by The Associated Press | Nov 10, 2026 | News
GENEVA (AP) — The United States is set Tuesday to become the first country to fully shun a regular review of its human rights record at the U.N.’s top rights body since it was created two decades ago.
The Trump administration last year pulled the U.S. out of the Human Rights Council, accusing it of an anti-U.S. and anti-Israel bias, and alleging that it didn’t uphold the very values it promotes.
Supporters back the council’s mandate to keep tabs on human rights in all U.N. member states including the U.S., which has drawn criticism for its policies including strong-arm deportations and targeted killings of alleged drug-runners in the Caribbean and Pacific — which the administration has said are designed to protect U.S. workers and help keep the country safe.
The Geneva-based council regularly examines the rights records of all 193 U.N. member states — generally about every four to five years — as part of a process known as the universal periodic review.
The United States, under Trump, already skipped its appointment for its review a year ago. The scheduled November 2025 review was pushed back until Tuesday in hopes that the U.S. government might change its mind.
It did not.
“(W)e give no credibility to the agency,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email to The Associated Press.
“This irredeemable body makes a mockery of human rights through consistent failures to uphold its own ‘values’ as it pushes anti-American rhetoric,” the spokesperson said, alleging the council’s “persistent failure to condemn the most egregious human rights violators.”
The council says the process requires participation of the country in question, and in the case of an absence of
by Jordan Rubin | Nov 10, 2026 | Deadline: Legal Blog, Supreme Court, White House
The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for a Trump administration wall construction project along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, over dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The high court majority said that a lower court was wrong to halt the project because it likely lacked jurisdiction to block the government action.
The administration sought to waive environmental and conservation laws in order to facilitate construction in a region it called the “Big Bend Sector.” The Homeland Security secretary said the area was “an area of high illegal entry” that required more protection.
That prompted a lawsuit from a river guide, an environmental nonprofit and a nonprofit dedicated to preserving a historic church in Ruidosa, Texas. They argued that the secretary exceeded his authority. A federal district court in West Texas granted a preliminary injunction.
Lifting that injunction while further litigation proceeds, the Supreme Court said, in part, that the government’s interest “outweighs any aesthetic, recreational, and environmental harm alleged” by the plaintiffs.
Unsuccessfully opposing the action the court took on Monday, the plaintiffs said that granting the government’s request “would result in the permanent alteration of an irreplaceable landscape that includes Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, and nearly 200 miles of the congressionally designated Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River corridor.”
The court’s reasoning came in an unsigned “per curiam” opinion, which is how the justices have been handling some emergency litigation lately instead of simply issuing an unexplained order.
Jackson, a Biden appointee, only noted without explanation that she would have denied the administration’s application.
The post Supreme Court allows border wall construction over Justice Jackson’s dissent appeared first on MS
by Ja'han Jones | Nov 10, 2026 | elections, News Analysis
After last week’s electoral blue wave, Democrats are seeking to slow the spread of MAGA-backed school voucher programs.
In Arizona, Democrats are looking to rein in public funding for the state’s voucher program — money that, in some cases, has being misused by parents to buy gaming consoles and amusement park tickets. Back in June, I wrote about how the state’s voucher program — which Republicans have portrayed as a model for the nation — seemed like it should be a prime target for Trump’s racist crusade against “fraud.”
And Arizona Democrats — having won control of the state House, state Senate and governorship for the first time since the 1960s — have made addressing the program a top priority.
There’s a similar movement underway in Texas. Asked about Texas’ voucher program, which has been lambasted for many of the same reasons as Arizona’s has, Democratic Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa told MS NOW’s Chris Hayes last week that she intends to do everything she can to “make sure that money stays in public schools.”
Hinojosa has sounded skeptical about completely eliminating the voucher program with Republicans still controlling the state Senate. Still, Texas Democrats’ newly won control of the state House and the State Board of Education was celebrated by education activists — including the state’s branch of the American Federation of Teachers, which specifically touted the prospect of curbing the vouchers.
And as The Hill noted, Iowa’s school voucher program could also face scrutiny, given the state’s new Democratic governor.
All of this means that Democrats are finally positioned in some key states to combat the GOP’s war on public education — and to expose more
by Brandy Zadrozny | Nov 10, 2026 | News
Once the size of the midterm blue tsunami became clear to the GOP, activists and entrepreneurs aligned with Robert F. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement found a new focus: Save the boss.
After Republicans — including Zach Lahn in Iowa and Ken Paxton in Texas — lost to Democrats who had vowed to impeach Kennedy, MAHA influencers and insiders pivoted from warring with Democrats to appealing for unity.
“This is not how you win a coalition or work together,” posted Vani Hari, the supplement entrepreneur and blogger known as the Food Babe, after Democratic Sen. Angela Alsobrooks called for Kennedy to resign. Zen Honeycutt, an anti-vaccine activist known for publishing misleading reports alleging that there are toxins in everything from vaccines to Girl Scout cookies, called any effort to impeach Kennedy “a colossal mistake.” And MAHA PAC President Tony Lyons, whose organization supported only Republicans, offered Friday: “I’ll work with Democrats who share the MAHA vision — and who will work with Secretary Kennedy instead of trying to get rid of him.”
At the center of the effort to re-energize the movement and bolster the embattled secretary of health and human services is Calley Means, a former Kennedy adviser who is now leveling a series of allegations against former White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and other White House officials, claiming that their corporate ties were what stifled the MAHA agenda all along.
Means, a lobbyist turned wellness entrepreneur who brokered the Kennedy-Trump alliance, focused on food policy inside the administration. He was behind several of the MAHA efforts that adherents point to as wins: agreements to limit artificial food dyes, a
by The Associated Press | Nov 10, 2026 | Iran, News, White House, World
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday told reporters he believes the war in Iran “militarily is effectively over,” suggesting that — at least for now — he’s not prepared to resume the bombardment that has devastated the Islamic Republic and caused reverberations across the global economy.
The president made a surprise visit to the White House briefing room after meeting earlier in the day with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.
“Iran militarily is effectively over,” Trump said. “We’re just keeping it the status quo.”
He added that Iran has been “decapitated” but said he is still looking to make sure there’s a long-term solution to ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program is defanged.
It was some of Trump’s most definitive comments about moving away from his threat to resume strikes on Iran after the U.S. midterm elections had passed.
The president’s Republican Party lost both chambers of Congress to Democrats in last week’s elections. The elections were shadowed by dissatisfaction among the American electorate over the 8-month-old war, which has led to a surge in fuel prices that’s impacted nearly ever sector of the global economy.
Trump, over the course of the conflict, has repeatedly said he is on the cusp of ordering U.S. forces to escalate attacks if Iran’s leaders don’t quickly agree to U.S. terms to end the war, only to back down. In earlier cycles, he has also edged away with a last-minute declaration, sometimes at the behest of Gulf allies, that he’s going to give diplomacy more time.
In a posting on social media shortly before speaking to reporters, Trump once again asserted that Middle East
