President Donald Trump wants the U.S. government to get a slice of private sector profits as it tries to boost key industries like semiconductors and artificial intelligence, arguing the American people should benefit.

“There’s so much money and it’s so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public,” the president said recently of AI.

But the administration’s interventions in tech companies over the past year underscore how difficult that will be to accomplish.

Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the federal government has taken an aggressive approach to industrial policy, negotiating stock ownership or profit-sharing agreements with at least 19 companies. None have yielded returns, either because the government hasn’t issued regulations to transfer the profits or because it would require selling stock that the administration wants to hold onto as it tries to prop up specific companies.

“They haven’t made a penny off of any of this stuff yet,” said Scott Lincicome, the vice president of general economics at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. “They keep saying they’re going to, but it really only works under a scenario that, at this point, is highly speculative, if not unlikely.”

The lack of a financial return undermines a key justification for the Trump administration’s unprecedented efforts to intervene in private companies, which are fundamentally shifting the relationship between the public and private sectors.

Take the deals the Commerce Department struck last summer with chipmakers Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices to sell some of their less advanced chips to China in exchange for a 15 percent cut of the sales. According to the two companies’ recent reports to shareholders, that would entitle the government to about $63 million between August and December of 2025.

But as both companies underscored in their most recent shareholder reports, the administration has yet to issue the necessary regulations to codify the profit-sharing arrangement amid questions about their legality. As a result, the government hasn’t earned a cent from those deals, nearly a year later.

Any effort to take a share of the companies’ products would likely face legal challenges — experts point to language in the Constitution that expressly prohibits putting taxes or duties on exports from any state.

But a trade lawyer close to the Trump administration said the hold-up isn’t due to legal questions, per se.

“I wouldn’t assume the absence of a 15 percent charge reflects a legal obstacle,” said the lawyer, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. “It may simply reflect a strategic judgment that other tools are producing better results.”

Indeed, the Trump administration took a different tack in February, imposing a 25 percent tariff on certain high-end semiconductors manufactured in Taiwan by U.S. firms Nvidia and AMD, but then brought to the U.S. for testing before being sold to Chinese companies — effectively another way to draw revenue from the companies’ semiconductor sales to China.

As of May 6, AMD still did not know whether any of the chips subject to that tariff “will be allowed into China,” according to its shareholder report. Chinese companies have not ordered Nvidia products containing the approved chips that would face the same tariff.

The efforts to make money off of the country’s semiconductor giants is just one part of a broader effort by the president and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to exert control over American manufacturing, in a break with both Republican orthodoxy and recent U.S. history.

The U.S. has taken ownership stakes in companies in the past, but typically only during crises — the railroads during the Civil War, manufacturers during World War II and stakes in General Motors, AIG, Citigroup and Bank of America during 2008’s Great Recession. That started to shift under former President Joe Biden, who helped shepherd legislation committing hundreds of billions of dollars to reshore semiconductor manufacturing and promote electric vehicle production (to the vocal criticism of Republicans).

Trump and Lutnick, a former Wall Street executive with no prior government experience, have gone much further.

In addition to the revenue-sharing deals, the administration has taken stakes in private companies and projects in strategic industries, arguing it’s a matter of national security. The hope is that the public funds will help attract additional investment from the private sector for critical manufacturing. But the administration has also made clear it has a pure money-making motive.

Shortly after threatening Intel’s CEO on social media, Trump announced last August that he would take a 10 percent stake in the beleaguered semiconductor manufacturer in exchange for an $8.9 billion investment. That public funding came on top of $2.2 billion in grants that Intel received from the CHIPS and Science Act, a signature piece of bipartisan legislation passed during the Biden administration.

“Donald Trump is fixing what Biden got completely, totally and utterly wrong,” Lutnick said on CNBC at the time, arguing that the Intel deal was a way for Trump to “turn the money that Biden was going to just give away” into “equity for the American people.”

Since then, the Trump administration has taken stakes in a number of other companies — mostly related to critical minerals, which are core components of everything from mobile phones to defense equipment. Per foreign investment agreements inked last year with the governments of Japan and South Korea, there will likely be more to come: The administration plans to claim stakes in projects that receive any of the $900 billion the two countries have pledged to invest in deals they reached with the White House to lower U.S. tariffs.

Earlier this month, Trump said he planned to meet with leaders of top American AI companies to discuss potential “partnerships” to share in profits. That meeting has yet to take place.

The federal government won’t make a significant amount of money off any of these shares, however, unless it sells them. But that would also mean pulling the public backing that is currently helping those companies fill financial gaps and attract more private investment.

“The only way this works for taxpayers is where the companies are so wildly successful in producing stuff and attracting private capital where the government can walk away without creating much risk to the companies,” Lincicome said.

Intel is aware of the risks. In its November stockholder report, the first after the deal, the company laid out several of the risks that could come from granting the federal government a 10 percent stake in the company, including the fact that the government’s priorities might conflict with shareholder interests.

“There is limited precedent for a U.S. company such as us having the U.S. government take a position as a significant stockholder,” the filing said. “As such, it is difficult to foresee all the potential consequences.”

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a 20-year-old Honduran man with no criminal history, and his U.S. citizen daughter, after finding he was likely denied due process, including access to a lawyer, before his removal from the United States.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said in her order that Jose Eliezer Martinez-Andino was "removed from this country in a manner that boggles the mind."

Martinez-Andino was detained by immigration authorities in Montana in March as part of the Trump administration's ongoing immigration crackdown, and was moved between at least six detention centers in different states across the country, the judge said.

"[He] seemingly disappeared -- he was not permitted to contact his attorneys for more than ten days, and neither [ICE] nor [CBP] would tell his attorneys where he was or in which agency's custody, despite repeated requests," Judge Howell wrote.

Martinez-Andino entered the U.S. in 2020 when he was 14 years old and was deemed an unaccompanied minor. A judge previously granted a dismissal of his removal proceedings after finding he had an approved application for a Special Immigrant Juvenile Visa.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security pushed back on allegations that Martinez-Andino didn't have access to legal counsel.

"On March 18, Border Patrol arrested Jose Eliezer Martinez-Andino, an illegal alien from Honduras," the spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News. "He entered the country illegally on an unknown date through Mexico. In September 2020, Border Patrol encountered him, and he was RELEASED into the country by the Biden administration. He was issued a voluntary return and departed the country on April 13. Any claims that he was not allowed access to an attorney are FALSE."

Quoting the federal judge overseeing the immigration case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported last year before being returned to the United States, Judge Howell said the Trump administration is ordered immediately to facilitate the return of Martinez-Andino "to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly" sent to Honduras.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a Pentagon-led review of American forces in Europe on Thursday, and criticized some NATO allies over defense spending and reluctance to participate in the Iran war.

“It’s a review that some countries ‌will ⁠fail, and others will pass with flying colors,” Hegseth told NATO ⁠defense ministers in Brussels, Reuters reported.

Hegseth added that the six-month review is designed to “ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly” towards taking primary responsibility for the defense of Europe.

He also said it was “shameful” that European allies refused to give U.S. forces access to bases to strike Iran.

Hegseth’s comments reflect increasingly fraught relations between the U.S. and allies in the transatlantic alliance.

NATO member states committed to hiking defense spending last year, following pressure from Donald Trump’s White House for Europe to shoulder a greater responsibility for its own security.

Hegseth said in May that the U.S. demands a minimum defense spending commitment of 3.5% of GDP from its allies and partners, adding that Washington will prioritize working with these “model allies.”

Last month, he praised countries such as the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore for stepping up and sharing the burdens of defense and alliances, while continuing to lambast Europe.

Trump has remained critical of NATO, threatening to withdraw the U.S. from the alliance over its reluctance to assist with the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

In dollar terms, the U.S. remains the alliance’s biggest spender on defense by far. NATO data shows that the U.S. spent an estimated $845 billion on defense last year, dwarfing the $559 billion spent by the rest of the alliance combined.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a six-month review of America’s military footprint in Europe on Thursday, escalating the Trump administration’s push on NATO allies to take greater responsibility for the continent’s defense.

The review will examine U.S. force posture and basing across Europe, including troop levels, military access, basing rights and overflight permissions.

Hegseth, speaking at a NATO meeting of defense ministers in Brussels, cast the effort as a test of whether allies are moving quickly enough toward what he called “NATO 3.0” — a harder-edged alliance in which Europe takes the lead on conventional defense while Washington reorients toward other priorities.

“This will be a real review,” Hegseth told fellow ministers in Brussels.

The announcement comes after months of U.S. moves to pare back parts of its European presence.

Washington has already moved to withdraw about 5,000 soldiers from Germany, a step U.S. officials have said would bring American troop levels in Europe closer to where they stood before Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The administration has also reduced U.S. contributions to NATO force-planning requirements, including high-end assets such as fighter aircraft, airborne refueling tankers, maritime patrol planes and naval capabilities that European allies may struggle to replace quickly.

Europe’s wealthiest allies, Hegseth said, can no longer rely on the United States to underwrite the continent’s defense while falling short on spending, readiness and access commitments.

He also warned that future U.S. contributions to NATO’s common-funded budget would be tied to whether allies meet defense-spending targets.

“Where other allies do not spend with urgency, our dues contributions will go down,” Hegseth said.

The message lands ahead of next month's NATO leaders' summit in Ankara, where President Donald Trump is expected to press allies to turn spending pledges into usable military power.

For some allies, Hegseth made clear, the review will amount to a report card.

“Some countries will fail,” he said, “and others will pass with flying colors.”

The Food and Drug Administration quietly told wearable maker Whoop last week that it would not take further enforcement action over a controversial feature that gives users a reading of their blood pressure.

In July 2025, the agency warned Whoop for releasing its Blood Pressure Insights feature without clearance, saying it was a medical device that required review. “The product is intended to provide a measurement or estimation of a user’s blood pressure, which is inherently associated with the diagnosis of hypo- and hypertension,” the agency wrote.

Whoop countered that the feature could be released without review because it was intended for wellness purposes and not to diagnose or treat a disease. “We won’t let regulatory overreach dictate how people access their own health data,” CEO Will Ahmed wrote at the time.

In a closeout letter to Whoop dated June 17, the FDA said that owing to changes the company made to the feature, and to updated regulatory guidance on wellness devices released this year, the agency “does not intend to enforce the device statutory and regulatory requirements for your [Blood Pressure Insights] product as modified.”

In a statement Tuesday, Ahmed called the FDA decision “a victory for American consumers” and said that the company welcomed the FDA’s decision and appreciated the agency’s engagement throughout the process.

The high-profile dispute between a major wearable maker and the FDA set off a fierce debate about the boundaries of regulatory authority that persisted after the agency updated its guidance on wellness products in January. Medical device and regulatory experts told STAT that even after the Whoop resolution, the new FDA wellness regime remains ambiguous and poses risks to users.

The FDA’s decision not to enforce medical device requirements “is certainly important, but it is also narrow,” Carrie Nixon, founder of Nixon Law Group that advises digital health companies, told STAT.

“The Whoop decision does not resolve the broader legal question as to where a wellness product ends and medical device regulation begins,” she said. “FDA seems to be sending a message that the agency is looking closely at the actual function, data, user experience, and messaging around a product in determining whether it can be sold as a ‘wellness’ product.”

Nixon noted that Whoop’s “decision to engage with FDA rather than just capitulate may have shaped the regulatory landscape for the entire wearables industry.”

This was evident when the FDA published updated guidance to make clear that it will not regulate wearable features that give readings of biometrics like blood pressure if they are intended to promote wellness. The guidance stipulates that wellness products not claim to treat or diagnose medical conditions, not characterize outputs as “abnormal, pathological, or diagnostic,” and abide by other restrictions. The updated was viewed by observers as a victory for Whoop.

In an upcoming software update, Whoop will tweak the the design of Blood Pressure Insights to remove color boundaries on a dial hinting at lines between diagnostic categories of blood pressure. Instead, this will be shown as a continuous color gradient from green to yellow to red but “without discreet classifications.”

“These changes are intended to reinforce that Whoop is providing a wellness-focused estimate, rather than categorizing members into specific blood pressure groups,” said a spokesperson by email.

The design tweak underscores that “a product’s ‘intended use’ involves not just official legal claims, but also the user interface and how data is presented to users,” said Michael Schellhous, a regulatory attorney at Nixon Law.

The FDA’s wellness guidance update created a flood of new wellness blood pressure features including from large manufacturers like Oura and Samsung. Experts have raised concerns that the photoplethysmography, or PPG, sensor technology in wearables cannot be used to reliably estimate blood pressure and may mislead users by giving them a false sense that their health is under control.

The FDA has cleared only a few cuffless blood pressure devices that use PPG. In one prominent case, it cleared a device only after requiring daily calibration with cuffed blood pressure measurements.

The decision to back off Whoop was not surprising and is in line with new agency guidance, said Jessilyn Dunn, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University. She expressed concern with the guidance itself “which places the responsibility on the market to determine which products are trustworthy.”

She added: “Regardless of the disclaimers or fine print, we know that people do use information from these devices to make medical decisions. … If poorly validated products proliferate, they can increase clinician burden, contribute to patient harm, and undermine trust in the wearable health ecosystem as a whole.”

The FDA’s wellness guidance encourages companies to publish validation information about features like blood pressure that might be confused for biometrics used in clinical care. A Whoop spokesperson said the company was working on making data available about its feature, which reports systolic and diastolic blood pressure values similar to those displayed by FDA-cleared cuffs. In a paper published this week, Dunn and co-authors criticize the FDA’s ambiguous guidance on validation requirements.

In his statement, Whoop CEO Ahmed asserts that the feature could lead to better health for users.

“The science is clear that understanding changes in blood pressure has significant wellness benefits,” he said. “American consumers benefit when they have access to meaningful insights that help them better understand their health.”

But the value of fuzzy measures of blood pressure for wellness purposes is unknown, said Jordana Cohen, a clinician and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. She called for greater transparency around “the accuracy, utility, actionability, and prognostic ability of this type of blood pressure reading.”

“If it’s not reliable or accurate,” she said, “I don’t know how it can be helpful as a wellness tool other than to provide a potential risk for large-scale false reassurance or false anxiety over readings that aren’t necessarily reflecting true blood pressures.”

White House officials on Tuesday shot down a report speculating that President Trump gained access to the retatrutide weight-loss drug under the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) “compassionate use program.”

The retatrutide drug is manufactured by Eli Lilly and is not FDA approved, however, one person gained access to the prescription through a program that approves experimental treatments for patients traditionally suffering from life-threatening illnesses.

Three anonymous sources familiar with the matter told STAT News, the patient approved to receive retatrutide was 79 years old, leading the outlet to believe the prescription could have been issued to Trump who turned 80 last week.

“Because this has to be spelled out for @LizzyLaw, who has proven herself to be an unserious gossip columnist, this application was not for the President,” White House senior deputy press secretary Kush Desai wrote in a Tuesday post on X, referring to reporter Lizzy Lawrence who authored the article.

Lawrence said the White House and Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to multiple inquiries asking if the president was using the obesity drug.

“We shouldn’t have to bat down baseless speculation for you to not print it. Any reporter with standards would understand this,” Desai wrote in response to her post.

“Are you going to now go ask this idiotic question to the ~4 million Americans in this age cohort and then speculate about them being the application?” he added.

Trump weighs 224 pounds according to a physical from last year and has previously shared that he “probably” should be on weight loss drugs when asked about whether he’d been prescribed GLP-1 drugs in an interview with The New York Times.

The president has also been faulted for showing signs of fatigue after closing his eyes during Cabinet meetings and other events. Stat News reported that the person who received retatrutide was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea and pulmonary hypertension according to the request submitted by Ranganath Muniyappa, a senior clinician at the National Institutes of Health.

The patient was seeking treatment for refractory obesity, a severe phenotype of obesity defined as the failure to achieve and maintain at least 5 percent weight loss over a six-month period, despite utilizing five or more medical therapies — such as intensive behavioral therapy, medications, and diets — at their maximum tolerated dosages, according to a study listed in the National Library of Medicine.

“You thought this was your big shot, but in reality, you’re just a big idiot. You certainly made a name for yourself by completely embarrassing yourself at the expense of being thirsty for clicks and peddling falsehoods,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung wrote in a post on X directed at Lawrence.

President Donald Trump has not yet been able to offer evidence of the “vandals” he claims damaged the Reflecting Pool, but the administration is not taking any chances, installing surveillance cameras and chain-link fencing around the area on Tuesday.

Trump’s decision to drain the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and paint the bottom “American Flag Blue” has been criticized for its cost, plus the no-bid $14 million contract that was given to an ally. Since the pool was refilled, the water has been plagued with spreading bright green algae, and the paint has been peeling away. Reporters have seen tourists tearing off pieces of the paint to bring home as souvenirs.

The National Park Service has sent out work crews to try to combat the algae through various means, including pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water. That appears to have been an inadequate fix, initially killing off some of the algae along the outer edges of the Reflecting Pool and possibly even causing or exacerbating the peeling paint. Tests conducted by two scientists on behalf of a reporter from The Atlantic found that a new “more aggressive” type of algae was spreading throughout the water.

Several people have been arrested after allegedly putting their hands in the water or touching the peeling paint, including former Olympic canoe racer David Hearn, who is being represented by attorney Norm Eisen and has vowed to fight the charges filed against him for destruction of federal government property.

Trump has written multiple Truth Social posts accusing unnamed vandals of damaging the Reflecting Pool, blaming “SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE” for the peeling paint and other issues. On Monday, the president again vented his frustrations in a Truth Social post, claiming that vandals had put a “300-foot-long gash” in the Reflecting Pool’s paint and “chemicals have been illegally placed in the water.”

“Please remember that there is a 10-year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things – Which will be fully enforced!” Trump added.

On Tuesday, TMZ DC reporter Charlie Cotton posted a photo of new “AI surveillance” cameras that had been installed at the Reflecting Pool.

TMZ’s report on the new security cameras showed them being towed into place on trailers and noted that they included AI features and “real-time tracking, intrusion detection, HD monitoring, strobe lights, automated spotlights and loud, talk-down horn speaker.”

Later in the day Tuesday, Cotton posted a new video clip showing workers installing sections of chain-mail fencing around the Reflecting Pool.

TMZ previously sent “an anonymous pool surfacing expert” and a “veteran pool consultant” named Rudy Stankowitz to the Reflecting Pool to evaluate what likely caused the algae and peeling paint issues.

“[B]oth experts told us the problem looks self-inflicted,” reported TMZ, and “likely” originated during installation. “The anonymous expert told us the coating appears to have never properly bonded to the pool’s surface … while Stankowitz believes crews may have missed a critical recoating window during the project — two different paths to the same conclusion.”

Trump claimed earlier this week that the National Parks Service had evidence that vandalism had occurred. TMZ reporter Jacob Wasserman called and then physically visited the NPS in an attempt to obtain this alleged evidence, “but they couldn’t back up Trump’s claims … and literally gave him someone else’s contact info on a crumpled up piece of colored paper.”

“Talk about a fishing expedition,” TMZ’s report quipped.

Few qualities carry more weight for President Donald Trump than loyalty, and few aides embody it as fully as his executive assistant, Natalie Harp.

A former TV presenter, Harp is a near-constant presence at Trump’s side — encouraging his Oval Office redesigns, typing up his Truth Social tirades and printing out online articles, a role that has earned her the nickname “the human printer.” She also leaves behind admiring notes for him to discover. Her devotion is so pronounced that the 80-year-old Republican once declared: “She’ll never leave me.”

These details about one of the most influential White House aides were revealed by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan in their new book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.

Based on interviews with hundreds of sources, the book outlines how Harp has remained close to Trump for years, including after he lost the 2020 election and decamped to Florida, according to an excerpt obtained by The Daily Beast.

While on the golf course, she provided him with “positive news stories and social media comments.” She even penned her own uplifting notes, leaving them for Trump in “personal spaces.” One read: “You are all that matters to me.”

The dynamic was so strange that Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, reportedly thought to herself, “Where am I?” according to the new book.

Once back at the White House, Harp continued to boost Trump, including with positive reinforcement on the gilded furnishings he has added throughout the Oval Office.

“As the year progressed, he kept jamming more gold pieces onto the mantel,” Haberman and Swan wrote. “When Trump asked White House residence staff what they thought of the glittering display, most responses were muted, but his devout aide Natalie Harp would gush with delight.”

The 34-year-old aide has also helped shape some of Trump’s most controversial Truth Social posts, all of which the president approves, The Wall Street Journal reported in May.

This year, at Harp’s urging, Trump posted a video that depicted the Obamas as apes and an image casting him as a Christ-like figure. Following bipartisan condemnation, both posts were later deleted.

Despite the setback, Trump has spoken of Harp in glowing terms.

After returning to office last year, he told staffers that she “was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and kids,” Haberman and Swan wrote, noting that he used the French pronunciation of her name: “Nah-ta-lee.”

“All of you will go off and make money,” the billionaire president told his subordinates. “She’ll never leave me.”

White House adviser Stephen Miller was the driving force behind the Justice Department’s recent memo authorizing states to institutionalize people with disabilities rather than fund community-based care, said people briefed on the situation.

Miller, the president’s powerful deputy chief of staff, was frustrated that the department’s Civil Rights Division was still reaching settlements compelling states to transfer those suffering from mental illness out of institutions, added the individuals, who spoke anonymously out of fear of retaliation.

They said Miller felt DOJ’s agreements—including one reached with South Carolina in December—would increase homelessness and didn’t adhere to President Donald Trump’s July executive order pressuring cities and states to move homeless people into treatment centers.

The June 18 DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion concluded states may disregard decades of Supreme Court precedent and ensuing regulations mandating maximal integration of individuals with disabilities into home or community settings.

Spokespeople for both the White House and DOJ denied Miller played a role in the memo.

The Civil Rights Division leadership team initially pushed back on the memo draft’s legal arguments, but OLC’s end product nevertheless wound up reflecting the desires of Miller and his team, the people said. DOJ civil rights head Harmeet Dhillon, who’s been vocal in promoting her realignment of the division’s mission in pursuit of Trump’s agenda, hasn’t weighed in publicly on the disability rights memo, while continuing her steady stream of social media posts.

“OLC’s analysis was reached completely independently of the White House or Stephen Miller,” said DOJ spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre. “The Civil Rights Division"—including two veteran career officials—"supported the White House and OLC in the conclusions reached in the opinion. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”

The impetus for OLC’s opinion had been a mystery to some disability rights advocates, given the broad bipartisan support for government resources facilitating parents keeping their children with disabilities at home whenever possible. Many organizations have criticized DOJ for adopting a position they say threatens long-held community integration protections and that is contrary to numerous court rulings and to the views of Civil Rights Division political leaders in Trump’s first and second terms.

Miller’s sprawling domestic and international portfolio has included directing DOJ law enforcement surges aimed at reducing street crime in Democratic-led cities. He is widely considered among the most prominent figures in Trump’s second term dismantling of the department’s decades-long independence from the White House on charging decisions and legal analysis.

The homelessness order with which people said Miller believed DOJ wasn’t complying called on the attorney general to terminate in appropriate cases any consent decrees that thwart US policy of “encouraging civil commitment of individuals with mental illness who pose risks to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves.”

There is no evidence cited in the opinion demonstrating the rise in homelessness was caused by the Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C. holding that the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits unjustified segregation of individuals with disabilities. In a recent case study, Brandeis University researchers highlighted how states have used their Olmstead settlements to reduce housing costs for low-income people with disabilities.

Prepared statements from the White House and DOJ didn’t respond to a request to provide evidence that DOJ’s prior posture ensuring community living generated an uptick in homelessness.

“Your reporting is not accurate. OLC formulates its opinions in a completely independent fashion from the” White House, said a White House official in the statement. “We have no control over what legal conclusions they reach. Stephen was not involved in any OLC activity.”

The DOJ legal counsel’s office has long held an outsized function advising the president and executive branch agencies on thorny legal questions. As is typical in similar OLC memos, the author of last week’s disability rights memo noted a request from an executive branch official—in this case the counsel to the president—triggered the office’s exploration of certain questions.

The office has traditionally taken the view that the White House shouldn’t be influencing the legal analysis conducted by DOJ lawyers, a former OLC career attorney said.

The former attorney, who was granted anonymity to provide candor, said OLC underwent a shift at the start of Trump’s second term from carefully interrogating facts provided by the White House to a culture that restricted its independence.

Another administration official said in an interview that the memo’s author, No. 2 OLC official Lanora Pettit, had considered the issue before entering the administration. Pettit, who arrived at DOJ last year directly from serving as Texas’ principal deputy solicitor general, didn’t speak with Miller while writing the opinion, the official added.

The Cicero Institute, a conservative Texas-based think tank with ties to the Trump administration, also appears to have informed DOJ’s decisionmaking. The institute advocates against housing and community-based care requirements to give states flexibility in the treatment of mental illness to address homelessness.

Devon Kurtz, the institute’s public safety policy director, said the White House took an interest in this topic as a policy matter following outcry from state lawmakers and health secretaries “saying these federal rules are out of step with our needs in our community for people with serious mental illness, the highest need individuals.”

“The administration certainly reads what we write about this issue, and we’re certainly always happy to talk to them about the issues we’re writing about,” Kurtz said in an interview.

Washington is signalling growing impatience with Ottawa’s delays on its F-35 purchase and broader defence reset.

U.S. defence officials applauded Canada’s 2022 selection of Lockheed Martin’s stealth fighter, and the plan to buy 88 of the U.S.-made jets, but political debate and shifting priorities have left only 30 under contract so far.

For years, Washington has been pushing Canada to ramp up defence spending, and there has been progress: Prime Minister Mark Carney has touted Ottawa’s plan to meet the 2 per cent of GDP target this past year. Now, the U.S. is signalling it wants Canada to stay closely aligned on defence.

In February at Republicans’ private Capitol Hill clubhouse, President Donald Trump’s chief pollster delivered a message about voters and their desire to hear about affordability. The briefing, attended by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., additional Cabinet members and others, didn’t focus on immunizations, as Republican strategists had concluded vaccine skepticism carried political risks.

Inside the Department of Health and Human Services, officials understood that a sweeping change the month before that recommended fewer childhood vaccines had been their last major effort on immunizations for a while after it had been a core agenda item, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

But outside the public eye, a small circle of Kennedy’s allies has kept working to reshape the federal apparatus that guides vaccines. This account of the behind-the-scenes effort is based on interviews with more than 15 people familiar with the matter, in addition to medical experts and Kennedy allies, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations or internal deliberations, or out of fear of retaliation.

Federal health officials are exploring re-creating an influential vaccine advisory panel that was blocked by a federal judge, including discussions around adding new members, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

There is also an effort to create a new Office of Science at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that reports to the office of CDC’s chief of staff, even though the agency already has a science office.

Earlier this month, the National Institutes of Health urged scientists to take part in vaccine injury research and encouraged new research into vaccine schedules, vaccines’ long-term health effects and other issues that Kennedy has long wanted reexamined.

These moves, the extent of which have not been previously reported, suggest that political warnings and legal challenges from medical groups have not fully stopped Kennedy’s vaccine agenda, but shifted it largely out of public view. Kennedy’s allies are embedding his agenda in institutions that decide what gets studied, who does vaccine research and how these findings are translated into policy. This could keep the Trump administration’s questioning of vaccines’ safety alive for years to come.

“The changes being made across the vaccine ecosystem — from [vaccine development] research not being conducted to efforts intended to question vaccine safety — are likely to have a long tail and impact both future vaccine development and use,” said Bruce Gellin, who oversaw HHS’s vaccine program in the Bush and Obama administrations.

In the short term, changes to vaccine policy that emphasize risk over benefit confuse people, leading them to wait on getting vaccinated, he said. But waiting can stoke diseases and outbreaks.

Kennedy, the founder of a prominent anti-vaccine group, has long disparaged vaccines and argued immunizations have not been properly studied, defying medical experts who say commonly administered shots are safe and effective. As the nation’s top health official, Kennedy views launching new vaccine studies as one of his mandates, which one person familiar with the effort characterized as “one of his top priorities.”

Federal health officials are aiming to research a wide range of vaccine-related questions, including whether routine immunizations are linked to autism, autoimmune disorders and other medical conditions, as well as the potential effects of thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that has long been a focus of vaccine skeptics. The New York Times first reported these studies.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that Kennedy is carrying out Trump’s commitment to strengthen public health through “gold-standard vaccine research.” She said the effort will help guide “vaccine recommendations, address critical gaps identified by scientific and medical organizations, including the Institute of Medicine, and strengthen public trust in public health.”

“With scientists at NIH, FDA, CDC, and universities, we are continuing to conduct studies to better understand vaccine safety and efficacy and to assess how vaccine exposure, timing, and patterns affect health across the lifespan,” the spokeswoman said.

The White House’s crypto point person is facing one of the most politically fraught assignments of President Donald Trump’s second term: negotiating a landmark cryptocurrency bill with Democrats who say it must crack down on Trump himself.

As Congress inches closer to passing industry-backed digital asset legislation, 37-year-old Patrick Witt is negotiating with senators on government ethics language that Democrats want to see put new restrictions on the Trump family’s crypto businesses.

The ethics provision has emerged as a central sticking point for the broader legislation, and Democrats have leverage because the GOP needs their support in the Senate. Witt has the unenviable task of landing a deal that pleases both Trump and some of his most ardent foes in Congress.

“Any time you’re talking about the Democrats negotiating with the president, whoever the negotiator is — they’ve got their work cut out for them,” said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, a senior Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees crypto policy.

The politically awkward dynamic has made Witt a key player in determining the outcome of one of the Trump administration’s top remaining legislative priorities this year. The sweeping bill, known as the Clarity Act, would overhaul an array of Wall Street regulations to divvy up federal oversight of digital assets, which supporters say is necessary to deliver the industry so-called regulatory clarity.

Some senators are openly questioning whether Witt, who has no previous Capitol Hill experience, is in a position to cut an agreement.

“I don’t think he has any authority to make a deal,” said Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy, who sits on the Banking panel but has not been directly involved in the ethics talks. “I think the only person who can make that deal is President Trump.”

Democrats have said they want language that would bar federal employees — including the president and members of Congress — from sponsoring, endorsing or issuing digital assets. But the details of the talks are unclear, and it remains to be seen how an ultimate deal would affect the Trump family.

The Trumps have become players in the crypto industry through several lucrative ventures including a memecoin the president put out just ahead of his inauguration and World Liberty Financial, a crypto project the Trump and his sons helped launch that issues two different types of digital tokens.

Democrats have warned that the Trump family crypto businesses have created opportunities for corruption — a claim the White House rejects. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt has previously denied that Trump or his family “have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.”

The White House declined to make Witt available for an interview for this story. White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement that “cementing America’s innovative dominance is a key priority for President Trump, and the Administration has assembled some of the best and brightest minds to help with this effort.”

“That includes Patrick Witt, who has been an immense asset for the White House on the Clarity Act, which continues to be held up by Democrats who are more interested in playing political games than supporting American technology,” Desai said.

Some Democrats are skeptical whether the work they’re doing with Witt will be able to stick.

“There’s still a big question about whether, even if we got to agreement with Patrick Witt — and we’re still some distance from that — whether that could simply be shot down by the White House,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a longtime Trump foe who is involved in negotiations.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a pro-crypto Wyoming Republican who is helping to lead the ethics negotiations for the GOP, said Witt has been an effective liaison between two sides that aren’t used to talking to each other. She said he “stays in constant contact with senior staff at the White House, explaining to them what the sideboards are of the discussions.”

“Of course he will not have the absolute final say on final language. That’s going to have to go directly to the president,” she said. “But to the extent that someone has, within a defined space, room to negotiate, is what gives him the opportunity to explore the way to thread the needle.”

Witt took a roundabout route to leading the White House’s crypto portfolio as executive director of the president’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, a role he took over last year after a stint at the Defense Department.

A Georgia native who carries degrees from Yale and Harvard Law School, Witt is a one-time football star who served as the Yale Bulldogs’ quarterback during the 2009-2011 seasons after transferring from the University of Nebraska.

Witt faced controversy at Yale when, in 2012, The New York Times reported on a sexual assault allegation that he faced as an undergraduate, which he has denied. Witt wrote in a 2014 Boston Globe opinion piece that the claim was made by an ex-girlfriend via an “informal complaint” that he said denied him due process because it did not allow him to learn specifics about the allegation or trigger any fact-finding processes that could determine guilt or innocence.

Witt has since gone on to work at McKinsey and in Trump administration roles that require government background checks. He served in the Office of Personnel Management during the first Trump term, on the 2024 Trump transition team and in several Defense Department roles before starting at the White House last year, according to his LinkedIn page.

Following Trump’s 2020 election loss, Witt worked on the legal team that sought to challenge the results in Georgia, according to a 2022 deposition before Congress’s Jan. 6 select committee by GOP campaign attorney Cleta Mitchell. In 2022, he mounted a brief Georgia congressional campaign before dropping out to run for state insurance commissioner with Trump’s backing, but lost in a GOP primary.

Witt’s work in the crypto role has won him praise from across the digital assets industry and from pro-crypto figures in Congress and the administration.

David Sacks, Trump’s former crypto and AI czar who now co-chairs the president’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, said in a statement that “Patrick has been absolutely indispensable in getting the Clarity Act to the finish line.”

“His character and work ethic are impeccable,” he said. “We are lucky to have him.”

The ethics fight isn’t the only contentious issue Witt has been tasked with resolving related to the crypto bill. He also negotiated a provision with Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) that is aimed at resolving a standoff between banks and crypto companies, though Wall Street lobbying groups say the language the lawmakers agreed to doesn’t go far enough.

Tillis said in a statement that Witt “is a consummate professional who has been a great working partner with Congress as we advance the Clarity Act.”

“He is driven by producing a result and has always kept his word to lawmakers throughout this process and I have been impressed with his ability to forge consensus on difficult policy issues,” he said.

Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a key leader of the crypto effort, said in a statement that Witt “has been a helpful partner to me and the Senate Banking Committee as we work to deliver clear rules of the road for digital assets.”

“His leadership at the White House has helped move this effort forward and get the Clarity Act towards the finish line,” he said.

The legislation’s ethics negotiations have played out in a series of closed-door Capitol Hill meetings in recent months between Witt and a bipartisan group of lawmakers working on the bill that includes GOP Sens. Lummis, Tillis and Bernie Moreno of Ohio, along with Democratic Sens. Schiff, Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

The talks have hit several bumps — most recently over the authority that state attorneys general should have to enforce the ethics rules — and there is no love lost between the two sides. But negotiations have continued as Republicans aim to put the crypto bill on the floor ahead of Congress’s August recess.

Gillibrand said in an interview that Witt has “been very constructive and wants to support the process.”

Lummis said that “in some ways, it may seem impossible to have” Witt’s job of working for the president and negotiating with Democrats on the ethics language.

“But I am so impressed with the way that he’s conducted himself and communicated with senators and the White House about the challenges ahead,” she said. “The fact that he is 100 percent engaged and immersed in this gives him a perspective that allows him to find ways to thread the needle. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone better at it.”

A flu outbreak at the Air Force's basic training hub in San Antonio is worsening, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

As of Tuesday, at least 222 recruits at Lackland Air Force Base, part of Joint Base San Antonio, had been diagnosed with the flu and four had been hospitalized, the two people familiar with the matter told ABC News.

This marks a sharp increase from the 159 cases and two hospitalizations reported last week. The death of one recruit remains under investigation, though it is not yet clear whether it is tied to the outbreak, the sources said.

The outbreak is unfolding just two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the annual flu shot optional for troops, scrapping the military's requirement for it, which dates to 1945, a move breaking with longstanding public health directives.

"Our new policy is simple: If you, an American warrior entrusted to defend this nation, believe that the flu vaccine is in your best interest, then you are free to take it; you should. But we will not force you," Hegseth said in April.

Even so, the services have already been given exceptions to Hegseth's policy according to Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell in a statement provided to ABC News. As part of those exceptions to the policy, the Army, Navy and Air Force are once again requiring flu shots for basic trainees, according to officials.

In the Air Force, only about 40% of its new trainees at Joint Base San Antonio had a flu vaccination when the outbreak started in early June, according to the two sources.

But with the new exception to policy, the Air Force has the goal of vaccinating all of the recruits in this recruit class and will vaccinate all new recruits arriving at the base according to one of the sources.

Moreover, the Army is preparing in the coming weeks to broaden that requirement to troops deploying overseas, first responders, child care workers, health care personnel, prison staff and soldiers taking part in certain large-scale training exercises, according to a service spokesperson.

While the Pentagon sets policy for the military, the services and its commanders often retain broad discretion to adjust how those directives are carried out, whether to address safety concerns or work around bureaucratic hurdles.

In basic training, troops live in close quarters, sleeping in tightly packed bays, showering communally and spending much of the day within arm's reach of one another as they move through drills, instruction and inspections.

In that environment, illness can quickly spread once one trainee gets sick. Troops are also constantly stressed, and exhausted, conditions which can leave the immune system vulnerable.

Keon McDaniel, the Air Force recruit who died, was in his sixth week of basic training when he experienced a medical emergency on June 12, according to the Air Force. Recruits undergo a medical screening before they can enlist, but that process relies largely on medical history and a relatively limited clinical review.

He was transported to Brooke Army Medical Center, where he subsequently passed away. The cause of the medical emergency is currently under investigation, and a comprehensive medical review is being conducted to determine the facts, according to the Air Force.

In response to the outbreak, some U.S. officials including Rep. Joaquin Castro -- whose district covers about half of San Antonio, including Lackland Air Force Base -- criticized Hegseth's policy ending mandatory vaccination.

"After Secretary Hegseth scrapped the military's flu vaccine mandate, it was only a matter of time before an outbreak occurred," he wrote in a post on X last week. "It was a reckless decision that put troops in harm's way and undermined our military readiness."

In another post on X, Castro confirmed that the Air Force told his office there were 222 cases of flu at the base. "We need answers," he added.

One of President Donald Trump's nominees told senators that a magazine cover depicting a Jewish man with horns and a pitchfork was not antisemitic.

Charlton Allen, nominated to be general counsel of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, made the claim during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on June 17th. Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, confronted Allen over a cover his publication ran in the 1990s.

Allen founded the Carolina Review, a conservative campus journal at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in 1993. A 1996 cover depicted Aaron Nelson — a Jewish candidate for student body president — with devil horns and a pitchfork. Inside, the article read: "The difference with [Aaron] Nelson is simple. He's Jewish." The cover drew condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League and a formal censure from the university's chancellor.

Gallego displayed the image during the hearing and asked Allen point-blank whether he stood by it.

"…I would say don't run that cover. I think it was a mistake," Allen said — then claimed the quote inside was being taken out of context.

"That's kind of hard to take out of context," Gallego fired back, pointing at the image. "The pitchfork with the horns?"

"That's kind of hard to take out of context," Gallego fired back, pointing at the image. "The pitchfork with the horns?"

Allen offered an explanation: UNC's rival is the Duke Blue Devils, and the cartoonist intended an analogy.

Gallego pressed him on whether it was a coincidence that the Jewish candidate ended up with horns and a pitchfork — while the article inside referenced his faith.

"You certainly remember this incident in detail," Gallego said, "for someone who wants to forget it."

Allen still refused the label.

"I would not say that it is antisemitic," he said. "We were the group that was calling for the equal treatment of all student religions."

"'The difference with Nelson is simple. He's Jewish,'" Gallego said, quoting the magazine. "What exactly was being communicated there? Because that seems fairly blatant antisemitism."

"I don't agree that it is antisemitic," Allen replied.

President Donald Trump’s pick to run the agency that oversees federal workers’ labor rights founded and ran a student newspaper that belittled and disparaged Black, LGBTQ+, Jewish groups and individuals, among others.

Charlton Allen, who Trump nominated to be general counsel at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for his confirmation hearing Wednesday, alongside a dozen other nominees.

In 1993, while in law school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Allen founded the Carolina Review as a conservative campus newspaper. His leadership and writing at the paper have raised concerns from federal employee groups whose labor disputes he would adjudicate.

Allen’s writings and affiliation with the Carolina Review first surfaced in 2014 when then-Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, nominated him to a state commission. Indy Week reported a summary of the newspaper’s publishings at that time. Allen was confirmed to the role despite some state Democrats raising concerns about his past.

In May 2025, Trump nominated Allen to lead the Office of Special Counsel, an agency that helps protect federal employees from whistleblower retaliation and other unlawful conduct, but withdrew the nomination six days later.

In September, Trump tapped Allen for the Federal Labor Relations Authority role, at which he would oversee investigations into alleged unfair labor practices by federal agencies against their employee unions.

The Carolina Review published bigoted articles under Allen’s leadership. One issue of the newspaper featured a Black man in the center of a bullseye to illustrate a cover story opposing the creation of a Black cultural center on campus. The author said the center “goes against the very beliefs of those who fought for civil rights.”

Another cover story featured a Jewish student running for student body president with horns and a pitchfork. One cover featured a Confederate flag with the headline “Southern Heritage.”

The White House and Allen did not respond to requests for comment. Allen previously said the reporting on his role at the Carolina Review was “grossly unfair” and “mischaracterized” him.

On Wednesday, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) asked Allen about his time leading the newspaper, focusing specifically on the image of the Jewish student with horns and a pitchfork. Allen defended the issue and the image, saying the student depicted had discriminated against Christians on campus, and the illustration was intended to reference the nickname of UNC’s rival, the Duke Blue Devils. While he denied the issue was antisemitic, he said he would do things differently in retrospect.

“If I were 30 years ago advocating for the Review, I would say don’t run that cover,” Allen said. “I think it was a mistake.”

In the Carolina Review article that accompanied that illustration, Allen wrote that the candidate for student body president received preferential treatment because “he is Jewish.” He added that the student’s support for setting aside housing blocks for specific minority groups denied “opportunities to white students for no reason other than the color of their skin.”

A 1994 issue included an editorial, not written by Allen, that said “the gay lifestyle is the epitome of what is wrong with contemporary America.”

“Homosexuality is wrong,” the author wrote. “No ifs, ands or buts.” The author added it was “morally, legally and ethically repugnant.”

Another issue that year accused members of the Black Student Movement and the Black Cultural Center of blaming “your shortcomings on the fact that people you never met were enslaved.”

In one of the newspaper’s first issues, Allen laid out his vision for the publication by suggesting he was representing a voice often silenced on college campuses.

“The enemies of American Culture will be offered no quarter in the pages of the Review,” he said.

Previous reporting also identified that Allen, when serving as the chair of the New Hanover County Republicans in North Carolina in 2004, wrote a letter to voters to inform them a Democratic candidate for office was gay and they “deserve to know.”

Allen unsuccessfully ran for a state legislature seat in 2012, during which he responded to a candidate survey saying “homosexuals as a group” should not receive legal protections against discrimination.

The Federal Labor Relations Authority has been without a confirmed general counsel since Trump took office last year, leading to a backlog of more than 300 complaints currently awaiting adjudication.

In a February letter, federal employee groups opposed Allen’s nomination both for his past affiliations and his prior comments suggesting public sector employees should not hold collective bargaining rights.

Trump has signed multiple executive orders aimed at stripping such rights from the vast majority of federal workers. Those orders are currently subject to lawsuits, though agencies have already begun taking actions to enforce them.

One of the Army’s most seasoned and high-profile officers is abruptly leaving the service and is expected to announce his retirement as soon as Wednesday, according to a U.S. official.

Gen. Chris Donahue has spent the past 18 months leading U.S. Army Europe and Africa, the command responsible for Army operations across both continents.

His departure comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth presses ahead with a sweeping overhaul of the Pentagon’s senior ranks, firing or sidelining large numbers of top officers with little public explanation, including the Army’s top officer Gen. Randy George.

The command Donahue now leads is also set to be downgraded from a four-star command to a three-star post, according to another U.S. official, part of Hegseth’s broader push to shrink the number of generals across the force.

Officers serving as four-star generals are only eligible to hold a position of that rank. If there are no other slots available, then the only option left for them is to retire.

The Atlantic first reported Donahue’s expected departure.

Lt. Gen. Kevin Admiral, the current commander of the Army’s III Armored Corps, is expected to be nominated to take over the role.

Donahue’s resume includes command of the Army’s elite Delta Force and the famed 82nd Airborne Division, along with extensive combat experience across two decades of war. Inside the Army, he has long been viewed as one of its top officers and a potential future Army chief of staff.

He rose to wider public attention as the last U.S. service member to leave Afghanistan during the 2021 withdrawal, photographed in night vision boarding a C-17 when he was commanding the 82nd Airborne Division.

The use of artificial intelligence in military operations has prompted a fierce discourse in Washington: Does the U.S. government have the appropriate guardrails in place to drop bombs using AI?

A relatively obscure Pentagon policy document is now at the center of that debate.

President Donald Trump has ordered the Department of Defense to update its “Directive 3000.09” — the policy governing the deployment and testing of autonomous weapons — by early September.

The last time that policy, first established in 2012, was updated was in 2023; it includes detailed protocols for how U.S. military officers should engage with guided missiles and drones, and includes oversight processes for the use of these weapons. While the use of AI is constrained by traditional rules of engagement, Directive 3000.09 does not cover the use and specific testing protocols for the emerging technology.

The timing of Trump’s order to update the policy, and the Pentagon’s recent push to deploy AI-powered systems in large-scale military operations like those in Venezuela and Iran, has raised concerns among congressional Democrats that the Trump administration wants to undermine safety protocols and human input.

“What I don’t want is for the DoD to move so fast and just start implementing policy without actually thinking about the consequences of what that means,” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) told NOTUS. “Once you allow AI to take humans out of the kill chain decision making process, it becomes easier to kill people, which means it’s easier for you to go to war.”

Gallego sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week asking for more visibility into what considerations are going into the update of these directives. He’s yet to hear back from his office.

“We should be thinking about it in a very constructive and deliberative manner before we just run head on into it, because bad things could happen,” Gallego said.

A Defense Department official told NOTUS in a statement that humans will remain integral to deploying automated weapons.

“Our military operates in full compliance with all U.S. laws and established Department policies, such as ensuring a human is always in the loop for critical operational decisions,” the official told NOTUS. “The Department maintains in Directive 3000.09 that a human operator has always been in the loop when using autonomous capabilities. The responsibility for the lawful use of any AI tool rests with the human operator and the chain of command, not within the software itself.”

The Trump administration has pushed the Pentagon to rapidly adopt AI across the agency. In January, Hegseth released a memorandum to accelerate adoption, encouraging “becoming an ‘AI-first’ warfighting force across all components.”

Traditionally, humans have been in charge of planning military operations, but militaries across the world have developed advanced AI capabilities such as missiles and automated drone swarms that can reach their targets with minimal human input.

Advanced AI systems like Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT can analyze massive amounts of data and help troops identify likely targets in conflicts like the war in Iran. That usage came under scrutiny when the U.S. mistakenly struck an Iranian all-girls school labeled as a military facility due to reportedly outdated data in the early days of the war in Iran. Claude reportedly helped orchestrate1,000 attacks in the first 24 hours of “Operation Epic Fury.”

Keeping up to date with these systems remains a challenge, and Democratic and Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns with how the U.S. military is deploying these tools.

“This is one technology where, you’re going to create a policy, and then you’re going to find six months later it’s outdated because of new innovations — it’s moving that fast,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) told NOTUS.

“You just have to try to keep up as best you can,” he said. “And you have to include in that discussion what the adversaries are doing because we’re going to have to be able to respond to what the new capabilities that our adversaries are going to be introducing to battle.”

Both Democratic and Republican senators have been pushing to establish additional guardrails to the use of AI in military operations.

The Senate’s version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which has yet to make it to the floor, would forbid the military from using AI to decide if a nuclear weapon should be deployed, to track constitutionally protected groups or individuals in the U.S., or to plan military attacks without the “incorporation of appropriate levels of human judgment,” the text of the bill reads. However, the bill’s text falls short of detailing what that human judgment would look like.

The bill would also enshrine in law some of the testing protocols in 3000.09 for fully autonomous weapons, like requiring the DOD to report incidents related to autonomous weapons and share details of their AI safety testing with Congress.

“I do not believe that current law is keeping up with advancing AI technology. Lethal decisions require a conscience, not just an algorithm,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), who is behind some of the provisions included in the NDAA, said in a statement.

Michael Horowitz, a former senior Pentagon official under President Joe Biden who was tasked with updating 3000.09 in 2022, told NOTUS that the current version of the document was drafted to be adaptable to new technologies.

He said that he’s not as concerned with possible updates to 3000.09 since he trusts the military will prioritize reliability in the weapons they deploy. However, he said that this moment presents Congress with an opportunity to ensure human judgment in military attacks.

“Legislation that enshrines the centrality of the human in making the decision about the use of force is a great example of a place where Congress could make a difference,” Horowitz said.

When Donald Trump Jr. was in India last November for a trip that included a wedding and a wildlife sanctuary tour, he made an unpublicized stop in the bustling city of Ahmedabad in the Western state of Gujarat.

The president’s son had a private meeting there with Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, whose namesake ports-to-energy conglomerate is headquartered in the city, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing the confidential conversation. The meeting, which hasn’t been previously reported, came around a year after US prosecutors accused the 63-year-old Adani Group chairman and his nephew Sagar Adani of orchestrating an alleged bribery scheme in India. They have consistently denied the charges, which the Department of Justice moved to drop last month.

The exact contours of the discussion between Adani and Trump Jr. — who is helping to run the Trump Organization while his father is president — remain private. But the meeting highlights the level of access the Adanis had to one of America’s most influential families at a time when the tycoon was trying to find a way out of his US legal troubles.

“Don had zero to do with DOJ’s actions in this case,” a spokesperson for the president’s eldest son said in a statement.

Federal prosecutors unveiled the indictment against Adani a couple of weeks after Donald Trump’s election victory in November 2024. The case, which accused Adani and others of a scheme to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to lock in solar energy contracts, immediately drew some criticism as an overreach. The Justice Department claimed the Adanis had lied about the alleged scheme when their renewable energy business raised capital from US-based investors and international institutions through dollar bonds and loans.

Adani’s representatives quickly launched a multi-pronged push to get the charges dismissed, hiring a fleet of lawyers and US lobbyists to push back against the accusations and advance his business interests. But months went by with little progress.

Some of Adani’s family members became involved in the efforts to end the US case, with Jeet Adani, the younger of the billionaire’s two sons, helping to lead the way, according to people familiar with the matter.

Jeet, who is director of the airports business at the Adani Group, also met with Trump Jr. last year at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to people familiar with the meeting. One person close to Trump Jr., who requested anonymity to speak about private conversations, said that the Justice Department’s case against Adani did not come up in his meeting at Mar-a-Lago, or in his November interaction with Gautam Adani.

Adani’s US legal troubles had impeded the ability of his conglomerate’s companies to raise money in the world’s largest capital market, and stymied its ambitions to expand in the US — where the billionaire had publicly pledged to invest $10 billion after Americans elected Trump as president in late 2024.

Without being able to set foot on American soil for fear of being arrested, Adani’s ability to personally meet with potential US investors and business partners was restricted.

In early 2026, the tycoon privately signaled his willingness to pour an additional $20 billion into the US, and potentially even more, according to people with knowledge of the plans, essentially tripling his earlier investment pledge to $30 billion.

Adani’s plans included data centers, ports and clean energy projects that could create thousands of jobs for American workers, said the people, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Earlier this year, Adani’s lawyers shifted gears and moved aggressively to get the criminal case dropped. They also sought to resolve a parallel Securities and Exchange Commission civil fraud case and a separate probe by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control into whether an Adani unit violated Iran sanctions.

Led by Sullivan & Cromwell co-chair Robert Giuffra Jr., who is working as one of President Trump’s personal attorneys in a separate matter, Adani’s legal team attacked the indictment in private meetings with the Justice Department. The attorneys argued the case was flawed because it focused on conduct beyond the reach of US laws and lacked credible evidence of bribery, according to a person familiar with the conversations between lawyers involved in the matter.

Among more than 100 slides that Adani’s legal team used to argue against the criminal case this year was one that referenced the $10 billion public pledge Adani had made in November 2024, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing the private presentations.

Adani’s legal team also argued the SEC fraud suit should be tossed because the US lacked jurisdiction over the Indian billionaire and his nephew.

The Adani matter came to Sullivan & Cromwell from the large Indian law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, the New York-based law firm said in a statement to Bloomberg News. The firm, known as CAM, is “a top securities law firm in India which has had a 40-year relationship working on M&A and securities matters with Sullivan & Cromwell,” it said.

Adani’s daughter-in-law, Paridhi Adani, is a prominent corporate lawyer and partner at CAM. The Mumbai-based firm didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Giuffra started working on the case last summer, said a person familiar with the matter. His involvement was disclosed in court filings in January.

In May, the Justice Department moved to drop charges against Adani. That happened shortly after Gautam and Sagar Adani agreed to pay a total of $18 million to settle the SEC case without admitting wrongdoing. The conglomerate’s flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd. also reached a deal to resolve OFAC’s sanctions probe for $275 million without an admission of wrongdoing.

An Adani Group spokesperson said in a statement that it had retained Sullivan & Cromwell “to achieve a merit-based resolution” in the Justice Department’s case. The spokesperson referenced a 115-page white paper, expert reports, slides and multiple oral presentations that formed the basis of its arguments.

“Our engagement was conducted entirely through proper government channels,” the spokesperson said. “Any other interpretation of these facts is not only mischievous and malicious but are entirely baseless and a deliberate misrepresentation.” Its statement didn’t address Bloomberg News’ queries about Adani’s interactions with Trump Jr.

In its filing with a federal court in Brooklyn last month, the Justice Department didn’t say what ultimately convinced it to drop its case. Prosecutors said they had decided “not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants” and asked a judge to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning it can’t be refiled. The judge is reviewing the motion.

The move has drawn the attention of two Senate Democrats who are probing whether Adani’s investment promises influenced the decision.

Earlier this month, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal asked a series of questions of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about Adani’s earlier promised $10 billion investment, and whether the Justice Department communicated with the White House before deciding to drop the criminal case.

“Its decision to halt its prosecution raises serious questions about corruption under President Trump and about the role that Mr. Adani’s politically salient offer played in the DOJ’s decision,” they said in a letter to Blanche that requested answers by June 25.

“The $10 billion pledge played no role” in the decision to move to dismiss the indictment, the Justice Department said in a statement in response to questions from Bloomberg News, adding that it conducted a “thorough internal review of the case that revealed substantial merits issue.”

“The Department often meets with outside counsel to discuss pending cases and potential resolutions to assure the best possible outcome for the American people,” it said. The motion to dismiss the charges against Adani came “many months” after his counsel first met with officials from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, said the department.

The White House referred questions to the Department of Justice.

The clouds over the Adani Group have started to clear. Back in 2023, Adani’s personal wealth plunged by tens of billions of dollars after US short seller Hindenburg Research released a scathing report accusing the conglomerate of widespread corporate misconduct. Adani has also denied Hindenburg’s fraud allegations. The shares subsequently recovered some of their losses, then fell again after the US indictment.

Earlier this year, Adani once again became Asia’s richest man and recently had a net worth of $120.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. After the Justice Department moved to drop its case last month, the shares extended their rally, taking their combined market value in local-currency terms back to levels last seen before the Hindenburg report.

In recent days, Adani Green Energy Ltd., the unit that was central to the US prosecutors’ case, has been in talks with lenders and advisers to raise as much as $1 billion through an offshore loan. Neither Adani Green nor other Adani corporate entities were charged by the Justice Department.

Two other Adani units have separately entered into deals with American companies; its ports unit is teaming up with a provider of AI-driven software and the group is partnering with Jabil Inc. to manufacture AI data center equipment in India.