Thursday, October 30, 2025
■ Today's Top News
"This is a reckless directive from Trump that will only make the country and the world less safe and lead to a terrible new nuclear arms race," Markey said.
By Brad Reed
President Donald Trump’s surprise order to resume nuclear weapons testing has set off concerns about a potential global arms race, but one Democratic senator is working to stop it from happening.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) on Thursday introduced emergency legislation to prevent the president from resuming nuclear weapons tests, which experts have warned could undermine global geopolitical stability as more nations could respond by ramping up weapons tests of their own.
The text of Markey’s bill is just two pages and it states that “none of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available for fiscal year 2026, or authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available for any fiscal year before fiscal year 2026, and available for obligation as of the date of the enactment of this act, may be obligated or expended to conduct or make preparations for any explosive nuclear weapons test that produces any yield.”
In a statement promoting the bill, Markey warned that restarting nuclear weapons tests would be “a mistake of radioactive proportions,” which Congress should intervene to block.
“The United States has not conducted a nuclear test since 1992, and there is absolutely no need to resume,” Markey said. “A Trumpatomics plan would provoke Russia and China to resume nuclear testing, and China in particular has much more to gain from this than does the United States. This is a reckless directive from Trump that will only make the country and the world less safe and lead to a terrible new nuclear arms race.”
Markey, who co-chairs the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, also urged the US Senate to finally ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was first adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996 and which has been ratified by 178 other nations.
The UK-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) on Thursday put out a statement condemning Trump’s weapons testing announcement, which it described as “a wake-up call that the threat of nuclear war is real and accelerating.”
The organization also pointed out that resuming nuclear tests was not the only way that the US under the leadership of both Trump and former President Joe Biden is increasing the risks of nuclear war. Among other things, CND pointed to risks posed by the “Golden Dome” missile shield being pushed by Trump, as well as the AUKUS Agreement signed during Biden’s tenure that gives Australia access to nuclear-powered submarines.
CND general secretary Sophie Bol warned of the dire consequences of a global nuclear arms race and said “it is absolutely critical that we rachet up the political pressure to make these world leaders—including the British government—step back from this nuclear escalation.”
In an editorial published by Common Dreams on Thursday, Pavel Devyatkin, nonresident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, argued that the resumption of nuclear weapons tests “marks a dangerous turning point in international security.”
In particular, Devyatkin argued that resuming such tests would imperil chances of extending the nuclear arms treaty between the US and Russia that has been in effect since 2011.
“The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the last agreement limiting US and Russian nuclear weapons, expires in February 2026,” he explained. “For over a decade, New START has kept a cap on deployed warheads and compelled both sides to transparency through data exchanges and inspections. If this agreement expires, there would be no binding limits on the two countries’ nuclear arsenals.”
DOES HEALTHCARE BELONG IN POLITICS?
One advocate said the proposed rule would force hospitals "to choose between providing lifesaving care for trans people or maintaining the ability to serve patients through Medicare and Medicaid."
By Stephen Prager
A pair of extreme new Trump administration rules aimed at functionally banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth could force even more hospitals to close down.
NPR reported Thursday that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) drafted a proposed rule that would prohibit federal Medicaid reimbursement for medical care provided to transgender patients younger than 18 and prohibit the same from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for patients under 19.
Another proposed rule goes even further, blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding to hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to youth.
As Erin Reed, an independent journalist who reports on LGBTQ+ rights, explained, this “would effectively eliminate access to such care nationwide, except at the few private clinics able to forgo Medicaid entirely, a rarity in transgender youth medicine.”
The policies are of a piece with the Trump administration and the broader Republican Party’s efforts to eliminate transgender healthcare for youth across the country.
Bans on gender-affirming care for those under 18 have already been passed in 27 states, despite evidence that early access to treatments like puberty blockers and hormones can save lives.
As Reed pointed out, a Cornell University review of more than 51 studies shows that access to such care dramatically reduces the risk of suicide and the rates of anxiety and depression among transgender adolescents.
The new HHS rules are being prepared for public release in November and would not be finalized for several more months.
But if passed, the ramifications could extend far beyond transgender people, impacting the entire healthcare system, for which federal funding from Medicare and Medicaid is a load-bearing piece. According to a report last year from the American Hospital Association, 96% of hospitals in the US have more than half their inpatient days paid for by Medicare and Medicaid.
It is already becoming apparent what happens when even some of that funding is taken away. As a result of the massive GOP budget law passed in July, an estimated $1 trillion is expected to be cut from Medicaid over the next decade. According to an analysis released Thursday by Protect Our Care, which maintains a Hospital Crisis Watch database, more than 500 healthcare providers across the country are already at risk of shutting down due to the budget cuts.
Tyler Hack, the executive director of the Christopher Street Project, a transgender rights organization, said that the newly proposed HHS rule would be “forcing hospitals to choose between providing lifesaving care for trans people or maintaining the ability to serve patients through Medicare and Medicaid.”
“Today’s news marks a dangerous overreach by the executive branch, pitting trans people, low-income families, disabled people, and seniors against each other and making hospitals choose which vulnerable populations to serve,” Hack said. “If these rules become law, it will kill people.”
"Bisignano is in charge of the American people’s hard-earned Social Security benefits, as well as the collection of our taxes," said one advocate. "If he engaged in wrongdoing, the people need to know."
By Julia Conley
The new CEO of the financial services technology company Fiserv said Wednesday that the firm’s financial outlook was grim, sending its stock collapsing by more than 40% and erasing $30 billion in market value—and laid the blame squarely with a Trump administration appointee whom the president has praised as “amazing.”
When nominating former Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano as Social Security administrator earlier this year, President Donald Trump said the executive frequently “takes troubled entities and turns them around.”
With current Fiserv chief Mike Lyons warning on Wednesday that Bisignano had made major missteps as CEO, overinflating its sales projections and relying on short-term cost-cutting before selling his stock for $500 million, the advocacy group Social Security Works said beneficiaries of the government’s anti-poverty program for senior citizens should be alarmed that the former executive is now in charge of their crucial benefits.
“Fiserv lost 40% of its value because the former CEO, Frank Bisignano, is a liar,” said SSW. “But Bisignano is Trump’s buddy, so he can only fail up. He’s now in charge of your Social Security.”
Lyons told analysts and investors that when Bisignano was leading Fiserv from 2020 until earlier this year, the company made sales projections that “would have been objectively difficult to achieve even with the right investment and strong execution.”
He added that Bisignano made “decisions to defer certain investments and cut certain costs [which] improved margins in the short term but are now limiting our ability to serve clients in a world-class way, execute product launches to our standards and grow revenue to our full potential.”
Translating Lyons’ comment, Brett Arends wrote at MarketWatch that “under Bisignano, the company made forecasts it could not plausibly have achieved” and that the former CEO “was chasing short-term quarterly results, not building the business.”
“Did Bisignano know that Fiserv’s stock was about to tank, and ask his friend Donald Trump for a life raft?”
Lyons broke the news to investors weeks after a police pension fund sued Fiserv and Bisignano, as well as the new CEO, for “artificially inflating [Fiserv’s] growth numbers.”
But along with causing his former company’s value to plummet, emphasized SSW president Nancy Altman on Thursday, Bisignano personally benefited from overestimating his firm’s performance—selling more than three million shares after he was appointed Social Security administrator for at least $500 million.
“That sale saved him $300 million (and counting) in stock value,” said Altman. “Did Bisignano know that Fiserv’s stock was about to tank, and ask his friend Donald Trump for a life raft?”
Altman demanded that Bisignano “resign immediately” from his roles at the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, where he was also named the first-ever CEO earlier this month.
“Bisignano is in charge of the American people’s hard-earned Social Security benefits, as well as the collection of our taxes—despite his total lack of expertise, or even basic knowledge, of either,” said Altman. “He infamously admitted that he had to Google ‘Social Security’ when Trump offered him the job. If he engaged in wrongdoing, the people need to know.”
Altman called on the US Department of Justice and Congress to launch “immediate” investigations into Bisignano’s conduct as CEO of Fiserv, but noted that with Republican allies of Trump running the government, the former executive is unlikely to be held accountable.“
“The only recourse,” said Altman, “is for Democrats to win control of Congress and make investigating Bisignano a top priority.”
PENNSYLVANIA SENATOR JOHN FETTERMAN NEEDS TO GO!
"This vote will authorize the fossil fuel industry's continued destruction of habitat and landscapes that are critical for wildlife to survive."
By Jake Johnson
The Republican-controlled US Senate voted Thursday to scrap a Biden-era policy that protected millions of acres in the Alaskan Arctic from fossil fuel drilling, even as the government shutdown continued with no end in sight.
The final vote on the resolution, led by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), was 52-45, almost entirely along party lines. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was the only Democrat to join Republicans in voting for the measure, which aims to use the Congressional Review Act to revoke a 2022 Biden administration decision protecting swaths of the Western Arctic.
The resolution still must pass the House, which is also controlled by Republicans.
Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, said the vote shows that President Donald Trump and his Republican allies are “exploiting” the prolonged shutdown to “hand over our public lands and wild places to corporate polluters.”
“Donald Trump’s government shutdown has dragged on for nearly five weeks, and what is the top priority for Congressional Republicans? Opening up the western Arctic to oil and gas drilling, not funding services or making sure our military is paid?” said Manuel. “It’s shameful.”
Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations at Defenders of Wildlife, warned that “this vote will authorize the fossil fuel industry’s continued destruction of habitat and landscapes that are critical for wildlife to survive.”
“The Trump administration and its allies in Congress are prioritizing profits for oil executives and billionaires over the basic needs of hardworking Americans.”
The Senate vote comes days after Trump’s Interior Department, led by billionaire drilling enthusiast Doug Burgum, wrenched open all 1.56 million acres of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing.
Trump campaigned on a pledge to accelerate climate-destroying fossil fuel drilling and openly promised oil and gas executives that he would move swiftly to gut regulations in exchange for their financial support in the election.
One estimate released in the wake of the election found that oil and gas interests spent nearly $450 million to boost Trump and Republican candidates and bolster their legislative priorities on Capitol Hill.
Andy Moderow, senior director of policy at the Alaska Wilderness League, said in a statement that Thursday’s vote “is yet another reminder that the Trump administration and its allies in Congress are prioritizing profits for oil executives and billionaires over the basic needs of hardworking Americans.”
While governors provide temporary relief, "people all over the country, particularly rural families who will be the ones disproportionately harmed by Trump's cruel games, are speaking out," noted one petition organizer.
By Jessica Corbett
As the Trump administration refuses to use existing federal funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, governors are stepping up to help the 42 million low-income Americans nationwide who are set to miss their collective $8 billion in monthly SNAP benefits, as long as the US government shutdown over healthcare continues in November.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday declared a state of emergency and committed an additional $65 million in new state funds for food assistance, bringing the total she’s announced in recent days to $106 million.
“The Trump administration is cutting food assistance off for 3 million New Yorkers, leaving our state to face an unprecedented public health crisis and hurting our grocers, bodegas, and farmers along the way,” she said in a statement. “Unlike Washington Republicans, I won’t sit idly by as families struggle to put food on the table.”
While Hochul’s funding for food banks and pantries has won her praise, Citizen Action of NY, Hunger Free America, and VOCAL-NY are calling on her to go even further. They said in a joint statement that “we agree that the federal government is illegally, immorally, and senselessly denying food assistance to 42 million people,” but “the facts don’t support Gov. Hochul’s claim that no state can fund SNAP benefits to their residents.”
“We urge her to use state funds to pay for all or some of November SNAP benefits, just as multiple other states have already done,” the groups said. They noted that Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Democratic Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer “committed to funding SNAP benefits for the entire month of November,” while Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham made a similar commitment for the first 10 days of the month, at which point the state government will revisit the situation.
"Decisions about the use of American military force are not campaign strategy sessions, and they are not the private property of one political party," said Democratic Sen. Mark Warner.
By Jake Johnson
The Trump administration on Wednesday cut Senate Democrats out of a classified briefing on the US military’s string of deadly strikes on boats that the president and his underlings claim—without any publicly disclosed evidence—were smuggling drugs across international waters.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the Trump administration held a “partisan military briefing” with Republican senators on Wednesday and continues to withhold “legally requested information” from Democratic lawmakers.
“Shutting Democrats out of a briefing on US military strikes and withholding the legal justification for those strikes from half the Senate is indefensible and dangerous,” Warner said in a statement. “Decisions about the use of American military force are not campaign strategy sessions, and they are not the private property of one political party.”
“For any administration to treat them that way erodes our national security and flies in the face of Congress’ constitutional obligation to oversee matters of war and peace,” he added.
At Wednesday’s briefing, Trump administration officials reportedly showed Republican senators a classified memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), purportedly detailing the administration’s legal case for the strikes in waters off Central and South America.
Warner said disclosing the memo only to members of the president’s party “is a slap in the face to Congress’ war powers responsibilities” that “sets a reckless and deeply troubling precedent.”
“The administration must immediately provide to Democrats the same briefing and the OLC opinion justifying these strikes, as Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio personally promised me that he would in a face-to-face meeting on Capitol Hill just last week,” said Warner. “Americans deserve a government that fulfills its constitutional duties and treats decisions about the use of military force with the seriousness they demand.”
The existence of the OLC memo has been known for weeks, but the administration has ignored calls for its release and the president has publicly expressed contempt for Congress’ role in authorizing military action.
“I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” Trump, who has said that “we are waging war against” drug cartels, told reporters earlier this month. “I think we are going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We are going to kill them, you know? They are going to be, like, dead.”
“The administration has not even named its victims, nor provided evidence of their alleged crimes.”
So far, the Trump administration has killed more than 60 people with at least 14 strikes on boats in international waters, and the president has said land strikes are “going to be next.”
Administration officials have repeatedly cited unspecified “intelligence” to justify the strikes, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did on Wednesday after the US military bombed a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least four people.
Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International USA’s director for human rights and security, said in a statement Wednesday that “in the last two months, the US military’s Southern Command has gone on a murder spree by following the Trump administration’s illegal orders.”
“The administration has not even named its victims, nor provided evidence of their alleged crimes,” Eviatar said. “But even if they did, intentionally killing people accused of committing crimes who pose no imminent threat to life is murder, full stop.”
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