Tuesday, September 29, 2026 · Morning Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. The private prison company that ran an Arizona lockup where, a whistleblower says, the warden failed to make a federally required disclosure of a sexual abuse allegation against a staffer is now reopening the site as an ICE jail. The firms that cannot be trusted to report abuse behind their own walls are being handed the administration's detention build-out.

The machinery of the vote is under direct assault. Trump's DOJ is deploying election monitors, with the top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Administration committees demanding answers, and a White House proposal denounced as "A Massive Power Grab" threatens the funding that helps disabled Americans vote. Former special counsel Jack Smith is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee even as the Justice Department pursues those who investigated Trump. Congress, as Chris Van Hollen argues, has surrendered too much power to the president.

Behind the crackdown is fear. Republicans are confiding their panic about the midterms, one GOP operative in Iowa saying "It feels like it could be a wipeout." Trump will stump for Republicans in at least seven states as his poor polling drags on the party, while Democrats have coalesced around a message tying Republican corruption to the billions Trump has made during his second term.

The press is a target too: three outlets Trump banished from White House grounds have asked a federal court to block the ban, as new Gallup polling finds fewer Americans than ever believe the US media have a lot of freedom. Abroad, a public sector strike in France marks an international resurgence of struggle against war and the far right — the workers' answer to a ruling class in panic.