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⚡ Quick Take

• The Interview with the Vampire season two finale gave fans a Daniel/Armand pairing straight from Anne Rice’s novels. Here, we provide context about the Devil’s Minion pairing from the books.
• Armand and Daniel’s relationship features in “The Story of Daniel, the Devil’s Minion, or the Boy from Interview with the Vampire” from Queen of the Damned.
• AMC’s Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat series continue to adapt the pair’s tale.

The finale of Interview with the Vampire season two had quite the twist, one that continues to be critical as the series continues on in The Vampire Lestat. A flash forward showed the audience that the Vampire Armand (Assad Zaman) had turned the reporter Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) into a vampire, some time before or after published his interviews with Louis and Armand as a book. We still don’t know exactly how and when this happened… Or the full motivations behind it. It was implied to be an act committed more out of spite towards Daniel than out of love, but that’s not entirely certain at this point either. However, Armand making Daniel a vampire on Interview with the Vampire does have its origins in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series of novels.

AMC

In the novels, Daniel Molloy doesn’t even have a proper name until the third novel in Rice’s series, The Queen of the Damned. In the 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire, the young reporter was simply referred to as “the Boy.” At the end of that first novel, he ran off, with Louis’ tapes in tow, hoping to find Lestat. In book two, The Vampire Lestat, we find out that the boy had the recordings transcribed and published as the book Interview with the Vampire. A recently reemerged Lestat discovered that his name and much of his life was put on public display for mortals, passed off as fiction. Yet we never learned what became of the young reporter until Rice’s third novel when we got ALL of the details.

“The Story of Daniel, the Devil’s Minion, or the Boy from Interview with the Vampire“ from Queen of the Damned

In 1988’s Queen of the Damned, we learned in Part 1, Chapter 4, a chapter called “The Story of Daniel, the Devil’s Minion, or the Boy from Interview with the Vampire” that the anonymous boy went searching for Lestat after his fateful interview with Louis in San Francisco in 1973. We also now had a proper name for him—Daniel Molloy. Lestat was slumbering at the time of Daniel’s search, and he didn’t find the undead French aristocrat. Instead, the Vampire Armand finds Daniel while he searches for Lestat, during a time when Armand made New Orleans his home. No other vampires lived there, as Lestat had long ago gone to sleep. Armand had “cleaned out” the city of any younger vampires. No one else dared to call New Orleans home at this time, as it was Armand’s territory.

AMC

Scanning Daniel’s thoughts upon encountering him, Armand discovered this young mortal boy knew his name, and his true vampiric nature, and became fascinated. He began stalking him, and no matter what city or country Daniel ran to, Armand would find him. At first, he casually threatened to kill him if he ever published his book. Yet he continued to allow him to live for his own amusement. Then something unexpected happened. After years of cat and mouse, Armand came to actually love the mortal Daniel. Even so, he constantly refused to give him the Dark Gift, no matter how much he begged.

Daniel, Armand, and the Night Island

Many years into their relationship, Armand decided to become “incalculably wealthy.” Using his knowledge of where old ships with treasure lay at the bottom of the ocean, he recruited Daniel, who now saw himself as “the Devil’s Minion,” to help him procure wealth. All while he was asleep during the day. With this fortune, Armand, with forged documents Daniel helped him create, purchased an island off the coast of Florida. Armand turned it into an entertainment and shopping paradise that came alive only after dark called The Night Island.

Armand and Daniel lived at Night Island for years in the Vampire Chronicles. Daniel had everything he wanted from Armand, the finest clothes, the newest cars, all except the one thing he wanted most—to become a vampire himself. However, when Daniel’s life was in danger, on one of the many instances when he would run away from Armand, the 500-year-old vampire gave him what he wanted at last, and turned him. As Armand feared, however, making Daniel a vampire would only serve to drive a bigger wedge between them.

Daniel and Armand in AMC’s Interview with the Vampire AMC

All we know from the AMC Interview with the Vampire series is that sometime after Daniel reveals to Louis the truth about Armand, and how he planned to let his Paris coven execute him along with Claudia, he turns Daniel into a vampire. But when did this happen? We don’t know yet. Do Interview with the Vampire‘s Daniel and Armand engage in a relationship similar to the one they had in the books? There doesn’t seem enough time for that intense love/hate relationship to have happened offscreen. Unless there is one further wrinkle to Daniel and Armand’s story that Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Lestat is waiting to spring on us.

We know from episode five of season two of the series, that Armand encountered Daniel back in 1973, interrupting Louis almost killing Daniel. Not only encountered him, but very nearly killed him, and erased his memories of the event. Yet he clearly had a fascination with Daniel, and Interview with the Vampire leaves space for the possibility that the pair had a relationship decades ago. One that Armand could have then wiped from Daniel’s mind. After all, there is a limited series AMC announced called The Night Island. Could this series, at least in part, involve Interview with the Vampire‘s Armand and Daniel and their relationship? It is getting closer.

AMC+ Devil’s Minion in The Vampire Lestat

In The Vampire Lestat, Devil’s Minion is shaping up to become a true romance. In episode four of the series, Armand confesses his love to Daniel, a sentiment that even Armand did not fully intend to express. Assad Zaman tells us of the moment, “I think it comes out, it’s an honest confession that, ‘Yes, you can hate me, you can hate me for what I did. I manipulated you. I turned you, I did some fucked up shit, but that pretending to let you manipulate me… That’s not true. You think you were under my spell, actually, I was under your spell. That’s why you were able to free everyone,’ and maybe that’s part of it… So yeah, it’s a really tender moment that comes out.”

AMC

We also learn a little bit about Daniel’s turning, although we likely won’t see it in full until season four of The Vampire Lestat. And what we learn is that Armand turned Daniel on an airplane (in Newark) and then ran away. For whatever reason, he couldn’t wait until Daniel landed or got to NYC proper. Was Daniel dying the way he is in Anne Rice’s Devil’s Minion chapter in Queen of the Damned? We can’t yet say with certainty.

Additionally, we learn that Daniel and Armand’s vampire bond manifests in a unique, powerful way, even among vampires. Sometimes, when they connect, the whole world vanishes around them, literally, and they can only feel one another. We call that ROMANCE! Could that have to do with a secret past of Daniel drinking Armand’s blood? Again, we just don’t know.

Ultimately, there are lots of ways this story could go for Daniel and Armand, and we’re eager to see how Interview with the Vampire tackles this fan-favorite pairing going forward.

Originally published July 1, 2024.

The post The Book Inspirations Behind the Armand/Daniel Vampiric Pairing in INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (And What ‘Devil’s Minion’ Really Means) appeared first on Nerdist.

⚡ Quick Take

• On AMC’s The Vampire Lestat, the Brat Prince’s backstory is told out of sequence, but we present to you Lestat’s history chronologically to help you make sense of this season of the show.

The Vampire Lestat has premiered its first episode on AMC, adapting Anne Rice’s second novel in her Vampire Chronicles series. This 1985 book truly made Lestat a star, elevating his undead status next to the likes of Dracula. Sam Reid reprises his role from Interview with the Vampire, with his backstory from the novel told largely in a non-linear fashion. So to help guide you through these tangled narrative vines, we present the undead rock star Lestat’s canonical history, as told by Anne Rice in The Vampire Lestat. We start with his birth in the 18th century and follow him until he meets Louis de Pointe du Lac in New Orleans.

Alfred A. Knopf/Ballantine Books The Mortal Life of Lestat de Lioncourt in 18th Century France

The mortal Lestat de Lioncourt was born on November 7, 1760. That’s the same birthday as Anne Rice’s husband Stan, who the character of Lestat is physically based on. (Louis shares Anne’s birthday of October 4.)  He was born the son of an aristocratic lord in the French countryside, in a place called the Auvergne. His family long ago had spent all their wealth. Lestat’s father was a cruel tyrant who married a much younger heiress from Italy named Gabrielle. She gave birth to several sons for him, many of whom died in childbirth. The youngest, and the only one who took after her (and not his father), was Lestat.

AMC Networks

Lestat aspired to be an artist and actor, completely different from his boorish brothers. Thus, he maintained a close relationship with his mother. When he grew to adulthood, he became the family hunter, protecting their ancestral lands. One day, when he was 21 years old (29 in the TV series), he saved the nearby village from a pack of eight wolves, who very nearly killed him. It was after this incident that Lestat discovered his mother was dying of consumption. As her last wish, she bequeathed all her jewels to Lestat, so he could run away to Paris and fulfill his dream of being an actor on stage.

AMC Networks Which Episodes of The Vampire Lestat Show This Part of Lestat’s Backstory?

Episode two of The Vampire Lestat reveals this part of Lestat’s life, showing his time in Auvergne and his killing of the wolves, which earns him the title “Wolf-Killer.”

Lestat’s Vampire Life Begins in Paris

Lestat and his childhood friend Nicolas de Lenfent, a cynical violinist who was now his lover, fled to the big city together. They both got work in a shabby theater in the heart of the city, where Lestat quickly became a rising star. Nicolas, meanwhile, sank further into depression as Lestat’s on-stage fame grew. One night, Lestat noticed a face in the audience stalking him, whispering the words “Wolfkiller” into his mind. One night, this being, who turned out to be a vampire, captured Lestat from his home and dragged him to his tower outside Paris. There, he forced him to become an undead being against his will. The Vampire Lestat was born.

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50 Years of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE in Pop Culture

Lestat’s vampire maker, Magnus, was about 300 years old, and an outcast from vampiric society. He had grown tired of eternal life, and chose Lestat as his heir. In part because of his beautiful looks, but also for his bravery in killing the wolves. Once Lestat became a vampire, Magnus flung himself into the fire, ending his existence. Thus, leaving Lestat without a teacher. Lestat took to his vampire existence like a duck to water, killing the many thieves and scoundrels of Paris. He bought the theater he worked at, giving his fellow actors continued employment. But he kept his new vampiric nature a secret from his lover, Nicolas, and kept his distance.

Which Episodes of The Vampire Lestat Show This Part of Lestat’s Backstory?

Episode three of The Vampire Lestat reveals this part of Lestat’s life, showing his time with Nicki and his turning by Magnus.

Lestat Turns His Dying Mother into a Vampire AMC Networks

Eventually, Lestat’s mother, Gabrielle, came to Paris to see her son one last time and to spend her final nights there. On her deathbed, Lestat revealed his true nature to her, and turned her into a vampire. Gabrielle became his first fledgling and companion in immortality. The two made Paris their hunting ground, although they’d often hear the telepathic voices of other vampires in the city calling them outcasts and blasphemers. Eventually, these Parisian vampires attacked them directly.

Which Episodes of The Vampire Lestat Show This Part of Lestat’s Backstory?

Episode two of The Vampire Lestat reveals this part of Lestat’s life, revealing Gabriella’s turning to us—but changing its occasion and consequences from the books.

Meeting Armand and the Children of Darkness AMC Networks

These vampires were cultists, who lived in the nearby cemetery of Les Innocents. They believed what their mentor, the ancient vampire Armand, had taught them. They considered themselves the Children of Satan, and they had to live among the dead, stay away from mortals (except to feed), and run from crucifixes, as Satan commanded. But Lestat didn’t obey any of those rules. And because of his and Gabrielle’s presence, they knew the “rules” Armand had been feeding them for centuries were all lies and superstitions. Lies Armand told them to keep the coven under his thumb.

With his hold of the coven shattered by Lestat, and its members fleeing, Armand tried to become the new companion of Lestat. He told Lestat how an ancient Roman vampire named Marius had transformed him when he was a slave boy in Renaissance Venice. The Satanic vampires of Italy set Marius on fire for living against their dogmatic rules, leaving him for dead, and they kidnapped the young Armand. They brainwashed him into believing in their religion, and Armand became a leader among the Children of Darkness. He never truly believed in their ways, but used their dogma to control his Satanic coven in Paris.

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The Weird History of Anne Rice’s Vampires in Comic Books Which Episodes of The Vampire Lestat Show This Part of Lestat’s Backstory?

We haven’t yet specifically seen these events in The Vampire Lestat, but we see glimpses of the events that directly follow them, with Nicki, Armand, and Lestat together in Paris.

Lestat Helps Create the Théâtre des Vampires

Ultimately, Lestat rejected Armand, and transformed his lover, Nicolas, into a vampire. He did this despite Armand and Gabrielle warning him against it. Nicolas almost instantly went mad from the vampiric blood, and told Lestat that he resented and hated him for ever keeping it from him. Lestat and Gabrielle decided to leave Paris, but they left the theater he had bought to Armand and what remained of his coven. They transformed it into the Théâtre des Vampires, where they acted out vampiric plays for Parisian mortal audiences who believed it all to be fake.

AMC Networks

Nicolas remained at the Théâtre des Vampires, in Armand’s care, while Lestat and Gabrielle searched for Marius, Armand’s maker. Even though Armand told them he was killed by the Children of Darkness centuries earlier, they didn’t believe a vampire that ancient could be destroyed so easily. They searched together for years, and found no sign of Marius de Romanus anywhere on Earth. After Nicolas finally threw himself into the flames, and Gabrielle decided to leave her son to be a lone wolf, a despondent Lestat buried himself in the Earth, where he remained for years. In the books, Gabrielle would leave Lestat on his own much more regularly than we see in the series, but only truly left when he ordered her to go in a fit of anger. In the series, Gabriella dances away of her own accord.

Which Episodes of The Vampire Lestat Show This Part of Lestat’s Backstory?

We haven’t yet specifically seen these events in The Vampire Lestat, but we see glimpses of the events that directly follow them, with Nicki, Armand, and Lestat together in Paris in episode three. In episode four of The Vampire Lestat, we see Gabriella deciding to leave Lestat to exist on her own.

Lestat Meets the Vampire Marius, Keeper of Akasha, Queen of the Damned Warner Bros.

Eventually, Marius chose to reveal himself to Lestat, and pulled him out of the ground. This is after his mother Gabrielle abandons him, and he buried himself in the earth in Italy. He fed him his powerful blood and nurtured him back to health. He revealed himself as the keeper of “Those Who Must Be Kept,” also known as Queen Akasha and King Enkil of Egypt. Nearly 2,000 years prior, the scholar Marius was transformed into a vampire in ancient Rome. But only to become the new caretaker of Those Who Must Be Kept. This 6,000-year-old royal pair were the ancient progenitors of the vampire species, and all vampire bloodlines came from them. They no longer drank blood, or spoke, or moved, frozen like statues.

Which Episodes of The Vampire Lestat Show This Part of Lestat’s Backstory?

We haven’t yet specifically seen these events in The Vampire Lestat.

Lestat Arrives in New Orleans, Creates Louis and Claudia AMC Networks

Since their destruction meant the entire species would be destroyed, they needed to be kept secret and safe. Marius had been their keeper for millennia and entrusted Lestat with this knowledge. But he made him swear to never tell a living soul. When Lestat played Nicolas’ violin for Akasha, she awoke momentarily and let Lestat drink her powerful and ancient blood. This made the young Lestat one of the most powerful vampires on Earth, despite being so young. Marius then told Lestat to flee to the New World, someplace where barely any vampires existed. Someplace that even Akasha could not find him. And that’s when Lestat wound up in New Orleans, and met his fledgling Louis, and the events of Interview with the Vampire began.

If you’ve seen seasons one and two of Interview with the Vampire, or the 1994 film adaptation, you probably know what became of Lestat next. Of course, many things happen to Lestat after the events of book two, but we’ll have to wait and see if AMC plans to adapt those books as well.

The Vampire Lestat airs at 9 pm ET/PT on AMC and AMC+. You can also read The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice today as you wait for the next episode of the series to air.

Eric Diaz is a staff writer at Nerdist and a life-long Anne Rice fan. Yes, he is a member of the OG fan club.

This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!

Originally publishe in June 2026.

The post THE VAMPIRE LESTAT’S Backstory, Explained in Linear Fashion appeared first on Nerdist.

Chief Justice John Roberts famously promised that he would run the highest court like an impartial umpire calling balls and strikes. Instead, Roberts and his fellow Republican appointees have studiously moved forward a radical agenda. This term, the justices in Roberts’ six-three majority not only advanced their priorities, they accomplished them. As a result, Americans now live in a different constitutional order. The court reshaped the government, shifting it away from a multiracial democracy and toward a racially-stratified autocracy. 

The Roberts Court is predictable. Not because it follows the law, but because it never passes an opportunity to push its ideological vision. Once you know where Roberts and his colleagues want the country to go, you can figure out how almost every relevant case will end. The roadmap is simple.

First, Roberts and the majority fundamentally disagree with the premise that we have three co-equal branches of government. They believe in the idea of a “unitary executive” with total control over the machinery of government, with the justices themselves serving as the main check on the president. The biggest loser is Congress. Despite it being designed as be the most powerful branch, the court takes every opportunity to trample legislative authority. Second, this court has allies it seeks to help whenever it can, namely, the Republican Party, President Donald Trump, and the wealthiest Americans and the businesses they run. Finally, this majority is animated by a dislike of the Reconstruction amendments, civil rights laws, and using the laws or the Constitution to protect disfavored groups. If they have a chance to strike a blow to a minority group, they take it.

This term, the court didn’t move the ball down the field, they scored tournament-changing goals. In two major cases, Roberts and his allies can claim victories for the conservative movement decades in the making. The country is already feeling the consequences. 

The message to Trump was clear: the law is not binding, and we will not stop you from ignoring it.

First, on April 29, the court effectively killed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a law that for 61 years guaranteed racial minorities a political voice. In Louisiana v. Callais, the court ruled that states can gerrymander communities of color so that they never have a shot at electing their choice of representative. Not only did the court deal a death blow to the VRA, its ruling also took away Congress’ ability to enforce the 15th Amendment’s prohibition on racial discrimination in voting. The Reconstruction amendments are worth little if the court won’t enforce them and Congress can’t. Yet the Callais decision all but forecloses Congress’ ability to protect voters of color. “I can’t even imagine what statute Congress would enact protecting racial equality in voting, especially when it comes to dilution, that would survive a Supreme Court judgment that will rely on Callais,” said Berkeley law professor Bertrall Ross.

Some Republican-controlled states immediately set about eliminating majority-minority Congressional districts ahead of this year’s midterm elections, including in Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee. But that’s only the beginning. Not only will Congress grow whiter as GOP states, mostly in the South, draw Black and brown people out of power as they were free to do before the VRA, but so will state and local governments. Legislatures, school boards, municipal councils—states can now cut minorities out of all levels of government, rendering them, effectively, subjects rather than equal citizens. 

In another case that is an earthquake to government, the court eliminated independent agencies in Trump v. Slaughter. This case fundamentally shifted the balance of federal powers in America, neutering Congress and handing vast new authority to the president. It’s an anti-democracy, pro-corruption decision that will affect everyone. 

Since the country’s earliest days, Congress has had the ability to create what we now call independent agencies, insulated in various ways from direct presidential control. These proliferated in the 20th century as the federal government adapted to the exigencies of modernity. In 1935, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of independent agencies whose members can only be removed by the president for cause, as opposed to political disagreement. Relying upon this decision, Humphrey’s Executor, Congress created dozens of independent agencies over the last 90 years, to regulate everything from major mergers to the safety of consumer products. Until Monday, these agencies were run by bipartisan, multi-member commissions whose members have removal protection.

But on June 29, the court’s 6-3 majority declared that the president can remove the heads of these agencies for any reason. It overturned Humphrey’s Executor and effectively handed all the powers of these agencies over to one man. It’s clear where this will lead: allies and donors can ask for favors when it comes to any regulatory decision that concerns them, and the president can reward them. Likewise, the president can weaponize these agencies—which were supposed to be insulated from presidential politics—for his own political and financial gain. If any commissioner chooses not to act at the president’s behest, Trump can simply remove them. In fact, the opinion may ripple down from the commissioners to the civil servants who work for them. The ruling’s logic, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in dissent, could lead the court to overturn civil service protections and herald a return to a spoils system.

The decision is not just a boon to corrupt government and presidential power, it is a body blow to Congress. The legislative branch is simply not equipped to make every regulation, decision, or adjudication necessary to carry out its laws. As a result, it created agencies to do that work. And in some cases, Congress determined the agencies should have at least some insulation from presidential control. By taking away that independence, the court has done violence to Congress’ ability to ensure its laws are followed. Lawmakers can still hold hearings if they are concerned about an agency’s actions, or even withhold funding—although doing that undercuts its ability to see that its laws are carried out. This decision is a “nuclear bomb for the separation of powers,” Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck wrote. If the president doesn’t want to follow the law, there’s little Congress can do to enforce its directives. 

In his majority opinion in Slaughter, Roberts lets his loathing for Congress spill onto the page. He chided Congress for “taking more power for itself” by creating independent agencies, and decried how they result in an “‘increased subservience to congressional direction.’” But ironically, it is the court that is grabbing power. The only explicit exception to its holding is the Federal Reserve Board, which the court claimed had a different history, but which was transparently an acknowledgment that placing the board’s monetary decisions under one man could destroy the economy. The 6-3 majority reserved the right to exempt other agencies from presidential control on a case by case basis, placing their own judgement about the necessity of independence over Congress’. 

This disdain for Congress was a theme in three major immigration cases, in which the same GOP-appointed majority let the administration ignore laws passed by Congress commanding how the president should implement immigration laws. In a decision that will have massive human consequences, the majority allowed the Trump administration to eliminate Temporary Protect Status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants, even though, in the case of TPS for Haitians, the administration did not follow the rules Congress laid out to legally end such a designation. Now, Trump can unilaterally take legal status from some 1.3 million people without following the required process. The court’s message to the president was clear: the law is not binding, and we will not stop you from ignoring it. In a case over the rights of asylum seekers, the court ruled the administration doesn’t have to process asylum seekers as mandated by law if border officers can simply block them from physically stepping into the US. Finally, the court gave immigration officers more discretion to take away a lawful permanent resident’s green card at the border, a decision that, in Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s words, undermines the “benefits and security that come with having” that status. In all three cases, the president’s prerogatives took primacy over the law.

The court is a single vote away from undoing our nation of equals.

As if going after Congress’ ability to enact voting rights laws, to determine who carries out its laws, and the legitimacy of its immigration laws wasn’t enough, the court dealt a serious blow to its authority to enforce rules it attaches to its spending. Under the Constitution, Congress can spend money for the “general welfare,” which is called spending clause legislation. Sometimes these laws dole out money, but come with strings attached: Famously, highway funding requires states to set the drinking age at 21. But in a case called Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, the 6-3 majority weakened Congress’ ability to enforce such rules.

One such spending clause law requires that prisons that receive federal funds respect inmates’ religious rights. In violation of this law, guards in Louisiana shaved the head of an incarcerated Rastafarian man, despite the religious dictate that he not cut his hair. The court found that the former inmate, Damon Landor, could not sue the guards. This will likely result in more disregard for prisoners’ religious rights. But the broader picture is even more troubling. “The Court reduces some of Congress’s greatest legislative achievements—federal laws that secure civil rights, environmental stability, healthcare, and more—to nothing more than the wheelings-and-dealings of an especially wealthy private party,” Jackson warned in her dissent. If Congress can’t enforce the terms of its spending, it has lost an enormous source of power, with victims left in the lurch.

On the final day of the term, the court struck down one of Congress’ last standing campaign finance rules, giving the wealthiest Americans another way to influence politicians. The ruling in NRSC v. FEC limits how Congress can guard against corruption through campaign finance regulations, and specifically allows wealthy donors to circumvent the $7,000 limit they can directly give to a candidate by routing over half a million to them through the party apparatus. As Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent warns, this promotes corruption, degrades our system of government, and substitutes the court’s judgement for Congress’. Again, because the biggest winners are Republicans and billionaires, and the loser is Capitol Hill, this 6-3 outcome was predictable. 

Just as the Roberts Court has dedicated itself to destroying the VRA and ending independent agencies, it has likewise taken every opportunity to weaken campaign finance laws, allowing billions of dollars to flow into American elections, reorienting American politics toward rewarding the biggest donors. Callais, Slaughter, and NRSC v. FEC are all creatures of this 20-year agenda. All three cases rely almost exclusively on other Roberts court decisions. Again and again, they fail to find any help for their arguments that date back to before Roberts’ 2005 ascension to the high court. (The only exception is that Slaughter uses a 1926 case, Myers v. United States—but it’s a contrived reliance that takes the precedent beyond its bounds and ignores its deep and well-documented flaws.) The combined result of the rulings is stunning: these major cases have rolled back civil rights and reshaped the government in the image of the current permutation of this court. 

The conservative bloc also continued its march against civil rights for minorities. Beyond Callais, the court upheld state laws that ban transgender women and girls from participating in school sports. The decision locks transgender girls and young women out of the educational and social benefits of athletic competition in 27 states with bans, continuing this court’s anti-transgender turn. But all girls and women are likely to be affected. The court’s reasoning would logically extend to laws that treat the sexes differently, enabling more laws that discriminate on the basis of sex.

Though the court gave Trump massive wins over the course of the term, it held back when it deemed the consequences too potentially damaging to the economy. These losses for Trump demonstrate an understanding of what is best for the president and his allies, even if he doesn’t agree. In particular, Trump claimed the power to impose emergency tariffs on any nation, as well as the power to fire governors of the Federal Reserve over flimsy allegations. Both would have enormous economic consequences that would imperil Trump’s reigning political coalition. So in two opinions, both by Roberts, the court struck down most of his tariffs, and it blocked his attempt to immediately remove Lisa Cook from the Fed. (The Cook decision was narrow, leaving the robustness of Fed independence uncertain.) 

Hanging over the entire term was a case over the Trump administration’s attempt to take birthright citizenship away from the children of temporary visitors and undocumented immigrants. The policy, an executive order signed on Trump’s first day back in office, violates the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, which states unequivocally that “all persons born” in the country and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens. This sacred provision overturned Dred Scott and with it the era of inherited status. There is no American dream—the idea that anyone born here can get ahead through hard work—if all Americans are not born citizens on equal legal footing. Perhaps because this case struck at the heart of what this country is and what it stands for, it was widely presumed that a large majority would strike down Trump’s unconstitutional order and uphold the 14th Amendment. 

But when the decision came down on June 30, it was shockingly close. A bare majority, 5-4, ruled that birthright citizenship applied to virtually all people born in the country. Though spared this time, the closeness of this case did not settle the issue but brought on more nativist, anti-immigrant agitation on the part of Trump and his allies. Justice Brett Kavanaugh invited Congress to limit birthright citizenship, writing that he believed lawmakers could redefine citizenship. The decision is a warning that the entire project of multiracial democracy and legal equality hangs by a thread. 

The court ended a term in which it disempowered minorities and shifted power to the wealthy, to the president, and to itself, by unambiguously showing just how radical it is—a single vote away from undoing the basic tenet of a nation of equals. The court not only made radical changes to our system of government: it showed how much worse it could get.

On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the historic Civil Rights Act during a nationally televised ceremony at the White House. Flanked by members of Congress and activists, including Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Johnson signed the most far-reaching piece of civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. “It may be true that you can’t legislate integration…

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⚡ Quick Take

• AMC’s The Vampire Lestat pulls many elements from Anne Rice’s original novels, but also makes some fairly major changes too.

AMC’s The Vampire Lestat pulls many scenarios and moments straight from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Naturally, the series mainly pulls from book two, The Vampire Lestat, but also borrows from other titles in Rice’s 13-book series. Here, we detail where the AMC series draws direct inspiration from Rice’s prose, episode by episode, but especially where it deviates from the books in a big way. Let’s check out the biggest references and most major changes that The Vampire Lestat makes to Anne Rice’s books.

Table of contents

• The Vampire Lestat Episode 1: “Detroit”
• The Vampire Lestat , Episode 2: “Toledo”
• The Vampire Lestat , Episode 3: “Toronto”
• The Vampire Lestat , Episode 4: “The Devil’s Road”

The Vampire Lestat Episode 1: “Detroit” AMC The Vampire Lestat (1985), “Downtown Saturday Night in the 20th Century: 1984”: Location Changes, Louis Insertions, and Time Shifts

Lestat living adjacent to a garage band named Satan’s Night Out, who convince him to join their band, is all from how Anne Rice’s novel opens. This takes place in the chapter “Downtown Saturday Night in the 20th Century: 1984.” However, in The Vampire Lestat book, this all occurs in New Orleans, not Montreal.

Also, Lestat learns from the band that Louis has detailed their lives together in book form. In the AMC series, Lestat finds out the book via an email alert. He has already reunited with Louis in the AMC series, and the book serves to break them up again. This also marks a major change from The Vampire Lestat, which barely features Louis at all. In fact, in the book, Lesat forms a rock band partially to lure Louis back to him. Also, all of this takes place in the present day in the The Vampire Lestat series, and not in 1984.

The Vampire Lestat (1985), “Dionysus in San Francisco: 1985”: Dracula’s Daughter Changes Locations AMC

In episode one, the Detroit vampires attack Lestat in the boutique hotel called Dracula’s Daughter. This references the vampire covens attacking him at his Halloween night concert in the climax of Rice’s The Vampire Lestat. However, in the book, Dracula’s Daughter is a bar in San Francisco, not a hotel.

The Vampire Lestat, Episode 2: “Toledo” AMC The Vampire Lestat (1985),”Lelio Rising”: Lestat’s Stuttering is a TV Series Invention

Lestat’s flashbacks to his mortal life in 18th-century France are how he begins his story in Rice’s The Vampire Lestat. All the details about his cruel older brothers and father tormenting him as a child are from the opening portions of the novel, “Lelio Rising.” Lestat de Lioncourt, taking on the task of killing the wolves attacking the local village, is also from this section of the novel. So is his close relationship with his mother, Gabriella.

However, Lestat’s struggles with stuttering as a young child, which The Vampire Lestat spends a great deal of time on, are an invention of the AMC series.

The Queen of the Damned (1988), “The Short, Happy Life of Baby Jenks and the Fang Gang”: The Fang Gang and Baby Jenks Change From Book to The Vampire Lestat Series

The name of the Detroit vampires, the Fang Gang, comes from the third Vampire Chronicles novel, The Queen of the Damned. But in the Anne Rice novel, the Fang Gang were not against Lestat for exposing the secrets of the undead to the world. Instead, they wanted to join him. The Fang Gang in the AMC series, meanwhile, is attempting to kill Lestat for breaking “The Great Laws.”

This is what most vampires were threatening to do at the start of the novel, The Queen of the Damned. Additionally, in the novels, Baby Jenks is a newly created vampire who is a part of the Fang Gang. She is killed by Queen Akasha when she rises. In the show, that has yet to occur, marking another change between The Vampire Lestat series and Anne Rice’s books.

The Vampire Lestat (1985), “Downtown Saturday Night in the 20th Century: 1984”: Who Is Telling the Truth? AMC+

When Daniel Molloy and Louis talk about Daniel’s publishing of Interview with the Vampire, Louis says he didn’t like how he came across in it. He says he was a liar, and not just a “Lying to myself kind of liar, a f#%*ing liar.” Daniel says Lestat claims an entire scenario described in Interview with the Vampire, with Lestat attacking them on a train, flat out never happened. This tracks with Lestat’s revelations in the opening chapter of The Vampire Lestat. This is where he says some of Louis’ confessions about him were complete fabrications. In the TV series, it remains unclear if either one of them is telling the full truth.

The Vampire Lestat (1985) “Viaticum for the Marquise.” AMC

Lestat’s recollections of making his dying mother into a vampire come from the section of The Vampire Lestat titled “Viaticum for the Marquise.” Gabriella’s decision to become a vampire right away is from this section of the book. One big deviation is that in the AMC series, Lestat and Gabriella return to Lestat’s ancestral home and kill Lestat’s brothers. Gabriella then kills her now-blind husband, and they leave their bodies for their children to find. In the novels, Lestat’s blind father survives, escapes the French Revolution, and flees to New Orleans. In Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, Lestat asks Louis to kill his father, because he can’t bring himself to do it. This is a major change to the text and in Lestat’s story in The Vampire Lestat.

The Vampire Lestat, Episode 3: “Toronto” AMC The Vampire Lestat (1985) “Lelio Rising”: Lestat and Nicki’s Romance

In the flashbacks in episode three, “Toronto,” we see the romance between Nicholas de Lenfant (Joseph Potter) and Lestat back in 18th-century France. Most of it is very accurate to Anne Rice’s canon, with some small differences. Lestat and Nicki were childhood friends, but Nicki was the one who gave Lestat the wolf-lined coat in his home village in the book. He had already been to Paris and come back home a failed student of Mozart’s. He and Lestat then leave together for Paris, Lestat for his first time, Nicki for his second.

The Vampire Lestat (1985) “The Children of Darkness”: Nicki’s Death Changes

Nicki begging for Lestat to turn him into a vampire, and his mother, Gabriella, claiming it will end in disaster, are straight from the novel. So is Nicki going mad from the vampiric transformation. However Nicki’s The Vampire Lestat death changes from book to series. In the novel, it was Armand who chopped off his hands to keep him from playing his violin when he broke coven rules. Meanwhile, it is Nicki who throws himself into the fire in The Vampire Lestat book. In The Vampire Lestat series, Lestat changes the tale to say Armand pushed Nicki into the fire and held him there. But whether or not that is true remains to be seen.

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Joseph Potter on Changes to Nicki’s Death and His Love for Lestat in THE VAMPIRE LESTAT

Also, Lestat is not present when Nicolas takes his own life by going into the fire in the book. In The Vampire Lestat novel, this event happens years after Lestat leaves Paris, and he learns about Nicki’s death via letters from vampires in the Paris coven. It’s unclear whether The Vampire Lestat series has changed Lestat leaving completely, and if Nicki and Armand still spent any time alone without Lestat present as the did in the book.

The Vampire Lestat (1985) “The Legacy of Magnus”: Lestat’s Transformation AMC+

The ancient vampire Magnus (Damien Atkins) stalking the mortal Lestat when he was an actor in a small Paris theater, and then kidnapping him and forcing him to become his vampire heir, was straight from the novel. However, in The Vampire Lestat series, there are slight changes. For one, we don’t see Magnus leaving Lestat with his vast fortune of gold and jewels, nor do we see him throwing himself into the flames. Although Lestat does mention the latter having happened, Nicki alludes to Lestat returning from his time with Magnus richer than before.

The Vampire Lestat, Episode 4: “The Devil’s Road” AMC The Vampire Lestat (1985): “On the Devil’s Road from Paris to Cairo:” Gabriella Leaves Lestat Is the One Thing the Show DOESN’T Change (Much)

Episode four changes the story of The Vampire Lestat the most from the events of the original novel. Louis’ obsession with Claudia lookalike Regina, Armand visiting Lestat while on tour to make amends for past behavior, and Lestat being shot after a concert to expose him as a vampire are all creations of the TV series writers. However, the flashback to the parting of the ways between Lestat and his mother, Gabriella, draws inspiration from passages from Anne Rice’s prose in The Vampire Lestat. In the series, Gabriella abandons Lestat on a beach in Italy, seeking to wander the world without him. However, in the book, Gabrielle leaves her son for days and weeks at a time, until Lestat finally discovers she kept the knowledge of his mortal family’s death from him. In a rage, he asks her to leave him, and she obliges. In the series, she leaves of her own accord, although it’s clear that’s what she wanted in both instances.

Devils’ Minion Takes a New Shape

The relationship between Armand and Daniel in Anne Rice’s world becomes canon in the book, The Queen of the Damned. In a chapter called “The Story of Daniel, the Devil’s Minion, or the Boy from Interview with the Vampire,“ Rice tells of Daniel and Armand’s love and Daniel’s vampiric turning. Of course, The Vampire Lestat/Interview with the Vampire has already changed Daniel’s story quite a lot. But something interesting that changes between Armand and Daniel in The Vampire Lestat is the nature of their vampiric bond. In the series, it seems something about Armand and Daniel’s connection makes the whole world fade away around them. What does that mean? We don’t yet know.

We are quite certain the series will make even more changes to Rice’s text as The Vampire Lestat continues. So keep checking back here for new updates. In the meantime, The Vampire Lestat airs on AMC and AMC+, Sundays at 9 pm ET/PT and midnight, respectively. You can also snag The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice to read, if you’d like to keep up with all the various changes between show and series.

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Originally published on June 14, 2026.

The post Major Changes AMC’s THE VAMPIRE LESTAT Makes to Anne Rice’s Books appeared first on Nerdist.

The company delivered more than 480,000 EVs globally, seemingly thanks to geographic expansion and cheaper versions of the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck.

Trump officials misled people who wanted to donate to a bipartisan initiative to mark the U.S.’s 250th anniversary, redirecting them to donate to the administration’s own group instead, according to a congressional investigation released Thursday.

A report released by House Democrats, based on newly obtained documents and whistleblower accounts, said that the White House repeatedly steered donors towards Trump’s Freedom 250 setup instead of the America250 effort set up by Congress ten years ago.

Some donors and sponsors who sought to send funds to America250 were told by the Trump administration that they didn’t have a “green light,” and pressured them to redirect their money to Freedom 250. Freedom 250 also reached out to America250 donors with donation requests, confusing some corporate executives who didn’t know the difference between the two groups, the Democrats’ report states.

“I’m a lawyer, and I know better than to pronounce that a crime has been committed,” Representative Jared Huffman, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, told The Washington Post. “But I do know the elements of fraud, and there is evidence of all those elements here.”

The report goes on to detail how Freedom 250 officials explicitly steered money away from America250 towards projects favored by Trump, who undermined a bipartisan plan to celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary to the benefit of himself and his allies.

For example, America250 had received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to fund Freedom Trucks, mobile museums that would travel around the country with lessons on American history. That grant was transferred to Freedom 250, which produced its own version of the trucks with history lessons that present a distorted image of U.S. history.

Democrats accuse Trump allies of steering away $75 million worth of taxpayer funds originally allocated by Congress to America250. The leftover money is expected to be kept by the White House. And Freedom 250’s staff is made up of many former employees of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative, which harvested user data.

Officials of the bipartisan America250 say now that they have shifted their efforts towards events outside of Washington, D.C., while Freedom 250 handles events in the nation’s capital. But the split has confused legislators and corporate leaders, and caused tensions between the two efforts, according to the Post.

Thanks to Trump, America250’s grants, educational initiatives, and volunteer programs have been overshadowed by Freedom 250 efforts. Officials expect to make up for their lost funds through more private donations, but the president has effectively ruined what could have been a unifying, nonpolitical celebration of the U.S. at a time when the American people could really use it.

Manny Rutinel’s victory this week in Colorado’s primaries has set up a once-unthinkable scenario: This November, in one of the most crucial swing races in the country, a former vegan activist will face off against a cattle rancher in a district dominated by meat processing giant JBS.

Rutinel, a 31-year-old member of the Colorado House of Representatives, beat his more moderate opponent, Shannon Bird, earlier this week in yet another victory for insurgent progressives. But as he now pivots to the general election, he’ll be facing Republican Gabe Evans, and an onslaught of attacks over his past statements on animal rights and meat consumption.

The eighth district, created in 2021 by the state’s independent redistricting commission, is Colorado’s only swing district, and swingy it is—voters in the district elected a Democrat in 2022 by less than 1,600 votes and Evans in 2024 by less than 2,500 votes.

“It’s reasonable to think that [the district] will just switch back and forth with whatever party is having a good year that year,” said Seth Masket, professor of political science at the University of Denver. “Given what we’ve seen in other elections this year, I think there’s a very good chance it swings to the Democrats.”

The district, which includes the northern suburbs of Denver and stretches north into more rural communities, is a major agricultural region. JBS, the world’s largest meat processing company, is one of the district’s biggest employers. Evans himself owns a small cattle herd and is a self-described beef producer.

As a student at Yale Law School, Rutinel gave an interview to a campus publication calling animal agriculture “a horrific, exploitive industry.” That same year, he told a legislative committee in Connecticut that “the globe must dramatically shift away from animal products and toward fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts.”

Since running for Congress, Rutinel has backtracked , saying that he is no longer a vegan, and that “it’s important for me to be able to enjoy the delicious products that Colorado ranchers make.” He’s also stopped calling for Medicare for All and a ban on fracking.

Republicans are already jumping onto Rutinel’s vegan past. After Rutinel won his primary, the regional press secretary for the National Republican Campaign Committee posted a photo on X of Rutinel as a college student, shirtless and carrying a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sign. “He is a far-left vegan activist who wants to end animal agriculture,” the post reads.

Meat occupies an almost sacred space in American politics—and a particular obsession with it on the right is nothing new. Already this cycle, Republicans have attacked Texas Senate candidate James Talarico over his past comments about reducing meat consumption: “this freak wants to BAN BBQ,” Sen. Ted Cruz wrote in an X post. In response, Talarico leaned into meat eating, posing for a photo in a Texas flag shirt while eating barbecue. At an event, he said “I deny all accusations of veganism.”

“Republicans will just be working to portray him as out of step, as too far left for Colorado. That is to some extent what they’re trying to do now with going after vegetarianism,” Masket said about Rutinel. But he’s not terribly worried that Rutinel’s vegan past will hurt his campaign. Unlike in Texas, Masket said, vegetarianism and veganism are well-established and understood in Colorado, and the more important dynamic in this election will be voters’ dissatisfaction with Trump, he said.

“November is going to be, particularly at the congressional district level, a referendum on the Trump administration,” agreed Robert Preuhs, the chair of the political science department at Metropolitan State University of Denver. The outcome in the eighth district in particular, he added, will “depend to some extent on what the Trump administration does between here and November and the extent to which Dave Evans feels comfortable endorsing those actions.”

Rutinel has established himself as a forceful critic of the Trump administration, campaigning adamantly against Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and criticizing Bird for her committee vote against a bill that would prohibit local law enforcement from collaborating with ICE.

Rutinel also took a strong stance on artificial intelligence (AI). In 2025, he was a sponsor of a bill that would protect whistleblowers who sought to disclose AI safety issues. Public First Action, an AI-safety PAC, covertly supported Rutinel by giving $2 million to Latino Victory Fund, Transformer reported on Wednesday. A PAC funded by Chris Larsen, a billionaire cryptocurrency firm founder, also spent $980,000 on the race in favor of Rutinel.

Analysts say Rutinel now faces a difficult balancing act: moderating his positions enough to appeal to swing voters, while also keeping his base energized. He’ll have help: the Democratic Party is expected to spend heavily to try to flip this district. The race may wind up being a test of whether culture war issues—like Rutinel’s past veganism—will matter more to swing voters than ICE and Trump’s record.

Changes to federal student loans expected to affect millions of borrowers took effect July 1. A part of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” these changes mean the end of some payment plans and new limits for graduate loans. Along with the end of the Biden-era SAVE plan, the changes are expected to raise the cost of payments for millions of borrowers. “The main concern is the…

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Medical device giant Medtronic is warning patients that their personal and health information may have been caught up in an April cyberattack in which intruders spent nearly a week inside parts of its corporate network. According to breach notification letters sent to affected individuals, the company detected unusual activity on April 15 and later determined an unauthorized party accessed certain corporate systems between April 13 and April 19. The compromised systems contained the sort of data you'd expect a medical device maker to hold about its patients: names, contact details, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and health information. Medtronic said it collects the information to provide product updates and comply with regulatory requirements. Medtronic says there's "no evidence" the information was "posted publicly or exposed on the internet." Whether the attackers made off with copies of the data is another question the company hasn't yet answered. The notice also addresses the question many patients are likely to ask first: whether their device was affected. "Based on our investigation, this incident did not impact the ability of any Medtronic device to operate safely and deliver intended therapy." the company said. When Medtronic first disclosed the incident in April, it said the attack had not affected patient safety, manufacturing, distribution, financial reporting, or its ability to meet patient needs. It also stressed that its corporate IT environment is segregated from the networks supporting its products and that hospital customer networks are managed separately. Shortly after the intrusion began, the ShinyHunters extortion crew added Medtronic to its dark web leak site, claiming it had stolen more than nine million records and threatening to publish the data unless a ransom was paid by April 21. The listing was later removed. ShinyHunters typically removes victims from its leak site after reaching a deal, and Medtronic's entry disappeared later that month without any data being published. However, Medtronic's notification makes no mention of ransomware, extortion demands, or ShinyHunters, and the company has not publicly attributed the attack. The breach notice also leaves several obvious questions unanswered, including how many people were affected, how the attackers gained access, and why it took the company more than two months to begin notifying affected patients. Medtronic said it has since implemented additional security measures, worked with law enforcement and relevant regulators, and is offering affected individuals two years of complimentary credit monitoring, dark web monitoring, and identity restoration services. ®

Please join the team that makes it possible for your friendly neighborhood comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug to exist in this hostile Trumpverse! JOIN US IN THE INNER HIVE, and be the first kid on your block to get each week’s Tom the Dancing Bug comic – before it’s published anywhere. * Sign up for the free weekly newsletter, The Tom the Dancing Bug Review! Not nearly as good as joining the…

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The company now expects to ship a few thousand more vehicles by the end of 2026 than it previously expected, after launching its R2 SUV last month.

Ben Guez has "a bunch of potential international wives in [his] DMs," thanks to an automated script he set up using OpenClaw, Claude code, and Instagram trials.

India has asked WhatsApp to explain why it should not face regulatory action after it announced the global rollout of a new usernames feature amid fears that the new feature could lead to increased cyberattacks. The country's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) gave the Meta owned platform three days to respond to its July 1 letter and to halt the rollout of usernames until the government gives its approval. WhatsApp announced on June 29 that it was allowing users to reserve usernames that could be used instead of phone numbers on the platform when the feature launches later this year. It said that people want to chat with others without exposing their personal phone number, whether to a classmate, neighbor, professional contact, or the group chat for their child's sports team. Meta also owns Facebook or Instagram, and is not allowing users to create usernames that already exist on those other platforms – unless they themselves control the other accounts. However, the government of India, WhatsApp's largest market fears that allowing first contact without displaying a phone number "may increase cybercrimes," including phishing and digital arrest scams. MeitY is specifically concerned about the opportunities for impersonation, with attackers posing as public authorities, financial institutions, or government departments. The department cited India's Information Technology Act 2000 and Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 as the legal basis for its concerns about the feature. The Internet Freedom Foundation, which shared a copy of MeitY's letter to WhatsApp's chief compliance officer in India, said that the department has no clear legal basis for halting WhatsApp's usernames rollout. It said neither legal framework was applicable in the context in which they were being invoked and called its letter the latest example of attempted regulatory overreach. The IFF pointed to a separate advisory issued in March 2024 when MeitY tried to stop AI companies from rolling out their models to the public before the Indian government had a chance to approve them. "That was criticized as an overreach that sought to build a licensing mechanism with no empowering provision in the IT Act, and within a fortnight MeitY withdrew it and dropped the permission requirement," the IFF stated. "This notice repeats the move for a single feature and goes further, because it names one company, sets a three-day clock, and bars the launch until MeitY is satisfied." WhatsApp told The Register that it has implemented numerous measures designed to keep users safe as usernames are rolled out across the platform. A spokesperson said: "We've announced the option for people to reserve their preferred username on WhatsApp. The ability to use a username is not yet live and will roll out slowly later this year. When it becomes available and someone sends you a message for the first time via your username, we will show you if they're a new account, if they're your contact, if you have groups in common, and if they're based in a different country, so you can decide whether to respond." In other efforts to restrict fraudulent misuse, WhatsApp has already reserved high-profile usernames for legitimate organizations and individuals. Users will also not be able to register lookalike derivatives. The spokesperson added: "Users still require a phone number to use WhatsApp and we've built multiple layers of defense against scams into usernames. Other users need to know the exact username to message you, we will limit how many new people an account can contact, block repeated attempts to guess someone's username key, and have systems to detect and remove activity showing common impersonation and abuse patterns." MeitY did not respond to our request for input. WhatsApp claims more than 3 billion users rely on its messaging platform, and separate estimates peg India as its largest market with more than 850 million users. WhatsApp-based scams are not unique to India. Many cybercriminals use the platform to commit fraud, impersonating public figures, authorities, and family members to carry out financially motivated attacks. The Telegram messaging platform allows users to set public usernames and is also frequented by scammers. India temporarily banned Telegram in June amid fears that exam questions were being shared ahead of time. The ban was announced days before the NEET-UG medical entrance exam was scheduled to begin. The exam was reworked and rescheduled after being canceled in May after genuine questions were found circulating on the platform. ®

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Temperatures on the ocean surface have hit a record high, raising fears of another burst of extreme heat this summer.

On June 21, temperatures outside the polar regions exceeded the extraordinary highs observed at the same time in 2023 and 2024, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Wednesday.

It warned the new peak would probably bring “consequences for weather patterns, global climate, and marine ecosystems,” not least because it would coincide with the earliest phases of an El Niño event they forecast to be the strongest in decades.

In 2020, the heat being added to the oceans was equivalent to about 5 Hiroshima bombs per second. Last year, it was closer to 11 .

When the previous ocean record for June was set in 2023, scientists described the trends as “worrying,” “terrifying,” and “bonkers” because they were so far outside their expectations. That presaged an El Niño and a period of devastating global heatwaves, floods, and storms.

That 2023 record has now been surpassed and much of the world is once again seeing an alarming rise in temperatures. Last month, the UK and many other countries in Europe sweltered amid new heat records while Antarctica experienced unprecedentedly balmy winter conditions.

Although the focus is usually on land temperatures, oceans give a fuller picture of how much the climate is being pushed out of balance by human-caused warming.

Surface temperatures are affected by solar radiation, water currents, and the buildup of heat in the depths.

Oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the excess energy in the Earth system, which is primarily caused by burning fossil fuels, such as oil, coal, and gas. That imbalance hit a record 23 zettajoules last year, more than double the average of the previous two decades.

As a result, the oceans are warming at an accelerating rate. In 2020, the amount of heat being added to the oceans was equivalent to about five Hiroshima bombs per second. Last year, it was closer to 11 Hiroshima explosions per second. The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, has warned “Earth is being pushed beyond its limits.”

Scientists said it was too early to say whether the sea surface heating would prove temporary or even worsen because annual peaks are usually registered in July and August.

But Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus director at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, warned it could indicate the beginning of a new phase, leading, once more, to uncharted territory: “With ocean temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we are likely to see more temperature records fall in the coming months.”

Copernicus is part of the EU’s space program.

The Supreme Court dealt Big Brother a blow on Monday with a landmark ruling for digital privacy rights in Chatrie v. United States. Conservative Justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch joined the liberal bloc of Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson in finding that smartphone location data is subject to privacy protections under the Fourth Amendment. Though consequential, the case has gone largely overlooked amid this week’s deluge of high-profile rulings, including the decision to block President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order attempting to overturn the guarantee of birthright citizenship. It marks the Court’s first decision on digital surveillance since 2018, when it found that law enforcement’s warrantless search of cell site location history violated the Fourth Amendment.

To better understand the implications of Chatrie, I hopped on the phone with Stevie Glaberson, director of research and advocacy at Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology. The Center filed an amicus brief in the case alongside the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU. Glaberson helped break down Chatrie and what the Court’s ruling means in an age of growing digital surveillance.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

At the center of Chatrie is law enforcement’s use of a “geofence warrant” to identify the potential suspect of a bank robbery in 2019. What are geofence warrants, and how do they differ from regular search warrants?

A geofence warrant is one of the kinds of warrants that people sometimes refer to as “reverse warrants.” When you think about a traditional warrant, the police are supposed to have particularized suspicions—they’re supposed to be going to a neutral decision maker, like a judge or a magistrate, to show their reasons for suspecting that a certain person or a certain place has evidence of a crime that they’re investigating.

In the case of geofence warrants, [the police] don’t have a particular person in mind, and they sort of work backwards from a location. They draw a line around that location and ask the company, in this case Google, for all the devices that can be found within that location at the relevant time.

In this case, the police drew a line around the bank and asked Google for all of the devices that could be found within that space during the time the robbery occurred. That space didn’t just involve the bank. There was a church in the immediate area, and there might have been people’s homes or other businesses.

Have police increased their use of geofence warrants in recent years? How long has this search tactic been used?

“What was happening here is something that the founders could not have imagined when they were debating the Fourth Amendment.”

This technique did not exist previously. It’s only possible because of the way technology works now, and a big part of what the Court said in its opinion is that what was happening here is something that the founders could not have imagined when they were debating the Fourth Amendment—a kind of surveillance and a kind of police investigation that would not have been possible. It was not previously possible for the police to retroactively tail all of us into private businesses and homes, throughout our days, at this level of granularity.

The interesting thing about the Chatrie case is that the particular three-step process that happened here, Google had already said that they are no longer doing it the same way. But that does not mean that there are not other ways for the police to access this type of information.

Can you explain that three-step process ?

The more common thing is for police to just ask a company or a person for a specific thing in a specific location. Here, the warrant described this three-step process that, once the judge approved it, Google and the police would just go through [the data] on their own without returning to the magistrate. 

First, Google would look in that physical location, the box the police had drawn, and return anonymized information about all the devices. The police would then look at what Google gave them and try to narrow down which of the devices they wanted more information about. In this case, the initial step returned 19 devices. And the police said, Okay, we want information about these nine. 

And what’s important to note is that in this case they were only looking for one suspect. So, at each of these steps, they’re getting the data of people that are affirmatively not the suspect. And it’s important to recognize that these kinds of searches could draw in all of us, regardless of any suspicion or not. 

So the police asked Google for more information about those nine accounts to look at where else those devices went before and after the crime. The identities of the people were still not being revealed to the police, but they could now see two hours of really granular location information about all the places those devices came from and went to during that period. Google captures location data once every two minutes, and it’s pretty precise about where a person is. It also can capture elevation data—if this person went to the doctor’s office on the third floor, rather than the insurance salesman on the tenth floor. 

“We found…that the majority of American adults, as of 2021, were in Department of Homeland Security immigration databases and could be located by ICE and CBP.”

From that return of nine sets of more granular information over two hours, the police then were supposed to look through that and identify the devices they wanted unmasked, to learn the identities of the people who owned those devices. And in this case, they didn’t just ask for the person they eventually prosecuted, Mr. Chatrie. They asked Google to de-anonymize three accounts—so, once again, people who affirmatively were not then the suspect.

What did the Supreme Court have to say about this process?

Six justices got in line behind the idea that the decision [from a lower court] should be vacated—that a search did happen here according to the Fourth Amendment and needs to be more closely reviewed. Five justices signed on to the main opinion written by Justice [Elena] Kagan. And Justice Gorsuch wrote his own opinion that gets to the same place, but through a different avenue.

Justice Kagan’s opinion goes through the most recent, really seminal opinion on Fourth Amendment privacy in the digital era, which is Carpenter. That’s a case about cell site location information, which is pretty similar to the Google location history that was at issue here. And the majority opinion decides that, in accordance with Carpenter in 2018, a search did occur here when the government went to Google and asked for all of this information, and so we need to look very closely at whether the warrant that the police got was appropriate. The opinion leaves for another day the questions that will ultimately resolve the case about whether the warrant itself was appropriate, but it decides that, for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, the government did conduct a search here.

One thing that’s really important about this decision is that it says a third-party doctrine does not apply in this case. The third-party doctrine is an exception to the Fourth Amendment that risks really swallowing the rule for all of us in today’s digital economy. It’s the idea that once you voluntarily share information with someone else, a third party [like Google], you lose all reasonable expectations of privacy in that information and the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply. And in this case, Justice Kagan’s opinion really importantly says the third-party doctrine does not apply here—just by using a cell phone the way cell phone users do, we don’t give up our rights to our private information.

What are the broader implications of the Court’s ruling? Do you expect this case to have a ripple effect?

So if you read Justice [Samuel] Alito’s dissent, he basically says this is coming for all digital surveillance—which in our book is probably a good thing, but he says it as though it is a terrible thing.

I think this is probably the most significant Supreme Court ruling on the Fourth Amendment since Carpenter. What practical impact it will have remains to be seen, but I think it is an incredibly important development that the Supreme Court is not just extending the third-party doctrine to to all cases and saying that the introduction of a layer of corporate interaction in our lives removes all expectations of privacy.

Because basically, in the last few decades, every single thing we do—from communicating with our families to managing our finances to even thinking our own private thoughts—corporations have sort of wormed their way into all of those processes and are mediating all of our human interactions, sometimes the most sensitive facets of our lives.

“Everybody should recognize that placing these limits on police and on government is vital…for community and for democracy.”

And if the mere fact that a corporate tool was in the middle of all of that meant that we had no expectation of privacy whatsoever, that would be the exception that swallows the Fourth Amendment. I don’t know whether this opinion will meaningfully change our day-to-day, but it is a step in the right direction to say that the Fourth Amendment really does still mean something. Privacy is still a value, and one that we’re going to protect.

It seems like people are increasingly aware of and concerned about surveillance, but thinking about things like First Amendment concerns, why does this decision matter for everyday people who haven’t committed or aren’t suspected of having committed any crimes?

All of these techniques—from geofence reverse location searches to police use of facial recognition technology—impact all of us. The companies and the police and the federal government don’t necessarily distinguish when they vacuum up information—when they buy information from data brokers, or when they use facial recognition on a crowd, they don’t distinguish between folks that they have a particular interest in and folks that they don’t. They are just vacuuming up information on everybody.

We found in our research that the majority of American adults, as of 2021, were in Department of Homeland Security immigration databases and could be located by ICE and CBP. So, at a practical level, it impacts all of us, and it has really serious implications on our ability to live our lives and do the things that we want to do together. Because very quickly information about one of us becomes information about a whole group of us, and the police can use these kinds of techniques to surveil and track us from afar, without our knowledge, and identify when we go to protests or come together in community.

So everybody should recognize that placing these limits on police and on government is vital to maintain any kind of any hope for communal action for community and for democracy.

One of the most difficult situations for a young athlete is having to sit on the sidelines following a major injury.

Mostly because they are so used to being active.

Thus was the case for St. Francis High graduate Jacob Jimenez, who went on the “injured reserve” list for three weeks during the football season while he nursed his ailing ribs. 

“It was definitely hard, but I just try to be out there, try to coach [my teammates] up, and be there for them as much as possible,” he said.

During that same time, one of his teammates was also out with an injury. But instead of moping around, they pushed each other until both players were ready to get back on the field.

St. Francis athletic director and head football coach John Ausman paid close attention to how Jimenez handled what could’ve been a potential crisis. 

“You really get to see the character of someone when things go rough, how they respond, and what’s their demeanor,” Ausman said. 

Ausman believes it’s what separates superb athletes such as Jimenez apart from others, and allows them to have success. 

“I knew [he’d return] because of his mentality, because of his character,” Ausman said.

Jimenez overcame the adversity, and earned All-Pacific Coast Athletic League First Team honors in the Mission Division–North. He went on to earn all-league second team honors in boys basketball in the winter, and won a pair of division championships for the track and field team in the spring.  

“What he’s done on the court, on the field and on the track speaks for itself, but what I admire the most is what he does outside of that,” Ausman said. “How he treats all those around him, his family, his little sister whenever she shows up every time. Not only is he a great athlete, great student, but he’s just a better young man, and I couldn’t be more fortunate to have coached him for the last four years.”

Academics was also important to Jimenez, who graduated with a 3.9 grade point average. He was a member of the Varsity Council, and part of the Sports Med Club where he learned the basics of what athletic trainers do. 

“It’s always student before athlete,” he said. “I just take pride in getting good grades and just putting all my effort into the classroom, as well as the field. I owe it to my parents because they sacrificed a lot for me, so the least I could do is try hard in school and just get into good colleges. And hopefully make something out of my life.”

Jimenez is what most coaches and teachers would consider the ideal student-athlete, which is why he was named The Pajaronian’s Male Athlete of the Year for the 2025-26 school year.

“It’s an honor,” he said. “I just like to thank my coaches, my friends, my teammates, my family for just pushing me through everything and helping me get to this point. It just feels good to see all the hard work get noticed.”

The rib injury occurred just two weeks into the young football season in a non-league game against Pajaro Valley on Sept. 6. 

Jimenez waited patiently for his time to return as he continued to put in the work by himself, even when nobody was watching. 

“They get these accolades, which are well deserving, but it’s knowing they truly deserve them,” Ausman said. “Not just because of what God has given them, but taking those gifts and putting in the work to make them the best version of themselves.”

Jimenez hauled in 23 receptions for 435 receiving yards and a pair of touchdowns in seven games played, according to the Monterey Bay Preps website.

Yet, it was his ability to block defenders and sometimes act as a decoy that separated him from other wide receivers. 

“I always try my hardest,” he said. “It’s not all about catching it. What you do off the ball is how you show your love to your teammates. So, if you block for someone, then that’s how you can tell that you care for him.”

For Jimenez, there’s no other sport like football. He talked about working every day just to play one game a week, and the brotherhood that’s created during those grueling summer workouts.

“You’ll never make that type of bond anywhere else because you go through the same stuff,” he said. “You win together, you lose together, you go through everything together, so it’s definitely a brotherhood.”

In the winter, Jimenez reunited with his teammates on the basketball team – another clique he’s been a part of since his freshman year. He finished with an average of 16.2 points per game, according to Monterey Bay Preps.

Jimenez said once all the hard work came together, there was nothing better than being on a team with a bunch of guys working towards the same goal.

St. Francis was in a tight race for the Mission Division crown during most of the season. In the end, they fell short to league co-champions Hollister and Marina.

“I knew it was my last season, so I was just trying to make the most out of every game,” he said. “Just put the pedal to the metal, and then just not let up.”

After the Sharks were eliminated from the Central Coast Section playoffs, Jimenez transitioned to the track team. 

It wasn’t always that way, though. He was once a member of the baseball team during his freshman and sophomore years. 

Jimenez said it was fun at first because all his friends were on the squad, yet he began to feel he wasn’t progressing. He was then convinced by track and field coach Britney Hill to join their program, which boosted his confidence to perform at a high level.

“Sometimes I do miss baseball,” he said. “But track’s good because it’s a team sport, but it’s also just you versus you within your events.”

Jimenez was the PCAL Cypress Division champion in both the high jump and triple jump events, and runner-up in the long jump. He was the top qualifier in the high jump at the PCAL Masters Meet, which earned him a spot to the CCS Championships.

Jimenez has had plenty of role models throughout his athletic career, starting with his parents, Holly and Jaime. He said they sacrificed a lot for him and doesn’t know where he’d be without them.

However, it wasn’t until he met Ausman, who Jimenez said became another father figure by showing players how to be good young men.

“Trying to teach us how to grow up and just be respectable,” Jimenez said.

One of Jimenez’s favorite questions Ausman would ask often was “Rent is due, what are you gonna do?”

Jimenez said when it comes down to the line, and the family’s banking on the paycheck, just put the head down and grind. Always just trying to improve. 

“I feel like that’s always been my goal, just to be the best person I can,” Jimenez said. “But the thing that motivates me is probably my family, just wanting to be good for them and being around for them.”

Jimenez will continue his football career at San Jose City College this upcoming fall.

#tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item1 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/PAJ2627-Jacob-Jimenez-2025-26-Male-AOY-football-WEB-1-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item2 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/PAJ2627-Jacob-Jimenez-2025-26-Male-AOY-basketball-WEB-1-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item3 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/PAJ2627-Jacob-Jimenez-2025-26-Male-AOY-WEB-1-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } 1 of 3 Team White's Jacob Jimenez is tackled by Team Black's Gabriel Prieto of Gonzales during the 40th Annual Central Coast High School All-Star Football Game at Rabobank on Saturday, Jan 31. (Raul Ebio/The Pajaronian) St. Francis High graduate Jacob Jimenez finished with an average of 16 points per game for the boys basketball team during the 2025-26 winter season. (Juan Reyes/The Pajaronian) St. Francis High graduate Jacob Jimenez was named The Pajaronian's Male Athlete of the Year for the 2025-26 school year. Jimenez competed for the football, boys basketball and track and field teams during his senior year. (Juan Reyes/The Pajaronian)

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the July 2 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

This week, The New York Times released a batch of polls showing Democrats within striking distance of winning enough Senate races to win control. One big finding was that Donald Trump’s numbers in these states are absolutely abysmal. Small wonder, then, that Trump is taking some corrupt new steps to give Republican candidates a big boost. Steve Benen of MS Now noticed a really intriguing pattern. In several states, Trump is directly linking the approval of disaster aid right to his endorsements of GOP candidates in some of the most contested races.

That’s not how this is supposed to work, but it opens a window on something to watch for, which we’re talking to Steve Benen about today. Trump will surely scale up his use of the government to boost GOP fortunes in coming months, and God knows how he’s going to do that. Steve, good to have you back on.

Steve Benen: Thanks, Greg. It’s great to be here.

Sargent: So let’s just start off really simply. Steve, how is the president supposed to make decisions about disaster aid to states? And has he doled out disaster aid in an equivalent way to blue and red states?

Benen: Right. The foundational question here is exactly that. There’s a system in place that has been in place for generations. When it comes to federal disaster aid, presidents and their administrations are just simply supposed to make these decisions on the merits. Does a state deserve, and does it need, federal disaster aid? And if it does, great. If it doesn’t, then no. But that’s how it’s always worked, in a bipartisan and objective way.

Even in Donald Trump’s first term, we didn’t necessarily see any major controversies or scandals surrounding the politicization of disaster aid. However, over the last year, year and a half, it’s been much different. Politico reported in March—a report that I think really bears repeating:

Donald Trump approved just 23 percent of disaster funding requests from states with Democratic governors and Democratic senators, while at the same time, over roughly the same period, states with Republican governors and Republican senators had their requests approved 89 percent of the time.

Twenty-three percent, less than a fourth, for blue states; 89 percent, nearly nine out of ten, for red states. Now, it’s a dramatic, indefensible ratio, and it speaks to the fact that it’s really been corrupted and politicized in a way that has never existed before in the federal government.

Sargent: Well, you noticed this pattern in addition to this. In recent days, Trump announced huge amounts of disaster aid to at least six states. Most of them were red; two of them were swing states, Michigan and Wisconsin, and I want to focus on those for now. Let’s take Michigan first.

Trump said this on Truth Social: “I am pleased to announce that the great state of Michigan has been approved to be given $32 million in its disaster declaration request.” Trump added: “The people of Michigan are in good hands with Trump-endorsed Mike Rogers, who is running for U.S. Senate, and John James for governor.”

Steve, it’s true that Trump also cited the Democratic governor in the tweet, but she’s not running for anything. And he did boost two critical GOP candidates: Senate hopeful Mike Rogers and gubernatorial hopeful John James. Can you explain why you see that as corrupt?

Benen: You know, there was a point last year we saw some hints along these lines, where Trump would talk about the fact that he’d approved disaster aid for, say, Missouri, for example, and he would emphasize the fact that he won Missouri’s electoral votes in his previous elections, suggesting there was a connection between his political support in the state and his eagerness to provide federal relief for that state. But now he’s just dropped the pretense. There’s no real sense that maybe he’s just being coy or being subtle about any of this.

Here we have an instance in which he’s talking about approving federal disaster aid and literally, explicitly, and overtly including an endorsement for various candidates aligned with his White House, as if they’re interconnected in ways that, as far as he’s concerned, are inextricable.

Sargent: Yes. And let’s move to Wisconsin now. And here Trump was even more blatant. He posted this: “I just spoke with Congressman Tom Tiffany, who has my complete and total endorsement for governor, and informed him that the great state of Wisconsin has been approved to be given $22.6 million in its disaster declaration request.”

Steve, here he makes it sound as if this Republican candidate for governor helped deliver this money to the state. And Trump also says the people of Wisconsin are in good hands with him, and then also cites Congressman Derrick Van Orden, who is locked in an absolutely key House race. He’s just blurting it out right in public.

I want to be clear that all these races we’re talking about here—Michigan Senate and governor, Wisconsin governor and congressman—are really critical races, and they’re toss-ups. Your thoughts on all this?

Benen: The brazenness of it all is just breathtaking. I mean, here we have a situation in which we have a competitive state, arguably the most competitive state in the nation, Wisconsin. We’ve seen it over and over again in recent election cycles. And so instead of acknowledging the Democratic governor’s role in perhaps requesting federal disaster relief in the first place, Donald Trump just ignores that and makes a connection between this congressman who had nothing to do with the process and the money that’s going to the state and communities in the state that need the aid.

And so there’s no real pretense here. There’s no sense of propriety at all. It’s making a direct connection between a congressman running for governor who enjoys the president’s support and the money that the Trump administration is now providing to the state.

So I hope your listeners can appreciate the fact that it has never worked this way. We’ve never had a system in place in which a White House or any administration has necessarily made this connection, made this direct tie between endorsing a candidate and the federal disaster relief.

I mean, it’s scandalous. To my mind, it’s borderline impeachable, that we’d have this kind of indefensible connection between two things that should have nothing to do with one another.

Sargent: Yeah. And if you put this in the larger context, it really gets thrown into stark relief. He’s badly stiffed Democratic states of disaster aid relative to Republican states over much of his second term. And here he’s doling this out to these swing states, arguably precisely because they have very competitive and important races in them, right?

I mean, it’s not that much of a leap to say that’s why he approved the aid to them. He’s trying to create the impression that these candidates played a major role in delivering this federal money to these states.

Benen: Right. And we’ve had a series of controversies over the last year and a half—and I think that you and I have talked about this before—in which we’ve seen the administration and the White House being accused of misusing federal resources for political purposes to achieve electoral goals, which in itself is scandalous. And here we have more evidence to consider as part of these broader allegations.

Is the White House making decisions as it relates to federal disaster funds for the purposes of affecting the outcomes of elections? And if so, that’s the sort of thing that maybe the next Congress might want to investigate in more detail—maybe hold a congressional hearing or oversight hearing or two as it relates to this.

This is the sort of thing that can resonate, I think, with most people, because there’s an understanding: we don’t do that in the United States. We don’t connect communities that are affected by disasters, and the money that the people in those communities need and deserve, with electoral strategies and campaign strategies. Those two things should never be mixed.

And yet we have reason to believe that that’s exactly what’s happening here. And I feel like it’s incumbent upon lawmakers and policymakers to get answers to these questions, because really, if this is happening in our name, it is a scandal that should help define Donald Trump’s second term.

Sargent: Now, you singled out a number of other states. It’s not quite as clear that these are ones with competitive races, but they do have races in them. And in these cases, you found there really is an apparent connection between the decision to award the aid and the political fortunes of Republicans in these states. Can you talk about these other places that you looked at?

Benen: Sure. Let’s look at Kansas, for example. Now, Kansas, as your listeners will know, is a pretty reliable red state, but yet it has a Democratic governor, and it requested federal disaster relief. Now, fortunately, the president approved that disaster relief, to the tune of $5.5 million.

But when he did so, he specifically acknowledged Senator Roger Marshall, a close presidential ally who just happens to be running for reelection in 2026, and didn’t mention the governor. And then he took the additional step of mentioning Ty Masterson, the GOP candidate in the gubernatorial race for 2026.

Now, there was no need to mention Marshall or Masterson. But again, here we have a situation in which the president’s preoccupation is not with the people who need the aid or the communities that have been affected by natural disasters. What he’s prioritizing is the fact that there are these Republicans who are aligned with his White House who are on the ballot in the fall.

That’s the focus. That’s the priority. That’s the message that he wants to get through—that he’s approving this aid, and he wants people to make that connection between the federal emergency assistance and the candidates that are going to be on the ballot.

Sargent: Yeah, you did look at some other states, and you really drew a convincing pattern. Let’s just talk about the polls for now, though. The New York Times surveyed six Senate races. Democrats are ahead in North Carolina and up by a hair in Maine, tied in Texas, and just behind in Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio.

That puts Dems in striking distance of winning the four of these contests that they need to win to take the upper chamber, though they’re, I think, still clearly the underdogs for Senate control. Steve, I think on balance that polling’s pretty good news. Nobody really expected Dems to be this competitive in these particular states, many of which are red. What did you think about these findings?

Benen: Yeah, I think that last point that you mentioned a moment ago is exactly the key. If we look at this in the context of, say, where we had the political landscape two months ago, or really six months ago, or maybe even a year ago—the idea of a Democratic Senate getting elected in the 2026 midterms was absurd. It was not something that people were thinking about, wasn’t something people were talking about.

Democratic hopes were focused on the House, which seemed more plausible, more realistic, given the fact that there’s really a small GOP majority right now. And given historical trends, it seemed likely that Democrats were able to pick up enough seats to gain a majority and take the speaker’s gavel away from Mike Johnson.

The Senate was a long shot. It just seemed like it was out of left field and not really part of the conversation. That has changed considerably. There are contests now that are very much in play that people weren’t even thinking about at all. States like Alaska, Texas—these are states, even Iowa. The New York Times poll that you just referenced showed Iowa being very competitive, and that’s another state that is now generally seen as a red state that is now very competitive at the Senate level.

And so taken together, we start to see a path. Now, it’s not an easy path, especially given that there are 53 Senate Republicans and it would take a lot. But at the same time, given historical patterns, if there’s a serious enough backlash to the status quo—we have a very unpopular president, we have a MAGA agenda that is generating all kinds of pushback and protests nationwide—those factors, you put them together, coupled with the fact that people aren’t satisfied with the state of the economy or the war in Iran, you start to wonder: maybe the Senate can be flipped, given the right circumstances. It’s no longer unrealistic.

Sargent: Yes, and here’s what’s critical about these numbers from The New York Times. Trump himself is polling terribly in these states. On the war with Iran, across these six states, only 38 percent approve of his handling of it, while 59 percent disapprove. On gas prices, it’s 33 percent to 63 percent. And across these six battlegrounds, only 36 percent approve of his handling of the cost of living. And on that, his approval is 24 percent among independents.

Steve, I want to stress this. Trump won five out of these six states. We’re talking about places like Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Texas. These are red states. And he’s in the thirties on the cost of living, and in the twenties on that among independents. That’s why these races are competitive. What do you think of that?

Benen: I think that if I were a Republican official right now, or if I were a GOP strategist looking ahead to the fall, I would be sweating. In fact, I would be losing sleep, because these numbers are abysmal. It would be one thing if we were looking at the polling in Vermont and Hawaii, and we saw Democrats with a big advantage, and we saw widespread opposition to the White House and its agenda. That would be expected and not necessarily alarming.

But for Republicans, what you just emphasized is exactly right. In red states, in states where Donald Trump won by large double-digit margins without even having to break a sweat, he is not only deeply unpopular, but there’s a rejection not just of him, but of his policies, of the effects of his policies, and the way in which his presidency is unfolding—the way that people are just dealing with the crises that are unfolding in their daily lives, that Donald Trump is ignoring.

You know, Mr. “I love inflation,” or “I love the inflation.” This is not a winning strategy, it’s not a winning message. And really, the party doesn’t have anything to run on except maybe their opposition to DSA candidates, which is really not going to be enough to get them very far.

Sargent: Yes. And by the way, I want to stress this number as well, on the Times polling. In these six states, only 35 percent say the economy is good, while 63 percent say the opposite. That’s really terrible, again, in states that Trump largely won, right?

Benen: Exactly. Year in and year out, especially in the wake of the pandemic, the economy is really the driving force that we see overriding every other consideration. There is an affordability crisis. We’ve seen weak job numbers, we’ve seen weak GDP growth.

Donald Trump ran for office saying that voters can expect an immediate economic boom on day one of his second term. He’s obviously failed spectacularly to live up to those promises. And voters have noticed.

There’s only so many ways that you can lie to people about their own wallets, about their own paychecks, about the bills that are piling up on their desks. And so really, I’m at a loss to explain what the White House can do about this, other than maybe hope that the ballroom is a lot more popular than it is now.

Sargent: I want to highlight still more findings here. Voters in each of these six states said the most important issues to them by far are jobs, the economy, inflation, the cost of living. The Times says this: by a 14 percentage point margin, voters in these battlegrounds said that Trump’s policies have hurt more than helped. And 52 percent of independents said Trump’s policies had hurt; only 22 percent said they had helped. Again, in states Trump won mostly, almost all of them.

Benen: Right. And I think that the significance of that is that the White House strategy over the last year and a half has been to blame Biden every time these questions have come up. Every time they’re confronted with another poll, another controversy, another pushback from Congress about the state of the economy, they say the same thing: no, no, no, let’s blame Joe Biden, let’s blame Kamala Harris, let’s blame the past.

But this poll indicates that that talking point, that pushback, simply does not work. People are looking at the effects of Trump’s agenda, of Trump’s policies, of what Trump has been able to deliver. And they’re saying, you know what? I’m not better off. I was better off before. Things are worse. The value of my dollar is worse. Every time I go to the grocery store, it’s worse. Every time I fill up the gas tank, it’s worse.

And so they can’t blame Biden when Americans are looking at the status quo and realizing that over the last year and a half, Trump has failed to deliver, and things are not better than they were. Despite his promises, despite everything he said he was going to be able to do, he hasn’t been able to do it, and people have noticed.

Sargent: OK, let’s tie this back to the broader theme of this episode. Again, we’ve been discussing how Trump, in a very blatant way, is kind of corruptly tying disaster aid to states right to Republican candidates in these states. Again, the larger context here being that he had been stiffing Democratic states in the past, and all of a sudden he’s now granting aid to the ones where he wants to boost the Republican candidates. I think this is all a sign that we’re going to see a real ramped-up effort to use the government in every conceivable way possible to try to swing these midterms.

The obvious stuff would be maybe using ICE or even the military to send in troops basically to create a sense of crisis. But that’s only the most prominent and dramatic thing that he could do. What we’re seeing with this pattern you identified is that there are subtle things he can do as well. Where do you think this is going to go?

Benen: I think that we should be expecting an all-of-government approach in the coming weeks and months. Because really, RFK Jr. has hit the campaign trail and is going to competitive districts and making connections between HHS and local elections, local officials running for statewide offices.

And so if HHS is doing it, and now we see FEMA resources, and then we see ICE across the board, I think what we can expect in the coming weeks is a federal government that is focused exclusively on helping Republicans win elections. Period, full stop. That is what is unfolding in real time right now.

I think it’s only going to get worse, especially as the polls show Democrats with an advantage—and especially as polls show Democrats with a stronger lead, I think the anxiety in Republican circles will intensify. The panic will lead to more abuses, more corruption, more misuse of resources. And I think it’s something that Americans need to be keeping a close eye on, because this is happening in their name. These are their resources. This is their government that’s being abused. And it’s a scandal that’s unfolding before our eyes, the likes of which we have not seen in modern history.

Sargent: And just to wrap this up, what’s really intriguing about the whole situation is that Trump has to blurt out the corrupt scheme right in plain sight, precisely because he wants voters to draw these connections. He wants voters to say to themselves, in these places, OK, it’s because of John James that Michigan is getting all this aid, or it’s because of Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin, or the Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate, that Wisconsin’s getting this aid.

It’s sort of an intriguing situation in that sense, isn’t it? That he goes out of his way to blatantly blurt out the scheme right in plain sight in order to get voters to draw the link, right?

Benen: Right. He has no choice. I mean, the corruption doesn’t work if it happens in secret. He has to make it public—and I’m saying this deliberately—in order for people to vote the right way. He can’t keep it secret. He has to expose it in order for the scheme to work.

My fear is that as far as he’s concerned, he is above reproach. He is literally unimpeachable. He cannot be held accountable for his own actions, because as far as he’s concerned, he’s never been held accountable for his own actions. And according to the Supreme Court, he can’t even be prosecuted even after leaving office, so long as there’s some fig leaf about this being official acts. And so as far as he’s concerned, he can get away with it because he can’t be held accountable.

My hope is that if there is, say, a Democratic House next year, perhaps even a Democratic Congress, he will soon learn that he can be held accountable—that there is a Congress that will hold hearings, that will consider impeachment, that will consider penalties that will actually matter. Because up until now, he has gotten away with so much.

Sargent: I’ve said this before on this show, and I’m going to repeat it again: there is one body of people out there who can actually hold Trump accountable, and it’s the voters. We really need them to do that. We really need it, Steve. Steve Benen, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much. Good flag on this stuff, by the way.

Benen: Thank you, Greg. I appreciate it.

Attackers have been caught exploiting a critical flaw in Oracle E-Business Suite's Payments module just six weeks after Oracle patched it – and before any public proof-of-concept exploit was available. Researchers at Defused said they observed the first known exploitation of CVE-2026-46817 on June 27. The attackers were targeting the Oracle Payments File Transmission component in E-Business Suite releases 12.2.3 through 12.2.15, they said. The vulnerability, fixed in Oracle's May Critical Patch Update, carries a CVSS score of 9.8 and allows unauthenticated attackers to read arbitrary files from vulnerable servers. According to Defused, the activity didn't look like the indiscriminate internet scanning that often follows disclosure of a critical bug. Instead, its honeypots recorded just six exploitation attempts from a single source, all using what appeared to be a working exploit. The requests sought to retrieve sensitive files from the target system, suggesting the operator was testing or validating the technique rather than casting a wide net. The researchers said exploitation began before any public exploit code had surfaced, pointing to an attacker who had either reverse-engineered Oracle's patch or obtained a private exploit. The Shadowserver Foundation said it currently sees around 950 EBS instances exposed to the public internet, the majority in the US, although it stressed that figure says nothing about whether they're vulnerable or fully patched. The observed exploitation fits a pattern that's becoming increasingly familiar. Earlier this month, researchers warned that attackers had exploited a critical PeopleSoft zero-day before patches were widely deployed, with the ShinyHunters crew claiming to have compromised more than 100 organizations. They also boasted of having stolen HR and payroll data. This latest incident also follows Clop's lengthy campaign against Oracle E-Business Suite customers, disclosed last year after researchers found the ransomware crew had targeted internet-facing EBS servers for months before the activity became public. The newly exploited EBS vulnerability is probably not the last Oracle ERP bug to be targeted. Enterprise software has become a lucrative hunting ground for cybercrooks, and critical updates can double as roadmaps for anyone prepared to reverse-engineer the fixes and beat customers to deployment. ®

Santa Cruz County homeowners embraced backyard cottages after state and local reforms made accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, far easier to build, but that boom is already fading. Rising construction costs, high interest rates and other economic headwinds have sharply slowed new ADU projects, making it harder for the county to meet its housing goals.