1A

Is the Trump administration creating a centralized database that tracks the activities Americans? Americans who are not suspected of committing a crime?

That’s the question at the heart of a new lawsuit filed against the administration by the Freedom of the Press Foundation. That’s an organization advocating for press freedoms.

These allegations stem from an executive order signed by Donald Trump last year encouraging data sharing between federal agencies and the elimination of “information silos.” In the last year, the Trump administration has loosened restrictions around the Central Intelligence Agency’s access law enforcement data. It has also allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to access Medicaid data and given ICE access to data from the Internal Revenue Service.

These instances of data sharing between agencies have led to court battles and raised concerns over the amount of access the federal government has to our personal data and what they’re doing with it.

We discuss the erosion of privacy protections under the Trump administration and what it means for you.

A statement from Flock…

“Flock does not share data on behalf of customers – agencies own and control their data and decide how it’s shared. As is made clear in our Terms & Conditions, “all right, title, and interest in and to Customer Data belong to and are retained by Customer.” Agencies can opt to share 1:1, within a geographic radius, across statewide or nationwide networks, or not at all. All searches on the platform are logged in an unalterable audit trail.

Any sharing with federal law enforcement must be done on a 1:1 basis; federal agencies are not part of statewide or nationwide networks. In order for an agency to establish a sharing relationship with federal law enforcement, the local agency must explicitly allow federal law enforcement to discover that they exist within the Flock system (a setting that is opt-in only and off by default); federal law enforcement must then request access to that system; and the local agency must then accept federal law enforcement’s share request.

Flock does not have any contracts with ICE or any DHS subagency. You can read more here.On contract renewals: law enforcement agencies nationwide use Flock to help solve serious crimes. When a tool that is actively helping solve violent crimes is removed, public safety moves backward. That has real consequences: cases will take longer to solve, organized retail theft crews will operate with fewer obstacles, an Amber Alert may not be returned home, and victims may wait longer, or indefinitely, for justice. You can read more here.”

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The Pentagon is planning on putting boots back on the ground in the Middle East. Some 2,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division have received orders to deploy to the region despite President Donald Trump signaling last week that he was interested in ending his war in Iran via diplomatic means.

As Democrats and Republicans continue to find themselves in a stand off over DHS funding, security lines at airports around the country continue to grow.

Tech giants Meta and YouTube were found negligent in a landmark case concerning the companies’ creation of addictive online platforms that harm users’ mental health and wellbeing.

And, in global news, Iranian officials confirmed this week they received a 15-point plan from the U.S. to end the war that’s killed thousands of Iranians and several American service members. Tehran, however, is signaling its found the demands contained within “extremely maximalist and unreasonable.”

Meanwhile, Tehran-backed Hezbollah leaders are rejecting any notion that they’re seeking an end to their conflict with Israel.

And the world’s attention swinging to Iran seems to have emboldened Russia, as Vladimir Putin’s forces gear up for a spring offensive in their campaign against Ukraine.

We cover the most important stories from around the globe on the News Roundup.
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The morning after major airstrikes by Israel on Iran’s oil facilities, black rain fell in Tehran. The city of nearly 10 million people was engulfed in thick black smoke.

The World Health Organization is warning that “the conflict in the Middle East poses serious threats to public health.” A new report from the Climate and Community Institute finds that the war unleashed over 5 million tons of carbon in just two weeks. That’s more climate pollution than Iceland generates in a year.

As the death toll grows, so does the environmental cost. We break it down with a panel of experts.
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The United States Postal Service has delivered mail for 250 years, from the busiest cities to the most remote parts of the country. But decades of money troubles have left the USPS billions of dollars in debt.

Now, the postmaster general warns that the agency could run out of money by October – and is urging Congress to save it.

We explore the uncertain future of USPS with a panel of experts.

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Owning a house appears further and further out of reach for many people in the U.S. The problem is a national one. The median price for an American home is now just over $400,000. On average, houses cost five years of the median salary for someone working in the U.S. In some cities on the West Coast and in parts of Florida, that ratio is now eight years of salary to buy a home.

Rents have also gone up significantly. Since 2020, the nation’s average rent is 27 percent higher. Some cities have seen much bigger gains – Miami’s average rent is up 51 percent. Housing policy advocates point to one big cause: the U.S. has not built enough housing for a growing population. But “build more housing” is a complex problem, not a single policy fix.

Congress recently turned its attention to the problem of housing affordability. The Senate passed a bill with a basket of different policies, aiming to bring down the cost of housing and encourage more building.

What’s in the bill specifically? And how could those policies make a dent in the housing crisis? And how has the housing crisis evolved in the past few years?

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The U.S. has a long history of getting rid of foreign leaders it doesn’t like. But a new pattern has emerged in the Trump administration’s dealings with its foreign adversaries.

In January, the president ordered a precision military operation that seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the U.S. The next month, the administration launched a high-powered bombing campaign against Iran, killing the country’s supreme leader and dozens of its top officials.

In both cases, Trump said the countries’ fates were ultimately up to the citizens — a striking change from the nation building during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, the commander-in-chief has his eyes set on Cuba, telling its president his time in office is coming to a close.

Our series, “If You Can Keep It,” continues with a look at what Trump’s military actions in Venezuela and Iran mean for how we fight wars and what comes after.

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As Israel and the U.S. continue to fire missiles at targets within Iran, the American military and President Donald Trump are weighing the costs and benefits of putting U.S. boots on the ground in the Middle East once again.

Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s Department of Homeland Security confirmation hearing saw him clash with his fellow congresspeople. Despite the meeting’s testy tone, the committee cleared Mullin by a single vote, sending his confirmation to the full Senate.

A federal judge ruled this week that Voice of America must reinstate more than 1,000 employees after the Trump administration placed them on leave last year.

And, in global news, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, announced this week that the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t technically closed to all traffic, just to ships controlled by the country’s enemies. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is leaning on Japan to send warships to the passageway, to counteract Iran’s efforts to control the flow of trade.

New reporting from The Guardian indicates that before the U.S. began bombing Iran, security officials from U.S. allies judged that, as talks between Washington and Tehran progressed, a peace deal was in reach.

The U.S. eased sanction on Russia and Venezuela this week to unlock more viable sources of oil as energy prices rise and the war with Iran continues.

We cover the most important stories from around the world in the News Roundup.

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Cases of colorectal cancer in young people have risen nearly 60 percent since the early 2000s. That’s according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and the National Cancer Institute. And a new study out this month by the American Cancer Society found that colorectal cancer is now the deadliest kind for those younger than 50.

But this rise isn’t being felt across all generations in the same way. People born around 1990 are four times more likely to develop rectal cancer than those born around 1950. And for those 65 and older, colorectal cancer rates have actually decreased.

So, what’s going on? And what can you do to protect yourself and your gut health? For those answers and more, we turn to a panel of experts.

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Big changes are coming to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

With Kristi Noem out at the Department of Homeland Security, all eyes are on FEMA to roll out millions of dollars in stalled federal funding for disaster responses. That’s especially true in North Carolina, where the western part of the state is still grappling with the effects of Hurricane Helene.

We sit down with a panel of experts to find out what the future holds for FEMA in the Tar Heel state.

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Wars are fought by militaries — but they’re usually ended by diplomats. So, what happens when diplomacy is sidelined?

Officials from Washington and Tehran engaged in talks for weeks, trying to avoid war before the U.S. and Israel fired missiles targeting Iran weeks ago. Now, as President Donald Trump publicly muses about why the military is engaged in another conflict in the Middle East, experts are wondering why talks were abandoned in the first place. And about the off ramps for all sides involved.

We look at the role diplomacy plays once a war is already raging — and what happens when negotiations, expertise, and international alliances are weakened.

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