The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein
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ICE is killing jobs. (NYT)
The Supreme Court paves the way for mass deportations. (Work Bites, Nation)
JD Vance says loop Watergate was no big deal, blames “the Deep State.” (WaPo)
The Colorado River is vanishing and communities are desperate for solutions. (Grist)
Tulsi Gabbard’s guru gave her orderson policy matters. (WaPo)
Airman gets a flu shot.
The Best of the Week’s News
Influenza swept Lackland Air Force Base after Pete Hegseth nixed the vaccine mandate, causing 160 cases and one suspected death. (NYT)
National Labor Relations Board upholds Whole Foods unionization. (Bloomberg)
Trump’s newly renovated Reflecting Pool is choked with algae slime and the “American Flag blue” paint is peeling off in sheets. (Reuters)
More people are now accessing news through social media and video networks than from the platforms of news organizations. (Reuters Institute)
Bill requiring media organizations to disclose the use of generative AI heads to governor Kathy Hochul’s desk. (E&P)
Markfield Park, Creative Commons.
The Best of the Week’s News
Cheap kills: White House cancels 2026 OSHA penalty increases. (Confined Space)
Trump pledged $10 billion of your tax dollars for his corrupt “Board of Peace,” but lawmakers object to the massive slush fund. (Jezebel, Hill)
Elon Musk and DOGE killed a program that controlled the screwworm parasite across the Americas. Now the blight has spread to the United States, threatening the beef industry. (HuffPo, Common Dreams)
Lawyers caught using AI, judge kicks both sides off the case. (404 media)
DOGE planned to mark 27 million living taxpayers as dead to pressure them to leave the country, whistleblower claims. (WaPo)
The Best of the Week’s News
Pentagon hires pardoned J6er for top-secret anti-terrorism job as new investigation reveals that at least one in fifteen insurrectionists has been convicted of a new crime. (WaPo, Lawfare)
Bill Pulte was a degenerate conspiracy theorist, now he’s the acting Director of National Intelligence. (Bulwark)
How a pro-worker bill might advance in the House. (Prospect)
Four migrant workers burned alive in Italy amid rampant exploitation. (NYT)
Disgraced former Rep. George Santos threatens NPR reporter for exposing his alleged insider trading on Kalshi. (NPR)
The Best of the Week’s News
In a historic first for the industry, 70,000 rideshare drivers unionize in Massachusetts. (Prospect)
The White House intervened to approve a $620 million deal for a company tied to Donald Trump, Jr. (ProPublica)
93% of ICE street arrests in NYC target Latinos. (The City)
Montreal sex workers strike during the Grand Prix. (NYT)
Jeff Bezos’ rocket blows up. (WaPo)
The Best of the Week’s News
U.S. employers spend more than $1.5 billion dollars a year on union-busting. (Guardian)
Senate Republicans check Trump’s insurrectionist slush fund, his boondoggle ballroom, and ICE funding as the House GOP kills a vote on his war powers they knew they would lose. (CNBC, NPR)
The U.S. and Israel schemed to put Iran’s Holocaust-denying pro-nuke former president in charge of the country, but may have hit him with an airstrike during a botched jailbreak. (NYT)
Samsung workers in South Korea avert a strike after six months of “all-out struggle” for a fair share of AI profits. (AP)
Trump’s war on data. (NYT, video)
Elon Musk’s harvest of death. (Prospect)
Sidney Hillman Foundation.
The Best of the Week’s News
Inside the “fashion prison” of Montreal. (Lux)
Death squads: The CIA is assassinating suspected drug traffickers in Mexico. (CNN)
Soaring temperatures endanger New York City construction workers. (Documented)
Nick Kristof calls out sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners by their Israeli captors, Israel threatens to sue for defamation. (NYT, Poynter, Post)
Hillman prize-winner Adam Serwer on why all political violence fuels authoritarianism. (Atlantic)
Check out the photos of the 2026 Hillman awards ceremony in New York.
Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate the 2026 Hillman Prizes with us in New York on Tuesday. Stay tuned for event photos!
The Best of the Week’s News
Why do major newspapers have business sections but not labor sections? (DC Report)
Jeff Bezos wants to halve the budget of the Washington Post’s newsroom and double its productivity. (NYT)
More babies are bleeding to death because parents are refusing lifesaving Vitamin K shots. (ProPublica)
Hacker uses Morse code to scam $200,000 from Elon Musk’s Grok AI. (Dexterto)
Trump tries to dodge his $83 million defamation judgment from E. Jean Carroll. (AP)
SEIU, May Day March (2010), Creative Commons.
The Best of the Week’s News:
Workers mark May Day in the U.S. and around the world. (NPR, AP, NYPix, WaPo)
The U.S. and Canadian mints say their gold coins represent the highest patriotic values, but the metal comes a mine owned by a Colombian drug cartel. (NYT)
2026 Hillman Prize-winner Lydia Polgreen talks migration with Hot 97 host Nessa.
The Supreme Court effectively killed the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to mass disenfranchisement of Black voters. (Atlantic)
ICE deports a Colombian survivor of torture and domestic violence to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a place she has never been. (Bulwark)
McClatchy reporters refuse to lend their bylines to AI-generated summaries. (NYT)
New York City nixes plan for AI-themed high school. (Chalkbeat)
Sheriff Chad Bianco, Felton Davis, Creative Commons.
The Best of the Week’s News
Trump’s labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, steps down amid allegations that she, her husband, and her father were inappropriate with staffers, blames the deep state. (NYT, MS Now)
Sidney-winner Anat Rubin on CA sheriff and gubernatorial hopeful Chad Bianco’s seizure of the ballots from the recent redistricting vote based on bogus charges of voter fraud. (Hill, CalMatters)
Trump-appointed NLRB general counsel stopped a trial that was likely to find Amazon guilty. (Prospect)
New gas-powered AI data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than some countries. (Wired)
Thousands of Samsung workers strike in South Korea. (AP)
