Trump’s decision to have his motorcade drive across the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool during a high-profile inspection last month may have contributed to damage now plaguing the national landmark.www.newsweek.com/donald-trump…
Oil prices continued to climb on Tuesday, hitting their highest levels in a month, as an escalating pattern of strikes and counter strikes between the U.S. and Iran rattled markets.
Trump formally notified lawmakers this weekend that the nation is once again at war with Iran, giving his administration another 60-day clock to use the military in the region without congressional approval.
Ro Khanna details the abuses the Israelis commit against the palestinians and how the authorities do nothing to stop these abuses. Khanna gives numerous details and says that the israeli governments want to make it clear that no one should go to see the attractions and abuse done to the Palestinians but should only visit the Jewish parts of Israel. This is the best reporting of what happened to the congressman and the other US citizens. Hugs
Doctors and human rights experts documented hundreds of incidents from June 2025 through May 2026 and estimate true number is ‘far greater’
Smoke fills the air as protesters face off with California Highway Patrol officers in Los Angeles, California on 8 June 2025. Photograph: Jill Connelly/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
It’s been a brutal tactic deployed by local and federal law enforcement officials time and again over the past year: using teargas, rubber bullets and pepper spray to control protests outside ICE detention centers or during enforcement operations.
Now, a new report lays bare the scale of the use of these crowd control weapons during anti-immigration demonstrations across the US, including hundreds of incidents that resulted in lasting and traumatic injuries.
The report and an interactive map was created by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley (HRC) and released this week. Doctors and human rights experts with PHR and HRC documented 412 verified incidents of the “misuse” of these crowd control weapons, also known as “less-lethal weapons”, from June 2025 through May 2026.
“This is a concerning story,” said Dr Rohini Haar, the lead author of the report and a PHR medical expert, in an interview with the Guardian.
The report documented 203 injuries stemming from the alleged misuse of the crowd control weapons. Some of the injuries included blindings, traumatic brain injuries, lacerations, fractures and contusions.
The researchers struggled to confirm the full scale of the injuries, because “visual investigative techniques cannot adequately assess invisible injuries, such as chemical injury or chronic pain or hearing loss”.
“The true number of injuries is likely far greater,” the report adds.
Such tactics were on display earlier this summer, when dozens of protesters gathered outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, in solidarity with detained immigrants on hunger strike. As protests became more and more heated, a line of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials stood outside to guard the detention center.
During a scuffle, ICE officials pepper sprayed Andy Kim, a New Jersey senator, making national news and helping set off one of the country’s flashpoints in demonstrations against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations.
State police officers stand behind shields as tear gas fills the area outside the Delaney Hall detention center during a protest in Newark, New Jersey. Photograph: Andrés Kudacki/AP
In the days and weeks that followed, local and state officials also moved in on protesters, using batons and shields, deploying teargas canisters and arresting dozens. Many were injured during the demonstrations outside Delaney Hall by the crowd control weapons that the local, state and federal officials used.
The use of crowd control weapons in New Jersey was not new – local, state and federal law enforcement officials have used them on protesters nationwide opposing the aggressive anti-immigrant arrests, detentions and deportations.
But their use has become widespread as the backlash to Trump’s immigration crackdown has grown – prompting researchers to track down incidents and the types of weapons used nationwide, and to establish a map where readers can see how those weapons have been used in their communities.
Haar began working on the report after she saw news of a pastor being blasted in the face with a chemical weapon by a federal official in Oakland. Haar and PHR have been researching the impacts of crowd control weapons for years.
“Those weapons can cause harm,” Haar added. “It’s just when they’re used, how they’re used and if they’re used.”
DHS did not respond to Guardian inquiries about the report’s findings before publication.
The crowd control weapons include chemical irritants, including teargas, pepper spray and Mace, along with “kinetic impact projectiles”, which include rubber bullets and bean bag rounds. Researchers with PHR and HRC also documented the use of stun grenades, water cannon and other “improvised” weapons, like horses and riot police shields.
Haar explained to the Guardian that they qualified “misuse” by a number of methods. First, they tracked whether people in “protected categories”, including journalists and health workers, were targeted by officials. Next, they documented if vulnerable populations, including elderly people and children, were affected. And lastly, they tracked whether the weapons were used improperly, like using the weapons in close range, targeting people’s heads or going against the weapons’ manufacturing guidelines.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fires tear gas toward demonstrators and members of the press at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility. Photograph: Olga Fedorova/EPA
A report from earlier this year by ProPublica identified 70 children across the US who had been harmed by teargas or pepper spray – not just at protests, but during immigration enforcement operations as well.
On a national level, officials with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), like ICE or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials, were responsible for over half of all misuse incidents – 64%. But local law enforcement officers also played a role in many incidents.
“The involvement of state and local [authorities] is also concerning,” Haar added. “Because in many places, they’re coming on top of what is already happening with DHS. But in places like Los Angeles, there is a lot more involvement [of local law enforcement officials].”
The researchers found that there was an increase in the use of these weapons during immigration enforcement surge operations under the command of former Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino, who took a hardline approach to his enforcement tactics. After the shooting deaths of two US citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration officials, Bovino was pulled from his position. He became critical of the Trump administration, accusing them of not taking a tough-enough approach, and retired in March of this year.
“In each city where there were federal directions to escalate enforcement, incident counts rose sharply within days,” PHR said in a statement announcing the report and the map. “Much of this was coincident with the arrival of Greg Bovino.”
“Many of the enforcement operations that coincided with spikes in documented misuse were also promoted through public social media accounts, including Bovino’s,” PHR continued.
For researchers, the scale of the use of the crowd control weapons harkened back to law enforcement’s response to the 2020 racial justice protests. That year, protesters throughout the country took to the streets to protest police killings of people of color throughout the US. And in some cities, the Border Patrol’s elite unit participated in arrests and crowd control operations.
Since June 2025, mass protests have erupted in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Newark and Portland. The report documented that over 90% of the documented “misuse” incidents happened in those regions.
DHS and local law enforcement officials have fallen under repeated criticism for their response to their protests and their aggressive use of force. Since January of 2025, federal immigration officials with DHS have been responsible for at least 11 shooting deaths. The two most recent fatal shootings by immigration authorities took place this month, less than one week apart, in Texas and in Maine.
On 7 July, ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old construction worker, during an arrest operation in Houston as he drove his work van. And just this Monday morning, a 26-year-old Colombian man was shot and killed by a federal official in Biddeford, Maine, DHS confirmed.
So this starts from last night. Without being graphic or at the risk of oversharing, Ron and I decided to put Tupac on the far out side with me in the middle. Tupac prefers to be in the middle, which I understand but it interferes with Ron and me being able to show eachother intamaticy and touch / hold each other during the night. It has been a frustration since Tupac moved in because before that even though we have a king size bed we were always touching and entwined during the night.
Move to monday morning. I have a standing order for 4 cases (24 individual 2-liter bottles of soda) of Publix caffeine-free diet soda. Because I couldn’t walk Ron has been going to pick them up along with all the rest of our groceries. But it was taking a lot of time out of his day to do the remodeling we needed to get done.
So today I went for the soda and a few groceries. Now I go to the nearest Publix store but it wouldn’t matter they all have super happy employees who are eager to help anyone who asks them. I often remark if you ask a person in a different store where such item might be they will tell you what aisle and leave it at that. In every Publix I have ever been that I asked the employee, they stoped what they were doing and took me to where they thought the item might be. If it was not there they did not just walk away they kept looking with me.
So remember I just got back to walking, and I have fallen twice. So I go in with a cart and tell the person at the service desk who I am and what my standing order is. She makes the calls and then remarks she has not seen me in a while. I explained that my spouse was coming in to get the sodas. I always wear my pride hat and it is clear that my spouse is male. Again never a problem.
A young man who he later told me he was 22 yrs old came with my order in a cart so I asked him if I could switch my empty cart with his full one. He was sure. Then he noticed me taking my cane from the cart before he took it. He took my cart to the cart area and then stood by while I paid for my soda and then offered to take them to my car for me. I was grateful and explained that I just got the ability to walk again and was worried about lifting these heavy cases.
This young energetic happy so very young person who is to me very cute as all young people are to me at 63 years old and disabled. He pushed my cart out to the car and put them in it while talking a steady stream about things. I have often told Ron that my pride hat is a magnet for the young Publix boys. One of them told me he was in in the dinner theater scene and loved acting. So if anyone mentions to you that the Publix stores are / were founded by Christian people who wanted the stores to show a Christian application in the world, they are correct. They are the most progressive pro LGBTQ+ and helping the poor while taking care of the immigrant or minority store chain I have ever seen.
As the young man and I talked I told him I needed to go back into the store and get some groceries. He walked me all the way back into the store and offered to help me do my shopping. I declined while thanking him.
I had 18 items on my list and I admit I added Cheez-It snacks to it. By the time I was done I was limping and very tired out. This was the first time grocery shopping alone since I got the epidural on my spine dealing with my right leg that let me walk and the right foot was cramping.
I do not know how decrepit an old man I looked but when I pulled into the open checkout lane, the young woman at the end of the counter who would normally do the bagging walked up to the end of the aisle in front of my cart. I appoligised to her for blocking her way and said I would move my cart for her to get by. She smiled and said no I just wanted to help you unload your cart. She loaded everything on the converbelt and then I limped up to the pay pad device.
Again I don’t know how disabled I seem but as we chatted the bagging young woman kept asking me if things were going to be too heavy. When I paid she offered to take my stuff out to the car and load it in the back as the other young man had done. I demured, I guess I can manage, I said I don’t want to take you from your duties. Nonsense said the older woman chassier and the younger woman said it is what I want to do and she offered to push the cart.
The young woman took my cart out to the car and loaded the stuff into the car. I admit I was grateful, as I was pretty beat and dragging as I walked with her. I had offered the young man a tip and he refused, I did the same with this young woman and she also refused telling me she was very happy to help me. Ron tells me he finds the store’s prices slightly higher but I remind him the aisles are wide enough for people to pass and all I wrote above, far different from the walmart he thinks is saving us so much money.
So I got home and Ron carried the heavy things into the house while I carried the small stuff. Then after putting stuff away Ron showed me the current “kitchen / livingroom A/C unit” he had pulled apart to clean. Yesterday all day he cleaned the one in our bedroom and gods how full of dirt and crap it was. Ron had started the laundry of cat pee towels and then the dark load. So I took care of all that.
But it soon became noon and lunch time. I made him a large sandwich of the meats, lettuce, and the condiments he wanted. I had four cheese stuffed hot dogs … Sorry the steroids that got me walking also increased my eating and sadly my weight a lot. I went from 168 to now 182. It is a catch 22 situation. Do I want to walk or be thin? Right now I struggle to control the hunger beast which two months ago I had no hunger at all and would go days without eating.
So to end this. Ron is sleeping and I will finish this and work on getting tomorrow’s cartoons/ memes / news post scheduled. I took out a porkloin for supper and will serve it with mashed potatoes, brown gravy, and a vegetable. If Ron is still working on the house stuff I will stop everything I am doing and do the best I can to make supper. If he gives up for the day I will save taking the extra pain medications and he will make supper as I do blog stuff.
It is 2:45 PM my time. If I remember my military training it is 14:45 for the rest of the world. Here again is an issue I want or hope everyone remembers. With my pain and my medications I get about 12 hours up time during the day. Right now that time is shrinking for me. It would be like most people coming home from work at 5 or 6 pm. They have about 4 hours left to do everything. I hope everyone understands my day is very compressed and at this point I have about 4 or 5 hours left in my uptime.
Please don’t feel bad about that. I am super lucky; I have limitations I can’t break. But I have a home to be in, a bed to go to, food when I am hungry, and pain medication to help me deal with my life. I feel bad for Ron my husband for 36 years who has to do the things I can’t, who heard me fall the other night and rushed to the room to help me up. But the truth is my life is constrained and limited. I got up at 5 am after a wonderful quality time with my husband. He can sleep in the afternoon; I can’t. If I try I am down for the day. So now I am back to putting tomorrow’s post together. I just wanted to share this part of my day with you. Hugs
I watched this on one of the sunday news shows. From the way he describes it the event was very scary and he was afraid. The settlers were damaging the vehicles. Pointing machine guns at the congressman. The IDF soldiers that were there said they agreed with the settlers and wouldn’t get involved. This is an official of the US government. Think of what would be the outcry from Israel if the situation had been reversed. I want all funds for the israeli military stopped until they apologize at the highest level for this and promise it won’t ever happen again. Hugs
Trump's planned 250-ft arch just cleared a key hurdle, getting preliminary OK from a federal panel.The panel heard nearly 3 hrs of public opposition from architects, veterans and others before voting to advance the project.“I think it’s long overdue," said Paul Ingrassia, a Trump appointee.
Palm Beach International is being renamed for Trump in a 4-3 county vote. His family company controls the merchandise, picks the vendors, keeps the profits, and the county has no way out.share.newsbreak.com/idhsqyjx?s=i16
The Trump administration plans to erect new fences on the ends of Pennsylvania Avenue NW outside the White House, the latest effort to boost presidential security, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The White House spent months looking for ways to bypass a federal election agency and use emergency powers to force changes to voting machines, before President Donald Trump ousted its leaders on Thursday, four people familiar with the matter said.
The September gathering in Dallas will choose neither a candidate nor a platform, but state parties are charging thousands for the privilege of a floor seat.
Wow. I just heard back from ICE on this. Here's their statement. No comment at all on the claim that the three witnesses in the van with the deceased man are being pressured to self-deport, and ICE refers further questions to the FBI:
Mexico plans to file criminal complaints in the United States over the deaths of Mexican nationals in ICE custody, Mexico's Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez said Thursday.www.axios.com/2026/07/09/m…
Habitat loss is the #1 reason species go extinct. But the Trump admin has finalized a rule under the Endangered Species Act that would allow the widespread destruction of endangered species' habitats. Earthjustice has protected endangered species for decades. We’ll see the Trump admin in court.
Please notice the brutality towards the ones they detail and those bystanders. They assault the people recording them and they threaten them with more violence and arrests. To the ICE no one has rights. How long will we tolerate this lawless militia type behavior towards the people? No law enforcement would get away with this. They do it because they are masked and Stephen Miller will do anything to protect the ICE thugs doing his dream of a country of only white people who follow every order of the authoritarian government. Warning it is a hard video to watch. But we must. Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 