Feds Launch Initiative to Conduct Welfare Checks on Unaccompanied Minors

Border Surge

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has launched an initiative with state and local law enforcement 287(g) partners to locate roughly 450,000 “unaccompanied alien children” (UACs) who were illegally smuggled into the U.S. during the Biden administration and placed with unvetted sponsors.

The new UAC Safety Verification Initiative is focused on protecting UACs from sexual abuse and exploitation through a broader collaboration among 287(g) partners. 

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DHS Proposes Billion Dollar Expanded DNA Testing for Immigrants

new Americans

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a multibillion dollar proposal on Monday to increase biometric scanning during the immigration process. The proposal would expand the agency’s authority to take fingerprints, DNA, facial and iris scans.

The proposal is estimated to cost $288.7 million annually and $2.5 billion over the course of 10 years. The department estimated it will increase biometric scanning to more than 3 million people.

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Trump Plans to Tell Congress About New Drug War, Won’t Seek Permission

Donald Trump

President Donald Trump and his administration plan to inform Congress about using the military to target drug traffickers, but stopped short of saying they would ask for authorization to use military force.

Since September, Trump has been using the U.S. military to destroy suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean. The military campaign and build-up of U.S. military forces comes amid fresh pressure on Latin American countries.

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Illinois Asks the Supreme Court Not to Give Trump Authority over the National Guard

The state of Illinois asked the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear President Donald Trump’s request to deploy the National Guard to Chicago amid a disagreement about plans for immigration enforcement in the state’s most populous city.

Top attorneys for Illinois and Chicago said Trump has overstepped his authority. They were joined by officials from Los Angeles, California, and elsewhere in the legal fight over who controls the troops.

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Trump Administration Begins Axing Positions of Furloughed Federal Workers

Government Workers

The Office of Management and Budget will begin eliminating thousands of civilian positions across the federal government, fulfilling the Trump administration’s plan to use the ongoing government shutdown as a vehicle for mass layoffs.

OMB Director Russ Vought announced Friday in an abrupt social media post that the office has started issuing Reduction in Force notices to an unspecified number of federal employees currently on unpaid leave.

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Both Chambers of Congress File to End Cashless Bail Nationwide

inmates

Federal funding, and the ability to withhold it, is being used as an incentive within two proposals tied to violent crime and the judicial system.

Each was introduced last week in the U.S. Senate and on Monday came forward in the House of Representatives. District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act and Keep Violent Criminals Off Our Streets Act were each filed by Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., with cosponsorship from a North Carolina congressman whose district is adjacent to where a woman was murdered Aug. 22 in Charlotte.

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Secret Service Spent $11 Million on Hunter Biden Travel Detail

The Biden administration spent more than $10 million over three years on a security detail and related expenses for former First Son Hunter Biden after denying similar protections to other high-profile political figures, documents obtained by the Center to Advance Security in America and shared exclusively with The Center Square show.

The security detail for former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, cost nearly $11 million, including on travel, real estate and expensive hotels, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request CASA filed.

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Chinese Networks Use U.S. to Launder Billions for Mexican Cartels

Counting money

Chinese networks are laundering billions of dollars in drug cartel cash through the U.S. financial system, according to a new report from the Treasury Department.

Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said banks flagged about $312 billion in transactions from suspected Chinese money laundering networks from January 2020 to December 2024. That came from 137,153 Bank Secrecy Act reports from financial institutions. Treasury also linked Chinese money laundering networks to U.S. real estate transactions, casinos, human trafficking and even laundering through assisted living homes in New York.

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Trump Says He Plans to Rename Department of Defense

aerial view of The Pentagon

President Donald Trump said Monday that next week the U.S. Department of Defense could once again return to an earlier name: War Department, a moniker it hasn’t used since 1949.

“You know, we call it the Department of Defense, but between us, I think we’re going to change the name,” Trump said during a meeting with South Korea’s president. “If you people behind me want to take a little vote and change it back to what it was when we used to win wars all the time, that’s OK with me … We want defense but we want offense too, OK?”

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Personnel Cuts to National Intelligence Office Will Save Taxpayers $700 Million

ODNI building

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is set to undergo a massive overhaul and cut 40% of its workforce, continuing the Trump administration’s efforts to slash bureaucratic bloat across federal agencies.

Created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, ODNI functions as the U.S. Intelligence Community’s oversight body and central hub, promoting intelligence integration and communication within the IC.

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Report Warns U.S. National Debt Predicted to Pass $53 Trillion by 2035

By fiscal year 2035, the national debt is set to surpass $53 trillion, or 120% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, according to a new estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The updated number – which CRFB reached by assuming that all current trade deals and tariffs remain in effect – is $1 trillion more than projected in the Congressional Budget Office’s January 2025 Budget and Economic Outlook.

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From Mexico to Knoxville, Five Cartel Leaders Wanted in Drugs, Weapons Conspiracy

United Cartels members

Despite many arguing the border crisis is over because illegal entries at the southwest border have dropped to their lowest level in recorded history, border-related and cartel crime is flourishing throughout the U.S.

Federal, state and local law enforcement task forces are actively working to target and remove criminal actors continuing to profit off of human, drug and weapons trafficking and smuggling, as well as other violent crimes.

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DOJ Promises Release of Some Epstein Records This Week

DOJ logo

The U.S. Department of Justice will comply with a subpoena for records related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as part of a congressional investigation, Republicans announced.

Earlier this month, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., issued subpoenas to multiple high-profile Democrats – including the Clintons and former U.S. attorney generals – as well as the DOJ, which was supposed to produce Epstein-related records by Tuesday. The DOJ informed Comer that it will begin providing the records by Friday.

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Trade Deficit Narrows as Imports Fall in June

Cargo Ship

The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in June as President Donald Trump’s tariffs deterred businesses from importing goods, the Department of Commerce said Tuesday.

Imports dropped around 4% from May after businesses hurried to front-load imports earlier this year before sweeping tariffs took effect. Exports also fell, but at a more modest rate of 0.5%, as the U.S. sold fewer industrial goods.

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Whistleblower Says Obama-Era Intelligence Ops Demanded Acceptance of Russia Hoax

Obama and Clapper

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has declassified another report implying the Obama administration and intelligence community embarked on a bad-faith mission to link President Donald Trump with 2016 election interference by Russia.

The 19-page document includes incriminating testimony from a whistleblower who served at the National Intelligence Council from 2015 to 2020 as a Deputy National Intelligence Officer.

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U.S. Economy Picks Up in Q2 After Contracting Earlier This Year

Construction worker

The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 3% between April and June, marking a shift after it shrank during the first quarter for the first time in three years.

Gross Domestic Product came in higher than expected after Dow Jones estimated the jump to be closer to 2.3% for the second quarter. The economy’s surge was powered by a drop in imports resulting from President Donald Trump’s new trade policies.

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Dozens of Americans Arrested for Attempting to Kill, Threatening ICE Agents

ICE officer

Dozens of Americans have been arrested for attempting to kill ICE agents or threatening to kill them in the past two weeks. Recent examples are in Texas, Ohio and Washington, D.C.

In Texas, after a week-long manhunt, FBI agents tracked down and arrested Benjamin Hanil Song, the last alleged shooter involved in a July 4 planned ambush of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center near Dallas. Song, a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist, purchased four of the guns associated with the ambush, according to the criminal complaint. He was charged with three counts of attempted murder of federal agents and three counts of discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence.

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Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern to Create First Transcontinental Railroad

Union Pacific

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern plan to create America’s first transcontinental railroad through a merger, connecting over 50,000 route miles across 43 states from the East Coast to the West Coast, the companies announced Tuesday.

The effort will link about 100 ports across North America, they said, and will allow them to compete more effectively with Canadian railroads to win back U.S. freight volume and American jobs.

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Fort Bliss Army Base to House 5,000-Bed ICE Detention Facility

Illegal Immigrants

Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso will be housing a 5,000-bed detention facility to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation efforts.

The Department of Defense announced that it had awarded nearly $232 million to Virginia-based Acquisition Logistics LLC “to establish and operate a 5,000 capacity, single adult, short-term detention facility” for ICE deportation efforts to support a Jan. 29 executive order issued by President Donald Trump. The order declared an invasion at the southwest border and directed federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, to take a series of actions.

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U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee Bans Transgender Athletes from Women’s Sports

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee is changing its “athlete safety policy,” pledging to follow President Donald Trump’s executive order protecting “opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports.”

The new policy, announced on Monday, did not come with fanfare, but with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and a letter sent to national sport governing bodies.

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Five Schools Investigated for Preferencing Illegal Aliens with Scholarships, Programs

University of Louisville

Five universities across the nation face investigations from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for potentially discriminating on the basis of national origin in the DACA-only scholarships and programs they offer.

The University of Louisville, the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of Miami, the University of Michigan, and Western Michigan University are those facing the national origin discrimination investigations, according to the Department of Education.

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Existing Home Sales Drop Almost Three Percent in June as Prices Hit Record Highs

Home sale

Existing-home sales declined 2.7% in June as prices hit record highs, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The total housing inventory hit 1.53 million units, down 0.6% from May but up 15.9% from June 2024 (1.32 million). The U.S. has a 4.7-month supply of unsold inventory, up from 4.6 months in May and four months in June 2024. A six-month supply is generally considered a balanced market.

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FDA to Consider Warning Against Antidepressants

pill

Doctors on Monday urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to issue warnings to pregnant women against the use of certain medications to treat depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety.

In a panel discussion Monday, doctors across the medical field and officials at the FDA said women taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors to treat illnesses like depression can negatively impact the development of a child in the womb.

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Third Biden Witness Invokes Fifth Amendment During House Deposition

Joe Biden

A third witness in a little over a week has invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in a U.S. House investigation into former President Joe Biden’s mental and physical health during his time in the White House.

U.S. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Friday that Annie Tomasini, who served as an assistant to the former president and deputy director of Oval Office Operations, pleaded the fifth during a deposition into Biden’s “cognitive decline.”

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Americans Face Higher Prices as Inflation Returns

grocery shopping

Consumer prices increased more than expected in June as Americans face higher prices on a wide range of imported goods as President Donald Trump’s tariffs show up in federal economic reports for the first time.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, or CPI-U, showed a 0.3% increase last month – triple May’s 0.1% pace and the most significant monthly gain since January, when Trump returned to the White House for his second term.

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Government Begins Transition Prioritizing English Language Across Agencies

Trump meeting

The federal government has begun to implement President Donald Trump’s March 1 executive order designating English as the official language of the U.S. with initial guidance issued by the Department of Justice Monday.

Federal agencies have been directed to review and rescind earlier guidance based on an executive order from former President Bill Clinton in 2000, which directed them to enhance access to federal programs for less proficient English speakers. Agencies are to consider English-only services and embrace translation-assistance technologies where possible to save on the cost of translation services.

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Federal Funding Plans for 2026 Include Billions for FBI, Israel, Fossil Fuels

Congress Spending

After numerous delays, lawmakers have released five more annual appropriations bills ready for markup in Appropriations subcommittees over the next few days.

The most recent rash of bills, released Monday and Tuesday, determine fiscal year 2026 funding levels for multiple departments and agencies, touching everything from the State department’s foreign aid programs to the Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical cleanup programs.

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Democrat, Republican Governors from 13 States Send Assistance to Texas

Texas flooding

Rescue and recovery personnel from 13 states are assisting Texas with recovery efforts in the aftermath of a deadly July 4 flash flood event that killed at least 119, with at least 173 reported missing.

Both Republican and Democratic governors have sent help to Texas from the states of Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.

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