Trump’s DHS appointees have dismantled civil rights guardrails, protected agents’ anonymity, and overwhelmed legal challenges to their arrests and tactics.<a href="[link removed]><img src="[link removed]" alt="" border="0" /></a>
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The Big Story
October 18, 2025 · View in browser <[link removed]>
In today’s newsletter: How the Trump administration created an unfettered and unaccountable federal police force <[link removed]>; a House representative demands answers on a delayed EPA report <[link removed]>; a weekend long read <[link removed]> from our archive; and more from our newsroom.
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Unfettered and Unaccountable: How Trump is Building a Violent, Shadowy Federal Police Force <[link removed]>
Trump’s DHS appointees have dismantled civil rights guardrails, protected agents’ anonymity and encouraged them to wear masks, threatened groups that stood in their way, and overwhelmed legal challenges to their arrests and tactics.
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Impact
House Rep Demands Answers About Delayed EPA Report on PFNA, a Toxic Forever Chemical <[link removed]>
Photo of Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, who is demanding answers about an EPA report on the toxicity of the forever chemical PNFA that the agency has completed but not released. <[link removed]>
The ranking member of a key House subcommittee demanded answers this week <[link removed]> from the Environmental Protection Agency about why it has yet to make public a report documenting the harm caused by a forever chemical found in the water of millions of Americans.
In a letter sent to the EPA <[link removed]> on Thursday, Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, cited a ProPublica story <[link removed]> from last week that quoted government scientists saying the report had been ready for publishing in April but had yet to be released.
As Sharon Lerner reported, scientists found that the forever chemical PFNA could cause developmental, liver and reproductive harms. But the report has sat in limbo for months, raising concerns among scientists and environmentalists that the Trump administration might change it or not release it at all. The EPA told ProPublica the report would be published when it was finalized, though the press office did not answer questions about what still needed to be done or when that would likely happen.
Pingree — the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies — asked EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin for “clear answers” about why the report had not been made public, who directed its delay and when Zeldin would commit to releasing it. The agency’s press office did not respond to questions about Pingree’s letter.
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From the archive
Photo illustration shows Dr. Thomas C. Weiner in front of the St. Pete's Health building <[link removed]>
“Eat What You Kill” <[link removed]>
“What the hell is going on here?” Dr. Randy Sasich whispered as he reviewed the file of an ICU patient in a Helena, Montana, hospital. Sasich’s review set off a chain of events that would ultimately divide a city and raise questions about a beloved oncologist involved in a string of patient deaths.
The patient in the intensive care unit, Scot Warwick, had been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer 11 years earlier. He’d undergone years of chemotherapy and experimental therapy. Sasich was shocked to see that Warwick had been diagnosed with cancer in 2009 even though his oncologist, Dr. Thomas C. Weiner, had not ordered a confirming biopsy until 2020. The results of that biopsy? No cancer.
Yet Weiner prescribed another round of chemo for Warwick. In interviews with ProPublica’s J. David McSwane, Weiner maintained that Warwick had Stage 4 lung cancer for 11 years and that the cancer was missed on the biopsy. Weiner denies that he harmed or misdiagnosed patients, and he maintains that his treatments were appropriate.
A spokesperson for the hospital emailed a statement that broadly declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation. “We believe this situation is isolated to a single, former physician, and we remain confident in the exceptional care provided by St. Peter’s medical staff,” it said.
Sasich pondered how to tell Warwick that everything he believed about himself for more than a decade was false. Revisit our investigation <[link removed]>, which was published in December 2024.
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More from the newsroom
House Rep Demands Answers About Delayed EPA Report on PFNA, a Toxic Forever Chemical <[link removed]>
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The Shadow President <[link removed]>
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Who Is Russell Vought? How a Little-Known D.C. Insider Became Trump’s Dismantler-in-Chief <[link removed]>
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We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days. <[link removed]>
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Disabled Idaho Students Lack Access to Playgrounds and Lunchrooms. Historic $2 Billion Funding Will Do Little to Help. <[link removed]>
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