July 13, 2026: Sen. Lindsey Graham Dies, Sen. McConnell Posts Health Update, Fatal ICE-Involved Shooting in Maine, DOJ Subpoenas NY Times Reporters, and More.

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We also got a health update From Senator Mitch McConnell and outside of the Senate, we're talking about the DOJ subpoenaing New York Times reporters over a story that we actually covered last week. The bipartisan housing affordability bill is now law. So we're going to talk about what that does. And then today there was another shooting involving ice, and this time it was in Maine. So we're going to talk about that too. But before we get into today's stories, I would love it if you could do me and yourselves a little favor and follow the podcast wherever you are listening to it, it's really easy. There's a little button, depending on which platform you listen on, that says either follow or subscribe. And clicking it will not only let your phone notify you whenever my new episodes go live, but it will help me keep this show free for everyone. And for that, I know that we all appreciate you, including myself, so thank you. Okay, let's start today's episode with some pretty shocking news. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham died Saturday. Saturday night, just two days after his birthday and only hours after getting back from a trip to Ukraine. Now, his office initially said that he had died following what it called a brief and sudden illness, but we have since learned a bit more about what happened, and we will get into that. But first, I want to start with the timing, because that's what has a lot of people talking. So Graham had literally just gotten back from his visit to Ukraine. It was his 10th visit to. To Ukraine since Russia's invasion. But it wasn't just his visit that had people talking. While he was there, he announced that a bipartisan group of senators had reached an agreement with the Trump administration on a sanctions bill that targeted Russia as well as countries that continue to buy Russian energy. So this is a bill that Graham had been pushing for months. And the original version of this bill basically said that if President Trump found that Russia was either refusing to negotiate peace, violating a peace agreement, or launching another invasion of Ukraine, there was a variety of penalties that would take effect. Those penalties included sanctions against Russian officials, oligarchs, banks, government connected companies, restrictions on financial transactions and investments in Russia's energy industry, purchases of Russian sovereign debt. But the. The main part that got the most attention involved countries that continued buying Russian energy. So Russian oil, natural gas, petroleum products, uranium, things like that. The bill called for a tariff of at least 500% on all goods and services imported into the United States from. From those countries that continued buying Russian energy. So under the original version of the bill, if a country bought oil or another energy product from Russia, the United States would essentially make everything that country sold to the United States a lot more expensive. And the goal was to force these bigger buyers to choose between doing business with Russia and, you know, maintaining normal access, you could say, to the American market. Because the theory is that you, by doing that, you put pressure on Russia to either negotiate peace and. Or maintain peace with Ukraine. Now, why do I keep saying the original version of the bill? Well, when Senator Graham was in Ukraine with This bipartisan group of senators, they announced that they reached an agreement with the White House on an updated version of the bill, but they haven't yet released the updated text. So we know that the general focus is still punishing Russia and buyers of Russian oil and natural gas, but we don't yet know whether the final version includes that same 500% tariff or, you know, whether it's less or, you know, how much discretion it actually gives the president. All of those things we still don't know. Nonetheless, the reason I say all of this is because Graham's death came just hours after he returned from that trip to Ukraine. In fact, Graham was actually supposed to go on Meet the Press the following morning to to talk about this Russia sanctions bill. Instead, once it was announced that Graham had died, President Trump called in, and that's where we learned that Graham had called Trump Saturday night. Once he got home from the trip, Trump said Graham did sound a little tired, but otherwise sounded completely normal. Now, it has since also been reported that Graham spoke with someone else that night, and that person said Graham complained that he wasn't feeling well. The person reportedly asked Graham to get medical help immediately, and Graham's response was that he would go to the doctor. After Meet the Press the following morning, Graham apparently joked with the person saying, quote, I can't die now. I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out, and do Israeli Saudi normalization, end quote. As far as what took place after that call, we know that at some point in the next several hours, you, first responders were called to his house after. After a report that he was experiencing chest pain. They reportedly had some. Some difficulty getting inside because the door was locked with a deadbolt. But they did eventually force their way in and immediately started cpr. Graham was then transported to George Washington University Hospital, and it appears that is where he died. According to preliminary findings from the D.C. medical examiner, Graham died from an aortic dissection caused by art sclerotic cardiovascular disease. What that means is there was a tear in the inner wall of his aorta, which was caused by his arteries hardening over time. That tear allows blood to flow between the layers of the aorta and can prevent proper blood flow from reaching organs in the body. And aortic dissections can sometimes be treated. But if the blood flowing in the dissected layers of the aorta ruptures through that outer layer of. Of the aorta, that's when it becomes deadly. Symptoms of an aortic dissection occur pretty fast and they usually include really severe chest or back pain that can feel like a heart attack. It can feel like you're being stabbed. It's really, really severe pain. Now, I do want to emphasize this is still considered a preliminary finding. An official cause of death will be released later, once more testing is done. Now for those of you who aren't super, super familiar with Graham, I do just want to touch on his background briefly. He had, he, he has an extensive background in politics. He was in politics for a long time. He started out in the South Carolina House in 1993. He only stayed there for two years before he won a seat in the U. S. House. He served in the U.S. house from 1995 until 2003. And then he moved over to the Senate where he stayed for more than 23 years. And he was actually running for a few fifth term when he died. And just last month, he won South Carolina's Republican primary with about 57% of the vote. So we'll get into what his death means for his Senate seat and the Republican nomination in just a minute. But politically, Graham was probably best known as what we call a foreign policy hawk. Basically, he thought the United States should have a really strong military and, and play an active role in global affairs. He was one of Ukraine's most outspoken supporters in Congress. He was a major supporter of Israel. And he was someone who had pushed for years for the United States to take a tougher approach toward Iran. Foreign policy was his thing and he traveled overseas a lot because of it. So it really is no surprise, I mean, the timing obviously is surprising that he died within hours of getting back from Ukraine. But he, his trip to Ukraine wasn't anything unusual. Like I said, he had been there 10 times since Russia's invasion. And then of course, there's, you know, his relationship with Trump. It was off before it was on, and then it was off again, and then it was on again. So Graham ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. And during this time, he called Trump a kook. He called Trump crazy. He said Trump was unfit for office. He also at one point called Trump a race baiting, xenophobic religious bigot. And he even joked at the time that choosing between Trump and Ted Cruz in that Republican primary was like choosing between being shot and being poisoned. And he said that Trump was the equivalent of being shot in the head because at least with Cruz there might be time to find an antidote. Trump gave it right back to Graham. He called Graham a nut job, a disgrace. He famously gave out Graham's personal cell phone number at a campaign rally. Graham actually had to change his phone number because of this. Um, so their relationship started off pretty rocky, but then Trump became president and their relationship completely changed. The two became really close friends. They would. They would sometimes golf together. And Graham became one of Trump's biggest allies in Congress. They later had another pretty public breakup after January 6, but that also, you know, didn't last very long. Graham ended up campaigning for Trump in 2024, and he was one of Trump's biggest allies during Trump's second term. So, like I said, him and Trump kind of had this mostly good, but on and off again relationship. And this also speaks to Graham's politics. Graham was definitely a Republican, but he could be extremely partisan on one issue and then turn around and work very closely with Democrats on another issue. In fact, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin described Graham as someone who could be a fierce partizan one day and then a key bipartisan ally the next. So that's just a little bit about his political legacy, but I know a lot of you had questions about his Senate seat and specifically how filling his seat works. So let's talk about that. Graham's death actually created two separate issues related to his seat. Not only is his seat currently vacant, but as I mentioned earlier, he just won the Republican primary in South Carolina for the next term. So first, South Carolina's governor will have to appoint, appoint someone to temporarily hold Graham seat through the end of his current term in early January. And you'll actually probably know who that person is by the time you listen to this episode. The Governor is supposed to announce the appointment later today at a press conference. I think that press conference starts at 4pm Eastern time. So that person will be able to start serving as soon as the appointment is made, and that person will hold the seat until early January. The second issue that arose with Graham's death is related to the Republican nomination. Because Graham had already won the Republican nomination for the November election, South Carolina will now have to hold a special Republican primary to choose a new nominee. Under state law, that primary is expected to take place on August 11, with a runoff on August 25 if no candidate receives a majority for from there, the new Republican nominee will face Democratic nominee Annie Andrews in November. Whoever wins that November election will then take the seat come early January. And by the way, just to be clear, the person that the Governor appoints today to temporarily hold Graham's seat until the next term does not have to be the same person that Republicans nominate for the November election. Those are two different processes. It is being reported that Congresswoman Nancy Mace is considering entering the South Carolina Republican primary, but she has not officially announced a campaign at this point. As for who might take Graham's seat immediately, Trump has said that he recommends Graham's sister be appointed to serve in Graham's seat. Senate Majority Leader John Thune also agreed with that recommendation. And it's possible that the governor does go ahead and appoint Point Graham's sister. Now, Graham's sister does not have a background in politics other than being involved in her brother's campaigns. You don't have to have a background in politics to, to fill a seat. There's no requirement for that. So we'll have to see what happens there. Graham and his sister had a very close relationship. He actually became her legal guardian after both of their parents died when he was 22 and she was 13. Now, a few things worth mentioning as far as immediate effects. Margins in the Senate are obviously now tighter. So until South Carolina's governor appoints someone to hold Graham's seat, which like I said, could be within the next couple of hours, it'll be 52 to 47, 52 Republicans, 47 Democrats. However, because Senator McConnell is still hospitalized, Republicans temporarily have only 51 members available to vote, which means the margins are currently 51 to 47. Also, because Senator Graham was the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, there's now both an open Republican seat on the committee and an opening for chairman. So the Republican members of the committee will now have to vote via secret ballot to choose a new chairman from among themselves. Senate Republicans as a whole will then approve that choice and the Senate will then make it official if typically, the longest serving member on the committee might have an advantage. But in this case, the longest serving member is Senator Chuck Grassley, and he's already chairman of the Judiciary Committee. So unless he gave up the Judiciary Chairmanship, he wouldn't be chosen to take over Graham's position as chairman. And then separately, Senate Republican leadership will choose another Republican senator to fill Graham's seat on the committee. And, and the full Senate will have to formally approve that updated committee lineup before it becomes official. So that's just a little bit about the procedure. Now, once we have that official cause of death report or more develops, I will be sure to update you, but that's pretty much what we know at this point. Let's take a quick break here. When we come back, we'll cover a quick health Update from Senator McConnell and then we'll talk about the doj subpoenaing New York Times reporters, the that bipartisan housing law, and more. So no one warns you that half of adulthood is just figuring out why your money keeps disappearing. And most of the time it's not even one big buy, right? It's all of those little charges and the the many, many, many subscriptions that we have nowadays. It is truly so wild when you actually take the time to look at how much you're spending on monthly subscriptions specifically. And the only reason I know this is because I started using Rocket Money last year. Before Rocket Money, I had no clue what I was spending on subscriptions. 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And why this matters is because psychologically, the words we see first can shape the way we interpret everything that comes after. So before you even read the article, a word like slop will prime your brain to see the video as low quality, while a word like hilarious primes you to see it as funny or entertaining. And if you only see one version, you might not even realize that you're reading Reaction is being shaped by the framing. That's why Ground News is so aligned with the mission of unbiased politics. It's not telling you what to think. It's about giving you the tools to recognize the framing and compare the coverage and think for yourself. So again, only by using my link you can get 40 off the unlimited access vantage plan. Go to groundnews.com up that's groundnews.com up thank you ground News for sponsoring the show. If you've never heard of Article furniture or maybe you've heard of it but you just don't know much about it, allow me to tell you because I'm so excited. 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My doctors have confirmed that I didn't break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn't have a heart attack or a stroke. I don't have any tumors or hemorrhages. But I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital while receiving excellent care. Over the past several weeks, I've also had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia. And in fact, with signs of continued progress, I've been able to move from hospital care to a rehab center where I'll keep regaining my strength. And on the advice of doctors, I won't be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet. But rest assured that in the meantime, I'm not taking a break from the Senate business that matters to you. I've been working closely with my legislative staff on current issues and with my Kentucky team who helped me provide timely constituent services across across our commonwealth. And, quote, the office of the attending physician for McConnell added that early in McConnell's hospitalization he did develop pneumonia, which, quote, responded rapidly to antibiotic treatment. And obviously that update comes on the heels of, you know, the public not really knowing much about why McConnell was hospitalized, despite him being there for three going on four weeks. I did cover this story in much more detail in last Thursday's episode. So if you want to know more about his hospitalization and the various theories surrounding it, along with what would happen if his seat became vacant, make sure you listen to last Thursday's podcast episode. All right, moving on. Remember, last week we talked about Trump taking an older Air Force One plane on his way home from the NATO summit instead of that newer Qatari gifted plane that he took to the summit. Well, now the DOJ is subpoenaing the New York Times reporters who reported on the specific reasons why he took the older plane. So first we're going to back up, we're going to get everyone on the same page and then we'll talk about why these reporters were subpoenaed. Last week, Trump flew to the NATO summit in Turkey on the new qatari gifted Boeing 747. But when Trump left Turkey, he did not take the same plane. He took one of the older Air Force One planes. And, and he flew from Turkey to a British air base on that older plane. Then once he was in the UK got on the Qatari gifted plane, which had flown there separately and used that plane for the rest of the trip back to Joint Base Andrews. As I reported on Thursday, he initially said he wanted to fly the older plane for old time's sake and that the newer plane was being sent to the British air base so American service members stationed there could see see it. But then reports started to come out that US Officials had actually advised Trump to take the older plane and that the decision was driven, at least in part, by security concerns surrounding the escalating conflict with Iran. And at the time, I just said, like, that kind of makes sense because Turkey borders Iran and, you know, according to some reports, the Qatari plane doesn't appear to have some of the same missile detection and countermeasure systems as the older Air Force One planes. But apparently the first outlet to break this story was the New York Times. And the New York Times cited anonymous sources in reporting that not only had the Secret Service recommended that Trump use the older plane, but also this source, the Secret Service source, said that the newer plane didn't have all of the same advanced security features. Now, the precise defensive systems that are installed on presidential planes are obviously highly sensitive. And because of that, neither the White House nor the Air Force has publicly provided a list of what the new aircraft does or doesn't have. However, the Air Force has previously said that in order to get the aircraft ready quickly, several of the highly complex engineering modifications planned for the permanent replacements were intentionally left off of the Qatari gifted plane. Because the Qatari gifted plane is just a bridge aircraft, meaning it. It's only being used until Boeing is done making the permanent planes that were ordered back in 2018. So we knew that from the Air Force. But pictures of the plane also appear to show that it didn't. The newer plane didn't have some of the same visible missile detection and countermeasure equipment found on the older jets. That was something that Reuters and other outlets reported on. The difference, and this is when we start to get to the subpoena part of the story. The, the difference in the New York Times reporting is that the New York Times cited not just pictures, but people within the government, people within the Secret Service that said these planes are not equipped with. With, you know, the same security measures, and therefore Trump took the older planes. So before the Times published its story, a senior FBI official reportedly contacted one of the reporters, as well as an editor, and asked the paper to hold the article because of national security concerns. According to the Times, the official did not explain exactly how publication would endanger national security, but did ask the newspaper to reveal who had provided the information. The Times refused to provide the requested information and went ahead and published the story. So the following day, on Friday, the DOJ issued federal grand jury subpoenas to at least four. 4 New York Times reporters who were involved in the coverage. And the reporters were ordered to appear before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday. This Wednesday, according to the Times, the subpoenas offered very little explanation, saying only that the reporters are being called to testify in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law. Now, just to be clear about what this means, a grand jury meets privately in order to review evidence and determine whether prosecutors have enough information to bring criminal charges against someone. According to the doj, the reporters themselves are not the targets of this investigation. The DOJ says it's investigating the government employee or employees who might have unlawfully shared classified information with them. So the reason that these reporters are being brought in is. Is presumably so the reporters can say who provided this information and in what manner. Now, because grand jury proceedings are secret, there is still quite a bit we don't know. Right. We don't know the exact federal law the DOJ believes might have. Might have been violated. We don't know exactly which parts of the reporting the DOJ considers classified. We don't know exactly what prosecutors plan to ask the reporters before the grand jury was. We can assume they're going to ask about the sources, but we don't know exactly what will be asked. But the concern for the Times is that they might be forced to reveal their confidential sources or their private communications with those sources. Right? And that is where the freedom of the press issue comes in. So the Times argues that reporters have to be able to protect confidential sources because if government employees think that their identities could be easily exposed through something like this, through subpoenas, they might be less willing to come forward with certain information, whether that's information about a plane like it was in this case, or that's information about government misconduct or government mistakes or government decisions that the public has an interest in knowing about. And that's also why, by the way, the DOJ's own rules describe subpoenas targeting journalists as an extraordinary step. Generally, prosecutors are supposed to show that the information is essential to the investigation, that they've tried to get it somewhere else first, and that the subpoena is written as narrowly as possible. At the same time, though, freedom of the press doesn't give reporters an absolute right to refuse to testify. Okay. The supreme court has said that journalists, like anyone else is, can be required to answer questions in a legitimate federal grand jury investigation, even if those questions could reveal a confidential source. So the Times could ask a judge to block the subpoenas altogether. The Times could ask a judge to narrow the subpoenas, but the First Amendment doesn't automatically make the subpoenas invalid. So we'll have to see what happens as the story plays out. The reporters could appear and answer questions and, you know, have no problem. And doesn't seem that they would do that because they've indicated otherwise. They've indicated that they do have issues with the subpoenas. So they could also challenge the subpoenas before Wednesday. They could appear, you know, on Wednesday but refuse to answer certain questions. So we'll see if there is a fight. A court might have to decide whether the subpoenas are properly focused on a legitimate criminal investigation or whether the government went too far here. And I will, of course, keep you in the loop with whatever happens. I'm sure by Thursday's episode we will have an update. Next story. The bipartisan 21st century road to Housing act is officially law. So let's talk about what's in it. As a side note, President Trump did not sign the bill. He didn't sign it in protest over the Senate's failure to act on the Save America act. But because he didn't veto it, it automatically became law after sitting on his desk for 10 days. So what I want to do here is just kind of run through a bullet point list of some of the things that this law mandates. Let's start with the provision that restricts large institutional investors that own at least three hundred and fifty single family homes from purchasing additional newly constructed single family homes. Now this does not apply to homes that the investor builds or buys specifically for the rental market. So the restriction isn't necessarily a blanket ban on build to rent developments. But on the topic of institutional investors, this law also creates a Department of Housing and Urban Development Resource that is meant to help tenants resolve disputes involving these types of landlords because they can be a bit difficult to deal with since they are large institutions. On the topic of building more housing, the law creates grants for communities that increase their housing supply by changing zoning rules. This could allow more density or speed up permits. It helps local governments adopt pre approved designs for homes such as accessory dwelling units, duplexes and townhouses. It funds the conversion of vacant commercial and industrial buildings into affordable housing. It allows community development block grant money to be used to build new affordable housing. It rewards communities that accelerate home building and can reduce funding for communities that consistently fall behind. It gives housing projects more streamlined federal environmental reviews, particularly for smaller, infill and federally supported developments. It creates guidelines and pilot projects for apartment buildings of up to six stories that use one interior staircase and it requires communities receiving certain federal grants to publish searchable lists of undeveloped publicly owned land on the topic of repairing and preserving existing housing, it creates a pilot program supporting state, local and tribal programs that give homeowners or landlords grants or forgivable loans for major home repairs. It expands a federal program that helps renovate and preserve public housing while maintaining tenant protections. It reauthorizes grants to repair and preserve manufactured homes and manufactured home communities and it creates grants for temperature sensors in federally assisted housing to help identify units that become either dangerously hot or dangerously cold. When it comes to mortgages and homeownership, it creates a pilot program intended to make mortgages of $100,000 or less easier to obtain, potentially including help with down payments, closing costs, or appraisals. It requires studies of whether current mortgage fees and loan officer compensation discursive encourage lenders from offering smaller mortgages it modernizes appraisal, licensing, training, and review procedures. It requires lenders handling federally backed mortgages to create a process for borrowers to challenge an appraisal or request reconsideration. It makes borrowers more aware of VA home loans and helps veterans compare va, FHA, and conventional mortgage options. And it expands access to housing counseling and allows the Department of Housing and Urban Development to more closely evaluate poorly performing counseling organizations. Notably, one provision completely unrelated to housing prohibits the Federal Reserve from creating a central bank digital currency through 2030. So the bill defines a central bank digital currency as a digital version of the US Dollar and that's issued directly by the Federal Reserve and widely available for people to use. The bill prohibits the Federal Reserve from creating or issuing that type of digital dollar either directly to the public or indirectly through banks or other financial institutions. The one exception is that the ban doesn't apply to a digital dollar that's open for anyone to use, doesn't require government permission, and provides the same level of privacy privacy as physical cash. So hypothetically, the Fed could create a digital dollar if it worked more like digital cash than a government bank account. Anyone would have to be able to use it without getting special permission, and ordinary purchases would have to stay private rather than giving the government a record of everything you buy. Now, the bill doesn't explain exactly how that would work and this exception by itself wouldn't authorize the Fed to create such a currency because doing that would most likely require separate legislation from Congress. But nonetheless, I find it interesting that that very random provision made it into this housing affordability bill. All right, let's take our second and final break here. When we come back, we will talk about today's fatal ice shooting. And then we will finish with quick hitters and critical thinking. You know how sometimes you have those days where the first time you sit down it's like 7:30 at night? That was me the other day. 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Earlier today a person was killed in a shooting involving ICE in Maine. Now before we get into this story, I do just want to say that because this just happened this morning, there are not many details available right now. The few details that are available haven't all been confirmed and more information is bound to develop in the coming days. So what we know as of now is that the shooting took place around 7:20 this morning in a city that's about 15 miles south of Portland. We've learned that the person killed was a 26 year old Colombian man who was the target of an immigration enforcement operation and had a final order of deportation. Investigators do not have body camera footage of the shooting, at least that's what we've heard at this point. But it does seem that local police have secured the scene and the FBI is is investigating at this point. We don't know what led up to the shooting. Neither ICE nor DHS has released an account of what happened as of the time that I'm recording this. So once we have more information I will update you. This is now the second fatal shooting involving ICE in less than a week. So last Tuesday, and this is a story I didn't get a chance to cover which a lot of you wrote in to me about asking me to cover it. So we're just gonna kind of fit this in to this story out of Maine. But Last Tuesday, an ICE officer fatally shot 52 year old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during an attempted vehicle stop in Houston. Now according to dhs, Salgado Araujo ignored officers commands, rammed an ICE vehicle with his van and attempted to drive toward an officer as if he was going to hit the officer and that officer then fired in self defense. However, three men who were inside the van and disputed that account through their attorney, they said no officer was standing in the van's path. There was no officer in danger when the shots were fired. So exactly what happened there remains under investigation. However, DHS did later confirm that Salgado Araujo was not the target of the operation that was being carried out at that time. DHS has said that agents were heading toward an address connected to their intended target when they saw a white van and a person inside who resembled the person they were looking for. That van, however, was being driven by Salgado Araujo. DHS and the FBI are investigating that shooting. We have learned that ICE officers at the scene of that shooting were not wearing body cameras. And officials have said there's no body camera or dashboard camera footage of that encounter. And I'll use this as an opportunity to talk about this because I know after last week's shooting, a few of you had questions about the funding that was specifically provided for body cameras. You wanted to know why ICE officers still aren't wearing them if Congress already approved the money. So here's the deal with that. Back in April, Congress appropriated $20 million specifically for the purchase, deployment, and operation of body worn cameras used by officers carrying out immigration enforcement duties. However, that funding provision doesn't explicitly require every ICE or CBP officer to receive or wear a camera. It provides money for the program, but it doesn't establish this, like, universal legal mandate that requires every officer to be equipped with a camera. ICE has a policy that says officers who have been issued cameras and generally must activate them when an enforcement operation begins. But that policy obviously can't apply to officers who haven't yet been issued cameras. As of last week, DHS said body cameras have been deployed to more than half of ice's field offices and that the remaining offices should receive them in the next 60 days. Representative Sylvia Garcia has spoken to ICE's acting director. And. And she says that ICE's acting director told her that fewer than one third of ICE officers had actually been issued cameras. And Representative Garcia also said that ICE's acting director told her all officers would have them by the end of this month. Now, notably, those two figures I just talked about measure different things, okay? The first figure refers to how many ICE field offices have received cameras. The second refers to how many individual officers have actually been issued one. So, you know, just because a nice field office gets them doesn't necessarily mean that individual officers have been issued them. Again, we still don't know much about this morning's shooting in Maine, but as with everything else we've talked about today, once more develops. I will be sure to fill you in. Now, let's do some quick hitters. U.S. capitol Police arrested a man at the Capitol's north barricade after they said he had a firearm, which is not allowed on Capitol grounds. Video showed officers surrounding an SUV with two officers initially pointing their guns at the man as he got out of the driver's side with his hands up. The man then walked backward away from the vehicle seemed to be cooperating. The officers lowered their weapons and then handcuffed him and took him into custody. Capitol Police said the north barricade would be closed during the investigation and advised staff and other personnel to avoid the area, According to an NBC News analysis, Prediction market users have already wagered more than $197 million on midterm elections, and as of this morning, Kolshi showed the most likely outcome as Democrats winning control of both the House and senate, with a 45% probability. The next most likely scenario was Republicans keeping the Senate while Democrats take the House, and that was at 38% and then call. She gave Republicans an 18% chance of holding on to both chambers, while the least likely outcome was Democrats flipping the Senate while Republicans keep the House. That was at just 1.9%. Meta removed a controversial Instagram AI feature that allowed users to create images by referencing photos from public Instagram accounts. The tool was part of Meta's new Muse image generator, which was announced earlier in the week. The feature was controversial in part because it didn't let users know when their public pictures were used as references. However, Meta said in a blog post that the feature, quote unquote, missed the mark and is no longer available. The White House is planning to bring together utility companies and data center developers for a voluntary pledge meant to limit the impact of AI related and electricity demand on household and business power bills. The event is expected in the coming weeks, and the guest list is still being finalized. Earlier this year, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and Xai signed a similar ratepayer protection pledge, agreeing to help finance electricity infrastructure tied to their AI projects instead of passing those costs to existing utility customers. This new effort, though, is expected to include utilities, data center operators and governors from states involved in expanding power infrastructure. Federal banking regulators have issued guidance warning financial institutions to account for risks when lending to people who are not legally authorized to work in the United States. The guidance says those borrowers may present credit risks if they lose employment or are deployed reported, which could affect their ability to repay loans. This guidance follows a May executive order from President Trump directing agencies to identify risks related to financial services involving undocumented immigrants. Notably, it does not ban banks from lending to undocumented immigrants, but it could lead banks to treat those loans as higher risk. President Trump said today that he will be reinstating a blockade of Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz and would charge any other ships for passage. In a Truth Social post, he wrote, quote, the Hormuz Strait is open and will remain open with or without Iran. We are reinstating the Iranian blockade, so named, because it is only stopping Iran's ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the straight. The USA will be from this point forward known as the Guardian of the Hormuz Strait. But as such, and as a matter of fairness will be reimbursed at the rate of 2020% on all cargo shipped for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the world. The process and formation will begin immediately. End quote. And if you're looking for an Iran update and you haven't yet listened to last Thursday's episode, go ahead and do that because I did cover all of the recent major updates there. California and 11 other states are suing to block Paramount's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Brothers Discover. The states alleged the deal would reduce competition in film distribution and cable television and harm theaters and pay TV distributors, which are companies that sell paid TV packages to customers. So Comcast, DirecTV, etc. The states say the combined company would control 27% of the US film distribution market, 30% of blockbuster film distribution and 27% of basic cable news channels. And a federal judge has voided Trump's settlement with the IRS and ordered sanctions against the attorneys representing Trump and his sons in the IRS lawsuit. That lawsuit of course, led to the creation of the anti weaponization fund. In her 56 page opinion, the judge wrote in part, quote, the nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the parties in council from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in law. And quote, she referred one lawyer to the Florida bar and sent her order to the New York and D.C. bars where acting Attorney General Todd Blanch and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. Are members respectively. For today's Critical Thinking segment, let's go back to the New York Times story. I want to know what what are your thoughts on confidential sources within the government? Are they necessary, unnecessary, somewhere in the middle? How do you feel about them? Next question is, which do you think is more dangerous? Unchecked leaks of classified information, a government that can expose journalists, confidential sources, or a public that is left with no real look inside its own government. Where would you draw the line between national security, press freedom, and the public's right to know? And then, of course, would your opinion about subpoenaing a reporter change depending on the administration? That is what I have for you. If you loved what you heard today, please don't forget to leave me a five star review wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for being here as always. I so appreciate you. Have a great week and I will talk to you on Thursday.

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