Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
The Trump administration is threatening to cut federal unemployment support to all 50 states for the first time in history. Ohio Republicans let a bill ending child marriage die before summer recess. The Justice Department has joined a lawsuit to kill the nation’s first reparations program for Black residents in a Chicago suburb. And the administration is paying energy companies another $2.6 billion to abandon offshore wind.
Corporate media is running cover. The FCC chair is making sure they know what happens if they don’t. And independent outlets are being bought out one by one. This is the news they don’t want you reading. AlterNet America is the people-powered response to the MAGA billionaire takeover of American media. We exist because of you. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please upgrade today.
Now, let’s get into it.
Trump Threatens to Pull Unemployment Funding From All 50 States
Donald Trump broke the unemployment system in 2020. Now he’s blaming you for it
The Trump administration is threatening to withdraw federal funding for unemployment assistance in all 50 states, a first in American history. Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling warned governors of 53 states and territories that the government would use “every available tool” against alleged “waste, fraud and abuse.”
Without that support, the systems could simply shut down. Nearly 2 million Americans are currently receiving benefits. Roughly 229,000 people file new jobless claims every week.
Trump has appointed JD Vance to lead a “Task Force to Eliminate Fraud,” which has already withheld $1.4 billion from California, Minnesota, and other Democratic-led states. The same week Vance warned about theft, the administration announced an unlimited compensation fund for the president’s allies, with the door left open for payments to January 6 rioters.
The supposed fraud they’re chasing dates to the pandemic, when unemployment peaked at 14.8 percent in April 2020. That was under Trump’s own first term.
In other words, he’s not fighting fraud. He’s rewriting the story of his own failure.
Ohio Keeps Child Marriage Legal After a Bill With Zero Opposition Stalls
It takes a special kind of rot to fail to pass a bill that costs nothing, harms no one, and that not a single person showed up to oppose. Ohio managed it.
Senate Bill 341 would have ended a loophole that lets 17-year-olds marry adults up to four years older with court approval. It had bipartisan sponsors, the backing of youth advocates and the Catholic Church, and no one testified against it across five public readings. It passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously on the last full day before recess.
Then lawmakers left for summer break without a floor vote.
Republican Sen. Sandra O’Brien cited concern for the state’s Amish communities, citing the over 40,000 people who live in her three counties. An Amish advocate testified the next day that his communities don’t promote child marriage and were being used as a “prop.” He called it “a political strategy dressed up as cultural sensitivity.”
Since 2000, more than 5,000 children have been married as minors in Ohio. Between 2000 and 2015, 4,443 girls aged 17 or younger were married, and 59 of them were 15 or younger.
Seventeen states have banned child marriage. Ohio’s lawmakers had a chance to make it eighteen, and went on vacation instead.
Kids can’t vote. Kids can’t lobby. Kids definitely can’t hire PR firms. The least we can do is pay attention. If that’s important to you as well, become a paid subscriber today.
DOJ Joins Lawsuit to Kill the First Reparations Program
The administration that built its career on “states’ rights” has decided one Chicago suburb’s local cannabis-tax program is the constitutional crisis of our time.
The Trump Justice Department has joined a lawsuit to stop Evanston, Illinois, from compensating Black residents for past housing discrimination. The program, approved in 2021 and hailed as a national model, offers up to $25,000 to Black residents and descendants who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969 and experienced discrimination such as exclusionary zoning.
The harm is measurable. According to a 2022 study, residents of Evanston’s predominantly Black neighborhoods have a 13-year shorter life expectancy than those in mostly white neighborhoods.
Funded by local cannabis taxes, the program had already disbursed $6.3 million to hundreds of applicants as of last June. The money is restricted to down payments, home repairs, and mortgage costs.
The suit was originally filed two years ago by the conservative group Judicial Watch on behalf of six plaintiffs who argued they were excluded because they aren’t Black. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said handing out money based on race “is not the answer.”
The administration says it sees no connection between the residents and the discrimination. We can give you 13 reasons why.
Trump Is Paying Another $2.6 Billion to Stop Wind Farms
At least Don Quixote fought windmills for free.
The Trump administration said Wednesday it is buying back another energy company’s offshore wind leases, this time four projects from Chicago-based Invenergy in exchange for $765 million in lease-fee reimbursements. The deal brings the total spent on these buyouts to nearly $2.6 billion.
It’s the fourth such arrangement. France’s TotalEnergies got nearly $1 billion in March. Golden State Wind and Bluepoint Wind got nearly $900 million in April. In each case, the companies agreed to redirect the money into fossil fuels.
Eight offshore wind projects have now been stopped.
The administration adopted this strategy after federal courts thwarted Trump’s efforts to kill offshore wind through executive action. Trump has frequently talked about his hatred of wind power and calls turbines ugly.
American-based company Invenergy will instead spend the $765 million on natural gas facilities across the Midwest and geothermal development in the West. It won’t replace what was lost. The new ventures won’t deliver power to the same states, so the Northeast and mid-Atlantic get nothing for the trade.
No Billionaires, No Problem
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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.
POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Justice Jackson Writes a Unanimous Ruling That Could Lower Drug Prices. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 on Thursday in Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson penning the opinion that reversed a lower court ruling. The dispute centered on “skinny labels,” which let generic drugmakers bring cheaper medicines to market by carving out a brand-name drug’s still-patented uses. Amarin, maker of the heart drug Vascepa, had argued that Hikma’s marketing amounted to infringement. The court rejected that. Generic drugs account for the vast majority of US prescriptions, and one 2026 JAMA analysis called timely generic competition “the single most important mechanism for lowering prescription drug spending in the U.S.”
California Sends $46 Million and Approves a Permit to Clean Up the Toxic Tijuana River. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that California is sending another $46 million to address the sewage and toxic fumes plaguing the Tijuana River near San Diego, drawn from the $10 billion Proposition 4 climate bond voters approved in 2024. On Wednesday, the California Coastal Commission also approved a permit for a temporary pipe extension at a hotspot near Saturn Boulevard expected to drastically reduce air contaminants. Newsom said California “can’t solve a decades-long federal failure on our own,” and that the Trump administration has “a moral obligation” to do its part.
An Experimental Fentanyl Vaccine Shows Promise in Its First Human Trial. Drugmaker ARMR Sciences announced that the first-ever fentanyl vaccine tested in humans showed promise in an early-stage clinical trial. Unlike existing treatments like naloxone that reverse overdoses after they start, this vaccine works by training the immune system to produce antibodies that grab fentanyl molecules in the bloodstream. Because those antibodies are too large to cross the blood-brain barrier, the drug they’re attached to can’t reach the brain either, meaning a vaccinated person would feel no high and would be protected from a fatal overdose. Even if it proves safe and effective in larger trials, it’s still likely years away from being available to the public.
World Cup Fans Discovered Ranch, and the TSA Had to Step In. As European tourists flooded the US for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, many discovered an enduring love for ranch dressing and tried to fly it home, prompting the TSA to remind everyone that carry-on liquids must be in containers of 3.4 ounces or less. In an Instagram post, the agency declared “ranch is the king of condiments” and joked that a carry-on “wasn’t made for four bottles of ranch & a taser.” It also warned travelers to “please avoid chugging your ranch outside security, the airlines will check it for you.” The love for American food has been real — Swedish influencer Elsa wrote, “EUROPE WE NEED RANCH ASAP,” while a German fan named Freddy went viral praising Taco Bell as “the holy land” and a 1 a.m. Waffle House run as “10/10.”
