FBI Raids Voting Rights Group, as ICE Arrests Parents at Preschool

The UFC’s “Octagon Girls” will wear costumes that violate U.S. Flag Code, and autistic children are being injected with cord stem cells

Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

The UFC’s “Octagon Girls” will wear costumes that violate U.S. Flag Code on the White House South Lawn. FBI agents raided an Ohio voting rights group and showed up at organizers’ homes to question them in front of their children. ICE agents pinned a man to the pavement at a Baltimore preschool graduation while children screamed in the backseat of his car. And autistic children as young as 18 months are being injected with umbilical cord stem cells in unproven $20,000 treatments cheered on by the health secretary himself.

Before we get into it: AlterNet America runs on readers, not advertisers, not billionaires, and not a broadcast license anyone in Washington can threaten. Nobody can call our sponsors because we don’t have any. The only thing keeping this newsletter alive is the people who read it and decide it’s worth paying for. If that’s you, become a paid subscriber today.

Now, let’s dive in.

Ring Girls’ Outfits for Trump UFC Fight Breach Flag Code

Nothing says 250 years of American independence quite like a sequined skirt that violates the U.S. Flag Code.

The UFC unveiled its new “Octagon Girls” outfits for “UFC Freedom 250,” a fight night planned for the South Lawn of the White House. The custom red, white, and blue designs feature flag motifs and high-contrast styling that drew comparisons to superhero costumes.

The trouble is the U.S. Flag Code, which states the flag “should never be used as wearing apparel” and that no part of it “should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.” Critics quickly pointed to that guidance. Defenders noted the designs are flag-inspired, not literal flags, and that the Code is advisory etiquette, not enforceable law.

Designer Marina Toybina told Maxim her goal was “to blend strength, athleticism, glamour, and American heritage into a wardrobe language.” Jezebel writer Claire Guinan was less moved, saying that for a spectacle costing $60 million, the outfits “look like they were sourced from a defunct Spirit Halloween.”

The event is scheduled for June 14, which is both Flag Day and Donald Trump’s birthday. In fairness, “etiquette violation” might just be the most American outfit choice of all.

FBI Raids an Ohio Voting Rights Group

Apparently, the fastest way to protect election integrity is to send federal agents to a civil rights leader’s house and interrogate them in front of their kids.

FBI agents on Thursday raided the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a pro-democracy group that helps register voters. Agents fanned out across the state, showing up at the homes of the group’s leaders and staff, carrying subpoenas and seeking electronic devices.

Board member Prentiss Haney said agents approached people with even loose connections to the group, including volunteers who had done basic canvassing, and pressed them for information.

Agents were “basically trying to fish for information,” Haney said. He described agents going to community leaders’ doors, “asking them if they’re committing voter fraud, just on their doors, in front of their houses with their children, and just following them to work and school.”

Some agents showed up without warrants. Haney called it “just straight-up intimidation tactics.”

The FBI and the Justice Department have not yet commented. The people briefed on the search said they fear this is part of a broader effort to sow distrust in voting in key swing states ahead of the midterms. The group’s crime is registering voters.

Voter registration turning into a federal case while actual misconduct goes uninvestigated is exactly the kind of story that deserves to be amplified, not buried. Become a paid subscriber and help support independent journalism that keeps stories like this in front of people.

ICE Arrested Two Parents at a Preschool Graduation

The kids got caps and gowns. The parents got handcuffs.

ICE agents arrested two parents Thursday in the parking lot of Commodore John Rodgers Elementary School in Baltimore during a preschool graduation ceremony. Witnesses said children could be heard screaming as the parents were taken into custody.

A video recorded by a witness shows two agents pinning a man to the pavement, pulling his arms behind his back to handcuff him. The woman filming shouted, “This is school property! It’s against the law!” Another video shows agents taking a woman into custody as parents and young children rushed past.

School officials told Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson that the parents drove into the lot while being pursued by agents, their children screaming in the backseat as they were “ripped from the car.” Ferguson said “heroic educators” brought the children inside to shield them from the agents, who left quickly after the arrests.

Last month, Baltimore signed an emergency bill prohibiting federal agents from conducting arrests in “sensitive locations like public schools.” Governor Wes Moore called the arrests “disturbing” and said his administration is “in direct communication with ICE leadership.”

“Disturbing” is one word for it. We prefer “criminal.”

Autistic Toddlers Are Being Injected With Stem Cells

Autistic children as young as 18 months are being injected with umbilical cord stem cells in unapproved “treatments” under the active encouragement of the same guy who built a career warning parents not to inject their kids with anything.

The procedure, sometimes involving sedation with ketamine, costs up to $20,000 per treatment, with families urged to come back for top-ups. There is no scientific evidence it works. The most comprehensive trial so far, a Duke University placebo experiment with 180 children, found no benefits.

The FDA tells parents that if they’re offered stem cell treatments outside an approved trial, “you are likely being deceived and offered a product illegally.” It warns that these treatments can cause complications including blindness, tumor formation, and infections.

Kennedy appeared by video at two Autism Health summits in San Diego, telling the audience “your issue is no longer on the fringe” and promising to work with stem cell providers “to drive solutions together.”

He appointed summit organizer Tracy Slepcevic, a proponent of the infusions, to his remodeled Autism Coordinating Committee. She has unveiled a plan to inject 120 autistic children with stem cells starting next month at a clinic in Tijuana.

One Miami company, Better Stem, claims it operates under Trump’s 2018 Right to Try Act. That law applies only to terminally ill patients with a “life-threatening disease.” Autism does not qualify.

Nobody Owns This Newsletter but You

There is no FCC license behind AlterNet America. No regulator can threaten our broadcast rights, because we don’t have any. No billionaire can buy us and quietly soften the coverage, because nobody owns us but readers.

That structure is the whole point. The stories above are exactly the kind of thing that gets harder to cover when someone above you has something to lose. We don’t have anyone above us.

If you want this work to keep coming, the only thing holding it up is you. Become a paid subscriber today.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Plan to Compensate Jan. 6 Rioters. A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, slapped a preliminary injunction Friday on Trump’s so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which would have paid out taxpayer cash to Jan. 6 rioters. The case was brought by Andrew Floyd, a former Justice Department prosecutor fired during a wave of Jan. 6 prosecutor firings. Judge Leonie Brinkema gave the government one week to produce a declaration signed under penalty of perjury by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stating the fund would not go forward.

Data Center Opponents Have Blocked or Delayed $130 Billion in Projects. The first quarter of 2026 produced the most blocked and delayed data center projects on record, according to a study from Data Center Watch shared with NBC News. Opponents blocked or delayed at least 75 projects worth roughly $130 billion from January through March, matching the total for all of 2025. The number of active grassroots opposition groups more than doubled, from 396 at the end of 2025 to 833 across 49 states by March, with Maryland, Ohio and Texas leading. Lawmakers in 14 states introduced moratorium proposals, and Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a federal version.

Jane Fonda to Host First Amendment Celebration Opposite Trump’s UFC Freedom 250 Event. While Trump marks his 80th birthday with a literal cage fight on the South Lawn as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary kickoff, Jane Fonda is countering from New York City, where her Committee for the First Amendment will host a concert of actors, musicians, and public figures rallying around free speech and democracy. Fonda revived the group her father originally founded in 1947 when Hollywood was hauled in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. One side has Octagon Girls in flag-print spandex and the other has an 88-year-old Hollywood legend who’s been doing this since the Vietnam War.

Trump’s DOJ Can’t Get the Names and Medical Files of Trans Youth in California, for Now. Families of transgender youth in California learned this week that their private medical records will not be handed to the Trump administration, after a federal judge in the Northern District of California granted a temporary restraining order applying statewide. For nearly a year the DOJ has served hospitals with subpoenas seeking detailed patient files, clinician personnel files, and other records, recently escalating from administrative subpoenas to criminal ones issued through a grand jury in Texas. Legal experts warn the government’s bid to seize private medical records is unprecedented and could reach far beyond transgender youth.