugs
But it’s important info, nauseating though it is. Also, click on through to the story, as everything I copy on their page to paste here turns into the title, with “Read more at:” and the link. So, my apologies, but this is a thing that we need to know.
Not about bathrooms, but about testing women. Either test everyone, or take people’s word for it, when reporting is required.And all should prepare for the consequences of this. Women will need more protection from molestation than before, and transpeople need to specifically have that protection, as well. I think the XY carriers will be fine, of course, but they should be tested, too.I mean, who knows, right? And this should not happen in US communities at all, but the door will be wide open.
On Thursday, theย International Olympic Committee announcedย that it would ban transgender women and many cisgender women athletes from competing in women’s events and institute mandatory genetic screening of all female athletes. The decision is significantโthe Olympics has allowed transgender women to compete since 2004, yet none has ever won a medal, and only a single transgender woman has ever competed: weightlifter Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand, who failed to place at the 2021 Tokyo Games. The ban applies to all sports, including those whereย no male performance advantage exists, and will require every woman to undergo a genetic test to participate. It will also exclude many cisgender women who produce elevated testosterone due to genetic or medical conditions,ย such as two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya. And it is not the first time the Olympics has subjected women to mass sex testingโthe last time it did,ย from 1992 to 1999, the results were disastrous, with cisgender women discovering they had intersex conditions they never knew about, leading to public humiliation, career destruction, andย at least one suicideย before such testing was abolished.
Under the new policy, every woman seeking to compete in a female event at the Olympics or any IOC competition must undergo a one-time SRY gene screeningโa cheek swab or blood test that detects the presence of a gene on the Y chromosome associated with male sex development. The test is similar to the one the IOC abolished 27 years ago after it produced disastrous human consequences. Because the screening identifies the presence of XY genetics, it will target not only transgender women but also intersex peopleโincluding cisgender women who carry a genetic condition that some argue makes them “male” despite having been born with a vagina and uterus, raised as girls, and having lived their entire lives as women. In at least 15 documented cases, women with 46,XY karyotypesโthe same genetics this test screens forโhave successfully carried pregnancies to term and given birth, including women with XY karyotypes that naturally produce testosterone. Under the IOC’s new framework, a woman who has been pregnant and delivered a child could be classified as male and barred from competition for failing this test.
Genetic sex testing was introduced at the Olympics in 1992, but it existed for only a short time. In the two Summer Games it coveredโBarcelona in 1992 and Atlanta in 1996โover 20 female athletes who were assigned female at birth, had lived their entire lives as women, and had female anatomy were told they were genetically “male” due to conditions they had never known about. The consequences were disastrous. Dr. Myron Genel, a Yale physician who was a prominent critic of the program, reported that the testing was “highly discriminatory” and caused “emotional trauma and social stigmatization” for women with intersex conditions who had been screened out of competition. For athletes from countries where being labeled male could carry severe social or physical consequences, the disclosure was not merely humiliatingโit was dangerous. Indian swimmer Pratima Gaonkar died by suicide after her failed sex verification test became public and she was subjected to blackmail attempts; Indian runner Santhi Soundarajan attempted suicide after being stripped of her Asian Games silver medal. The testing was abolished in 1999.
The ban also applies to sports where a male genetic advantage is dubious or nonexistent. In rifle shooting, ESPN reported that women are “as good as, if not fractionally better than, men” in 10m air rifle, and yet these athletes will still have to prove their femininity with a genetic test. In sailing, the competition was mixed for nearly a century at the Olympics, from 1900 to 1988. In archery, men and women shoot the same 70-meter Olympic distance and the world records are extremely close. In December 2025, women’s Olympic champion An San exactly matched the men’s indoor qualification round record of 599 in Taipei. And outside the Olympics, transgender bans have spread even furtherโto darts, pool, disc golf, competitive dancing, and even chess.
The scientific evidence, meanwhile, does not support the blanket ban the IOC has imposed. A 2026 meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicineโthe most comprehensive to date, drawing on 52 studies and nearly 6,500 participantsโfound that while transgender women on hormone therapy for one to three years retained higher absolute lean body mass than cisgender women, there were no statistically significant differences in upper-body strength, lower-body strength, or aerobic capacity. The researchers concluded that “the convergence of transgender women’s functional performance with cisgender women, particularly in strength and aerobic capacity, challenges assumptions about inherent athletic advantages” and that the current evidence “does not justify blanket bans.” A separate review in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that after two years of hormone therapy, no advantage was observed for physical performance measured by running time, and that muscle strength corrected for lean mass, hemoglobin, and cardiovascular capacity were no different from cisgender women. No study has demonstrated that transgender women on hormone therapy for more than two years retain a measurable performance advantage in any specific sport.
Some intersex athletes who would be impacted by the decision are already speaking out. Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was assigned female at birth in South Africa and has naturally elevated testosterone levels due to a difference in sex development. On Sunday, she expressed her disappointment with IOC President Kirsty Coventry, a fellow African woman and former Olympic swimmer. “Personally, for her as a leader, she’s an African, I’m sure she understands how, you know, we as Africans, we are coming from, as a global South, you know, you cannot control genetics,” Semenya said at a press conference in Cape Town. “For me personally, for her being a woman coming from Africa, knowing how, you know, African women or women in the global South are affected by that, of course it causes harm.โ
โReintroducing sex testing brings the IOC back to policy that it had discontinued exactly thirty years ago. Back then, they rightfully concluded that sex testing was scientifically inconclusive and caused considerable harm to athletes. Then, in 2021, they approved a Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination to best support trans athletes and athletes with sex variations. Now, they are retreating from their own decisions and ignoring the recommendations of various UN bodies, the World Medical Association, and athletes worldwide. But the evidence is clear: sex testing exposes women and girls to privacy violations, public humiliation, and abuse. And it is profoundly discriminatory, too. No one is asking men and boys to undergo these tests. Women and girls shouldnโt either,โ said Gurchaten Sandhu, ILGA World Director of Programmes.
The policy takes effect at the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games and is not retroactive. Affected athletes are expected to bring challenges before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, as Caster Semenya has done with previous eligibility rules. Over 100 civil society organizations, including the Sport & Rights Alliance, ILGA World, and Humans of Sport, have called on the IOC to reverse the decision.
In February 2026, a rumor spread that Bo French, a Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas, wanted to deport Native Americans โ people indigenous to the U.S. Several social media posts made the claim, including on Facebook, where one user said French had called for the deportation of โthird world savagesโ including Native Americans.
Some posts linked to a Feb. 10, 2026, article inย Texas Monthly, which included a line that read, โOne of Frenchโs favorite phrases is โthird world savagesโโwhich he has applied to Afghan asylum seekers, Muslims, and even Native Americans, who he also wants deported.โ It is true that French called for the deportation of Native Americans. He did so in an Oct. 10, 2025, post on X.
Read theย full article. French, who is allied with two far-right Christian nationalist fracking billionaire pastors, last appeared here in November 2024 when he declared that Democrats are โretarded unmanly homos.โ He appeared here in September 2024 when he lost a court battle to ban early voting on college campuses.
A former instructor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday accused the agency of dramatically slashing training standards for new officers and lying to Congress about it as the Trump administration seeks to rapidly expand its mass deportation operation.
Ryan Schwank, who resigned from his job at an ICE academy in Georgia last week, told congressional Democrats at a hearing that the agency eliminated 240 hours of โvital classesโ from a mandatory 580-hour training program, including instruction about the legal boundaries for the use of force, how to safely handle firearms, and the proper way to detain and arrest immigrants.
โLaw enforcement is a deadly serious biz. It is not a place for shortcuts,โ Schwank said. โDeficient training can and will get people killed. โฆ ICE is lying to Congress and the American people about the steps it is taking to ensure that 12,000 officers can faithfully uphold the Constitution and perform their jobs.โ
Ryan Schwank, a former ICE academy instructor, testified in front of Congress today about constitutional violations.โAt the academy, we took out the class that tells the officers that they have an oath to the Constitution.โ
Former ICE agent: My first day training new cadets, I received secretive orders to teach them to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a warrant. I watched ICE cut classes that teach our legal system, firearms training, use of force, lawful arrests, and the limits of officers' authority
Former ICE trainer Ryan Schwank is telling Congress that agents are being trained to ignore the Constitution. "I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution when I joined ICE. I followed it when I resigned. The legally required training program at the ICE academy is deficient, defective, and broken."
Director Lyons looked me in the eyes and said ICE was receiving proper training.Now a whistleblower says officials are lying about how much training new recruits actually get.Theyโre cutting corners and covering up. We need real answers and accountability. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-whi…
Jeff Tiedrich uses blue language. It’s easily ignored if you don’t care for blue language; this is some great coverage of yesterday.Also, Bluesky posts don’t embed easily on WP, so really, this is better on the page. Just click on the link directly below. It’s also mostly here, but you’ll have to click on the Bluesky posts to see the excellent photos; they didn’t embed.
over eight million of us gathered peacefully coast to coast, to rise up as one and convey a singular message: fuck you, you fucking fuck โ youโre not our king.
wait, did I say coast to coast? no, it was the entire world telling Donny Convict to fuck straight off.
(just click the link to see the post on Bluesky. How it works, I guess. -A)
HAPPENING NOW: A HUGE crowd has gathered in London, England for a protest against the far right in coordination with the No Kings day protests in the US
In 1789, furious protesters stormed the Bastille in Paris. This marks the start of the French Revolution that put an end to the highly corrupt, rotten regime of aristocrats and the ultra rich. Yesterday, thousands joined a #NoKings protest at the Bastille.
โIโm so proud of you. you chased out of this state pure evil. you chased them out. you chased out the fun-size fascist Greg Bovino. you chased out that evil Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem is so evil, Iโm starting to think that that dog took his own life. just couldnโt take it. โis this my future? I need to get out. Iโm taking the goat with me.โโ
while millions of people were protesting the fucked-up reign of Mad King Donny, CPAC couldnโt even fill one small room. look at this clownfuckingly pathetic display.
itโs as if Sad Trombone became a real political party.
great optics, you guys. bravo. ten out of ten โ no notes.
fuck those fucking fucks. letโs go out with a bang. here are some of the best protest signs from around the country.
(Just go see it all. You’ll be sorry if you don’t!)Snip
and finally, once again, our unknown poet laureate from Ellsworth, Maine.
as for Sundowning Grandpa Bugfuck, he was unusually silent โ and nowhere to be seen. there were none of his usual protest-day batshit meltdowns on the feed of his crappy app. he couldnโt even be bothered to post AI slop of himself shitting on protesters, as he did last October.
he just spent the day holed up in Motel-a-Lago. according to his official schedule, the lazy fuck didnโt even bother to cheat at golf.
Iโve got a news flash for you, Donny: America is sick of you. aside from your brain-dead cultists who are too fucking stupid to understand whatโs going on, nobody voted for this shit.
nobody voted for the historic and stately East Wing to be demolished so that you can replace it with some vulgar Epstein Dance Hallโข โ and speaking of your dead pedo bestie, nobody voted for the continuing cover-up of a massive pedophile ring.
nobody voted for off-the-charts corruption and greed.
nobody voted for masked ICE thugs teargassing children, and murdering anyone who looks at them funny. nobody voted for innocent immigrants to be disappeared off the streets and shipped off to far-away slave-labor gulags.
nobody voted for the price of everything continuing to skyrocket โ especially when you promised bring all that shit down on Day One.
nobody voted for our allies to be insulted and ignored, or for Ukraine to be thrown to the wolves, or for Greenland to be perpetually harassed, or for Venezuela to become a vassal state.
and nobody voted for an unwinnable clusterfuck of a donโt-you-dare-call-it-a-war in Iran โ certainly not one that shut down the Strait of Hormuz, destabilized the entire Middle East, and sent the price crude through the roof.
guess what, Donny: youโre such a loathsome piece of shit that over eight million people took to the streets yesterday to deliver this singular message: fuck you, you fucking fuck โ youโre not our king, and you never will be.
Scottie's Playtime 