JoJo

Erika

MAGA chuds are convinced of the absurdities, and are now cheering for the atrocities.

Belle

We live in a country where 10% of us think the Earth is flat, 15% don't believe we landed on the moon, and 28% think Bigfoot is real.

Stop wondering how 35% of us can still think Trump is a good president.

But anyway - it's the economy, stupid.

Providers and Moochers

I haven't seen a good comparison, and you have to be careful not to confuse correlation with causation, but there seems to be a pretty strong connection between places that are really good for businesses and really bad for the people living there.

And it seems like a bad sign that Arkansas gets a grade of D- on livability, while being one of the most improved states.

Could be some really bad shit comin'.

These are America’s 10 worst states to live in for 2026

Key Points

• Crime rates, air quality, healthcare access, worker protections, and civil rights laws are among factors that can hurt a state in quality of life rankings.
• With more states touting their quality of life when trying to attract business, CNBC is giving it more weight in the 2026 America’s Top States for Business rankings.
• Based on the data, quality of life in some states does not make the grade.

As more companies insist their employees return to the office, they know they need to offer something in return to attract and retain good people. That’s why finding a place where people will want to live is an increasingly important factor as companies decide where to set up shop.

“Quality of place, especially investing in quality of place, is the top thing you can do for talent attraction and retention,” said site selection consultant Larry Gigerich, managing executive director of Ginovus in Indianapolis, and chairman of the Site Selectors Guild.

CNBC is placing increasing emphasis on Quality of Life, one of the 10 categories of competitiveness in our annual America’s Top States for Business study. It is our annual ranking of every state’s business climate, now in its 20th year. Under this year’s methodology, the category makes up 11.6% of a state’s overall score, up from about ten percent last year.

To score the states for quality of life, we use hard data on factors like crime rates, air quality and healthcare. We also consider the cost and availability of childcare, inclusiveness of state laws, and reproductive rights. Some states offer exemplary quality of life. But these ten states do not make the grade.

Arkansas

• Strengths: Childcare, Air Quality
• Weaknesses: Crime, Health, Inclusiveness
• 2026 Quality of Life score: 103 out of 290 points (Top States grade: D–)

Arkansas is a most-improved state overall this year in our annual rankings, but nearly 19% of its households lack the resources to put adequate food on the table, placing the Natural State dead last for food insecurity, according to the United Health Foundation. Last year, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation guaranteeing free breakfast in public schools, but there is clearly more work to do. Arkansas also has one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation, according to FBI statistics, and among the weakest protections against discrimination, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Oklahoma

• Strengths: Childcare, Air Quality
• Weaknesses: Reproductive Rights, Worker Protections
• 2026 Quality of Life score: 103 out of 290 points (Top States grade: D–)

Oklahoma imposes one of America’s strictest bans on abortion, even though studies, including one by the National Bureau of Economic Research last year, found abortion bans increase net migration outflows, particularly among single adults. The Sooner State ranked 40th for worker protections last year, according to Oxfam America, which said that the state’s $7.25 minimum wage covers only about 19% of the cost of living for a family of four, and noted that state law prohibits municipalities from setting their minimum wages any higher. A ballot measure last month to have voters approve a minimum wage increase failed.

Alabama

• Strengths: Childcare, Air Quality
• Weaknesses: Worker Protections, Health, Inclusiveness
• 2026 Quality of Life score: 99 out of 290 points (Top States grade: D–)

Alabama ranks dead last for mental health providers per capita, even though nearly a quarter of residents have been told by a health professional that they have a depressive disorder. Alabama also ranks at the bottom for its worker protections, which include only two of the 16 measures that Oxfam America considers critical (mandating equal pay by gender and race, and restricting access to salary history). Workers lack other basic protections including mandatory paid sick leave and protections against sexual harassment. Alabama is one of five states with no public accommodation law protecting non-disabled people against discrimination, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Missouri

• Strengths: Air Quality, Worker Protections
• Weaknesses: Crime, Health, Inclusiveness
• 2026 Quality of Life score: 98 out of 290 points (Top States grade: D–)

With 462 violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, according to FBI crime statistics, Missouri is among America’s most violent states. The Show-Me State also ranked in the top 10 for firearm deaths last year. In June, Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a sweeping crime bill aimed at helping to get the situation under control. It includes tougher sentences, a greater ability to charge juveniles as adults, and several new offenses involving cyberstalking and the use of drones.

Utah

• Strength: Crime
• Weaknesses: Health, Childcare, Worker Protections, Air Quality
• 2026 Quality of Life score: 95 out of 290 points (Top States grade: F)

For all its natural beauty, Utah is not the healthiest place to live, ranking No. 47 for primary care providers. Air quality leaves something to be desired, with high ozone levels, according to the American Lung Association. The Beehive State gets its nickname from the industriousness of its workers. But the state doesn’t do much to make their lives easier. The state minimum wage of $7.25 an hour covers just 16.5% of the cost of living for a family of four, according to Oxfam America. And Utah has just 513 licensed childcare centers in a state with 3.5 million people, according to Child Care Aware of America.

Georgia

• Strength: Childcare
• Weaknesses: Inclusiveness, Health, Worker Protections
• 2026 Quality of Life score: 89 out of 290 points (Top States grade: F)

Georgia offers few protections for LGBTQ+ people, making it one of America’s least inclusive states.

“Georgia still remains a state where there is no place for hate, and I can assure all Georgians of that today,” Republican Gov. Brian Kemp said in April, when he signed a bill aimed at protecting religious freedom.

But critics feared the law could be used to permit other types of discrimination, especially because Georgia is another of the five states with no public accommodation law protecting non-disabled people.

The Peach State offers minimal worker protections, particularly when it comes to the right to organize.

Louisiana

• Strengths: Childcare, Air Quality
• Weaknesses: Crime, Inclusiveness, Reproductive Rights
• 2026 Quality of Life score: 89 out of 290 points (Top States grade: F)

Louisiana has the nation’s fifth-highest violent crime rate. The state recorded 495 homicides in 2024, and it has the nation’s second-highest firearm death rate after neighboring Mississippi. Louisiana has among the nation’s strictest abortion bans, enshrined in the state constitution. Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, has been on a rampage against diversity, equity and inclusion policies, which he calls “woke” and discriminatory.

In January, he announced on Facebook that he was removing affirmative action requirements from the state’s civil service code, to be replaced by hiring “strictly on the basis of merit.” And he asked the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights division to expand its investigation of DEI policies at colleges and universities in the Pelican State.

While Landry contends the changes make the state “color blind,” critics say they freeze in place the disadvantages minority Louisianans continue to face.

Indiana

• Strength: Crime
• Weaknesses: Childcare, Air Quality, Health
• 2026 Quality of Life score: 82 out of 290 points (Top States grade: F)

With just 779 licensed childcare facilities in a state with nearly 7 million people, Indiana finishes at the bottom for childcare availability on a per capita basis. And what is available is expensive, eating up 15% of the median income for a household with two working parents in the Hoosier State. In June, Indiana’s childcare agency unveiled a sweeping new policy proposal aimed at expanding access by, among other things, easing licensing requirements. Critics allege the proposal sacrifices quality.

Texas

• Strengths: Childcare, Air Quality
• Weaknesses: Health, Crime, Inclusiveness, Worker Protections, Reproductive Rights
• 2026 Quality of Life score: 78 out of 290 points (Top States grade: F)

While Texas continues to lead the nation in attracting workers, those workers are finding a broad array of challenges when they get there. The Lone Star State has America’s highest rate of people without health insurance at 16.7%, according to the United Health Foundation, more than twice the national average. More than 17% of Texas adults said they had to forgo a doctor visit that they needed in the past year because of the cost. Even those who do have health insurance can have trouble finding a doctor. The state finishes dead last in primary care physicians per capita.

In May, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced $56 million in federal grants to rural hospitals. “We will deliver state-of-the-art treatment for everyone who calls Texas home,” the governor said in a statement. Some 31 million people call Texas home, so the grants amount to about $1.80 apiece, or about $350,000 for each of the state’s nearly 160 rural hospitals.

America’s Worst Place to Live in 2026: Tennessee

• Strength: Air Quality
• Weaknesses: Crime, Inclusiveness, Worker Protections
• 2026 Quality of Life score: 64 out of 290 points (Top States grade: F)

Tennessee Republicans, led by Gov. Bill Lee, make no apologies for a rash of state laws targeting the LGBTQ+ community, including a so-called “bathroom law” requiring transgender people to use the facilities designated for their sex at birth. The state also explicitly bars localities from adopting their own antidiscrimination ordinances. To underscore the point, Lee signed a resolution earlier this year designating June “Nuclear Family Month.”

“The nuclear family, consisting of one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children, is God’s design for familial structure and has been the bedrock of society since the creation of the world,” the resolution states.

Its sponsors deliberately timed the observance to coincide with the month when Tennessee’s more than 300,000 LGBTQ+ people celebrate Pride.

Inclusiveness isn’t the only area where the Volunteer State falls short. Tennessee also has one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation, according to FBI statistics. And it has the third-highest rate of drug deaths, according to the United Health Foundation.

The 10 worst state economies in America in 2026

Key Points

• While fears of a recession have subsided, lingering concerns about inflation, geopolitical tensions and an AI bubble have companies considering the local economy when deciding where to set up shop.
• State economic development organizations are touting their states’ economic strength and stability in their pitches to lure businesses.
• Economy is a key category in CNBC’s America’s Top States for Business study, now in its 20th year. It finds some states do better than others — and some do substantially worse.

Most economists now seem to agree that the immediate threat of a recession has passed, but that does not mean there is not concern about inflation, geopolitical tensions or a bursting AI bubble knocking the economy off track. Some states are better situated to weather a downturn than others. Companies know that, so they look for states with stable economies when deciding where to set up shop.

States know it, too, so many continue to market themselves as economic havens.

“Companies can thrive in a world-class business environment with the most diverse economy in the nation,” Illinois’ economic development site proclaims.

“In Michigan, you’ll find a global network of leading companies across numerous industries,” its state site notes. “From Fortune 500 companies to fast-growing startups and hundreds of thousands of small businesses, companies of all sizes are driving economic opportunity in every corner of our state.”

CNBC analyzes every state’s marketing pitch as part of our annual America’s Top States for Business study. This year, we found the economy to be the second most frequently mentioned attribute (after infrastructure). So, under our methodology, the Economy category carries the second-heaviest weight in 2026—worth 16.6% of a state’s total score.

To measure each state’s economy, we consider job growth, economic growth, and the number of major companies headquartered in the state. We also measure each state’s fiscal health, including its budget situation, its long-term obligations and its debt ratings, as well as the health of the residential real estate market. We also consider the impact of tariffs, the potential impact of federal budget cuts, and small business survival rates.

Some states clearly deliver on their economic promises, but these are not those states. Here are America’s worst state economies in 2026.

10. Oklahoma

Oklahoma is among the most dependent on federal funding, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. More than 40% of state spending in Oklahoma comes from Washington, D.C., putting the state in the top 10 for reliance on the feds.

“That’s not rugged individualism; that’s a subsidy,” wrote Shiloh Kantz of the Oklahoma Policy Institute in August. “And it means that the hard fiscal choices some of our leaders brag about are possible only because someone else is footing the bill.”

It also leaves the Sooner State vulnerable to potential federal cuts.

Economic growth was moderate last year, which is leaving the housing market under some stress.

2026 Economy score: 172 out of 415 points (Top States grade: D)

Real GDP (2025): $213.5 billion (+1.5%)

Debt Rating and outlook (Moody’s): Aa1, Stable

Share of state spending from federal funds: 40.4%

International goods trade: $24.9 billion (9% of GDP)

Major corporations: Paycom Software, ONEOK, The Williams Companies

9. North Dakota

The days of North Dakota’s oil frenzy back in the early 2000s and 2010s are long gone, and even the surge in oil prices at the start of the Iran war earlier this year was not enough to get companies to resume drilling in the Bakken Shale in a meaningful way. Economic growth in the Peace Garden State was the lowest in the nation last year. New business formations were also among the lowest. One thing the state did right was to build up its reserves during the flush times. The state could last nearly a year on its total fund balance if all else failed, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

2026 Economy score: 171 out of 415 points (Top States grade: D)

Real GDP (2025): $63.6 billion (+0.3%)

Debt Rating and outlook (Moody’s): Aa1, Stable

Share of state spending from federal funds: 34.5%

International goods trade: $14.5 billion (17.6% of GDP)

Major corporations: None

8. New Hampshire

New Hampshire’s fiscal situation is anything but rock solid. The Granite State’s spending outpaces revenues, according to the most recent financial disclosures. New Hampshire’s public employee retirement systems are underfunded to the tune of more than $5.5 billion, among the worst pension gaps in the country. Job growth is tepid, and the survival rate for new businesses is among the lowest in the country, according to data provided to CNBC by business research firm Construction Coverage. The state’s economy is growing at a healthy pace, however, with the help of new residents fleeing higher taxes in neighboring states like Massachusetts.

2026 Economy score: 170 out of 415 points (Top States grade: D)

Real GDP (2025): $96.87 billion (+2.1%)

Debt Rating and outlook (Moody’s): Aa1, Stable

Share of state spending from federal funds: 39.4%

International goods trade: $17.2 billion (13.7% of GDP)

Major corporation: Iron Mountain

7. Alaska

Alaska is heavily dependent on the federal government, which accounts for more than 45% of state spending. Only Louisiana (48.6%) and Indiana (46.3%) rely more on Uncle Sam. The Last Frontier also has among the largest percentages of federal employees in its workforce. Alaska did turn in solid economic growth last year, even before the surge in oil prices this past February. And optimism is growing as the Trump administration moves to expand drilling in the North Slope and pursues an 807-mile natural gas pipeline to deliver gas from Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope to the Kenai Peninsula and the world.

“Alignment of state and federal leadership means potential for major moves in Alaska’s mining and oil and gas development,” wrote state economist Karinne Wiebold in January, though the pipeline — and any economic windfall that comes with it — is still years away.

2026 Economy score: 169 out of 415 points (Top States grade: D–)

Real GDP (2025): $57.5 billion (+2.8%)

Debt Rating and outlook (Moody’s): Aa2, Stable

Share of state spending from federal funds: 45.3%

International goods trade: $9.8 billion (13.1% of GDP)

Major corporations: None

6. South Dakota

Economic growth was modest last year in South Dakota, but to hear state officials tell it, things are looking up — and they are not referring to the Mount Rushmore State’s most famous, lofty attraction. Earlier this year, in her first-quarter economic update, Secretary of State Monae Johnson pointed to nearly 4,000 new business filings in the quarter, “surpassing first-quarter filing totals from each of the previous six years.” She did not mention that the comparisons were relatively easy. According to Census data, South Dakota ranked 35th in new business formations per capita last year, growing only about 4% from 2024. Once businesses do get off the ground in South Dakota, however, they stand a good chance of surviving. The state ranks No. 15 in Construction Coverage’s small business survival index.

2026 Economy score: 168 out of 415 points (Top States grade: D–)

Real GDP (2025): $58.5 billion (+1.4%)

Debt Rating and outlook (Moody’s): Aaa, Stable

Share of state spending from federal funds: 42.4%

International goods trade: $4.88 billion (6% of GDP)

Major corporations: None

5. Kansas

The housing market in Kansas is a study in contrasts. Inventory is tight, with around a two-month supply of homes on the market as of May, according to Redfin. Yet, price appreciation has been modest, and seller gains have been weak, according to ATTOM Data Solutions. It all means that the real estate market is not the economic engine it might normally be. One reason may be that the Sunflower State is not doing well in attracting workers, according to data from labor market analytics firm Lightcast. Job growth in the state is weak, though overall economic growth was reasonably good last year.

2026 Economy score: 162 out of 415 points (Top States grade: D–)

Real GDP (2025): $185.1 billion (+2%)

Debt Rating and outlook (Moody’s): Aa2, Stable

Share of state spending from federal funds: 27.4%

International goods trade: $29.4 billion (12.2% of GDP)

Major corporations: None

4. Louisiana

Louisiana faces serious exposure to a pair of stiff headwinds in the economy: tariffs, and a shrinking federal government in a state that disproportionately relies on Washington. No state has more of its spending funded by the federal government. And with nearly one-third of the Pelican State’s GDP made up of international goods trade, Louisiana’s tariff costs have skyrocketed, according to Washington, D.C.-based research firm Trade Partnership Worldwide, which provided data to CNBC. Perhaps as a result, Louisiana has seen some of the weakest economic growth in the nation. Overall job growth has been strong but uneven. The latest forecast from Louisiana State University’s E.J. Ourso College of Business, through the first quarter of next year, calls for more job growth, “but employment in only 4 of the state’s metro areas is forecast to grow at a rate of 1% or greater.” The forecast calls for modest improvement in GDP, growing at a rate of about 1.5% into the beginning of 2027.

2026 Economy score: 160 out of 415 points (Top States grade: D–)

Real GDP (2025): $259.9 billion (+1.1%)

Debt Rating and outlook (Moody’s): Aa2, Stable

Share of state spending from federal funds: 48.6%

International goods trade: $109.4 billion (32.2% of GDP)

Major corporations: Pool, Entergy

3. West Virginia

West Virginia is not handling the transition from a coal-centered economy to whatever comes next well. The Mountain State’s labor force participation rate is the lowest in the nation, even as prices rise — putting more and more everyday needs out of reach. Economic growth and job growth rank near the bottom. One potential bright spot — and maybe a lifeline — is the state’s housing market. Inventory is near optimum, affordability is good, and yet prices are appreciating well.

2026 Economy score: 146 out of 415 points (Top States grade: F)

Real GDP (2025): $83.2 billion (+0.5%)

Debt Rating and outlook (Moody’s): Aa2, Positive

Share of state spending from federal funds: 20.5%

International goods trade: $9.5 billion (8.7% of GDP)

Major corporations: None

2. Maryland

Economic growth and job growth nearly flatlined in Maryland over the past year. The Old Line State’s deep connection with the federal government next door has a lot to do with that, as Gov. Wes Moore pointed out in his State of the State address in February.

“In just the last year, the federal government has fired around 25,000 Marylanders who have federal jobs in our state alone,” said Moore, a Democrat. “It’s the biggest federal job cut of any state in the country.”

But the Maryland Chamber of Commerce also blames “high costs, unpredictable taxes, and growing regulatory burdens.”

“If we want a stronger future, we must prioritize an economy that supports business investment, expansion, and long-term growth,” the organization said.

Whatever the reason, Maryland finds itself in a deep hole in 2026, with no easy way out of it.

2026 Economy score: 143 out of 415 points (Top States grade: F)

Real GDP (2025): $436.17 billion (+0.7%)

Debt rating and outlook (Moody’s): Aa1, Stable

Share of state spending from federal funds: 31.2%

International goods trade: $56.6 billion (10% of GDP)

Major corporations: McCormick and Company, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International

1. Rhode Island

To hear Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee tell it, the state is about to have its moment. McKee, a Democrat, writes on a website devoted to what he calls the RI 2030 Plan that “National shifts in defense spending, the return of advanced manufacturing, and rapid technological innovation are aligning with Rhode Island’s long-standing strengths in defense, ocean technology, and the life sciences.”

But if, indeed, the Ocean State’s ship is about to come in, it is taking a long time getting there. In the meantime, economic growth was the ninth weakest in the country last year. Foreign direct investment was practically nonexistent, as were new business formations.

Rhode Island is also especially vulnerable to tariffs. Costs skyrocketed last year in a state where international goods trade makes up over 18% of nominal GDP.

2026 Economy score: 121 out of 415 points (Top States grade: F)

Real GDP (2025): $64.2 billion (+1.1%)

Debt rating and outlook (Moody’s): Aa2, Stable

Share of state spending from federal funds: 38.5%

International goods trade: $15.5 billion (18.5% of GDP)

Major corporations: Hasbro, Citizens Financial Group, CVS Health

What Is This?

We're plagued by flesh-eating screwworms, and explosive diarrhea. We've got a deadly heat wave and the worst drought in a hundred years going. A third of the country is on fire, we're losing a war, and the wanna-be king has his personal army of thugs running around killing our neighbors in the streets, even as he builds monuments to himself in the capital. And all while, at least half of everybody we know may not be able to feed themselves and keep a roof over their heads for very much longer.

This isn't America - this is a fucking bible story.

Fuck ICE

Six immigrant children spent as long as 505 days in federal custody as their families waited

Immigrant children now spend an average of more than six months in federal custody nationwide— triple the previous peak of the last decade — after the administration of President Donald Trump imposed stringent new requirements for their release.

During the three months CT Insider spent reporting this story this spring, more than two dozen immigrant children sat in federal custody in Connecticut — some in group homes, others in foster care. Court records show many had parents or close family ready to take them in. But the federal agency responsible for vetting those sponsors, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, has kept children in custody for months by imposing requirements no federal regulation or law demands and restarting vetting it already completed, a CT Insider investigation found. One child was held more than 500 days, most of it in a program in New Haven.

In at least six cases, all filed since December, families won their children’s release only by suing.

Federal rules require the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to transfer unaccompanied immigrant children within 72 hours to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement — a child-welfare agency, not an enforcement one, charged with care for children who arrive alone. For these six children, that part worked. They were moved within days.

What came next didn’t work as well. Families answered every demand — birth certificates, DNA tests, home studies, background checks. But the children stayed in custody as the government kept adding requirements for their parents' applications to be considered complete.

Once a parent or guardian applies for a child’s release, ORR regulations require it to decide within 10 days, absent unexpected delays.

Only when lawyers went to federal court did anything change.

Each child was released shortly after a lawsuit was filed — before the government ever had to defend the delays in court.

The federal government would not answer any questions about these cases and declined to comment for this story.

The delays these children face trace to last year, when the Trump administration overhauled how the office of Refugee Resettlement vets the parents and relatives seeking custody of these children — changes the administration says protect them from being released to unsafe sponsors.

In a sworn declaration filed in one of these cases, a top ORR official wrote that, unlike law enforcement or state child-welfare agencies, the agency has no way to monitor children once they’re released or take them back if a sponsor turns out to be unsafe. So, the federal government argues, it must “front-load” its safety checks before release. The federal government would not answer questions about the length of detention, including whether it considers the delays appropriate or if they are doing anything to shorten these children’s stays.

Here are the stories of those six children drawn from court records in lawsuits where the children’s detention was challenged as illegal. CT Insider changed the names of the children to protect their identities. Most families declined interview requests, saying through their attorneys that they fear retaliation from the federal government.

Jean, 12 years old — 505 days in custody

 
Jean was 12 when officials detained him at the U.S. border. He spent his 13th birthday in federal custody — and went on waiting.

The phone at the ORR shelter in California where he was staying would ring, but he refused to take the calls, according to records filed in a federal lawsuit challenging his detention. On the other end was his family — his father, his stepmother, his two sisters. Talking was too painful, a reminder that he could not be with them.

It was "not normal," he told his caseworkers, to be this alone. What he wanted — he said again and again — was to go home with his family in Fort Lauderdale.

By the spring, his family had answered every question the government raised, their lawsuit alleges. A corrected birth certificate. A favorable home study. Background checks that came back clean. In April, ORR released Jean’s two sisters to his stepmother — a sponsor it had already vetted and approved.

The agency kept Jean after a required DNA test showed his father was not his biological parent – a fact court records say his father didn’t know until the test came back His father said it changed nothing: the boy would always be his son. The government kept Jean detained anyway.

Average number of days the government held unaccompanied minors
National data from October 2024 to April 2026.

Then ORR asked for a record no one could obtain, according to the lawsuit. Jean's mother had died when he was three months old, and her death certificate sat in a Haitian government office the gangs now held — records the State Department itself had declared unobtainable. When his stepmother could not produce it, ORR pressed her to withdraw. She did — and ORR transferred him from California to a long-term foster care program in New Haven.

Then she applied again from the beginning. ORR ordered another home study — the first had come back favorable — and denied her by telephone, with nothing in writing, citing the birth certificate she had corrected 10 months before — the original, issued in Haiti, had listed his stepmother, the only mother he had ever known, rather than his biological mother, who died when Jean was three months old.

Two hundred days became 500.

It took a federal lawsuit to end it.

In a court filing responding to the petition for Jean's release, government attorneys gave a litany of reasons why the boy was still in custody — a translator had raised concerns about the family’s first birth certificate submission, his father’s DNA test came back with a 0 percent match and an initial home study found his father had used a belt to discipline a minor child. (Florida child protection officials declined to pursue the discipline issue, according to court filings, because it “did not meet their criteria for abuse or neglect.”)

Government attorneys also questioned Jean’s stepmother — saying they couldn’t confirm his biological mother was dead, or that the stepmother had a pre-existing relationship with him, and noted ORR policies bar sponsors who knowingly submit false information.

But just over two weeks after the government's filing, U.S. District Judge Vernon Oliver ruled for the family and ordered Jean's release.

In making that determination, Oliver called the government’s process in the case “arbitrary and capricious.”

"Every minute that someone is unlawfully denied freedom," Oliver wrote in his final order, quoting a different case "results in an injury that really can never be remedied."

Jean was finally reunited with his family after 505 days, court records show.

Benjamín, 16 years old — 143 days in custody

 
The arrests didn’t take long.

According to a federal lawsuit and a declaration filed in the case, two Buffalo police officers stopped Dennis’ car in August 2025 and collected his driver’s license. They also demanded proof that he and his passengers were in the country legally. Dennis and his brother Benjamin turned over their paperwork and their friend, a U.S. citizen, provided his passport.

They waited, terrified.

Twenty minutes passed and two cars pulled up. Officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security got out and approached. Dennis and Benjamin were arrested, handcuffed and transported to a nearby federal facility. Their friend was driven there in the other car.

“They said they were going to take all of us to the ICE station to fingerprint us and that if everything was clear, we could go home,” Benjamin wrote in the declaration. “I was so scared that I was shaking, and my skin felt prickly.”

For hours, he wrote, the ICE officers questioned them and told them America would pay them $2,000 to leave the country — even though the brothers explained they had Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and Deferred Action, protections from deportation. Since last year, the Trump administration has been paying immigrants to self-deport.

Then the officers told them to sign some papers, written in English. No one explained what they were, according to court documents.

"I didn’t think I had a choice to say no, so I signed," Benjamin wrote.

His brother, who had just turned 18, was put in handcuffs, and ankle chains and taken away.

“I cried and begged them to please let me go with my brother,” he wrote.

Dennis was deported home to Ecuador.

There's been a dramatic shift in the number of unaccompanied children processed by the government

The next day, Benjamin wrote he was flown to a shelter in Texas where he learned what he had signed: a form in which he agreed to leave the country on his own. Benjamin was held in Texas for two months, then moved to a shelter in Groton. He couldn’t understand why he was there. He had been through it once before.

Court records show Benjamin first came to the U.S. when he was 12 years old. He was detained then, too, and released to his dad within weeks after the government vetted him and approved him to be his sponsor.

When DHS arrested him this second time, ORR started the vetting process all over.

Weeks became months.

“I don’t understand why they have not let me go back to my papa,” he wrote. “I feel like I am never going to get out of here.”

In Groton, the days are identical, he wrote. The shelter is a house. Benjamin spends all his time in three rooms: his bedroom, the living room and dining room. Class happens at the dining table where children also eat — ages 13 to 17, one lesson for everyone. Showers are at 5 p.m. On Saturdays, nothing. He can’t go outside unless a staff member joins.

“I feel trapped,” he wrote. “I feel like a delinquent.”

Two days before Christmas, Benjamin was released from federal custody — 143 days after his arrest, and four days after lawyers filed a lawsuit over what they called an illegal detention.

With Benjamin released, his lawyers dropped the case — and the federal government never had to defend his detention, or the delay, in court.

Camila, 5 years old — 118 days in custody

 
Camila is five.

She paints. She dances. She runs. She likes being around other people. This is from court records, where her mother in a sworn declaration tried to describe who she was before the federal government detained her.

She was born in Atlixco, an agricultural city in central Mexico, and lived there for the first five years of her life, first with her parents, then after both parents left to find work in the U.S., with her grandparents. She spoke with her mother almost every day on video calls. Birthdays and Christmas gifts arrived in the mail.

In the summer of 2025, her mother told her on a video call that she was going to be a big sister. A few months later, Camila crossed the border into Arizona. How a five-year-old got from central Mexico to the border, and with whom, isn’t in the records and her mom declined to share those details during an interview. What is: her parents weren’t allowed to take her because of their immigration status, so the government labeled her ‘unaccompanied’.

She spent the next four months in federal immigration custody — first in a detention center run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, then in a shelter in eastern Connecticut, where she was the youngest by far. And then she was moved to New Haven, the city where her mother lived. Camila's mother, who entered the country illegally, has a pending application seeking legal residency in the U.S.

At night Camila slept in a foster home. Her days were consistent: breakfast to evening was spent at an office building fitted with classrooms, where she was the only child in her class.

She got to see her mother once a week — for an hour.

A child psychiatrist who evaluated her in the final weeks of her detention wrote that she had nightmares and refused to talk about her family. The doctor wrote in that evaluation submitted to the court that Camila was processing what was happening to her through her play.

“She is having nightmares, is avoidant of discussion of her family and separation, and she manifests anxiety through her play,” Dr. Laine Taylor wrote. “Her play evaluation... clearly demonstrated that she is struggling with anxiety and fear.”

Camila is home now, released three days after lawyers filed a lawsuit challenging her detention. There is a new baby brother in the apartment.

She paints. She dances. She runs. She has a pink princess-themed room, but she sleeps with her mom.

“She doesn't like to be away from me,” her mom said during an interview. “When she's away from me, she thinks these people are going to come back for her.”

Liam, 15 years old — 255 days in custody

 
On Jan. 5, Liam’s mother received the call she’d waited eight months for. Her son Liam was finally coming home.

Minutes later, the shelter called her back. There was a mistake. She couldn’t pick Liam up yet, but they would call her back soon.

By the time U.S. District Judge Vernon Oliver heard arguments for and against Liam’s release on Jan. 15, his mother was still waiting for that follow-up call, according to the lawsuit she filed challenging his detention.

It all began in May 2025, when local police arrested Liam at 15 following a fight. Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived at the station after Liam’s father got there to pick him up, separated the two and took them both into custody. Liam went to an ICE office in Burlington, Massachusetts, then an ORR shelter in Texas for three months before finally landing at Noank Community Support Services, in Groton, Connecticut.

Whether, and how, ICE ever contacted Liam’s mother after his arrest is a matter of dispute.

Liam’s mother and his attorneys said in court filings that ICE called her when he was in Burlington but did not tell her she could pick him up there. She didn’t hear from him again until he was in Texas.

Meanwhile, the government made a series of seemingly contradictory statements, according to Oliver’s ruling. In one filing cited in the ruling, it said ICE couldn’t locate or contact her. In another, it said ICE asked her to pick Liam up but she didn’t show — and if she had, ICE would have also arrested her. That same filing said she was at the police station during his arrest.

In a May letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees ORR, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., pointed to allegations that federal officials have used children as bait to arrest their sponsors. Officials, Wyden said, have used the threat that they will arrest and deport a sponsor to pressure a child to accept voluntary deportation.

ORR removed a Biden-era regulation last year that prevented it from sharing information about sponsors’ immigration status with ICE or disqualifying sponsors because of their immigration status.

The government’s full response to Liam's habeas petition isn’t open to the public. But in a court filing defending its decision to designate Liam as an unaccompanied minor instead of turning him over to his mother, the government said it acted appropriately.

“DHS had no choice but to declare Petitioner a UAC," the government said, using the acronym for "unaccompanied alien child," the legal term for such immigrant children.

Oliver was blistering in his assessment of the government’s claims in Liam’s case, calling them “disturbing” and saying they were “full of significant incongruities.”

Before his arrest, Liam liked to play in his neighborhood and help his mother in the kitchen. In the shelters, he grew anxious and depressed. A psychological evaluation last December recommended his release “as soon as possible so he can return to his family, which is crucial for his well-being.”

Oliver ordered ORR to release Liam in mid-January, 27 days after the lawsuit challenging his detention was filed. His mother was finally able to pick him up the following day.

Miguel, 14 years old — 167 days in custody

 
Miguel was 14 years old and wanted to be a teacher. He should have been in middle school. Instead, he was taught inside the building where he was held in New Haven — a converted office fitted with classrooms — alongside his 16-year-old brother and an 11-year-old, both in federal custody.

Not able to enroll in a neighborhood school, he had been "isolated from peers and deprived of basic opportunities for the educational and social-emotional growth that's critical to [his] development," the lawyers seeking his release wrote in the petition asking a federal judge to release him.

Miguel was born in the highlands of Guatemala, into a family too poor to keep him in school. He and his brother worked the family's field, but it was never enough. Last December they crossed the border illegally to join their father, who had left to find work in the U.S. years earlier.

Their father, in Providence, court records show, wanted only to bring his sons home. It would take more than five months. From the first week, his attorney says in court records, he told the government he wanted to sponsor them — and was told to find an English speaker to help with an application that wouldn't come for nearly four months. When an official finally called, she said his immigration status made him ineligible, that he should find someone else, that the people he lived with might doom the case. None of it was true, his attorney told him. He moved anyway, then resubmitted documents the system had lost. He took a DNA test for a relationship no one questioned, and sat for a home study that his lawyers say no rule required.

The waiting wore on Miguel. The separation from his father, he said in a sworn statement, was so "painful" that it was "hard to think about anything else." He cried often, and the stress brought headaches and fevers. He described his detention as “being stuck in a waiting room for something that never happens.” He was "desperate,” his attorney said, to feel his father's hug again.

On May 19 — four days after his lawyers sued, 167 days into his detention — the government released Miguel and his brother to their father.

Luis, 16 years old — 167 days in custody

 
Luis was 16 and wanted to be a lawyer, or maybe an architect.

But rather than spending time in school, he and his younger brother spent nearly every day inside the same New Haven building. There were occasional excursions — a park, the aquarium — but when the weather was poor or cold, they did not go outside at all. At night, they slept in the homes of foster parents — people who, when they first arrived, were strangers. They were dropped off each morning before breakfast and picked up just before dinner.

In one respect the detention fell harder on Luis: unlike Miguel, he still faced deportation. His brother's immigration case had been terminated in February, but Luis' remained open and was due in immigration court in Hartford on May 21.

The waiting hit him hardest at night.

He couldn't sleep and was prescribed sleeping pills. He called the prolonged detention a "nightmare" and said in a sworn statement that "the pain is getting worse every day." He came to fear that "the day will never come" and described his and his brother’s confinement as "waiting somewhere they don't belong."

On May 19 — two days before that hearing — records show he and his brother were released to their father.

On Today

Anne Frank would be dead 7 months after this entry

On Men And Women

The Fall Is Coming

The moves from real assets to paper to electronic to cyber is unsettling and disruptive at best - and potentially catastrophic.

Unlimited infinite growth is not sustainable. Left alone, an economy will overspeed and explode. Like a cancer, rapid unregulated growth kills the host 100% of the time.

Here we go again.

Blockbuster Stock Sales Are Threatening to Overwhelm the Bull Market

Companies’ race to issue shares reminds some analysts of later stages of prior rallies

The rush for cash by some of the world’s largest companies is putting the long bull market at risk.

SpaceX’s record $75 billion public offering. Alphabet’s $85 billion equity raise. A $26 billion-plus sale of American depository receipts from the South Korean chip-making company SK Hynix.

Investors have been cheering the raging bull market for years—three years and nine months, to be precise—with the S&P 500 having more than doubled during that period. Now companies are racing to take advantage, raising concern that the party could be coming to an end.

Markets don’t collapse because of old age. Even high prices aren’t usually enough alone to cripple a bull. But one way stocks can slow is when new issuance overwhelms investors, as supply outstrips demand. Companies raced to sell shares in late 1999 and the first half of 2000, for example, which some believe contributed to the dot-com collapse.

That is why some investors are wary of the recent rush of stock and bond issuance, as well as a slowdown in stock buybacks. Already this year, $344.7 billion of new shares have been sold to investors—more than the full-year totals in 2025, 2024, 2023 and 2022, according to Dealogic, which includes public offerings, follow-ons and convertible bonds in its totals.

“Stock issuance tends to surge in the late stages of a bull market,” says Rob Arnott, chair of Research Affiliates.

The pace of issuance is picking up. Last month, SpaceX went public in the biggest-ever IPO. On Friday, SK Hynix’s offering marked the largest-ever share sale by a non-U.S. company. More issuance is on the way, with the AI developer Anthropic and others planning to go public.

And fewer companies are buying back shares, another way the overall supply of shares is swelling.

Overall, U.S. companies will issue a net $500 billion of equities and debt over the next year, compared with a net reduction of $1 trillion of stocks and bonds in recent years, mostly from stock buybacks, according to Elm Wealth, an advisory firm.

A surge of share sales doesn’t guarantee a stock slump, of course. Comparable issuance took place in 2021, as investors hoovered up shares of special-purchase acquisition companies, also known as SPACs. Many of those deals ran into problems, costing investors big money, though the S&P 500 shook the concerns off, soaring 27% in 2021.

But a surge of stock sales is a phenomenon sometimes witnessed near the end of bull markets, as companies take advantage of investor exuberance.

One of the bigger shifts lately is that AI “hyperscalers,” or companies operating huge data centers and other AI services, are selling shares and debt to raise capital for a historic capital-expenditure spree.

These companies are expected to have total capex of more than $800 billion this year, up from $450 billion last year, and the figure will top $1 trillion next year, according to Janus Henderson Investors.

“Many of the hyperscalers are beginning to undo years of carefully manicured capital allocation, with share buybacks now making way for share issues,” says John Lloyd, Janus Henderson’s global head of multisector credit.

Amazon.com alone raised $85 billion in equity sales in the first half of this year, Lloyd notes, while Oracle now has negative cash flow.

“Pre-AI, these companies were extraordinary cash businesses with little debt that really focused on buybacks,” he says. “That’s all changed.”

Some veterans say a surge in stock issuance along with fewer stock buybacks shouldn’t worry investors too much, partly because they have a marginal impact on the overall market’s supply and demand. After all, the value of the U.S. stock market is close to $80 trillion, dwarfing the changes in issuance.

It is difficult to predict when rising stock sales and slowing buybacks might weigh on stocks, says Howard Marks, co-chairman of the investment firm Oaktree Capital Management. Just as important, he says, they are unlikely to be enough by themselves to end a bull market.

“It is a reflection of an environment of optimism in the business sector and that investors don’t want to miss out,” says James Paulsen, the former chief investment strategist at Leuthold Group, who writes a Substack. “In the extreme, that’s a sign that things are overdone.”

It isn’t clear whether a surging supply of shares can derail a market that has a lot going for it. Earnings have been strong, and the economy shows few signs of slowing. Stock prices are at expensive levels—the dividend yield of the S&P 500 is 1.05%, for example, its lowest level on record, according to Research Affiliates—but markets rarely fall because of high valuations.

If spending on artificial intelligence can continue apace, this bull market might have longer legs than past such markets.

“I’m in the Cassandra camp, but continued good news on the AI front can sustain this rally,” says Antti Ilmanen, global co-head of the Portfolio Solutions Group at AQR Capital Management.

Even those who consider the market overpriced are wary of betting against it. Arnott, for example, recommends that investors buy shares of smaller companies and emerging-market value stocks, rather than pulling out of the market.

Historically, rising interest rates, new regulations and underappreciated risks have brought bulls down. In 1987, it was portfolio insurance, while subprime lending sank the market in 2008. But the Federal Reserve isn’t likely to raise rates enough to cripple the economy or the market, according to investors.

Marks says he doesn’t detect similar potential risk factors comparable to portfolio insurance or subprime lending.

“I don’t see prominent excesses, and our economy feels pretty good,” he says. “It would be folly to predict a recession any time soon.”

Buying Influence

As long as practically all Republicans (and too many Democrats) are willing to sit on their asses and either take the money, or just watch the parade go by, this kind of obvious corruption will continue.

FCC Officials Took Pricey Gifts From Paramount as the Company Needed Approval for Billion-Dollar Deals

Expensive Gifts:

Despite regulating broadcast media, FCC commissioners have accepted pricey tickets to the Kennedy Center honors gala from CBS or its parent company, now Paramount.

Conflict of Interest:

Ethics experts say that by accepting the gifts, FCC commissioners are compromising the agency’s impartiality and should avoid acting on Paramount’s pending merger.

Mixing Business and Pleasure:

After voting for a Paramount merger, Commissioner Olivia Trusty took tickets worth over $12,000. FCC Chair Brendan Carr has accepted tickets worth at least $63,000.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

The rich and famous who filed into the Kennedy Center’s opera house in December were there to enjoy one of the nation’s most exclusive celebrations of the performing arts: the center’s annual honors gala.

The black-tie event, hosted by President Donald Trump, prioritized tickets to people who donated more than $75,000 to the center. This year, it feted Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone, the legendary glam rock band Kiss and the Grammy Award-winning disco pioneer Gloria Gaynor.

Among the attendees that evening were two lower-profile government officials whose regulatory decisions had been crucial to the future of the gala’s broadcast sponsor, CBS, and its parent company, Paramount.

Five months earlier, Federal Communications Commissioner Olivia Trusty cast a decisive vote approving Paramount’s historic $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. Now, the commissioner and a guest enjoyed the star-studded celebration thanks to tickets gifted to her by Paramount worth more than $12,000, according to ethics disclosure records obtained by ProPublica.

The other commissioner who approved the merger watched from a prized perch. FCC Chair Brendan Carr and his wife sat in a private skybox with Paramount CEO David Ellison and other executives from Paramount and CBS. Such seats sold for $125,000 a ticket, according to Kennedy Center guidelines.

It’s unclear if Paramount gifted Carr the premium seats because the FCC has yet to make public his financial disclosure for last year.

However, past disclosures show Carr and Trusty are among seven FCC commissioners who have accepted Kennedy gala tickets from CBS or its parent company over the last decade. Ethics experts told ProPublica this poses a blatant conflict of interest since the commission regulates the network. Carr’s previous financial statements show he has accepted tickets at least seven times since his 2017 appointment, totaling over $63,000 in gifts.

Last December’s ceremony attended by Trusty and Carr took place as Paramount was launching a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, a move that would later result in a merger agreement that requires FCC approval.

Federal ethics rules ban employees from taking gifts from any entity that does business with, is regulated by or seeks official action from their agency.

Four ethics experts told ProPublica that by accepting the premium tickets Trusty and Carr compromised the FCC’s impartiality and should not take part in any upcoming decision on the merger.

“There’s no way that any top federal regulator should ever, ever accept a gift from a regulated company with interests their work will foreseeably affect,” said Walter Shaub, who led the federal Office of Government Ethics from 2013 to 2017. “The appearance of taking gifts like that is terrible. What’s at stake is nothing less than the public’s trust in government.”

Virginia Canter, who served as an ethics lawyer at the White House, Treasury Department, and Securities and Exchange Commission during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said the commissioners who accepted tickets cannot participate in this matter without damaging the integrity of the government’s decision-making process.

“This is shocking. Pretty disturbing, that’s what I would say. I just don’t understand what they were thinking,” said Canter, who now works as chief counsel for ethics and corruption at the nonpartisan government watchdog group Democracy Defenders Fund.

The FCC’s review of the merger is one of the final hurdles facing a historic $110 billion consolidation of two of the five largest film studios in Hollywood. The deal would unite Paramount Skydance with Warner Bros., bringing under the control of one company Paramount+ and HBO Max streaming services; CBS and CNN; and scores of other major broadcast channels, cable networks, and digital platforms.

The new megacorporation, which could reshape how millions will access news, movies, sports and video games, faces fierce opposition from inside and outside Hollywood. More than 5,000 actors, producers and entertainment workers — including stars such as Robert De Niro, Javier Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix and Glenn Close — signed an open letter decrying how the consolidation would eliminate jobs and compromise “the integrity, independence, and diversity of our industry.”

On Monday, California, New York and 10 other Democratic states filed a lawsuit seeking to block the merger under federal and state anti-monopoly laws.

American and international regulators are evaluating the deal for its potential national security implications and impacts to consumers worldwide. Last week, the British government signaled it planned to investigate whether the new entertainment titan that would emerge from the union would unfairly stifle competition. The FCC’s ongoing review includes examining the Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds backing the deal, including from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The FCC usually has five commissioners — all appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve five-year terms — but the agency currently has only three. Any vote by the full commission would likely be decided by Republicans Carr and Trusty over Democrat Anna Gomez. Gomez was not at the December 2025 show but has accepted tickets from Paramount in the past. Because the FCC requires a three-commissioner quorum for a vote, any recusal could leave the panel unable to decide on the merger. Carr could decide to ask staff to approve the deal rather than bring it to a commission vote, but the ethics experts said he should recuse himself from any decisions affecting the Paramount merger.

The experts warned the commissioners’ gifts might become central in legal challenges and said the Justice Department should investigate potential violations of federal rules or laws.

Neither Carr nor Trusty responded to ProPublica’s requests for comment. Gomez said in a statement that she followed agency advice when she attended the event in 2023 and 2024. Her statement did not elaborate or otherwise address why taking gifts from Paramount did not pose a conflict of interest.

An FCC spokesperson said agency ethics officers have for years cleared commissioner appearances, finding it consistent with ethics law.

“FCC Chairs and officials have attended the same event, in the same ways, consistently from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration to the Obama Administration,” the FCC said in a statement. “There has been no change in recent years.”

Shaub called the justification outrageous.

“It’s no excuse to say that you took the gift because everyone else was doing it or that your agency has had a bad habit of indulging in gift taking for a long time,” Shaub said. “That kind of explanation doesn’t work for school children, and it sure as hell doesn’t work for government officials who are supposed to have better judgment than a fifth grader.”

Despite their oversight role, FCC members have long enjoyed a night out at the Kennedy Center courtesy of CBS or its parent company. Seven of the 10 commissioners who served since 2016 accepted tickets worth more than $260,000, according to a ProPublica analysis of ethics disclosures.

Carr’s predecessor, Jessica Rosenworcel, who was appointed FCC chair by President Joe Biden and stepped down in January 2025, attended regularly.

Rosenworcel and several other former commissioners who accepted the tickets did not respond to requests for comment. The one commissioner who didn’t accept a single gift, Nathan Simington, said he received the Kennedy Center invites from CBS and Paramount but turned them down because it “wasn’t my cup of tea.”

A review of 10 years of disclosures shows commissioners accepted paid trips from various sponsors to appear at banquets and speak at conferences. Some of those gifts came from other media companies regulated by the FCC. NBCUniversal, ABC-Disney and Fox News, for instance, paid for commissioners to attend White House Correspondents’ Association dinners, records show. The total value of the combined gifts topped $308,000. But the vast majority came from CBS and its parent company.

Melissa Zukerman, Paramount’s chief communications officer, said it was a decades-long “CBS practice to invite government officials from both parties” to the Kennedy Center show. She didn’t address why the practice continued after new ownership took over last year, the purpose of the gifts or whether the tickets posed a conflict of interest.

Carr, who joined the FCC as a staffer in 2012 and rose to become the agency’s general counsel, was appointed to serve as a commissioner by Trump during his first term. Since then, Carr has accepted tickets annually, except when the 2020 event was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to his public disclosures.

Carr did not respond to an email request from ProPublica for his latest ethics report, which would indicate whether Paramount also paid for him to attend last December’s gala. The FCC referred us to the Office of Government Ethics, which told us that the FCC had not yet provided the disclosure. The FCC did not respond to our subsequent requests for the record.

A 2009 Office of Government Ethics memo gave federal employees the right to attend Kennedy Center events but explicitly said officials cannot accept free attendance “offered by persons other than the Kennedy Center and its trustees, officers and employees.” In 2016, the ethics office tightened its gift requirements, warning officials to avoid any appearance “of loss of impartiality.”

There is an exemption to the gift rules that allows free entry to gatherings that are widely attended and paid for by third parties, but only if certain conditions are met.

The event must “further agency programs or operations,” and the agency’s interest in an official attending must outweigh “concern that the employee may be, or may appear to be, improperly influenced in the performance of official duties,” according to the federal rules.

As an example, the Office of Government Ethics said an industry-wide seminar attended by more than 100 people could be allowed if the employee’s participation would be in the agency’s interest. But those attending should “represent a range of persons interested in a given matter” and the event must provide a “structured opportunity” to exchange ideas and views among invitees.

The office clarified in a 2007 memo that performing arts presentations would not count even if they, like the honors gala, have a reception before or afterward at which officials can mingle with other attendees.

Canter, the former White House ethics lawyer, said it would be a “stretch” for the FCC to argue the exemptions apply to the Kennedy Center’s annual show, where famous musicians perform and celebrities laud those who are being honored. “It’s not what we would consider a widely attended gathering,” she said.

Kedric Payne, general counsel and senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, noted that federal rules also require agencies to weigh the market value of the attendance, its relevance to the agency, any sensitive pending matters involving the donor and whether accepting free tickets creates an appearance of preferential treatment.

“The ethics rules are designed to prevent this exact situation,” he said, adding that it is an “obvious conflict of interest” for an official to “accept expensive gifts from anyone with decisions pending before the agency. This matters because it makes the public question whether official decisions are free from the improper influence of wealthy special interests.”

An FCC official familiar with the legal guidance given to the commissioners said they were told the event met the criteria for the “widely attended gathering” exception. (The source was not authorized to talk publicly about agency legal discussions.)

Shaub, the former Office of Government Ethics head, disagreed, saying it would be “hard to understand what compelling interest the FCC could think it had in letting its commissioners” attend the gala.

“What possible reason could have outweighed the obvious ethics concerns?” he asked.

Federal rules require written authorization for an official to accept free entry to a widely attended gathering. The FCC did not respond to our requests to provide the authorizations for the Paramount tickets or say who authorized them. Two senior ethics officials at the agency, Kathleen Fulp and Lauren Northrop, did not respond to requests for comment.

While December’s event came at a particularly sensitive time for Paramount and the FCC, it wasn’t the first.

More than a year earlier, in September 2024, Paramount had filed paperwork seeking the commission’s approval for its merger with Skydance Media. A month later, the FCC launched an investigation of CBS after a conservative group complained about a “60 Minutes” interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Trump later filed a lawsuit alleging the network deceptively edited the interview — an accusation CBS denied.

Then in November, less than two weeks after his election victory, Trump declared he would appoint Carr as FCC chair. Almost immediately, Carr accused CBS of biased election coverage and said it would be an obstacle to approving the Paramount-Skydance merger.

That December, Carr and three other commissioners — Rosenworcel, Gomez and Geoffrey Starks — accepted Kennedy Center gala tickets from Paramount worth a combined $48,156.

On Jan. 16, 2025, just days before Rosenworcel stepped down from the commission, she announced the agency was dismissing the election complaint against CBS. She and Gomez called the outcome a victory for the First Amendment.

But days later, Carr, the incoming FCC chair, reopened the investigation.

To resolve Trump’s lawsuit, CBS agreed to pay the president $16 million, a decision criticized by legal experts who decried Trump’s claims as baseless.

Two days after Trump posted on social media that he had received the settlement money, the FCC took up the Paramount-Skydance merger. To meet Carr’s demands, Paramount agreed to appoint an independent ombudsperson who would evaluate claims of bias. The company also pledged to eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

By then, Starks and Simington had unexpectedly stepped down from the commission. Trusty, a Trump appointee, had been confirmed by the Senate the previous month.

Trusty and Carr voted in favor of the merger. Gomez voted against, blasting the approval for requiring “never-before-seen forms of government control over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment.”

Experts said that while Trusty had no conflict yet, Carr and Gomez did. The fact that Gomez voted against Paramount did not mean she didn’t face a conflict under the rules, Shaub said.

Federal rules only require those who accept improper gifts to make a prompt reimbursement, but Shaub and the other experts said Carr and Gomez should have abstained from the vote.

“If you repay the face value of the ticket, the gift rules don’t require you to recuse — though common sense and any kind of conscience might lead you to recuse voluntarily for the good of the country,” Shaub said. “But if you refuse to repay the donor, I don’t see how anything short of recusal could remotely remediate the problem.”

With the Paramount-Skydance merger greenlit by the FCC, Ellison, the new company’s CEO, then set his sights on acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery.

Warner at first rebuffed Paramount’s overtures and on Dec. 5 — two days before the Kennedy Center gala — accepted a bid from Netflix to buy its studio and streaming assets. Ellison responded by making numerous calls to administration officials and had a long talk with Trump, according to The Wall Street Journal.

On the night of the gala, Trump told reporters the Netflix deal “could be a problem” and that he planned to get directly involved with the regulatory approval. Inside the Kennedy Center, Carr and his wife sat with Ellison in an exclusive skybox, Bloomberg reported. (Gomez said in her statement to ProPublica that she declined Paramount’s “invitation because of serious concerns about press independence connected to conditions Paramount agreed to as part of its merger transaction before the FCC.”)

Hours after the gala ended, Paramount announced it was launching its hostile takeover bid of Warner Bros. Discovery.

About three months later, Carr publicly endorsed Paramount over Netflix on CNBC, promising swift approval.

If one or more commissioners choose to abstain from a merger vote because of ethical concerns, what would happen next is unclear. Under federal conflict of interest rules, an agency designee could theoretically permit commissioners to vote after considering several factors, including “the difficulty of reassigning the matter,” the nature of the relationship between the commissioners and Paramount, and the “effect that resolution of the matter would have upon the financial interests” of the firm.

Carr could bypass a full commission vote entirely, as he did with the recent acquisition of Tegna by Nexstar Media Group. In that case, Carr delegated authority to FCC staff to approve the takeover.

But any decision on the Paramount deal — whether by the full commission or by staff at the direction of the chair — is likely to be challenged.

Richard Painter, a former White House ethics attorney in the administration of George W. Bush, said while courts often defer to the government’s judgment, they also can become skeptical if a regulatory agency is shown to have violated ethics rules.

“A judge may very well say that the merger decision of the FCC isn’t worth jack because the process was corrupted,” he said.