savvie

…cyclosporiasis can take weeks to appear, which means officials in Michigan can’t tell yet whether their warnings have helped.

And the outbreak is spiraling amid sharp funding cuts to state and local public health departments after decades of chronic underinvestment.

What is cyclosporiasis, the parasitic illness causing ‘explosive’ diarrhea?

Read more

State and local health departments have suffered layoffs and hiring freezes amid funding delays, cuts and uncertainty, while federal agencies like the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have hemorrhaged staff and expertise under the second Trump administration.

Millions of people have also lost their health insurance through Medicaidand Affordable Care Act coverage, making it more difficult to track the true prevalence and spread of the parasite. Cases in five states – Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia – have been linked by the CDC, but the parasite, which can cause weeks of explosive diarrhea and vomiting

It’s been a brutal tactic deployed by local and federal law enforcement officials time and again over the past year: using teargas, rubber bullets and pepper spray to control protests outside ICE detention centers or during enforcement operations.

Now, a new report lays bare the scale of the use of these crowd control weapons during anti-immigration demonstrations across the US, including hundreds of incidents that resulted in lasting and traumatic injuries.

Hundreds of masked men carrying banners, including the Confederate flag, marched through Washington DC on the Fourth of July, the 250th anniversary of the US’s inception.

The group appeared to be led by Thomas Rousseau, founder of the neo-fascist, white supremacist organization Patriot Front. Members of the group wore white masks and gathered in front of DC’s Union Station. They later marched towards Capitol Hill, WTOP reported.

Members chanted “Life, liberty, victory!” and “Reclaim America!” during the Saturday demonstration, according to video posted on social media.

We begin our July Fourth special broadcast with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, Douglass gave one of his most famous speeches, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He was addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. The late actor James Earl Jones read the historic address during a performance of Voices of a People’s History of the United States, which was co-edited by Howard Zinn.

The Washington Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials, a panel established by voters in 1987, ended the practice of politicians deciding their own pay.

This panel of unelected individuals from across the state approved a new two-year salary schedule in March 2025 that awarded double-digit pay hikes for the offices of the governor, attorney general and state lawmakers.

It’s official: The proposed California Billionaire Tax Act, which last week was ++certified++ for November’s election, has a ballot designation—Proposition 40.

“The people of California now have the opportunity to decide what kind of future they want,” Service Employees International Union-United ++HealthcareWorkers++ West (SEIU-UHW) vice president Debru Carthan ++said++ on Thursday.

For a weekend in July each year, a vast warehouse complex in the port city of Rotterdam becomes home to the biggest names in jazz. Under the banner of the North Sea jazz festival, the labyrinthine, windowless space has played host to performances from the likes of Miles Davis, free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman, singer Etta James, saxophonist Wayne Shorter and even Prince.

View image in fullscreen

Ordered by the Trump ++White House++ to aggressively increase arrest rates, federal ++immigration++officials have reportedly detained more than 10,000 people in just the last five days, intensifying fear in communities across the ++United States++.

The ++New York Times++, which was ++first to report++ the new detention figures late Wednesday, noted that ++Immigration and Customs Enforcement++ (ICE) officials were “told that 2,000 arrests a day was the new standard for enforcement.” The agency, flush with cash following President Donald Trump’s signing of a reconciliation package containing ++another $70 billion for immigration enforcement++, has been instructed to assign 80% of its officers to “arrest operations,” according to the Times.

Temperatures on the ocean surface have hit a record high, raising fears of another burst of extreme heat this summer.

On 21 June, temperatures outside the polar regions exceeded the extraordinary highs observed at the same time in 2023 and 2024, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Wednesday.

It warned the new peak would probably bring “consequences for weather patterns, global climate and marine ecosystems”, not least because it would coincide with the earliest phases of an El Niño eventthey forecast to be the strongest in decades.

US President ++Donald Trump++bought up to $5 million worth of stock in the corporation that makes Taser electroshock guns, police body cameras, and policing software two weeks before his administration announced the solicitation of a $220 million contract apparently tailored to the company’s product and services, CNBC revealed Monday.

In another landmark decision on Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement agencies must first obtain a warrant before sweeping up smartphone location data from third-party tech companies like Google. In her majority opinion, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that a lower court should reexamine whether the technique known as geofencing constitutes an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. She wrote, “An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone’s location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information.”

Roughly five Americans die every hour due to exposure to toxic road vehicle pollution, a new study has found.

It’s the latest warning showing fossil-fueled transit is a major driver of mortality.

In 2024 alone, the study found, more 41,800 premature deaths in the US were attributable to road pollution