Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
Trump calls a bipartisan housing bill “a yawn” and won’t sign it unless Congress first passes stricter voter ID rules. The same DOGE engineers who allegedly exposed millions of Americans’ Social Security data are now quietly running federal websites for passports and voter registration. ICE arrested a Texas nun in her habit as she walked to Mass a few miles from the border. And four states are blocking the largest tribal water settlement in U.S. history.
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Now, let’s go.
Trump on Affordable Housing: ‘It’s a Yawn’
Trump has been putting in the work to make the midterms as difficult as possible for his own party.
The president spent Monday hemming and hawing over whether he’ll sign a popular bipartisan measure meant to lower housing costs nationwide. “It’s a yawn,” he said of the bill his own party is begging him to pass on the eve of a tough midterm.
Trump has been sabotaging the bill since Wednesday, when he abruptly pulled out of a signing ceremony set up for him on Capitol Hill. He issued an ultimatum instead: he’ll sign the housing bill only if Congress first passes the SAVE America Act, which would impose stricter voter ID rules and crack down on mail voting.
Speaker Mike Johnson said he still plans to send the housing bill over. Trump said Monday he hadn’t received it yet, and wasn’t sure he’d sign it once he did. “I think it’s so unimportant,” he said.
“It’s a yawn” joins a growing collection of remarks giving Republicans heartburn before the midterms, alongside “I don’t care about the midterms,” “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” and “I love the inflation.”
Trump has demanded Senate Republicans change the filibuster rules to pass SAVE America. He has also admitted it probably won’t happen because four or five Republican senators won’t vote for it.
DOGE Goons Are Secretly Running Government Websites
The Department of Government Efficiency may be officially dead, but its staff have been quietly rebuilding sensitive federal websites in ways that may break the law.
The agency is called the National Design Studio, established by executive order last August and stocked with former DOGE employees. It operates four federal websites covering passport applications, prescription drugs, children’s savings accounts, and voter registration.
Until The Guardian contacted them, all four ran visitor-tracking software configured to evade traditional privacy tools. They still don’t have the public filings federal privacy law requires.
NDS’s spending isn’t listed on the federal contract database. Its passport site bypasses the State Department’s own, and it has built a copy of vote.gov. In other words, sensitive information about Americans now routes through a system the White House apparently controls, with no oversight.
The agency is led by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, who spent six months at DOGE himself. At least two other DOGE alumni work with him, including original DOGE engineer Akash Bobba. Photos and a video on the NDS website also appear to show Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, the young DOGE staffer who allegedly exposed millions of Americans’ Social Security data.
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ICE Arrested a Nun on Her Way to Mass
The party of religious freedom arrested a nun on her way to church.
Sister Leticia Ugboaja was on her way to Our Lady of Sorrows Church in McAllen, Texas, dressed in her habit, when ICE officers detained her on Sunday.
She was a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. She volunteered as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. She is also a registered nurse at South Texas Health System, and worked for ten years as a certified nursing assistant before that.
Parish officials posted about the arrest on social media. The post gained traction, and members of Congress representing South Texas, including Republican Rep. Monica de la Cruz, intervened with federal officials on her behalf.
By Monday, Ugboaja was back home. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have not responded to requests for comment since Sunday.
Trump’s immigration crackdown has reached sensitive sites, including houses of worship. Some faith leaders now encourage online attendance. Others run grocery errands for parishioners too afraid to leave their homes.
Somewhere, a Republican is still very upset about the war on Christmas.
Four States Are Blocking Water for Native Tribes
In 1908, the Supreme Court said tribes get water. It’s 2026 and four states would like to discuss that further.
The Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act is the largest tribal water rights settlement in U.S. history. It would resolve the biggest outstanding claim on the river and provide about $5 billion in federal funding to build the pipes, pumps, and treatment plants the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and San Juan Southern Paiute need.
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming are resisting. Their objection: the settlement lets the Navajo and Hopi lease water outside their reservations, almost certainly to growing towns near Phoenix. They fear the precedent, so they have stalled.
The tribes made major concessions on volume and lease length. They offered to leave some water in a drought-depleted reservoir to keep levels high downstream. The Upper Basin has not wavered.
A third of homes on the affected reservations lack running water. Marilyn Tewa is 83 and serves on the Hopi Tribal Council, where her duties include working on this very agreement. Her own village of Mishongnovi has no indoor plumbing.
Every other day she loads 5-gallon buckets into her pickup and drives five miles to a windmill built for livestock, which draws untreated water from underground. “That’s what keeps us alive,” she said.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Trump’s Name Comes Down at the Kennedy Center, and the Jokes Go Up. Comedian Whitney Cummings opened Sunday night’s Mark Twain Prize ceremony honoring Bill Maher with a joke about Trump’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, saying the president couldn’t make it because “he got caught in sex traffic.” The gala was the first major event at the Kennedy Center since U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper struck down Trump’s attempt to rename it after himself, ruling in a 94-page decision that “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.” A white tarp still covered the spot where workers had removed Trump’s lettering from the facade.
Nursing Wins Its ‘Professional’ Loan Label Back After a Federal Ruling. Graduate students in nursing, physical therapy, and several other fields will now be eligible for higher federal student loans after U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell blocked part of a Trump administration rule that had excluded them. The Education Department issued a revised rule Monday, taking effect Wednesday, that expands the “professional” list to 29 specific programs, including master of science in nursing and doctor of nurse anesthesia practice. In strictly applying the order, the department also dropped theology to non-professional status. So, future pastors lost the higher cap while nurses gained it.
Mamdani Refuses to Enforce the SCOTUS Ruling Stripping TPS From Haitians and Syrians. After the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling that courts can’t review the Trump administration’s removal of temporary protected status for more than 6,000 Syrians and 350,000 Haitians, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani rallied with Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James, telling TPS holders, “New York City is your home. You belong here.” Roughly 115,000 Haitians and nearly 12,000 Syrians live in the city, with TPS in place since 2010 and 2012, respectively. Mamdani has strengthened the city’s sanctuary rules since January, barring ICE from schools, shelters, and hospitals without a judicial warrant.
Texas Engineers Build a Jacket That Pulls Drinking Water From Thin Air. A team of University of Texas engineers has developed a wearable jacket that converts water vapor from the air into drinking water using hydrogel material and solar energy. The technology, called AirGel and detailed in a Science Advances report, produced about 14 to 30 ounces of water depending on humidity. The fabric absorbs moisture, then releases it when heated by sunlight so the water can be condensed and collected. Researchers see uses for soldiers, emergency responders, and disaster relief, noting water scarcity threatens two-thirds of the global population.
