The tenuous ceasefire in the Middle East seemed to be holding on by a thread on Sunday as Israel and Iran exchanged missile fire for the first time since an agreement to end hostilities was reached in April.

Meanwhile, Israel said early Monday that it detected a missile launched from Yemen targeting the country, according to the Associated Press. Yemen is home to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. And Saudi Arabia sounded air warning sirens in an area close to an air base housing U.S. forces, the AP also reported, though that country said shortly afterwards that the danger had passed.

The escalation amounted to the most significant exchange of fire since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran was put on pause in April. The renewed fighting also threatened to undermine President Donald Trump’s negotiations with Iran as the U.S. president appears to be seeking a way out of a war that is unpopular with Americans and has sent gas prices soaring.

Trump called for de-escalation in a short Truth Social post Monday morning: “Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting.’”

“Both sides, Israel and Iran, are looking to do an immediate CEASEFIRE!” Trump wrote in a subsequent post. “Final negotiations on “Peace” are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way. The Blockade will remain in place, and in full force and effect, until a “Final Deal” is reached. Things should move quickly.”

The fighting began Sunday when Israel launched airstrikes on Lebanon, which has been a sore point in the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran as Israel continues to pursue that conflict. Tehran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel, the first missiles launched at Israel in two months as the war reached its 100th day.

Earlier Monday, Israel responded by launching airstrikes targeting central and western Iran. Officials did not give details on exactly what had been struck.

“A short while ago, the Israeli Air Force struck military targets belonging to the Iranian terror regime in western and central Iran,” said the Israeli military.

The White House did not respond to messages about the Israel-launched strikes or whether they were done in coordination with the U.S. However, Trump, according to Axios, said he was going to call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “tell him not to strike back.”

If the two talked, Netanyahu apparently did not listen.

And Trump, in a series of interviews with the media on Sunday before the Israeli strikes on Iran, gave conflicting signals about whether peace negotiations were in trouble.

Fox News’ Trey Yingst said Trump told the news outlet regarding the Iranian missiles launched Sunday, “It’s certainly not going to help negotiations,” and he urged Iran to reach a deal.

But an Iranian official linked to the talks between the U.S. and Iran said that “a deal with President Trump is no longer feasible at this stage.”

The official blamed Trump for the current situation and the escalation of hostilities in Lebanon.

Before the Israeli attacks, Trump told the Financial Times on Sunday evening that Netanyahu “won’t have any choice” but to accept the deal the U.S. negotiates with Iran.

“I call the shots. I call all the shots. He [Netanyahu] doesn’t call the shots,” he said, adding the Iranian strikes on Israel were “not going to have any impact on the deal.”

“The deal may make it on its own merit, or not, but this will not have any effect on it,” Trump explained.

“I call the shots. I call all the shots. He [Benjamin Netanyahu] doesn’t call the shots,” Presiden Donald Trump said, adding the strikes were “not going to have any impact on the deal.”

However, if a deal fails, Trump told the Financial Times the U.S. would consider further military action and would continue the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.

“Number one, it would mean that possibly we would go in and take care of the rest of the place that we didn’t take care of militarily,” he said. “Or it would just mean that we would keep the blockade on Iran because the blockade has been probably more powerful than any attack that was ever made on that country.”

But a White House official granted anonymity to speak candidly told MS NOW Trump has underestimated the willingness of Iran to resume conflict.

“The recent negotiations with Iran in many ways have exposed a fundamental miscalculation” by the president and the White House, the official said, adding that Iran’s “erratic behavior” has heightened the situation with no imminent off ramp.

Earlier Sunday, the Israeli military, which launched the war against Iran jointly with the U.S. on Feb. 28, said sirens were sounded in several areas of the country and Iran confirmed it launched the missiles. “Tonight’s operation was solely intended as a warning. Should these acts of aggression continue, future responses will be broader in scope and will encompass all American and Israeli targets throughout the region,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement posted on Telegram.

In addition to Sunday’s fresh strikes, military clashes continued across the region and talks between the two sides have stalled, four Middle East officials and diplomats told MS NOW.

‘I think we’re very close’

Until Sunday, Trump had continued to say a deal is close. “I think we’re very close. We have a couple of points,” he told NBC News in an interview that aired Sunday. “They don’t even seem like big points.”

Over the weekend, U.S. commandos seized an Iranian oil tanker and shot down multiple Iranian drones. Clashes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah in Lebanon also intensified.

Four Middle East officials and diplomats told MS NOW that significant disagreements remain. All of them spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the talks.

A senior official in the region told MS NOW on Friday that three issues remain unresolved: The sequencing of the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, American demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program and Iranian demands to receive relief funds up front as part of the agreement.

A senior Middle East diplomat also said Friday that negotiations have regressed.

“There are no meaningful negotiations taking place between the two countries as they stand,” the diplomat told MS NOW.

Trump administration officials say talks are progressing and dismissed the statements from officials in the region. 

“This is grossly inaccurate, as MS NOW always is when they rely on mysterious ‘Middle Eastern diplomats’ who have no idea what they are talking about,” said Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson.

A Pakistani foreign ministry source with knowledge of the talks expressed optimism as well. They told MS NOW that this weekend’s visit of Pakistan’s interior minister to Iran was “extremely positive” and “Iran showed signs of progress towards agreeing on a framework.” 

Nicole Grajewski, an assistant professor at Sciences Po in Paris and an associate at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, told MS NOW that the continued military clashes between the two sides are not aiding negotiations.

“The persistent strikes between the U.S. and Iran across the region [are] hardly helping the situation,” she said. “If anything, it’s making it harder to separate the negotiations from a pending resumption of war.”

In Trump’s interview with NBC News, he threatened to bomb Iran’s enriched uranium if Tehran will not hand it over to the U.S. Experts have warned that bombing enriched uranium sends small radioactive particles into the air. The particles do not spread far but anyone entering the nearby area faces health risks. 

An expert told the BBC last week, “That’s because the uranium particles could become lodged in the cells, inside either your lungs or your stomach, and slowly, radioactively decay, and that will cause damage.”

Trump also said U.S. forces would seize Iran’s enriched uranium if Tehran declined to hand it over. U.S. and Iranian officials are currently negotiating a “memorandum of understanding that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and extend the current fraying ceasefire.” A second 60-day round of negotiations would focus on Iran’s nuclear program.

Military experts have warned that a U.S. commando raid to seize the uranium by force could last for days and potentially require American forces to build a landing strip. U.S. forces could be exposed to attacks from Iranian forces and could suffer high casualties.

Trump told NBC News that Iran has agreed to not seek a nuclear weapon, but he wanted an additional provision added to the agreement to ensure Iran cannot purchase one.

Trump said the Iranians pushed back “a little bit” on his demand. “And then they didn’t.”

Experts have warned that Iranian leaders have publicly promised for years to not obtain a nuclear weapon. They say such a pledge from Iranian officials cannot be trusted.

Iranian officials have continued to demand the return of up to $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets held overseas as part of the memorandum of understanding. Trump told NBC News he opposed any release of frozen Iranian funds until after the second round of negotiations had been completed.

Gregory Brew, a senior Iran and oil analyst at the Eurasia Group, told MS NOW that he was not surprised that two sides are digging in at this point in the negotiations. But he thinks a deal remains possible.

 “I think what that means is after a week of fairly rapid progress, movements have now slowed, as both sides dig into their respective positions,” Brew said. “My personal feeling is that this deadlock won’t last forever, there’s still a mutual incentive to reach a deal and that will keep negotiations moving.”

Jake Traylor contributed to this report.

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In an explosive interview with NBC aired Sunday, President Donald Trump cut the grilling short and left the set after peppering “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker with insults.

“You’re either crooked or you’re stupid,” Trump told Welker, who kept a cool demeanor despite the president’s barrage of disparaging slurs.

Moments before he attacked her, Trump — without providing any evidence — said he believes elections in the U.S. are rigged. Then he lambasted television news networks, singling out NBC, CBS and ABC.

“They’re crooked just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked,” Trump said.

“To be fair, I’m not crooked,” Welker shot back. “But let’s continue.”

“Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” the president told Welker, who is the second woman and first Black journalist to helm the network’s flagship program.

Trump added, “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”

It was not the first time Trump has berated a female journalist on the job covering his presidency.

In November 2025, he told Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey to stop talking, saying, “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.” One month later, he told ABC’s Rachel Scott she was “the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place.” Last month, he called MS NOW White House reporter Akayla Gardner “a dumb person” for pointing out that the cost of his White House ballroom project had doubled since it was first announced.

He has also repeatedly lashed out at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, criticizing her for not smiling enough.

The wide-ranging interview, which was taped last week on a farm in Wisconsin, was interrupted by the loud sound of heavy rain on the metal roof of the barn where they met. Welker questioned Trump on his war with Iran, his “anti-weaponization” fund and the upcoming midterm elections.

On his nearly $1.8 billion fund aimed at compensating people who say they were wrongly prosecuted, including Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, Trump said “people were destroyed by dirty cops and by weaponization. Many of those people should be compensated.”

He described the people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as people who were “being ushered into the building” by law enforcement.

A federal judge temporarily blocked the fund last month and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said last week the administration would not be moving forward with the fund, which faced bipartisan backlash.

When asked if the administration would pursue other avenues to revive it, Trump said he does not know what will ultimately happen and called Welker and her network “the fake dirty press.”

Despite campaigning on a promise to end foreign wars, Trump denied that he made such statements. He characterized the Iran war, launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28, as necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

When asked about the rising cost of living as a result of the war, specifically gas and fertilizer, Trump chastised Welker.

“Are you ready? Am I allowed to talk? You keep asking questions and you don’t listen to the answers,” he said.

“I love the farmers and the farmers love me,” Trump said, adding that prices will come down after the war.

Welker suggested to her viewers Sunday that she and the president had a cordial conversation Saturday, saying they both “acknowledged the complications” posed by the rain. “He agreed to sit down with me for another ‘Meet the Press’ interview,” she said.

The post Trump explodes at ‘Meet the Press’ host: ‘You’re either crooked or you’re stupid’ appeared first on MS NOW.

Iran said visas were denied to key members of its national soccer team ahead of the World Cup, which a U.S. official insisted was necessary so that Iran does not try to “sneak terrorists into the United States.”

In a post on X, the Iranian embassy in Turkey said “visas were denied to a large portion of the managerial and executive staff, technical advisers, and others” on its team.

“You have now escalated the deliberate and discriminatory treatment against Iran’s national football team to its highest level,” the embassy said, accusing the U.S. of the “worst possible form of politically biased interference in sport” and “depriving Iran’s national team of its right to play in the World Cup under normal conditions.”

Iranian officials are accusing the U.S. government of violating FIFA regulations and breaching its obligations as one of the host countries of what is widely regarded to be the biggest sporting event in the world. The diplomatic standoff between the two countries comes just days before the World Cup is set to kick off and more than three months after the U.S. and Israel waged war against Iran.

A Trump administration official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the subject told MS NOW in a statement that the visas “necessary for Iran to compete in the World Cup, including for athletes and necessary support staff, have been issued.”

The official added, however, “We will not allow the Iranian team to abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretenses.”

The statement from the Iranian Embassy in Turkey came in response to a post on X by U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack praising embassy staff for processing visas for the Iranian national team.

According to The Associated Press, some of the team’s officials have not received visas to enter the U.S., which is co-hosting the World Cup with Mexico and Canada. Games are set to begin Thursday.

Problems with getting U.S. visas had already led Iran to move its World Cup training base from the U.S. to Mexico. But Iran is still listed on the official World Cup schedule to play its first two games in Los Angeles on June 15 against New Zealand, and against Belgium six days later before heading to Seattle to face Egypt. 

The Iran Football Federation’s secretary-general and its vice president were among 14 staff and officials without U.S. visas, AP said, citing Iranian state television. The federation reportedly accused the U.S. of “vindictive behavior.”

Emily Hung contributed to this report.

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The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education recently announced it would freeze enrollment in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, a literacy initiative that offers one free book per month for children from birth until five years old. More than 20 states provide full or partial funding for the program, which claims to have donated over 300 million books to kids in the U.S. and elsewhere. The beneficiaries includes 170,000 Missouri children, but the state’s Republican-dominated legislature decided to cut the program’s funding from $6 million to $2 million.

As a teacher and author for children, I know the consequences of these cuts are all too clear. I have witnessed firsthand what it looks like when children do not have access to books. Such a drastic cut to such an important service is more of the same as far as this country’s continued acts of political and economic violence against its own citizens.

The impact of access to books is also a symbolic one.

From literacy advocates to the American Association of Pediatrics to even the current U.S. government, everyone agrees that early childhood literacy is critical. According to Take Action For Libraries, a nonprofit political action committee, early access to books paves the way for a lifetime of learning, with more books in the home potentially leading to higher educational attainment.

The impact of access to books is also a symbolic one. I grew up in a working-class household and could feel, at a young age, that my family’s socioeconomic status did not measure up to that of many of my peers. We lived in a small walk-up apartment in Brooklyn; we spent most weeks surviving paycheck to paycheck. While many of my classmates and friends were in similar (or worse) positions, others enjoyed vacation homes, their parents’ new cars, and all manner of resources not available to the rest of us. Those kids could afford educational and enrichment opportunities. We had to hope and pray for many of the same chances — or settle for free alternative, if there were any.

But while my family did not have much, we did have books. Though my parents read little, they made sure the bedroom I shared with my sister was stocked with stories. We often devoured several books a week, having to resort to rereading them if we finished them before our next trip to bookstores or libraries (another institution currently under attack). Had Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library been available in the 1980s, there is no doubt my parents would have taken advantage of this program. And while families of any income can participate in Parton’s initiative, as with any universal social program those with the least will suffer from cuts the most.

It is a certain kind of person who sees early and easy access to books as a bad thing. Part of my role in schools involves visiting classrooms for teaching observations. I will never forget one school I was assigned to observe in rural Wisconsin. I sat at the teacher’s desk as he picked up the autobiography of Pakastani activist Malala Yousafzai. I expected each student to grab their own class copy so that that they could read along with him—so that they could huddle over the book at their desks, feeling its pages and connecting with the words in ways that every reader understands.

Some children had their own copies, likely furnished by their parents. But most did not. Instead, the teacher read his one copy aloud, while those without a book stared at each other, kicked each other under their desks, doodled in their notebooks, picked at their fingers, and participated in any other distraction they could think of – all because they simply could not see the words on the page.

Teachers (and our wallets) can only do so much – we are not magicians.

To be clear, that teacher was one of the most effective and engaging teachers I have ever known; he did the best he could with what he had available. I later learned that his school district did not offer its schools a budget for class sets of books. But to this day, I wonder what sort of opportunities those kids were given to develop a love of reading (if any).

Teachers (and our wallets) can only do so much – we are not magicians. To read books, children need access to them – the same type of access that Missouri is poised to take away from its own communities, and the effects can be observed in all corners of schooling.

The state’s decision comes at a perilous time for children’s literacy. According to the National Assessment for Educational Progress, also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” reading scores for high school seniors fell to their lowest since 1992. Surveys have found that high school students are assigned fewer and fewer books to read. Children are reading, and especially for fun, less than ever. And schools’ overreliance on technology is likely to be exacerbated by the looming disaster that is AI.

Through no fault of their own, our children, our books, are in crisis. Free book programs should be considered a necessary component to all communities – like clean water and sanitation. Instead, Missouri’s decision to cut a beloved free book program, and any other state that follows suit, is only contributing to the challenges we currently face.

As a writer for children, I often visit schools to talk with kids about the importance of reading: “No one can take away your ability to read books,” I often say. What I don’t tell them is that there are so many groups, from politicians to legislators to self-proclaimed “parents’ rights” groups who are trying to do exactly that. If students become readers, they will know exactly what these people are trying to take away from them: Their ability to navigate the world as socially literate, informed, and empathetic citizens. Books, and access to them, is one of the few aspects of childhood that holds the potential to feel fair and equal. Is it any wonder that those currently in power wish to do away with it?

The post Missouri Republicans are taking an ax to Dolly Parton’s signature initiative appeared first on MS NOW.

Going into November’s midterm elections, Democrats have put together a strong message that the prices of food, gas, healthcare, housing and utilities are too high and that Americans need to elect members of the party who take their financial struggles seriously. And that message has been working. Since President Donald Trump was elected in 2024 and embarked upon a term that has unsettled even those of us who were expecting the worst, Democrats have consistently overperformed in special and off-year elections.

Just ask Mikie Sherill and Abigail Spanberger, the recently elected Democratic governors of New Jersey and Virginia, respectively. An April Fox News poll showed Democrats edging Republicans 52% to 48% on which party would better handle the economy. That was the first time Democrats have had an advantage on that question in 16 years.

Democrats may be walking blindly into a buzzsaw and risking giving away the advantage they have established over Republicans.

Given the party’s edge on this important metric, unless Democrats suffer a significant reversal in public opinion over the next five months, they should be considered likely to take control of the House after nearly four years in the minority. But preserving the party’s momentum rests on persuading voters that Democrats will take seriously the issue of affordability for everyday Americans. Our future success, including our hopes to reclaim the White House in 2028, will depend on us showing that we won’t just promise, but we will deliver.

But on one important issue, I fear Democrats may be walking blindly into a buzzsaw and risking giving away the advantage they have established over Republicans on who cares more about working Americans. The issue is the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guarantees Americans that their bank accounts are insured up to $250,000. Some Democrats have bought into the idea that there needs to be a dramatic expansion of those federal banking insurance subsidies, and they are joining Republican supporters of the industry’s push. The legislation was introduced by Sens. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., and Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., and currently it is being debated in the Senate Banking Committee. The bill, which would expand federally-backed deposit insurance guarantees for business transaction accounts from the $250,000 cap to as much as $5 million, is being sold as protection for “Main Street.”

But that’s far from the truth. More than 99% of Americans’ bank accounts are already fully covered by the FDIC’s $250,000 cap. It’s been quite some time since a good survey was done, but in 2016, JPMorgan Chase reported that the median small business held an average daily cash balance of just $12,100. There is little in the legislation, then, for most small business owners.

Indeed, the biggest beneficiaries of this legislation would be large corporations with treasury departments that are staffed to manage cash positions of this size. Those corporations already have plenty of options today to insure their accounts and to pay for those options themselves. Under this bill, they would instead get coverage backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

That is to say, those corporations would get coverage backed by you, by me and by every other American taxpayer. The legislation was also written to benefit all but a handful of the largest banks in the country, including more than a dozen with more than $100 billion in assets each.

We lose when the party is seen as too cozy with Wall Street and other wealthy supporters.

By guaranteeing deposits at such a scale, the federal government would be stripping banks and large depositors of any incentive to manage risk, thus recreating the “moral hazard” that helped drive the savings and loan crisis that cost taxpayers more than $120 billion. That crisis followed the 1980 deposit insurance coverage hike. This bill would subsidize wealthy depositors and banks by socializing the risk of the next bailout onto every American taxpayer. 

The above is the economic argument against this bill. Now let me give you the political argument. Democrats win when we deliver our economic and affordability message. We lose when the party is seen as too cozy with Wall Street and other wealthy supporters. That perception of doing the bidding of the banks and not Americans struggling to make ends meet should make Democrats think twice about this legislation.

After all, voters never forget a bank bailout. The political damage of 2008 still reverberates today. The view that Democrats, who controlled Congress, were willing to rescue Wall Street while Main Street drowned was a generational wound.  The Democrats’ perception as being most concerned  about corporations helped fuel the tea party, the shellacking that was the 2010 midterms and a decade of lost ground on economic credibility.

We see from the elections Democrats have won since 2024 that middle-class Americans are trusting us to make their lives more affordable. Voting to put those same Americans on the hook for the next bank bailout would be a horrible way to repay that trust.

Democrats must not risk hurting their winning message on the economy by passing a giveaway for banking lobbyists and their wealthy clients.

The post Democrats can maintain their lead over Republicans on the economy if they don’t make this disastrous mistake appeared first on MS NOW.

A group of three families, on behalf of their transgender children, and two transgender young adults, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in New York seeking to block a subpoena from the Justice Department for NYU Langone to release their medical records and other personal information to the government. The filing is only the most recent in a slate of lawsuits led by trans kids and their families across the country, from Maryland to California. 

The timing of these lawsuits is notable as they come in and around Pride Month, a period intended for the celebration of queerness and to honor hard-won battles for social and legal acceptance. Instead, trans children, and their families, are living in fear and using time, energy and resources to protect themselves from the state for the perceived transgression of merely existing.

The timing of these lawsuits is notable as they come in and around Pride Month, a period intended for the celebration of queerness and to honor hard-won battles for social and legal acceptance.

The government’s objective in its subpoena, which bids hospital representatives to appear in court before a grand jury in June and present documents “sufficient to identify each patient” who as a minor received gender-confirming care of any kind dating back to 2020,  appears to be twofold: to deny healthcare to trans kids, by, among other things, citing billing to insurance companies as “fraudulent”; and to intimidate healthcare providers from providing gender-confirming care to transgender patients at all.

This tactic appears to be working as trans healthcare centers and clinics around the country shutter, making care increasingly hard to access. “In addition to concerns about how the government might use private health information, parents said they fear that their children’s records will be held up as part of an investigation that ultimately aims to deny them medical treatment,” The New York Times reported Tuesday.

While the DOJ told the Times that it does not respond to requests for comment on grand jury subpoenas or activities, the Times also reported that “[t]he government has said it is acting on the behalf of patients and families as it investigates whether health providers and drug companies have illegally promoted off-label use of medications or used fraudulent billing practices to secure insurance coverage for gender-related treatments to minors.”

The DOJ has based its investigations into gender-confirming care for trans youth in the Northern District of Texas, which is home court for a notoriously reactionary and partisan chief district judge, Reed O’Connor, and therefore “a venue favored by conservatives,” Reuters explains. In the past, O’Connor has taken initiatives to quash legal recourse for the subjects of his rulings, such as Rhode Island Hospital, which has been treating trans minors. “He…issued an injunction claiming to prohibit the hospital from seeking relief in the federal courts that oversee Rhode Island under threat of contempt. And he barred the hospital from ‘aiding and abetting’ any other party that might ask for help from these courts, including the children whose rights will be trampled by disclosure of their records,” Slate reported in May. 

In basing its investigation in the Northern District of Texas, the department can file requests for subpoenas — for medical records and private patient information in other states — in O’Connor’s court. This, as Slate reporting describes, is part of the DOJ’s wider attempt at “forum shopping key cases to MAGA judges across the country who are much more likely to reward underhanded tactics.” It’s a breach of the sanctity of state laws, variations of which have been an important part of this country’s legal framework.

The Justice Department has made the case that part of its investigation involves looking at trans healthcare providers’ use of off-label drugs, arguing this could be either fraudulent or illegal. Yet as the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality explains, off-label use is both “legal and common.” (For instance, Trazodone, while originally intended to treat depression, is often prescribed for other conditions, such as insomnia, bulimia, alcohol dependence or diabetic neuropathy.)

This is all to say that this administration is not just failing to take care of our most vulnerable populations, but it is actively targeting them. The fact that vulnerable children and their families are compelled to sue the federal government in an effort to have their constitutional rights honored says everything we need to know about this current political landscape. 

“Every week there’s something new,” one teenager targeted in the Rhode Island Hospital case, who was only identified by their first initial because their family has faced harassment and threats in the past, told WBUR. “One week, they try to ban care. Another week, you find out that they want to know your personal information.”

It is the job of any well-functioning democracy to protect children and other vulnerable groups. As a trans man, navigating the progressively hostile and reactionary medical, political and legal landscapes demands an enormous amount of energy, not to mention it produces a great deal of fear and anxiety — and I am in my 40s. I cannot imagine how much this state targeting of trans youth is derailing the lives of children who want and deserve nothing more than to simply be kids. 

The post Kids should be allowed to just be kids. This Pride Month, that’s getting harder. appeared first on MS NOW.

This is an adapted excerpt from the May 31 episode of “Velshi.”

Just search “utility companies” under news, and you’ll find a familiar story playing out across the country: report after report of skyrocketing electric bills and mounting public anger with service providers. Out-of-control utility bills have become another aspect of the country’s affordability crisis, driven by an industry operating with too little accountability.

Retail electricity prices rose 7% in 2025 alone, part of a nearly 40% rise since 2021, which makes it the fastest period of electricity price growth on record. The average household’s monthly electric bill has climbed from roughly $121 in 2021 to $156 today, marking a nearly 30% increase that outpaces inflation.

In the words of the American Economic Liberties Project’s Matt Stoller: “Where’s all the f&$*#ing money going?”

Meanwhile, utility companies continue to ask regulators to let them charge even more money. In just the first three months of this year, utility companies sought approval for $9.4 billion in rate increases. That follows a record-setting 2025, when they requested $31 billion, more than double what they sought the year before.

According to the consumer advocacy group Powerlines, “Today, nearly 80 million Americans are struggling to pay their utility bills, forgoing basic expenses like food, education, and health care to keep their lights on.”

In the words of the American Economic Liberties Project’s Matt Stoller: “Where’s all the f&$*#ing money going?”

For their part, the utility companies will point to extreme weather, aging infrastructure, the transition to cleaner energy and now the enormous power demands of data centers. And while that is real, it doesn’t add up — and it hasn’t for years. We have been paying more for years.

The government has increased spending on the U.S. transmission system fivefold over the past two decades. But if all that money were actually fixing the grid, why do we keep hearing the grid is unreliable? Why do we keep hearing we need even more?

The answer lies in the utility business model, the part most people never hear about. Most people assume utilities work like ordinary businesses. They don’t. A regulated utility does not primarily make money by selling you electricity at a markup. Nearly every dollar it spends on operating costs is ultimately recovered from customers through rates approved by government regulators.

The real profits come from something else: capital investment.

When a utility builds a power plant, transmission line, substation or other major piece of infrastructure, regulators allow it to recover those costs from customers over decades.

On top of that, the utility earns a guaranteed return on the money it invested. And that return is not trivial; for most investor-owned utilities, it falls somewhere between 9.5% and 11%. Compare that with what you earn in a high-yield savings account today, which is around 4% if you’re lucky.

According to the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group that calls for greater accountability in the utility sector, investor-owned utilities pocketed $244 billion in profit off customers from 2021 through 2024.

Here’s the breakdown of those costs, according to the group’s executive director: “If a customer has a $200 electric bill, something on the order of $30 isn’t paying for electric poles, or wires, or power plants. It’s paying a wealth transfer to Wall Street and the company’s executives.”

Now, it should be noted, this is an analysis that industry groups dispute. But consider the incentives that kind of business model creates. If you’re guaranteed a premium on every dollar you spend, what’s your next move? It is likely not fixing the grid or upgrading aging facilities; it’s spending more dollars.

Build more projects, deploy more capital. Whether those projects are the most efficient solution or even strictly necessary becomes a secondary concern.

That helps explain one of the strangest features of America’s electricity system. As Stoller puts it, utilities are “truly paid to fritter away money, to gold-plate and waste.” And, if that’s not bad enough, in some states these same utilities can spend your money on political activities.

According to the Energy and Policy Institute, in states where laws prohibit utilities from charging customers for political spending, consumers are saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Meanwhile, you, the average customer, are sitting around believing that paying more will lead to a better grid. That is the implicit bargain behind every rate increase. Customers are told that higher bills today will lead to a more reliable system tomorrow. Yet the opposite complaint seems to be growing louder every year.

The federal organizations responsible for monitoring the nation’s electric system have repeatedly warned that large portions of the country face increasing blackout risks as power demand grows and existing infrastructure ages.

Ultimately, the problem is that the system rewards spending itself: A utility that finds a cheaper solution earns less, and a utility that spends billions building — not fixing — infrastructure earns more.

As Stoller puts it, “They are willing to waste $1,000 to send an extra $60 to shareholders.”

Many experts argue that one of the most effective ways to lower costs and improve reliability would be to build more high-voltage transmission lines connecting different regions of the country.

Think of the electric grid as a national marketplace. Some regions have abundant, inexpensive electricity.  The Great Plains, for example, have some of the world’s best wind resources. The Southwest has enormous solar potential. Other regions, particularly dense population centers in the Northeast and parts of the Midwest, often face higher electricity costs and tighter supply constraints.

The obvious solution is to move more power between these regions. Done correctly, these projects can lower costs, improve reliability and make the entire system more resilient.

But that requires coordination. Large interstate transmission projects involve multiple states and multiple regulators, more oversight. And crucially, they don’t fit as neatly into the business model that rewards individual utilities for expanding their own assets.

As a result, utilities favor smaller local projects that are easier to approve, easier to build and guaranteed to generate shareholder returns.

Other countries have moved far more aggressively to build long-distance infrastructure capable of moving power across vast regions. Look at China, which has built more than 8,200 miles of high-voltage transmission lines in recent years. The U.S. has built a mere 375.

At this point, you may be wondering: Where are the regulators? After all, utilities don’t operate in a free market. Customers can’t simply switch providers when rates rise.

The entire justification for granting utilities monopoly status is that government regulators are supposed to act on behalf of the public. In theory, that’s the safeguard. In the real world, that has become part of the problem.

Consider a recent example in Pennsylvania. When the Pennsylvania utility PECO — a subsidiary of Exelon, the largest utility in the country — recently asked for a return of nearly 11%, far above the national average, it took the governor publicly shaming them to get it withdrawn.

Customers are told that higher bills today will lead to a more reliable system tomorrow. Yet the opposite complaint seems to be growing louder every year.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro called PECO’s proposed rate hike “pure greed.” In response, PECO said in a statement that the company “shares Governor Shapiro’s concerns about affordability and remains focused on keeping customer bills as low as possible while continuing to invest in safe and reliable service.”

The rising costs led Shapiro to launch a new watchdog to scrutinize utility profits.

But critics argue that many of the state commissions that are supposed to oversee these utilities have been effectively captured. The revolving door between regulators and utility companies means that today’s watchdog can become tomorrow’s utility executive, and vice versa.

At the same time, utility companies are often permitted to contribute money to the campaigns of officials involved in overseeing them. The result is regulatory capture, with the system increasingly serving the interests of the companies rather than the ratepayers it was designed to protect.

That’s why the industry’s response to virtually every challenge sounds so familiar. Need to strengthen the grid against storms? More spending. Need to accommodate renewable energy? More spending. Need to support artificial intelligence data centers? More spending. Need to improve reliability? More spending. And systems rarely reform themselves when the people involved are benefiting from the status quo.

Most Americans don’t understand the mechanics of rate bases, transmission planning or regulatory capture. They don’t need to. What they understand is that their bills keep rising. They understand that every year seems to bring a new explanation for why prices have to go up again.

For much of the 20th century, utilities were largely run by engineers. Their mission was straightforward: keep the lights on. Today, the system is run by financial engineers focused on returns on their investments.

Allison Detzel contributed.

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Gunfire erupted Saturday near a busy street festival in Ohio, wounding at least 12 people and sending some eventgoers scrambling for cover while others rushed to help the victims.

No suspects were in custody hours afterward, Toledo Deputy Police Chief Joe Heffernan said, and officials urged people who were at the festival to come forward with any photos or videos on their phones for possible leads.

The shooting happened near the Old West End Festival, an annual gathering of live music and home tours.

Heffernan said it appeared that at least two people fired weapons and they were “probably shooting at each other.”

Two of the victims were in critical condition, Heffernan added. The ages of the victims ranged from 14 to 61, with most of them in their early 20s.

“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Toledo tonight,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement. “Summer festivals should be safe spaces for families to spend time together without fear of violence.”

Multiple videos posted to social media showed people running amid the sound of gunshots and emergency officials tending to others who appeared wounded.

Fire Chief Allison Armstrong said it was difficult to get to the hospital due to closed roads and traffic from people leaving the festival, but emergency responders were able to transport all patients from the scene within an hour.

Kevin Berry was sitting in the neighborhood arboretum listening to live music with friends when he heard a handful of gunshots ring out.

“Everybody hit the deck,” he said.

When Berry looked back up, he saw a gun being tossed to the ground less than 50 feet (15 meters) away from him. Officers who were already on site for the festival responded immediately.

Berry, who has medical training and served in the Navy, walked around looking for anyone who might need help and saw at least five people with gunshot wounds.

“The folks who were hit were spread out around the arboretum area,” he said.

The Old West End Festival is a two-day celebration in Toledo’s historic district that includes live music, food vendors, home tours and shopping. Berry described it as the “kick-off to Toledo’s summer festival season.”

George Kral, safety director for the city, said officials were discussing with organizers whether it would continue through the weekend.

“This is one of the most iconic festivals in Toledo,” he said, “and it’s a shame that something like this had to ruin it.”

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A shooting near a community festival in Toledo, Ohio, wounded at least 12 people, and police said a search for the suspects was ongoing following an outbreak of gunfire that sent crowds scrambling for cover.

Two of the wounded were in critical condition, Toledo Deputy Police Chief Joe Heffernan said. He said it appeared there were at least two people firing weapons who were “probably shooting at each other.”

The Toledo Police Department said the shooting happened near the Old West End Festival, an annual gathering of live music and home tours in a historic district of the city.

The department said an active search was underway for those responsible.

“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Toledo tonight. Summer festivals should be safe spaces for families to spend time together without fear of violence,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement.

Multiple videos posted to social media showed people running over the sound of gunshots and emergency officials tending to others who appeared wounded.

Kevin Berry said he was sitting in the neighborhood arboretum listening to live music with his friends when he heard a handful of gunshots ring out.

“Everybody hit the deck,” he said.

When he looked back up, he saw a gun being tossed to the ground less than 50 feet (15 meters) away from him. Police officers who were already on-site for the festival immediately responded to the scene.

Berry, who has medical training and served in the U.S. Navy, said he walked around the area looking for potential victims who might need help.

He said he saw at least five people with gunshot wounds.

“The folks who were hit were spread out around the arboretum area,” he said.

The Old West End Festival is a two-day celebration in Toledo’s historic district that includes live music, food vendors, home tours and shopping.

Berry described it as the “kick-off to Toledo’s summer festival season.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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