Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
The Iran war is draining the Pentagon faster than anyone planned for. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the 82-year-old woman who sued Trump for sexual assault and won. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation is costing seven times what Trump promised. And three-quarters of a million children have lost access to food assistance since the Big Beautiful Bill became law.
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Now, the news.
The Pentagon Is Canceling Exercises to Pay for the War
The world’s most powerful military is canceling training exercises because it started a war without checking the budget first.
The Pentagon is struggling to fund routine training and maintenance as operations against Iran drain military budgets. The Navy’s top officer, Admiral Daryl Caudle, recently told the House Armed Services Committee that his 2026 budget simply didn’t account for Operation Epic Fury.
The military typically encounters funding challenges toward the end of the fiscal year, but 2026 has seen the issue surface months earlier than usual due to rising costs and Trump’s ongoing war in Iran. To be clear: the fiscal year ends in September. It is May.
Air Force Chief General Kenneth Wilsbach previously testified that the Iran conflict has exacerbated existing readiness troubles, while appropriations lawmakers have repeatedly urged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to speed up the process of submitting a formal request.
The administration’s handling of the money question has been its own separate disaster. In March, Hegseth confirmed the Pentagon was seeking upward of $200 billion from Congress to cover the costs of Operation Epic Fury and replenish rapidly depleting munitions stockpiles.
By the time officials testified to Congress in late April, the number had shrunk dramatically. The official estimate has since migrated from $25 billion to $29 billion, with outside analysts suggesting the full request could eventually reach $100 billion.
Congress has not moved to approve more money. Congress is also on recess until June 2nd.
She Won $88 Million From Trump. Now She’s Under Investigation
The man who lost a sexual abuse case is having the sexual abuse victim investigated.
The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who accused Trump of sexual assault. The investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in testimony tied to her two civil lawsuits against the president.
A jury found Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation in 2023 and awarded Carroll $5 million. A second jury in 2024 found him liable for defamation in a separate case and awarded her $83.3 million. Both judgments survived appeals.
Prosecutors’ theory hinges on a 2022 deposition statement by Carroll, now 82, in which she said she received no outside funding for her lawsuit, though it was later revealed that billionaire Reid Hoffman had paid some legal fees and expenses.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has recused himself from the probe because of his prior representation of Trump in the Carroll case. It is the farthest the administration has gone to make this look like anything other than what it is.
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The Art of the Pool Deal
When Trump first described his plan to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, he said the work would take one to two weeks and cost about $1.8 million. He mentioned he had a guy.
The government eventually agreed to pay the contractor $13.1 million, more than seven times Trump’s original estimate, and the project has now dragged on for more than four weeks. Nobody else was asked to bid. The contractor had never previously held a federal contract.
A National Park Service internal analysis found that the contract gives the company a 20 percent profit margin and an additional 20 percent for overhead costs. Normal government contractors receive between 6 and 12 percent for profit and 10 to 15 percent for overhead.
Trump posted on Truth Social that he did not give out the contract, but rather that Interior did, to a contractor he did not know and had never used before. This shortly after telling reporters in the Oval Office that he had a guy who was unbelievable at doing swimming pools.
Trump wants the Reflecting Pool painted “American Flag blue” in time for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations. The pool is not currently that color. The pool is also not currently watertight.
Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Cut Food Aid to 700,000 Children
The administration that banned books is now canceling lunch.
More than 700,000 children have been dropped from food stamp programs in twelve states in the months since the One Big Beautiful Bill Act took effect. Researchers warn this figure underestimates the true crisis, as many regions do not publicly disclose their child caseload data.
Arizona removed more than 200,000 children from its welfare rolls, a 55 percent reduction. Texas saw 253,000 children removed. Louisiana shed 79,000. Massachusetts recorded nearly 50,000 fewer children receiving benefits, a 15 percent drop in just eight months.
The law requires a reduction in the program’s budget of roughly $186 billion through 2034, marking the largest financial cut to food assistance in the program’s history. It also shifts a large proportion of costs directly onto individual states.
Once children are dropped from the SNAP registry, they immediately lose their guaranteed spot in free school meal and summer feeding programs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 96,000 children each month will lose access to school dining.
Republicans spent years telling you they were the party of protecting children. Those children are now going hungry.
The Billionaires Have Their Outlets. This One’s Yours.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Democratic states to impose tax on Trump’s January 6 slush fund. Trump announced a $1.8 billion fund last week for those he claims were victims of political weaponization, created as part of his settlement with the IRS over his leaked tax returns. It has no congressional approval and no legal precedent. California, New York, Wisconsin, and Illinois have all independently introduced legislation to tax any payments at 100 percent.
New York Democrats to introduce 2 redistricting amendments. Republicans have spent the last year redrawing congressional maps mid-decade in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama. New York Democrats are introducing two constitutional amendments to let them do the same. They cannot act in time for 2026. They can act in time for 2028. For once, Democrats are playing the long game on purpose.
Kansas gender-affirming care ban likely violates parental rights: Judge. A Kansas judge has temporarily blocked the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, finding in a 117-page ruling that the law likely violates the Kansas Constitution, and that most of the state’s expert witnesses weren’t credible. The law banned hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender youth while allowing those exact same treatments for cisgender youth. Kansas called it the Help Not Harm Act. The judge called it unconstitutional.
Scientists mapped all the nerves of the clitoris for the first time. Scientists have mapped the nerves of the clitoris in three dimensions for the first time, using a high-resolution X-ray to trace the organ’s main sensory nerve through a far more extensive network of branches than previously understood. The findings could improve reconstructive surgery for survivors of genital mutilation and help surgeons avoid nerve damage during other procedures. It is 2026.
