Most Travelers Don’t Know Who Pays TSA Officers

By Rebekah Riess

“The problem is that passengers aren’t aware of their pockets getting picked every time they go through security.“

As the partial government shutdown drags on, tens of thousands of TSA employees are working without pay across the nation’s commercial airports. Most travelers don’t know who actually funds TSA — and the answer is more complicated than it seems.

TSA is funded in part by the September 11 Security Fee, a small charge built into every plane ticket since 2001. Airlines collect the fee and pass it to TSA. But the vast majority of what’s collected annually goes into the Treasury’s general fund, with only a fraction available for TSA to spend directly. A 2013 law further diverts roughly a third of the fees toward deficit reduction instead of airport security.

Because TSA funding is discretionary, Congress must appropriate it annually. When DHS funding lapses, TSA has no independent access to the money — and workers go unpaid. President Trump has threatened to deploy ICE agents to airports if lawmakers don’t act.

The standoff comes down to a political dispute: Senate Democrats want immigration enforcement reforms before funding DHS, while Republicans have blocked measures to fund TSA separately in the meantime. Industry advocates are pushing Congress to reclassify the passenger security fee so TSA can access it directly — even during shutdowns.

Supreme Court Hears Arguments Over Late-Arriving Mail Ballots

By Abbie VanSickle

“Post-Election Day deadlines are wrong as a matter of text, precedent, history and common sense.”

The Supreme Court heard more than two hours of arguments Monday over whether states may count mail ballots postmarked by Election Day but received after it. The case, brought by the Republican National Committee against Mississippi’s law allowing a grace period for late-arriving ballots, could affect voters in 14 states and Washington, D.C., with a ruling expected by late June in time to shape the 2026 midterm elections.

The court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical, with Justices Alito and Kavanaugh raising concerns that counting late ballots erodes public confidence in elections by allowing outcomes to shift days after polls close. The Trump administration sided with the RNC, consistent with the president’s broader push to restrict mail voting. At the same time, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett pressed both sides on whether a ruling against grace periods could also jeopardize early voting, a practice that benefits voters across party lines.

The case raises fundamental questions about who gets to vote and under what conditions. For rural communities in states like Alaska, accessible only by air or water, and for elderly, disabled, and overseas voters, grace periods are not a technicality but a meaningful guarantee of access. Restricting them in the name of election confidence, critics argue, risks disenfranchising the very voters least equipped to overcome logistical barriers and whose ballots arrive late through no fault of their own.

NTSB Offers Update on Deadly LaGuardia Airport Collision Investigation 

By Michael R. Sisak, Josh Funk, and John Seewer

“Many questions remain about why the airport fire truck was crossing the runway while the plane was landing and why it didn’t stop despite frantic, last-second warnings from the control tower.”

An Air Canada regional jet collided with an airport fire truck while landing at LaGuardia late Sunday night, killing both pilots and injuring dozens of passengers in the first fatal crash at the airport in 34 years. Most of the more than 70 people on board were able to escape, and a flight attendant who was thrown onto the tarmac survived. The NTSB is reviewing the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorders, as well as what was happening in the control tower in the moments before impact.

Central to the investigation is how a fire truck came to be crossing an active runway during a landing and why, despite last-second warnings from air traffic controllers, it did not stop in time. Investigators are also examining whether controllers were distracted while managing a simultaneous late-night emergency involving another aircraft. The questions go to the heart of institutional responsibility: who had situational awareness, who had authority to act, and whether procedural failures allowed a preventable collision to occur.

The crash arrived at an already strained moment for U.S. air travel, with the partial government shutdown stretching TSA staffing thin, winter storms causing delays, and rising costs frustrating travelers. The runway where the collision occurred remains closed and is expected to stay shut for days as the investigation continues.

How the Sound of Sport Is Being Reimagined for Deaf Fans 

By Paul Carter 

“Sometimes, the simplest technologies are the most powerful”

The Tokyo 2025 Deaflympics, marking the competition’s 100th anniversary, became a testing ground for technologies challenging a long-held assumption: that the atmosphere of live sport belongs only to those who can hear it.

At the judo venue, wearable haptic devices translated strikes, throws, and crowd noise into physical vibrations felt against spectators’ skin. Inside the table tennis arena, animated onomatopoeic graphics flashed above the court, visually mimicking the rhythm and force of each rally. AI-powered displays at transit stations converted announcements into text and sign language for deaf and hearing visitors alike.

Notably, the haptic technology was originally built for concerts, not stadiums, and several devices were co-developed with students from a local school for the deaf. The result was something closer to translation than simulation, with deaf and hearing fans experiencing the same event through different senses but with equal access to its intensity. It is a reminder that when disabled communities are brought into the design process rather than accommodated after the fact, the experience tends to improve for everyone.

Can You Trust Calorie Counts on Food Labels? What Nutrition Scientists Say

By Kaitlin Sulliva

“The math it took to calculate the number of calories in your favorite snack involved a lot more guesstimation than you may think.”

The bold calorie number on a nutrition label may look precise, but nutrition scientists say it is best understood as an estimate. Calorie counts are calculated using a method based on 19th-century science that burns food in a pressurized container and measures the heat released. What that method cannot account for is the human body: how well a person digests a food, how much their gut absorbs, and how their individual microbiome processes what remains.

The FDA permits labels to undercount or overcount actual calories by up to 20%, meaning a food listed at 500 calories could legally contain up to 600. Variables like cooking, processing, and what else is eaten in the same meal can also shift how much energy the body ultimately extracts. Whole nuts, for instance, yield fewer usable calories than their labels suggest because of how they are digested.

The issue has fresh urgency following a lawsuit against protein bar brand David, which allegedly contains nearly twice the calories listed. The case surfaces a broader ethical question about transparency: when the gap between a label and reality can be legally significant, consumers making health decisions based on that information deserve to know that the number on the front of the package is a guideline, not a guarantee.

US gas price tops $4 for first time since 2022

By Shanaz Musafer

“The war in the Middle East has pushed the average price Americans are paying for gas to $4.02, topping the $4 per gallon mark for the first time since 2022.”

US gas prices jumped past the $4 a gallon mark for the first time since 2022 on Tuesday, driven by the ongoing war with Iran. According to AAA, the national average now sits over a dollar more than it was before the war began, the highest drivers have paid at the pump in nearly four years.

The monthly spike is larger than any previous oil shock on record, including Hurricane Katrina and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The core driver is Iran’s effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has choked off a significant share of the world’s oil supply. Diesel has climbed even more sharply than regular gasoline, raising concerns about ripple effects on shipping, groceries, and consumer goods in the months ahead.

The federal government has responded by releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of a coordinated multinational effort, and temporarily waiving strict domestic shipping rules. Still, analysts warn prices could climb further if the Strait remains blocked. Regional differences are stark, with West Coast drivers bearing the heaviest burden while parts of the Midwest remain comparatively insulated.

Former Surgeon General Calls for Social Media Regulation “Similar to Cigarettes”

By Ibrahim Aksoy

“We know there is increasing and very valid evidence out there showing links between social media use, particularly at a younger age, and increasing anxiety, increasing depression, less sleep.”

Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams is calling on the government to regulate social media platforms the way it once approached cigarettes, arguing that platforms are specifically designed to addict young users. Speaking on Face the Nation, Adams pointed to growing research linking heavy social media use among adolescents to worsening mental health outcomes, including anxiety, depression, and disrupted sleep.

The remarks come on the heels of two major court rulings holding social media companies accountable for harm to minors. A California jury found Meta and YouTube liable for knowingly creating platforms that caused mental health-related harm to young users, while a New Mexico jury sided with state prosecutors over child exploitation claims against Meta. Both companies have announced plans to appeal.

Adams drew a direct parallel to the tobacco industry, arguing that just as cigarette manufacturers once deliberately targeted children, social media companies have engineered their products to foster addiction in the same population. He pointed to Australia’s decision to ban social media access for users under sixteen as a model worth following, and noted that a growing number of US states are already moving to restrict phones and platforms in schools. For Adams, the legal momentum and the legislative conversation are both pointing in the same direction: the era of treating social media as a neutral tool is over.

Justices Reject Colorado Law Banning ‘Conversion Therapy’ for L.G.B.T.Q. Minors

By Anne E Marimow

“The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday against Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ minors, siding with a Christian talk therapist who argued the law violated her First Amendment rights. The decision was nearly unanimous, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson the sole dissenter. The case returns to a lower court for reconsideration under heightened scrutiny.

The ruling centers on Kaley Chiles, a Colorado Springs counselor who argued that the state’s law unlawfully restricted her speech based on viewpoint. Colorado defended the ban as a regulation of professional conduct and a necessary protection for vulnerable minors. The court sided with Chiles, finding that the lower courts had not applied rigorous enough First Amendment scrutiny. The decision does not overturn Colorado’s law outright, but significantly weakens it.

The ethical stakes are significant. Conversion therapy has been rejected by every major medical association and is consistently linked to depression and suicide attempts in the youth who undergo it. The United Nations has characterized it as torture. Framing the practice as protected speech sets a troubling precedent: it prioritizes a provider’s right to speak over a minor’s right to be protected from documented harm. With more than twenty states holding similar bans now at risk, the ruling raises urgent questions about how far First Amendment protections can extend into the therapist’s office before they begin to endanger the patient in the chair.

Demand for Hydropower Surges as Trump Clamps Down on Clean Energy

By Stephen Starr

“The presence of spinning turbines in waterways that are home to dozens of fish species and other wildlife has drawn concern from some environmentalists.”

As the Trump administration scales back federal support for clean energy, interest in hydropower is growing fast in the Great Lakes region. Home to one of the largest freshwater reserves on the planet, the region is now positioned to host next-generation submersible hydroelectric technology in the waterways connecting the lakes, where currents are strong enough to generate power even without traditional tides.

The Ocean Renewable Power Company, which has run submersible hydroelectric projects in Alaska and Maine, recently announced its first urban deployment on the St. Lawrence River in Montreal, with devices expected to begin operating later this year. The timing reflects a broader shift: with solar and wind facing federal headwinds, developers and cities are turning to water as a more politically durable clean energy source. Major population centers around the Great Lakes, including Chicago, Detroit, and Toronto, are all facing rising electricity demand driven in part by the data center boom.

What gets lost in the urgency of the energy transition is who bears the cost. The Great Lakes are a shared public resource and a fragile ecosystem, and developing them at the pace that demand requires, without robust environmental oversight, risks repeating the extractive patterns clean energy is supposed to replace. The region has a genuine opportunity to lead, but only if that development is held to a higher standard than what came before it.

Federal audit says local police don’t report all terror watchlist encounters to FBI

By Stephen Dinan

“While terrorist watchlist encounters are low-frequency events for individual nonfederal law enforcement entities, their high-risk nature makes it critical for FBI to provide those entities with the appropriate information for their preparedness in managing such encounters.”

State and local police frequently fail to report encounters with individuals on the FBI’s terrorism watchlist, according to a Government Accountability Office audit released Monday. More than half of police officials interviewed said their officers don’t consistently call the FBI’s Threat Screening Center to confirm identities after receiving alerts, with many officers either missing instructions in automated messages or being unfamiliar with the watchlist’s purpose. Officials also reported that their officers weren’t adequately prepared for such encounters and many lacked training on how to handle the watchlist. The FBI agreed with GAO recommendations for increased outreach and training to help local law enforcement properly handle these situations.

The audit exposes a fundamental breakdown in counter-terrorism coordination where the system designed to protect against threats becomes ineffective through neglect and inadequate training. When officers miss watchlist alerts or fail to follow protocols during routine encounters, they transform potential intelligence opportunities into security vulnerabilities that could allow dangerous individuals to move freely without federal tracking. This represents a systemic failure where resource constraints and bureaucratic gaps create blind spots in national security infrastructure, leaving frontline officers unprepared to recognize and respond appropriately to encounters that could prevent attacks or provide critical intelligence on terrorist networks.

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