Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
The IRS has been permanently barred from auditing Trump and his sons, forever, and that’s actually the word they used. The Senate took a rare shot at limiting Trump’s war powers in Iran. A Tennessee school board member who called a teenage girl “hot” and touched her has now been charged with assault. And U.S. aid cuts have helped turn a manageable Ebola outbreak into the third-largest on record.
Before we get into it: Independent journalism survives on one thing, and it isn’t a billionaire who bought us because he “believed in the mission” and then discovered he didn’t like what we wrote. It’s readers who pay for what they read. If you’re one of them, thank you. If you’re not yet, this would be a good morning to fix that. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. We can’t do it without you.
Now, the news.
The IRS Can’t Audit Trump or His Sons Anymore
The man who campaigned on draining the swamp has discovered that the swamp is actually quite good for business.
The Department of Justice has released a settlement addendum permanently barring the IRS from ever auditing Donald Trump’s past tax returns, those of his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, or the Trump Organization.
The one-page order, signed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, states the IRS “releases, waives, acquits” any pending claims and is “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing claims tied to returns filed before Monday’s settlement.
The addendum stems from Trump’s now-dismissed $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his confidential tax records during the Biden administration. In exchange for dismissing the suit, the DOJ agreed to establish a new $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” aimed at individuals who allege they were unfairly targeted by prior administrations.
You will recall that Trump spent years declining to release his tax returns, citing ongoing audits. The audits are now gone. Previous reporting found the IRS had been examining deductions and tax strategies that could have exposed Trump to roughly $100 million in liabilities. We’ll never know, because the government just agreed to stop looking.
A 2022 congressional investigation found the IRS had failed to properly audit Trump during his first term. That door is now closed, bolted, and the key has been thrown into the Potomac.
The Senate Voted 50-47 to End Trump’s War With Iran
For the eighth time this year, the Senate tried to end an unauthorized war, and for the first time, it worked. Sort of.
The Senate advanced a resolution to limit Trump’s war powers in Iran on Tuesday, marking a breakthrough for Democrats after seven failed attempts. Senators approved a motion to discharge the resolution from committee in a 50 to 47 vote.
Four Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — joined the bulk of Democrats in favor of advancing the resolution. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the sole Democrat to oppose.
Cassidy’s vote was notable: it was the first time he supported advancing such a resolution, and it came days after he failed to survive a Republican primary, where Trump had endorsed one of his opponents. A man with nothing left to lose is a man who suddenly remembers what the Constitution says about declaring war.
Even if the resolution eventually passes the Senate, it must also clear the Republican-led House and garner two-thirds majorities in both chambers to survive an expected Trump veto.
The resolution faces the House and a press corps that has spent 80 days treating an unauthorized war like a foreign policy nuance rather than a constitutional crisis. Democrats have now cracked the Senate wall eight attempts in. That is not nothing. It is also not a ceasefire.
There is an unauthorized war happening right now and most outlets covering it have been very careful not to make anyone in particular feel responsible for it. We are not being careful. If that’s important to you, please consider becoming a paid subscriber today.
School Board Member Who Called a Student Hot Charged With Assault
Keith Ervin is still a school board member. But he’s also now a defendant.
Ervin, a member of the school board in Washington County, Tennessee, has been charged with assault following an incident at a meeting on April 2, 2026, in which he told a teenage student representative, “God, you’re hot, you know that? Where do you go to school at?” before reaching over and touching her shoulder.
After public outcry, the board called a special session where they unanimously voted to censure Ervin. The student spoke out for the first time at a meeting earlier this month, where she called the board members “cowards” and said they had taught her that “no one would stand up for her.”
The Board of Education has stated it lacks the statutory authority under Tennessee law to remove a sitting member from office, which raises some genuinely interesting questions about Tennessee law.
Ervin is scheduled to appear in court on August 7. He has maintained the video lacks context. The context, per the video, is that he called a high school student hot and touched her at a school board meeting.
Trump Cut Ebola Response and Now There’s an Ebola Outbreak
We defunded the Ebola response. There is now an Ebola outbreak. If only someone could’ve predicted this.
The Trump administration slashed aid to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the months leading up to a fast-moving Ebola outbreak, causing a cascade of consequences that likely hampered both the detection of the outbreak and the response to it.
The DRC is now experiencing the third-largest Ebola outbreak on record. Experts estimate 130 people have died and at least 600 are sick, including an American.
HHS sent nearly $33 million to the DRC in foreign aid in fiscal year 2024. That number fell to less than $10 million in 2025. USAID sent some $67 million in the final three months of 2025, down from $715 million in fiscal 2025 and nearly $1.2 billion in fiscal 2024. The administration described those cuts as eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
The International Rescue Committee reduced its programming from five to two areas at the heart of the current outbreak due to U.S. cuts. Ebola response teams were frozen while programs designed to detect cases, alert communities, and dispatch response kits had their funding reduced or eliminated.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticized the WHO for being “a little late” in identifying the outbreak. The United States withdrew from the WHO. He said this with a straight face.
The Part the Billionaires Hate
The business model that kept journalism independent is gone. What replaced it is billionaires, access deals, and quiet understandings about which stories don’t run. The networks are getting phone calls they don’t talk about. The newspapers have new owners who play golf with the people we’re writing about. The FCC is making examples of outlets that don’t play ball.
None of that is happening here, because we don’t have anyone to sell out to. We have readers. If you’ve been reading AlterNet America for free, we’re glad you’re here. But free doesn’t keep the lights on, and the lights need to stay on.
If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, this is the moment. Your subscription isn’t a donation. It’s the thing that makes tomorrow’s newsletter possible. Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription today.
Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.
POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Schiff Proposes Bill Requiring Data Centers to Pay for Own Power. Sen. Adam Schiff has introduced a bill that would require large data centers over 50 megawatts to secure their own power, pay for their own grid upgrades, and stop siphoning electricity from existing power plants, which drives up electricity costs for everyone else. This comes after major tech companies promised Trump in March they would do exactly that. The bill is, in other words, a law to enforce a promise that was apparently just a promise.
Judge orders hospital to resume gender-affirming care for trans youth.C hildren’s Hospital Colorado suspended most gender-affirming care for transgender youth in January after RFK Jr. threatened hospitals that continued providing it, opening a federal investigation into the hospital’s treatments. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled 5-2 this week that the hospital likely broke state anti-discrimination law when it did so, since it continued providing the same medications to cisgender youth for other conditions.
The Salt Lake Tribune just removed its paywall, making its journalism free to everyone. The Salt Lake Tribune, a 155-year-old nonprofit newspaper and Utah’s flagship news organization, dropped its paywall last week, making its journalism free to anyone for the first time in its history. The paper is moving to a donation-and-membership model backed by philanthropic support, operating on the bet that readers who can access the news for free will choose to fund it anyway. It is both an inspiring act of faith and a description of exactly what we do here.
Firefighters Save 25 Million Honey Bees Stuck in an Overheating Tractor-Trailer. A semi-truck carrying 480 beehives and an estimated 25 million honey bees broke down in Parley’s Canyon, Utah last week, leaving the bees at risk of dying in the heat since the parked truck no longer had airflow from moving down the highway. Firefighters kept the bees cool by carefully misting the trailer with a hose while mechanics worked on the truck. No firefighters were stung. It is not lost on us that the bees got more careful treatment than the people in today’s other stories.
