News from Multiple Perspectives

First major opposition protest since Maduro's abduction comes as lawmakers consider bill to free political prisoners.

Israel continues attacks and restrictions on essentials for life.

Atletico Madrid tear the holders ⁠apart ⁠with four first-half goals in the ⁠first leg of their Copa del ​Rey semifinal.

President Donald Trump listens to a question from a reporter during an event with Environmental Protection Agency director Lee Zeldin to announce the EPA will no longer regulate greenhouse gases, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) 2026-02-12T22:56:44Z President Donald Trump on Thursday revoked the 2009 endangerment finding, which has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. But in making the announcement, Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin made false claims regarding the government declaration, climate change, and energy. Here’s a closer look at the facts. ___ TRUMP: “Known as the endangerment finding, this determination had no basis in fact, had none whatsoever, and it had no basis in law.” THE FACTS: This is false. The endangerment finding was adopted in 2009 by the EPA after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases are air pollutants that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. “The idea that the endangerment finding has no basis in law is ludicrous,” said Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA specifically directed the Environmental Protection Agency to determine whether greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The endangerment finding is the result.” freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Scientific evidence to support the endangerment finding was provided by the EPA at the time of its inception and is still available on the agency’s website today. Multiple federal courts have upheld the endangerment finding since it was adopted 16 years ago. ___ TRUMP: “We’ve basically stopped all windmills in this country. It’s the most expensive energy you can get.” THE FACTS: Onshore wind is one of the cheapest sources of electricity generation, with new wind farms expected to produce around $30 per megawatt hour, according to July estimates from the Energy Information Administration. This compares to a new natural gas plant, around $65 per megawatt hour, or a new advanced nuclear reactor, which runs over $80. Offshore wind is among the sources of new power generation that will cost the most to build and operate, at $88 per megawatt hour, the EIA said in July. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); ___ TRUMP, asked about the cost to health and the environment: “It has nothing to do with public health. This is all a scam, a giant scam. This was a rip off of the country by Obama and Biden, and let’s say Obama started it and got it rolling and a terrible rip off.” THE FACTS: Thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies connect health harms to climate change. They find increasing deaths from heat waves, extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods and air pollution from worsening wildfires. A 2021 study in Nature Climate Change calculated that globally about 9,700 people die a year from heat-related deaths attributable to human-caused climate change, based on data from 732 cities, including more than 200 in the United States. A separate study last year listed dozens of climate change health harms and concluded, using the EPA’s own calculation method, that the health costs are at least $10 billion a year, probably much more. The science of climate change dates back nearly 170 years to studies done by American Eunice Foote showing that carbon dioxide heated cylinders with thermometers inside more than ambient air. The first national climate assessment, done in 2000, before Obama and Biden, “concluded that climate variability and change are likely to increase morbidity and mortality risks.” freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); ___ ZELDIN: “The Obama and Biden administrations used the endangerment finding to steamroll into existence a left-wing wish, including electric vehicle mandates.” THE FACTS: Trump has made this claim before. There was no federal mandate to force the purchase of EVs. “If you looked at some of the tables that were in the Biden rules, you could see that there were a variety of different ways that companies could comply with the standards,” said Carrie Jenks, the executive director of Harvard Law School’s environmental and energy law program. “The endangerment finding nor the regulations mandated a shift from one type of vehicle to another.” Former President Joe Biden did set up a non-binding goal that EVs make up half of new cars sold by 2030. Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office revoking that goal. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Biden’s policies tightened restrictions on pollution from gas-powered cars and trucks in an effort to encourage Americans to buy EVs and car companies to shift from gas-powered vehicles to electric cars. ___ Associated Press writers Seth Borenstein and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report. ___ Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck . MELISSA GOLDIN Goldin debunks, analyzes and tracks misinformation for The Associated Press. She is based in New York. twitter mailto

Marine Maj. Joshua Mast and his wife, Stephanie, arrive at Circuit Court, Thursday, March 30, 2023 in Charlottesville, Va. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File) 2026-02-12T19:51:42Z The Virginia Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a U.S. Marine and his wife will keep an Afghan orphan they brought home in defiance of a U.S. government decision to reunite her with her Afghan family. The decision likely ends a bitter, yearslong legal battle over the girl’s fate. In 2020, a judge in Fluvanna County, Virginia, granted Joshua and Stephanie Mast an adoption of the child, who was then 7,000 miles away in Afghanistan living with a family the Afghan government decided were her relatives. Four justices on the Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday signed onto an opinion reversing two lower courts’ rulings that found the adoption was so flawed it was void from the moment it was issued. The justices wrote that a Virginia law that cements adoption orders after six months bars the child’s Afghan relatives from challenging the court, no matter how flawed its orders and even if the adoption was obtained by fraud. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Three justices issued a scathing dissent, calling what happened in this court “wrong,” “cancerous” and “like a house built on a rotten foundation.” An attorney for the Masts declined to comment, citing an order from the circuit court not to discuss the details of the case publicly. Lawyers representing the Afghan family said they were not yet prepared to comment. The child was injured on the battlefield in Afghanistan in September 2019 when U.S. soldiers raided a rural compound. The child’s parents and siblings were killed. Soldiers brought her to a hospital at an American military base. The raid was targeting terrorists who had come into Afghanistan from a neighboring country; some believed she was not Afghan and tried to make a case for bringing her to the U.S. But the State Department, under President Donald Trump’s first administration, insisted the U.S. was obligated under international law to work with the Afghan government and the International Committee of the Red Cross to unite the child with her closest surviving relatives. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); The Afghan government determined she was Afghan and vetted a man who claimed to be her uncle. The U.S. government agreed and brought her to the family. The uncle chose to give her to his son and his new wife, who raised her for 18 months in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Mast and his wife convinced courts in rural Fluvanna County, Virginia, to grant them custody and then a series of adoption orders, continuing to claim she was the “stateless” daughter of foreign fighters. Judge Richard Moore granted them a final adoption in December 2020. When the six-month statute of limitations ran out, the child was still in Afghanistan living with her relatives, who testified they had no idea a judge was giving the girl to another family. Mast contacted them through intermediaries and tried to get them to send the girl to the U.S. for medical treatment but they refused to let her go alone. When the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban took over, the family agreed to leave and Mast worked his military contacts to get them on an evacuation flight. Mast then took the baby from them at a refugee resettlement center in Virginia, and they haven’t seen her since. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); The Afghans challenged the adoption, claiming the court had no authority over a foreign child and the adoption orders were based on Mast repeatedly misleading the judge. The Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday wrote that the law prohibiting challenges to an adoption after six months is designed to create permanency, so a child is not bounced from one home to another. The only way to undercut it is to argue that a parent’s constitutional rights were violated. The lower courts had found that the Afghan couple had a right to challenge the adoption because they were the girl’s “de facto” parents when they came to the United States. Four of the Supreme Court judges — D. Arthur Kelsey, Stephen R. McCullough, Teresa M. Chafin, Wesley G. Russell Jr. — disagreed. “We find no legal merit” in the argument that “that they were ‘de facto’ parents of the child and that no American court could constitutionally sever that relationship,” they wrote. They pointed to Fluvanna County Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore’s findings that the Afghan couple “are not and never were parents” of the child, because they had no order from an Afghan court and had not proven any biological relationship to her. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); The Afghans had refused DNA testing, saying it could not reliably prove a familial connection between opposite-gender half-cousins. They insisted that it didn’t matter, because Afghanistan claimed the girl as its citizen and got to determine her next-of-kin. The Supreme Court leaned heavily on a 38-page document written by Judge Moore, who granted the adoption, then presided over a dozen hearings after the Afghans challenged it. He wrote that he trusted the Masts more than the Afghans, and believed that Masts’ motivations were noble while the Afghans were misrepresenting their relationship to the child. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); The Supreme Court also dismissed the federal government’s long insistence that Trump’s first administration had made a foreign policy decision to unite her with her Afghan relatives, and a court in Virginia has no authority to undo it. The government submitted filings in court predicting dire outcomes if the baby was allowed to remain with the Marine: it could be viewed as “endorsing an act of international child abduction,” threaten international security pacts and be used as propaganda by Islamic extremists — potentially endangering U.S soldiers overseas. But the Justice Department in Trump’s second administration abruptly changed course. The Supreme Court noted in its opinion that the Justice Department had been granted permission to make arguments in the case, but withdrew its request to do so on the morning of oral arguments last year, saying it “has now had an opportunity to reevaluate its position in this case.” The Supreme Court returned repeatedly to Moore’s finding that giving the girl to the family “was not a decision the United States initiated, but rather consented to or acquiesced in.” The three judges who dissented were unsparing in their criticism of both the Masts and the circuit court that granted him the adoption. “A dispassionate review of this case reveals a scenario suffused with arrogance and privilege. Worse, it appears to have worked,” begins the dissent, written by Justice Thomas P. Mann, and signed by Chief Justice Cleo E. Powell and LeRoy F. Millette, Jr. A Virginia court never had the right to give the child to the Masts, the dissent said. They castigated the Masts for “brazenly” misleading the courts during their quest to adopt the girl. “We must recognize what an adoption really is: the severance and termination of the rights naturally flowing to an otherwise legitimate claimant to parental authority. Of course, the process must be impeccable. An evolved society could not sanction anything less than that. And here, it was less,” Mann wrote. “If this process was represented by a straight line, (the Masts) went above it, under it, around it, and then blasted right through it until there was no line at all — just fragments collapsing into a cavity.” JULIET LINDERMAN Linderman is a national investigative reporter based in Baltimore. twitter mailto CLAIRE GALOFARO Galofaro is a national writer on AP’s investigations team. She is based in Louisville, Kentucky. twitter mailto

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., right, is joined by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., left, during the Senate Republican policy luncheon news conference at the Capitol, Tuesday, Feb., 10, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.) 2026-02-12T19:25:31Z WASHINGTON (AP) — A shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security appeared certain Thursday as lawmakers in the House and Senate were set to leave Washington for a 10-day break and negotiations with the White House over Democrats’ demands for new restrictions had stalled. The White House and Democrats have traded offers in recent days as the Democrats have said they want curbs on President Donald Trump’s broad campaign of immigration enforcement . They have demanded better identification for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal law enforcement officers, a new code of conduct for those agencies and more use of judicial warrants, among other requests. The White House sent its most recent offer late Wednesday, including what Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said were “concessions” on the part of the Republican administration. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Thune would not say what those concessions were, though, and he acknowledged the sides were “a long ways toward a solution” even as the Senate is scheduled to vote again on the DHS funding. Democrats did not respond publicly to the White House offer, but Democratic senators voted against a funding bill for the department before leaving town, meaning the funding will expire Saturday without further action. The bill was rejected, 52-47, short of the 60 votes needed for passage. Lawmakers in both chambers were on notice to return to Washington if the two sides struck a deal to end the expected shutdown. But for now, Democrats say they need to see real changes before they will support DHS funding. Americans want accountability and “an end to the chaos,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday before the vote. “The White House and congressional Republicans must listen and deliver.” Schumer said it was not enough that the administration had announced an end to the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to thousands of arrests and the fatal shootings of two protesters. “We need legislation to rein in ICE and end the violence,” Schumer said, or the actions of the administration “could be reversed tomorrow on a whim.” freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Judicial warrants a sticking point Democrats made the demands for new restrictions on ICE and other federal law enforcement after ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 24, Some Republicans suggested that new restrictions were necessary. Renee Good was shot by ICE agents on Jan. 7. Thune, who has urged Democrats and the White House to work together, indicated that one sticking point is the Democratic request for more judicial warrants. “The issue of warrants is going to be very hard for the White House or for Republicans,” Thune said. “But I think there are a lot of other areas where there has been give, and progress.” In a list of demands they sent to the White House last week, Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said DHS officers should not be able to enter private property without a judicial warrant and that warrant procedures and standards should be improved. They have said they want an end to “roving patrols” of agents who are targeting people in the streets and in their homes. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Most immigration arrests are carried out under administrative warrants. Those are internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest of a specific person but do not permit officers to forcibly enter private homes or other nonpublic spaces without consent. Traditionally, only warrants signed by judges carry that authority. But an internal ICE memo obtained by The Associated Press last month authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); White House silence Congress is trying to renegotiate the DHS spending bill after Trump agreed to a Democratic request that it be separated from a larger spending measure that became law last week. That package extended homeland security funding at current levels only through Friday. Schumer and Jeffries have said they want immigration officers to remove their masks , to show identification and to better coordinate with local authorities. They have also demanded a stricter use-of-force policy for the federal officers, legal safeguards at detention centers and a prohibition on tracking protesters with body-worn cameras. Democrats also say Congress should end indiscriminate arrests and require that before a person can be detained, authorities have verified that the person is not a U.S. citizen. Republicans have been largely opposed to most of the items on Democrats’ list. But Trump has remained relatively silent about the talks. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Impact of a shutdown Republicans tried to temporarily extend the funding, but Democrats blocked that bill as well. “We will not support an extension of the status quo,” Schumer said. The impact of a DHS shutdown is likely to be minimal at first. It would not likely block any of the immigration enforcement operations, as Trump’s tax and spending cut bill passed last year gave ICE about $75 billion to expand detention capacity and bolster enforcement operations. But the other agencies in the department — including the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service and the Coast Guard — could take a bigger hit over time. Gregg Phillips, an associate administrator at FEMA, said at a hearing this week that its disaster relief fund has sufficient balances to continue emergency response activities during a shutdown, but would become seriously strained in the event of a catastrophic disaster. Phillips said that while the agency continues to respond to threats like flooding and winter storms, long-term planning and coordination with state and local partners is “irrevocably impacted.” ___ Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

The move marks the culmination of a decade-long push by the president to tear up climate policies he argues stifle industry.

The activity comes at a time of heightened tensions as talks between Iranian and US officials continue over Iran's nuclear programme.

The International Olympic Committee defends the T-shirt as being part of its Heritage Collection, celebrating styles from all editions of the Games.

UNITED NATIONS: Iran’s election as vice-chair of the United Nations Commission for Social Development is being slammed by human rights advocates and policy analysts, who have condemned the U.N.'s hypocrisy when it comes to its treatment of undemocratic regimes. The leadership role was approved without objection during a meeting of the commission, where delegates adopted agenda items and organizational decisions by consensus. The United Nations has faced continued criticism over its inaction towards the regime's violent crackdown against protesters in December and January. On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres faced criticism for congratulating Iran on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. UN CHIEF BLASTED AS ‘ABJECTLY TONE-DEAF’ OVER MESSAGE TO IRAN MARKING REVOLUTION ANNIVERSARY U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz criticized the development, writing on X: "Yet another reason why we are not a member of, nor do we participate in, this ridiculous ‘Commission for Social Development.’" Alireza Jafarzadeh, author of The Iran Threat and deputy director of the U.S. office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also criticized the decision. "Having the Iranian regime in the leadership of a U.N. body tasked with promoting democracy, gender equality, tolerance and non-violence is appalling and like fox guarding the hen house," Jafarzadeh said. "The vast majority of the Iranian people are calling for regime change because the mullahs are the world’s leading human rights violators, misogynist to the core, and they slaughter the voices of dissent by thousands." He argued that Iran should face scrutiny rather than institutional advancement. "Instead, the Iranian regime must be a subject of intense investigation and accountability by all U.N. bodies for crimes against humanity and genocide, from the 1980s to January 2026 uprisings," Jafarzadeh said. "Decades of inaction by Western governments have emboldened the regime. This must stop now." G7 THREATENS IRAN WITH NEW SANCTIONS OVER NATIONWIDE PROTEST CRACKDOWN KILLING THOUSANDS "By electing Iran to help lead a commission devoted to democracy, women’s rights and non-violence, the U.N. makes itself into a mockery," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. "This is a regime that brutalizes women for not covering their hair, and that just massacred tens of thousands of its own civilians in two days." Neuer argued that governments had the ability to block the appointment but chose not to act. "The EU states know how to stop abusive regimes from winning these seats — they’ve done so in the recent past with Russia — but this time on Iran, they chose silence and complicity," he said. "By rewarding the Mullahs right after their slaughter of innocents , the U.N. has now sent a very dangerous message to Tehran." Lisa Daftari, an Iran analyst, said the optics of Iran holding a leadership role in a commission centered on social development and rights were deeply troubling. US AMBASSADOR WARNS IRAN AT EMERGENCY UN MEETING THAT TRUMP IS 'MAN OF ACTION,' 'ALL OPTIONS ARE ON THE TABLE' "For Iranian women who risk prison or worse just for taking off a headscarf, watching Tehran get a vice-chair on a U.N. social-development commission feels like a slap in the face." She added that broader patterns in U.N. voting and resolutions contribute to perceptions of bias. "When the same U.N. system has spent the last decade passing roughly 170-plus resolutions against Israel and only around 80 on all other countries combined, you don’t need a PhD to see there’s a bias problem," Daftari said. "When the U.N. has churned out well over a hundred anti-Israel resolutions in recent years while managing a fraction of that number on the world’s worst dictatorships, it looks less like moral leadership and more like political theater." Daftari rejected that procedural nature of United Nations committees and committees. "Some diplomats will wave this away as a procedural formality, but at the U.N. nothing is ever purely symbolic," she said. "The bottom line is that handing Iran’s regime a gavel on ‘social development’ confirms yet again that the place is biased and deeply hypocritical."

South Korea's espionage agency, the National Intelligence Service, informed lawmakers Thursday that it thinks North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's teenage daughter is near to being set apart as the regime's future leader, The Associated Press reported. Kim is the third generation of men in his family to rule North Korea . In a closed-door briefing, NIS officials said they are closely monitoring whether Kim’s daughter — believed to be named Kim Ju Ae and around 13 years old — appears with him before thousands of delegates at the upcoming Workers’ Party Congress, said lawmaker Lee Seong Kweun, who attended the meeting. NORTH KOREA EXECUTED TEENS FOR LISTENING TO K-POP, WATCHING ‘SQUID GAME’: REPORT "In the past, (NIS) described Kim Ju Ae as being in the midst of ‘successor training.’ What was notable today is that they used the term ‘successor-designate stage,’ a shift that’s quite significant," Lee noted, according to the outlet . In 2023, South Korea's National Intelligence Service indicated to lawmakers that the North Korean leader and his wife probably had an older son as well as younger, third child of unknown gender, according to The Associated Press. PENTAGON PLANS TO GIVE SOUTH KOREA PRIMARY ROLE IN DETERRING NORTH KOREA THREATS UNDER NEW STRATEGY North Korea is one of the world's few nuclear-armed nations, making it a unique threat on the global stage. A 2025 U.S. Intelligence Community Annual Threat Assessment stated that "Kim remains committed to increasing the number of North Korea’s nuclear warheads and improving its missile capabilities to threaten the Homeland and U.S. forces, citizens, and allies, and to weaken U.S. power in the AsiaPacific region, as evidenced by the pace of the North’s missile flight tests and the regime’s public touting of its uranium enrichment capabilities." THE WORLD'S TOP NUCLEAR POWERS HAVE NO ARSENAL LIMITS, HERE ARE THE COUNTRIES WITH NUKES "Russia is increasingly supporting North Korea’s nuclear status in exchange for Pyongyang's support to Moscow’s war against Ukraine," the assessment noted. The Associated Press contributed to this report

The U.S. military has completed its withdrawal of American forces from al-Tanf Garrison in Syria, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced Thursday. The departure, finalized Feb. 11, was carried out as part of a broader shift in U.S. posture in the region under Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition mission launched in 2014 to combat ISIS. American troops have maintained a limited presence in the country to support partner forces and prevent the terrorist group from resurging after it was territorially defeated in 2019. Syria’s Defense Ministry said government forces took control of the al-Tanf base following the U.S. withdrawal and have begun deploying along the country’s borders with Iraq and Jordan, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency, the country’s state-run news outlet. US MILITARY LAUNCHES AIRSTRIKES AGAINST ISIS TARGETS IN SYRIA, OFFICIALS SAY The ministry said the handover was coordinated with U.S. officials and that Syrian Arab Army units moved in to secure the base and surrounding areas in the tri-border desert region. The development follows a Pentagon decision in April 2025 to scale back and consolidate U.S. forces in Syria. Caroline Rose, director of the Crime-Conflict Nexus and Military Withdrawals portfolios at the New Lines Institute, told Fox News Digital that al-Tanf was one of the most strategically important U.S. garrisons in Syria, if not the broader Middle East, as it offered access, insight and intelligence collection along Syria's borders with Jordan and Iraq. AFTER TRUMP DECLARED ISIS DEFEATED, US FACES NEW TEST AS DETAINEES MOVE AMID SYRIA POWER SHIFT "This was not only pivotal during the U.S.-led Coalition to defeat the Islamic State, where there was a threat of cross-border offensives and violence, but also proved key to U.S. deterrence efforts against Iran-backed militia networks that operated in Iraq and Syria," she said. "The U.S. pullout from Al-Tanf is a signal that Washington is now comfortable with where the counter-ISIS fight is and the defeat of Iran-aligned proxy networks in the region, along with Syrian security integration efforts with the [Syrian Democratic Forces]." Rose added that the departure could be viewed as a setback for Jordan , which has long depended on the U.S. position at al-Tanf to deter adversarial actors in the region. Despite the withdrawal, U.S. forces remain prepared to counter ISIS threats , CENTCOM said, noting that in the past two months, American forces have struck more than 100 targets in the region and captured or killed more than four dozen ISIS fighters. The change in posture comes just weeks after U.S. forces transferred 150 ISIS fighters from a detention facility in Hasakah, Syria, to a secure location in Iraq. FROM SYRIA TO SOMALIA, US TROOPS REMAIN DEPLOYED THIS HOLIDAY SEASON UNDER MISSIONS THAT NEVER FORMALLY ENDED Officials indicated in late January that thousands more detainees could also be moved as part of the broader effort to maintain long-term security in the region. Syria became the 90th member of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, a U.S.-led alliance formed to coordinate international efforts against the extremist group, in November. Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, said Damascus — under interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa — is prepared to assume security responsibilities, including control of ISIS detention facilities and camps, following the 2024 ouster of Bashar al-Assad.

Officials gather on Friday for Europe’s biggest annual security summit, where a speech by Vice President JD Vance last year started an unraveling of trans-Atlantic relations.

U.S. officials warn that cartel-operated drones on the border pose a major threat. Mexican officials are less certain. Analysts say the answer is likely in between.

The move will allow the schools to raise tuition for the first time since 2019 as part of a broader plan to boost funding for higher education in the Canadian province.

In the summer of 2022, months after Tammy Boarman and her husband, Chris, moved into their newly built “forever home” 30 miles from Oklahoma City, the plants in their yard began to turn yellow. The shrubs wilted, though Tammy watered them often. And the couple began to notice a salty taste in their drinking water. The water came from a private well, drilled the year before, and they hoped that the bad taste would fade with time and with the help of a water softener. But the problem grew worse. Their ice maker expelled large clumps of wet salt, which, when rubbed, dissolved into an oily, foul-smelling substance. The couple knew that some oil and gas extraction took place nearby. Down dirt roads and behind stands of oak trees in their neighborhood, pump jacks nodded up and down, pulling up oil. This is a common sight in Oklahoma. Several studies estimate that about half the state’s residents live within a mile of oil and gas wells. By the following summer, Tammy and Chris Boarman had been in touch with the state agency overseeing private water wells and began to fear these nearby oil operations had tainted their water, which they had largely stopped drinking after developing sores in their mouths. The couple submitted a complaint to the oil division of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry and is responsible for addressing related pollution. When Tammy Boarman first contacted oil regulators, she was hopeful state officials would find the source of the pollution and clean it up. For the next two years, the state repeatedly tested the Boarmans’ water for contaminants and found salt concentrations that made the water undrinkable and, at one point, toxic metals at levels high enough to endanger human health — strong signs of oil field wastewater pollution, according to agency testing. But regulators repeatedly delayed or failed to conduct other tests recommended by the agency’s own employees to locate the pollution source, according to internal agency documents obtained by The Frontier and ProPublica through public records requests. Despite Boarman’s pleas to regulators to do more, the agency would ultimately dismiss its earlier findings pointing to oil and gas pollution and close the couple’s case, leaving basic questions about the origins of the problem unanswered. “For the longest time, we were so naive to everything,” Boarman said. “We thought things were going to get better.” Chunks of salt expelled from Tammy and Chris Boarman’s ice maker. Courtesy of Tammy Boarman The Boarmans’ water corroded their faucet. Courtesy of Tammy Boarman State Delayed Testing to Find Pollution Source The Boarmans’ home, a white modern farmhouse, sits in the middle of an aging oil field, one of several that surround Oklahoma City and that helped make Oklahoma one of the country’s leaders in petroleum production in the 1940s. Today, the region is growing quickly, with a sought-after school system and affordable real estate. New subdivisions sprout on undeveloped land, and residents in more remote areas — such as where the Boarmans live — often rely on private water wells dug near newly built homes. But groundwater in this area contains an untold amount of pollution from previous decades of oil production, according to a 2024 report from the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments, a multicounty planning agency. “The thing that scares me is that you’re going to have a bunch of people buying homes that are on water wells, and then find out two or three years after they bought the homes that they’re drinking salt water,” said John Harrington, the recently retired director of the regional planning agency’s water resources division. The Boarmans live in a fast-growing region dotted by new construction, where residents often rely on private water wells. Katie Campbell/ProPublica Oklahoma has around 130,000 private water wells, essentially straws that drink from shallow groundwater reserves with minimal filtration, increasing the risk of contamination. That’s because after pulling huge profits from the earth, Oklahoma oil companies left behind tens of thousands of unplugged wells that belch greenhouse gases and allow industrial waste to spread belowground . The state has some of the nation’s weakest regulations pertaining to industry cleanup of old wells . In 2016, dozens of residents from a subdivision about 20 miles from the Boarmans’ home sued oil giant ConocoPhillips, alleging that years of improper oil field waste disposal had poisoned their drinking water. The company settled for an undisclosed sum with more than 30 families. Shortly after moving into their home in 2022, the Boarmans found themselves in a similar predicament to those families. Their water corroded the bathtub and coated their taps and appliances in rust and salt residue. Trees near their sprinklers withered and died. Tammy Boarman began keeping a jug of bottled water next to the sink for brushing her teeth. By this time, Tammy, an imaging manager in the radiology department at the University of Oklahoma hospital, and Chris, a sales representative for a sanitation company, had prohibited their adult children from drinking the tap water when they visited. They stopped inviting friends over: It was too embarrassing to have to warn them about the water. Staff from the oil division of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission began taking samples of the Boarmans’ water in August 2023, about a week after Tammy Boarman’s first pollution complaint, and continued doing so every few months, following the agency’s protocol. Lab analysis of these ongoing samples showed salt levels climbing steadily into the following year, vastly exceeding natural levels in the local groundwater, a sign to regulators of potential oil and gas contamination, according to results reviewed by The Frontier and ProPublica. By January 2024, the chloride levels in their water reached nearly 10 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommendation for drinking water. State sampling results deemed their water too salty even for agriculture. As the state explored the Boarmans’ pollution, agency officials found a tangle of potential culprits: 26 oil wells sit within a half-mile radius of the Boarman home, and more than half were improperly plugged, making them threats to drinking water, according to a report about the Boarmans’ situation later commissioned by the state. One that stood out to Everett Plummer, a manager in the oil division at the time and one of several staffers tasked with investigating the Boarman case, was McCoon 3, an injection well that disposes salty oil field wastewater deep below the earth. It is the closest active injection well to the Boarmans’ home and it’s operated by Callie Oil Co., a small business owned by Rory Jett, who also owns property nearby. State employees found it hard to evaluate the McCoon well: 12 years of forms that record injection data — which the company is required by state law to submit — were missing from agency records, according to the internal report about the Boarman case. And they could not seem to find a map showing nearby objects, such as the Boarmans’ water well, that the injected fluid might impact. Under Oklahoma state rules, injection wells cannot operate without these maps. Injection wells are supposed to be built in a way that only allows wastewater to be emitted deep in the earth. But a previous owner of the injection well noted in a report to the state that the well was missing a layer of cement that would help prevent the wastewater from escaping at shallow depths, where most drinking water sources exist, Plummer wrote in an email to oil division colleagues. The many poorly plugged wells nearby offer potential pathways for wastewater to travel toward the surface, he said. Other oil division staff argued in response that a layer of cement near the top of the McCoon well was enough protection and made leaks unlikely. Early in 2024, Plummer requested that the agency run tests to determine whether the McCoon well was leaking. But it would take another 10 months before the agency did the testing — and found a hole. A Swirling Cloud of Contamination In the intervening months, the agency decided to run a different type of test — one that would offer Tammy Boarman her first glimpse of the contamination that had turned her plants yellow and her water undrinkable. It involved an electromagnetic survey machine, a complex instrument about the size of a suitcase that shoots electric currents underground to create 3D maps. After the test was run in May 2024, Boarman recalled state employees huddled around a laptop in the bed of their truck, scrutinizing the image generated by the machine: a swirling red cloud hanging directly beneath her house, where her well drank from a shallow pocket of fresh water. The field staffers told Boarman that the machine, which measures the concentration of dissolved solids in the water, showed an exceptionally concentrated pollution plume. Subsequent testing would show her well was sunk into the center of the plume, which was thick with dissolved salts and chemicals, as much as 72 times more concentrated than what the EPA recommends for drinking water. “I was sick to my stomach,” she said. The results of the electromagnetic survey machine revealed a large cloud of contamination below the Boarmans’ house and surrounding their well, which is represented by the blue line. Obtained by The Frontier and ProPublica via the State of Oklahoma The electromagnetic survey showed the degree of contamination surrounding Boarman’s water well. But it did not go deep enough to show a source of the pollution. Boarman said that she and her husband took the images to Jett, owner of the McCoon well. She said Jett, who also runs a company that the state contracts with to plug wells abandoned by oil companies, told them that he was not surprised to hear of the water problems and offered to connect them to a water line on his property. The Boarmans never took him up on his offer; they learned from agency emails, which Tammy Boarman had obtained through a public records request, that Jett’s injection well was one of the possible pollution sources. “Why would we accept water from the person who at any moment could get mad at us and shut it off?” she said. Neither Jett nor his attorney responded to questions about his offer to connect the Boarmans to his water line, the potential pollution threat of the McCoon well or its missing cement liner and injection data. Then, in August 2024, Chris had a heart attack. Tammy blamed the pollution, whether the salty water harmed him directly or only indirectly, through accumulated stress. Their doctor would later tell them that while there could be a link, it would be impossible to prove. As Chris recovered at home, Tammy frantically searched for a filtration system strong enough to block all potential pollutants. The couple spent more than $15,000 to put one in. Tammy and Chris Boarman stopped inviting friends over because it was too embarrassing to warn them not to use the contaminated water. Abigail Harrison Regular water sampling showed the Boarmans’ water still getting saltier, according to the test results. By this point, agency staff had also found pollution in the water of their neighbors, who live less than a quarter-mile away. (The neighbors declined requests for an interview.) On Sept. 9, 2024, the Boarmans’ state senator, Grant Green, a Republican, requested a meeting with agency leaders to discuss the couple’s case, which Chris Boarman had briefed him on. A senior manager for government and regulatory affairs at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, Travis Weedn, emailed two agency leaders about Green: “He’s most likely going to be the Senate Energy Chair this upcoming session …, so I’d like to be prompt with his office.” Two days later, Trey Davis, the commission’s chief public information officer at the time, wrote an email to a number of oil division managers: “We are probably past the point with this complaint that we need to move forward with every measure at our disposal to identify the source of the contamination.” Green recently told The Frontier and ProPublica that the agency failed the Boarmans despite the couple doing “everything right”; he said it did not appear to take their situation seriously until after he got involved. “It should never take lawmaker intervention to get people to do their jobs,” Green said in a written statement. “It’s simply unacceptable.” Shortly after Green contacted the agency, Plummer again advocated for running mechanical tests on the McCoon well to evaluate whether wastewater was leaking from it — the same tests he had requested in January. One oil division manager disagreed, writing to colleagues that a test to survey for leaks could cost Callie Oil a “substantial” amount of money because it could require removing and replacing part of the well. Oil companies typically conduct and pay for tests required by the state. Tammy Boarman said agency officials likewise told her in a meeting that these tests would be too expensive for the oil company. The agency would not comment on this interaction. Boarman spent weeks reviewing agency reports, test results and internal emails that she had obtained through her public records request, often staying up well past midnight immersing herself in technical minutia. That was how she discovered that Plummer had first proposed tests on the McCoon well at the start of the year. After that discovery, Boarman dropped all niceties in her communications with agency officials. “We are convinced that some of you are either inept at your job, just do not care, or you are protecting the operators,” she wrote in a Sept. 27, 2024, email to a half dozen agency employees. A week later, after meeting with Green, the oil division began running mechanical tests on the McCoon well. One test measured the well’s structural integrity. It failed the pressure test, suggesting a possible leak. Further testing discovered a hole in a steel pipe within the well, about 2,700 feet deep, a potential escape hatch for oil field wastewater. Callie Oil promptly patched the hole. An agency report stated that the well had not been operating since June, but other state data indicated that the well had been injecting wastewater into the earth all summer and continued to operate through the rest of the year. Neither the agency nor Callie Oil responded to a question about the contradiction. The oil division also ran a different test that scans for wastewater leaks. The test found no issues, but it didn’t look for leaks at shallower depths. In a subsequent report, an environmental consulting firm recommended running this test again — this time to survey the entire depth of the well. The state never did. The agency did not respond to a question about why a full survey has not been done. The agency did conduct a more comprehensive test of the Boarmans’ water to look for heavy metals commonly found in oil field wastewater. The test uncovered a new threat: barium, a metal that can cause heart and blood pressure problems, at three times the EPA’s drinking water limit. The oil division did not inform the Boarmans of the results for over a month. In December 2024, the state’s environmental department provided the results to The Frontier and ProPublica in response to a public records request. The next day, the oil division sent the test results to the Boarmans. The agency did not respond to a question about the delay. Case Closed  Despite finding evidence of oil and gas contamination in the Boarmans’ water in more than a dozen tests conducted over two years, several agency leaders developed a new theory, according to internal emails from the fall of 2024: They suggested at times that the company that had drilled the Boarmans’ water well had done a bad job and drilled into a pocket of natural salt water, unrelated to oil and gas operations. Other staff at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission proposed elevating the Boarmans’ case to the agency’s administrative law court to further evaluate the cause of the pollution and pursue potential enforcement. But some commission staff expressed concern internally about how much it could cost to retain a consulting firm to continue investigating the case. The oil division “doesn’t have the funds for this,” wrote Jeff Kline, legal adviser to one of the three elected commissioners, in a digital message to himself in March 2025. Days later, the agency closed the case. “No responsible party is able to be identified at this time,” the agency wrote to the Boarmans. Kline told The Frontier and ProPublica that he does not know whether cost influenced the agency’s decision to close the case. The oil division “is solely responsible for such determinations, including any cost-related considerations in this or other cases,” Kline said in a statement. The agency did not respond to questions about the cost concerns or about why some leaders had suggested that the Boarmans’ well was not drilled correctly. Undeterred, Tammy Boarman continued to press her case to multiple agency leaders, emailing and calling them over the next month. In an hourlong call with oil division director Jeremy Hodges last May, Boarman reminded him that his own staff and consultants had recommended more scrutiny of her neighbor’s injection well as a potential threat to her drinking water. In response, Hodges leaned on the same explanation his agency had relied on for months, blaming the company that drilled her water well. Private water well issues fall outside the oil division’s jurisdiction, he told her. “It’s not my deal.” Hodges did not respond to a list of questions about this call, and the agency declined to make him available for an interview. Boarman also sought answers from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, the state agency that oversees private water wells. Charlie O’Malley, manager of the state water board’s well drilling program, told The Frontier and ProPublica the same thing he told the Boarmans: Their water well was drilled correctly and he believed it was contaminated by historic oil field pollution. In contrast to state regulators, Green, the state senator, found a way to help the Boarmans. Last spring, he was instrumental in securing $2 million in state funding to connect the Boarmans and their neighbors to a rural water system. “While this doesn’t change what the Boarmans and their neighbors have endured over the past two years, I hope it gives them a chance to start over,” Green said. Tammy Boarman said that the fresh water is “a big deal for us,” but that it fails to solve the larger problem of groundwater pollution by the oil and gas industry. “The agency that is supposed to be taking care of this has been given a pass,” she said. “This place has been ruined for us,” she said. “It’s a nightmare.” Help Us Report on the Impact of Oil Field Waste in Oklahoma Toxic wastewater from oil fields keeps pouring out of the ground in Oklahoma. For years, residents have filed complaints and struggled to find solutions. We need your help to understand the full scale of the problem. Share Your Experience The post Salty, Oily Drinking Water Left Sores in Their Mouths. Oklahoma Refused to Find Out Why. appeared first on ProPublica .

Colorado marijuana manufacturers would no longer be allowed to choose which product samples they send for mandatory lab testing under a new regulatory proposal discussed at a policy forum on Friday. Instead, the state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division may require independent labs or outside vendors to collect product samples for the testing that’s required before companies can sell their products to ensure they’re free of contaminants. The change would address a long-standing complaint from some marijuana manufacturers that bad actors are cheating the system. They say some companies are selecting samples that can pass tests while sending products to dispensaries that might be contaminated with chemical solvents, fungus or pesticides. A Denver Gazette and ProPublica investigation last month showed that the system for testing marijuana products relies on an honor code that’s open to manipulation. In 2024 alone, Colorado officials found two dozen cases in which companies had violated testing rules, often by submitting samples that were different from what the companies sold in stores or by using unauthorized chemical treatments, according to a review of enforcement actions by the news outlets. The state’s rules on selecting samples require what gets turned over to a lab to be representative of what marijuana companies actually deliver to dispensaries for sale to consumers. “Sample adulteration is a common violation,” Kyle Lambert, deputy director of the division, said during the policy forum. “This is something that we have an interest in more comprehensively addressing based on what we see out there.” Colorado officials have long prided themselves on creating the nation’s first regulated recreational marijuana market, but the news outlets found that the state has fallen behind as other states have adopted more robust regulations. The Denver Gazette and ProPublica highlighted how a popular brand of vapes contaminated with a toxic chemical ended up at marijuana dispensaries. In that case and others, manufacturers were found by regulators to be swapping marijuana distillate, the liquid that goes in vapes, for products chemically converted from much cheaper hemp, which is prohibited in Colorado. The company, Ware Hause, surrendered its marijuana manufacturing license. Its owner declined to comment on Tuesday. The Marijuana Enforcement Division first disclosed it is considering a new sampling system in January. The state’s move marks a shift: Last year, the state fought a lawsuit by a marijuana cultivator aimed at forcing the division to overhaul its testing rules. The suit, brought by Mammoth Farms, also pushed for the division to bar manufacturers from selecting product samples for testing. The division’s lawyers said in a court filing that such a revision would be “impracticable.” A Denver judge dismissed the lawsuit on technical grounds in May, stating that the company should have first petitioned regulators for rule changes. After the dismissal, Mammoth Farms sought rule changes with the Marijuana Enforcement Division. The division agreed to begin requiring more chemical testing this summer but did not adopt a proposal to overhaul how samples are collected. Read More Smoke and Mirrors: How Intoxicating Hemp Seeped Into the First Recreational Marijuana Market in the Country Dominique Mendiola, the senior director of the division, said in a statement that the move to consider changes stemmed from concerns raised by marijuana companies last year. “The division has committed to further researching this topic and leading the facilitation of this dialogue with stakeholders in order to analyze the details and operability of what it would take to implement recommendations to shift to third-party test batch collection requirements,” she said. Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia require lab personnel to collect samples to ensure manufacturers don’t cherry-pick products for testing while holding back contaminated products. Over the next few months, the state will hold discussions with testing labs, marijuana cultivators and manufacturers and industry experts to fashion a formal proposal, Lambert said. He added that he expects the division will take up specific policy recommendations this summer. State officials want to gauge the cost, Lambert said, and make sure they develop effective regulations. The state is also considering who would collect the samples — licensed lab personnel or third-party samplers the state would credential. Kareem Kassem, a director at SC Labs, which has a testing lab in Colorado, said during the forum that all sampling should be done under video surveillance and that vehicles that transport samples should be equipped with GPS monitoring. Other industry representatives noted that changing testing regulations could be expensive and that those costs would be passed on to consumers. They also stressed that other states had marijuana testing scandals even when lab personnel collected samples. Stephen Cobb, co-owner of the marijuana manufacturer Concentrate Brands, pointed to sample collection scandals in California and said the problem was only fixed after regulators stepped in. “We can solve sample fraud,” Cobb said, “but only if there is a massive investment in regulatory oversight on that. Otherwise, it just kind of passes the buck.” The Marijuana Enforcement Division said costs and budgeting issues would be part of the discussions. Still, Justin Singer, the CEO of Denver-based cannabis firm Ripple, applauded the division’s move. “I think that sample fraud should be a death sentence for a licensee,” Singer said during the policy forum. “Right now, it’s a $15,000 slap on the wrist.” He has tracked the division’s enforcement actions and provided The Denver Gazette and ProPublica a spreadsheet and links to those cases. Ripple’s analysis shows that, from the start of 2023 until now, half of the state’s 135 final enforcement actions against marijuana companies involved issues with self-sampling and testing. Singer is also pushing a legislative overhaul to the state’s marijuana testing regimen that would transfer testing oversight to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and create a program where state regulators would randomly test products from dispensaries to ensure they aren’t contaminated. “I hope we all can agree that if we’re not giving consumers as an industry what they think they are buying, then we’re destroying our own industry from within,” Singer said. “Sample fraud and testing fraud is a cancer on our industry. It is a cancer on the businesses that are trying to do good work. It is a cancer on the labs that are trying to be honest.” The post Colorado Marijuana Regulators Consider Major Changes to How Labs Test for Contaminants appeared first on ProPublica .

In the 459 days that Willa Mae James spent living in a Fairfield Inn in Eastern North Carolina, her footsteps wore down paths in the carpet: from the door to the desk, from the bed to the wooden armchair by the window, her favorite place to read the Bible. The 69-year-old retired dietitian had been sent there in July 2024 by North Carolina’s rebuilding program after Hurricane Florence ravaged her home and many others in 2018. The state had promised to help thousands of people like her rebuild or repair. But it had taken the program years to begin work. James spent nearly six years living in her damaged house in Lumberton, where floodwaters had turned the floorboards to pulp, causing her floors to sink and nearly cave in. Of the more than 10,000 families who applied, 3,100 were still waiting for construction five years after the storm. Thousands of others had withdrawn or been dropped by the program. As of November, more than 300 families were still waiting to return home. And James was the last of more than 100 displaced homeowners staying at the hotel. “It’s like being in jail,” James said. “Everybody else done moved back home in their houses, enjoying it, except me.” On the other side of North Carolina, nearly 5,000 homeowners find themselves waiting for the state government to help them rebuild after 2024’s Hurricane Helene. Gov. Josh Stein created a new program, Renew NC, promising to learn from the problems of the previous program that left James and thousands of others hanging for years. Renew NC is just getting off the ground; the program began accepting applications in June and has completed work on 16 of the 2,700 homes it plans to repair and rebuild. But through public records and interviews with homeowners, The Assembly and ProPublica have found that some of the same problems that plagued the earlier program are surfacing in the Helene recovery. Video by Nadia Sussman/ProPublica That earlier program, which has the similar name ReBuild NC, was set up after Florence decimated a region that had been hit by Hurricane Matthew two years earlier. ReBuild NC was designed to help low- and moderate-income homeowners restore their homes by hiring and paying contractors to complete the work. But the North Carolina Office of Recovery & Resiliency, which runs the program, failed at nearly every step, according to reports by outside consultants, journalists and auditors. It struggled to manage its $779 million budget and couldn’t keep track of expenses. It rarely held contractors accountable for delays that dragged out projects and drove up costs for temporary housing and storage. ReBuild NC provided only limited resources to understaffed local governments that couldn’t handle the volume of permit and inspection requests. At the same time, the agency was laden with “administrative steps, paperwork, and procedures” to comply with federal regulations, according to a state auditor report. And rigid rules meant the agency spent money rebuilding homes that needed less expensive repairs, some homeowners said. “The response from North Carolina to hurricanes Matthew and Florence was a disaster,” State Auditor Dave Boliek said in a statement after releasing a report on ReBuild NC in November. The auditor’s office consulted with the former administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under the Obama administration, Craig Fugate, who noted that ReBuild NC officials “spent a tremendous amount of time on process, when their job was swinging hammers.” Bridget Munger, a spokesperson for the North Carolina Office of Recovery & Resiliency, said the office welcomed the report. “NCORR remains committed to serving those affected by hurricanes Matthew and Florence and any insight that supports that mission is valuable,” Munger said in a statement. Get Involved Have you applied to Renew NC or other assistance programs, such as a hazard mitigation buyout, following Hurricane Helene? We want to hear from you to better understand how recovery efforts are working in North Carolina. Share Your Experience State leaders set out to manage Helene recovery differently. Among Stein’s orders on his first day in office in 2025 was to lay the groundwork for a new home rebuilding program with fresh leadership in a different department. The state would again pick and pay contractors to repair and rebuild homes of people who applied, but this time, it would scrutinize contractors more to ensure quality. Stephanie McGarrah, who oversees Renew NC, pledged “robust financial oversight” and a willingness to work with stakeholders who “identify challenges and gaps in funding.” But again, homeowners are encountering rules that steer them toward demolition and reconstruction when less expensive repairs would do. Some counties are struggling to get the staff and inspectors to handle all the required permits. Many residents will be out of their homes without a plan from the state to pay for temporary housing or storage during construction. McGarrah, a deputy state commerce secretary, said that every disaster is different and that the agency is learning as it goes and has already revised policies to allow more homes to be eligible for repairs. “There’s this perception that you can figure out what all the problems are going to be, and you can figure them out at the beginning,” she said. The Helene recovery program set an ambitious goal to finish all homes before June 2028, but the long waits of James and others in Eastern North Carolina serve as a warning for what might happen next. Behind the Scenes of the Disaster In 2016, record flooding from Hurricane Matthew hit James’ hometown of Lumberton, North Carolina. Two years later, Hurricane Florence again caused flooding. Chuck Burton/AP North Carolina had just begun rebuilding homes Matthew destroyed in 2016 when Florence hit two years later, bringing up to 2 feet of rain in some inland counties. Damage from the two storms totaled an estimated $22 billion spread across half of North Carolina’s 100 counties, among the costliest storms in U.S. history. After FEMA’s short-term disaster assistance ended, the state received applications from more than 10,000 homeowners still in need of repairs. But progress was slow. The state’s homebuilding program trailed others after 2018 hurricanes, according to a 2022 Government Accountability Office report . North Carolina had completed 0.4% of the homes it set out to repair and rebuild after Florence while South Carolina had completed 22%. ReBuild NC’s management problems are most apparent in the time people like James spent in hotels waiting for construction. One of the reasons it took so long is that ReBuild NC hired two administrative contractors, one to manage construction and another to handle temporary relocation. Although the agency denied it, contractors told the legislature that ReBuild NC discouraged its relocation vendor from speaking directly with the construction vendor, requiring them to communicate via a spreadsheet that was supposed to track construction. The approach delayed repairs as the vendors were unable to line up move-out dates with construction start dates. Among the 766 families who spent at least a year out of their homes during construction, more than 500 didn’t have damage that required them to move out early. Such problems contributed to the roughly $100 million ReBuild NC spent on temporary relocation services, like hotels and portable storage pods, for 3,800 families. The program required families to move out before construction was ready to begin. James was moved into the Fairfield Inn nine months before her assigned construction company filed for demolition and construction permits. A large part of the delay was caused by ReBuild NC pausing “notices to proceed” for four months as it ran low on funds and sought more money from the legislature. While the local government OK’d the permit applications within days, it took another two months for the contractor to pay for the permits and begin reconstruction. P.H. Lowery, the general contractor for James’ home, did not respond to calls or text messages seeking comment about the delays. The nonprofit news organization NC Newsline found that ReBuild NC never fined contractors for missing deadlines during the program’s first years. Other families faced delays because ReBuild NC failed to coordinate rebuilding efforts with local governments or because the homeowners came up against the program’s rules. The state had a set number of home designs that homeowners could choose from. Sometimes, the state’s plans proposed homes that were too big for properties or didn’t account for septic systems. Kath Durand encountered such problems when she sought ReBuild NC’s help after Florence’s deluge seeped through the roof, saturated the walls and collapsed part of the ceiling of her home in Atlantic Beach. She applied to ReBuild NC in 2020, hoping to finish an estimated $20,000 in repairs after she ran out of money to fix the home herself. Hurricane Florence damaged Kath Durand’s home, causing mold to spread in the ceiling and walls. ReBuild NC took four years to offer Durand a floor plan, only to later tell her none of the designs would fit her lot and drop her from the program. Madeline Gray for ProPublica and The Assembly But under ReBuild NC’s rules, wood-frame homes like hers had to be above a certain level to avoid flooding before the program would pay for repairs, and the program wouldn’t pay to elevate houses. The home was just shy. So ReBuild NC would only pay to demolish the home and build a new one — a more expensive undertaking. It took four years for the agency to offer Durand a floor plan, but none of the designs fit her 1/6-acre lot. One plan placed part of the home in the street easement, which utility companies need to access. A second placed the home in the tidal zone, effectively putting her home in a canal. A third covered the septic field, which could have destroyed the system that breaks down sewage. All those things would have been cause for rejected permits, she said, making her question ReBuild NC. “I would like to get in a room and talk to them about ‘what were you thinking?’” she said. Durand said she settled for a smaller home, but at the end of December, ReBuild NC withdrew her from the program, saying it didn’t have houses available for the size of her lot. Munger, ReBuild NC’s spokesperson, said the program has the ability to develop custom building plans to fit challenging lots, but doing so in every case “would have exponentially increased project costs and greatly reduced the number of families helped by the program.” After ReBuild NC said it would rebuild her house and sent storage pods, Durand rented a room from a member of her church. But after more than a year with no construction, she had to move back. Many of her belongings remain in boxes. Madeline Gray for ProPublica and The Assembly Family photos of Durand, center, and her brothers hang in her home. Madeline Gray for ProPublica and The Assembly Such delays and complaints from homeowners led to years of legislative scrutiny, after which ReBuild NC’s two top leaders left the agency. In 2022, the agency’s chief program delivery officer, Ivan Duncan, resigned after he was accused of giving preferential treatment to a construction vendor, NC Newsline reported. Then, after several legislative meetings questioned oversight of the program, his boss, ReBuild NC director Laura Hogshead, abruptly left the agency in 2024. Duncan said in an interview that the allegations were unfounded. He said he cooperated with the investigations, was not asked to resign and left for a higher-paying job. Hogshead did not respond to requests for comment. At a 2024 legislative hearing, she listed several things the program would do differently if it were put in charge of the Helene recovery but noted that rebuilding thousands of older homes across a wide area came with challenges. Behind the scenes, ReBuild NC struggled to hold contractors accountable to timelines, paid invoices without verifying work and spent money on things auditors couldn’t track, according to reports by disaster recovery consultant SBP and the state auditor and an internal audit . For James, the wait was especially hard as her husband, Christopher, was in treatment for bone cancer. She remembers Christopher questioning whether the home would ever be done. “Baby, them people might never get to you,” he’d told her. When he died in 2021, she was left to fight alone for the home to be rebuilt. James said a neighbor who applied for ReBuild NC died days after moving into the hotel. She knows others who are still staying with friends or family as they wait on ReBuild NC to finish their homes. She hopes Western North Carolina residents have better experiences. “I pray that they don’t go through what we did, I sure do,” James said. Seven years after Hurricane Florence, ReBuild NC finished reconstruction of James’ Lumberton home. Madeline Gray for ProPublica and The Assembly At the Edge Under pressure from the legislature and homeowners to not repeat these problems with the Helene recovery, the new state program, Renew NC, made a number of reforms. ReBuild NC had been criticized for locating its office almost 100 miles from the epicenters of the disaster zones. Renew NC’s office is in Asheville, in one of Helene’s hardest-hit counties. A bipartisan group of legislators, business leaders, activists and government officials meets across Western North Carolina to publicly advise on challenges and assist with recovery. To avoid the problem of having different vendors administer the construction and relocation, Renew NC has hired one vendor to manage the housing recovery program. Despite the reforms, the Stein administration has already faced questions from lawmakers over potential conflicts of interest. His first Helene recovery adviser, Jonathan Krebs, had been a partner at the company administering the housing program and contributed heavily to Stein’s campaign and a Democratic political committee in the year before receiving his job. Kate Schmidt, a spokesperson for the governor, said Krebs “was hired because of his decades of experience working on nearly every major disaster recovery since Katrina” and noted that the State Ethics Commission found no conflict of interest. Krebs said at a legislative meeting last year that while he helped draft the request for proposal and scoring criteria for an $81 million contract that was awarded to Horne, his former employer, he viewed his past employment not as a conflict but as an asset. “They’ve got to have somebody in the room that knows what’s going on and what has to happen to get houses built. I was that person,” said Krebs, whose temporary role has ended. Krebs echoed those sentiments in an interview, noting that he supported Stein as a candidate who was “trying to be practical and help people.” The state did not renew Horne’s Florence and Matthew recovery contract amid complaints over slow application processing. BDO, an accounting and consulting firm that has since acquired Horne, referred questions to the state. A state official said in contracting documents that the decision to not renew was mutual and acknowledged that “problems continued” after the state took over case management. As South Carolina did after Florence, Renew NC has avoided the high costs of temporary housing and storage simply by not paying for them, except under “extreme circumstances,” though it is common for disaster recovery programs to pay for such costs. That has left homeowners to cover the costs themselves. Read More Arduous and Unequal: The Fight to Get FEMA Housing Assistance After Helene The lack of coverage for temporary housing concerns Vicki Meath, a local housing advocate working on the recovery. “When I think about survivors that have been impacted and would apply to this program that are below 60% of the area median income, they don’t have a lot of resources,” she said. “They don’t have another place to live.” In an interview, McGarrah noted that her agency is discussing policy changes to help make temporary housing more affordable but will need local partners to identify places families can live. “We’re seeing some slowdowns in our pipeline because people don’t have places to go,” she said. Local governments in Western North Carolina, like those on the other side of the state, are struggling with a lack of staff and resources. Dennis Aldridge, a commissioner in Avery County, northeast of Asheville, said the county’s 18,000 residents face a shortage of environmental inspectors who certify well and septic systems, on which homes in rural counties overwhelmingly rely. Aldridge said he reached out to the state for assistance, but there aren’t enough inspectors in North Carolina — an issue that’s been known for years. “It’s taking right now about six to nine months to get a well and septic permit because we don’t have the people,” Aldridge said in September. Danny Allen, inspections director in Madison County, north of Asheville, said he’s worried his department will face backlogs on building permits with about 75 local homeowners actively applying for the state program. After Helene, Chuck Brodsky’s home sits on a cliff with a 150-foot drop. Renew NC says it can’t repair the land without tearing down his house. Ren Larson/The Assembly “They’re feeling it now, but it’s really going to be six months from now that the pressure is going to build,” said Aimee Wall, dean of the University of North Carolina’s School of Government. The number of people waiting for inspections could increase if homeowners who applied for repairs learn they need to have their homes rebuilt because damages exceed the state’s threshold of $100,000 for wood-frame homes. The amount is intended to avoid costly repairs, as homes could have additional issues like termite damage that aren’t immediately visible. But it doesn’t cover all scenarios. That’s what Chuck Brodsky, a folk musician and songwriter, encountered after two landslides wiped out much of the Asheville mountainside that supported his home. His two-story house survived Helene unscathed, but it’s now perched on a cliff that drops to a road 150 feet below. Two construction companies quoted him about $200,000 to stabilize the mountainside and keep his home from falling over the edge. He couldn’t afford it, so he began the application for help from Renew NC to repair his storm-impacted property in September. But the agency told him under the program’s rules, to fix the mountainside, it would have to tear down his home and rebuild. It can’t just repair the land. The agency told him he could appeal, but he worries he’ll receive the same answer. McGarrah noted that the region had over 3,000 landslides, and the agency will evaluate properties affected by them case by case. “It would cost them way more to demolish the house and rebuild the house than repair the landslide,” Brodsky said. “The whole thing is just preposterous.” The post As Helene Survivors Wait for State Help, Some Victims of Earlier Hurricanes Are Still Out of Their Homes appeared first on ProPublica .

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