The Best of the Week’s News

• Antivax HHS Secretary kills nearly half-billion dollars worth of contracts for developing mRNA vaccines, technology that has saved millions of lives. (NYT) 
   

• McCarthy Redux: Pro-Trump group wages war on “subversive” federal workers. (Reuters) 
   

• How three simple labor laws helped organizers make inroads at Amazon and Uber in Canada. (On Labor)
   

• The Veterans Administration terminates most of its union contracts as part of Trump’s push to outlaw most federal collective bargaining. (GovExec)
   

• Rep. Corey Mills is a bigger scumbag than George Santos, and that’s saying something. (NYT)
   

• The official death toll of the LA fires was 30, but the true toll may exceed 400. (WaPo)

The Best of the Week’s News
 

• An American slaughtered three strangers in Spain and set the building on fire. Donald Trump brought him home and set him free. (NYT)
   

• Trump-appointed judge tosses White House lawsuit aimed at ending collective bargaining in large parts of the federal civil service. (Politico)
   

• Too racist to get paid? IRS considers eliminating tax services in multiple languages. (WaPo)
   

• In Iowa, heaps of rotting swine emit deadly gasses as “digester” tech goes awry and hundreds of meatpackers get their visas revoked. (Sentient)
   

• The Committee to Protect Journalists warns that Israel is starving Gazan journalists into silence and that time is running out to save their lives. (CPJ)
   

• How the Trump administration botched their review of the Epstein files. (NYT)

The Best of the Week’s News

• Trump threatens a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports unless they stop trying to hold their former fascist president accountable for his failed coup. (Prospect, NYT)
   

• Aid to Texas flood victims was delayed because Kristi Noem has to personally sign off on all expenditures over $100,000. Plus, the head of warning coordination at the National Weather Service was pushed out by DOGE. (WaPo, NYT)
   

• Trump’s Department of Labor is dismantling critical workplace protections. (EPI)
   

• Benjamin Netanyahu dragged out the war in Gaza in order to stay in power. (NYT)
   

• Lawsuits allege Eric Adams created a culture of cronyism at the NYPD, including selling promotions. (Gothamist, Hellgate)

The Best of the Week’s News
 

• Legendary broadcaster Bill Moyers dies at 91. (AP)
   

• Senate Republicans consider hiking federal employees’ pension contributions—except for members of Congress and their staff. (Politico)
   

• Emil Bove told his DOJ subordinates he was willing to defy court orders to enforce Donald Trump’s agenda, now he wants to be a federal judge. (NYT, ABC)

   

• 68-year-old Mexican man becomes the first ICE detainee in a decade to die in transit from a jail to a detention center. (Guardian)
   

• DOGE cuts could cost the US $10 billion in lost economic activity. (CREW)
   

• “I feel like I’ve been lied to”: Measles outbreak shakes faith in antivax platitudes as RFK takes his anti-vaccine ideology global. (NYT, NYer)
   

• The Republican budget could kill one of the most effective tools for bird conservation. (WaPo)