Democrat Politics

In his inauguration address, President Donald Trump made a bold—and clunky—promise to “plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.” Of course, none of this is new: Trump has been yapping about landing on the moon since at least 2017, when he pressed NASA to return to the lunar surface.

But now Trump’s dream of taking credit for a manned landing on a celestial body appears to be slipping out of his grasp. 

On Wednesday, Politico reported that over 2,100 senior NASA officials are set to leave after a push by higher-ups. Those exiting include many in the agency’s human space flight division. And those departures are likely just the beginning. Trump’s 2026 budget proposal includes slashing NASA’s budget by 25% and cutting another 5,000 employees. 

Far from the golden age of space exploration he promised in January, experts now worry that Trump’s funding and staff cuts could cede American space leadership to a rising China. The risk is so great that every living former NASA administrator joined forces to warn that the new budget could permanently hobble the nation’s space program. 

Trump’s actions, both proposed and enacted, are helping to hollow out NASA by boosting brain drain, slashing budgets, and saddling the agency with interim leaders who care more about battling “wokeness” than they do about scientific research and space exploration. As always, his own voters will be the ones who pay the price.

In Florida, NASA spending supported over 35,500 direct and indirect jobs and more than $8 billion in economic activity in the government’s 2023 fiscal year. Economists now estimate Trump’s proposed cuts will slash those numbers. Of course, Trump won Florida by 13 percentage points in last year’s presidential election. 

Trump’s self-defeating cuts to NASA are just the latest in a series of policy decisions that are baffling even his key allies. In an April op-ed for RealClear

The flag of the United States, deployed on the surface of the moon, dominates this photograph taken from inside the Lunar Module of Apollo 11, on July 20, 1969.

Science, MAGA blowhard Newt Gingrich called Trump’s decision to gut NASA “mindless,” arguing that, if enacted, Trump’s cuts would be “the end of America’s leadership in space science.” 

“There are many opportunities to reform NASA without sacrificing science research,” he wrote.

But the quality of America’s scientific research is hardly a concern for the thoughtless Republican lawmakers tasked with shuffling Trump’s half-baked ideas through Congress. They’ll willingly vote for legislation that devastates their own constituents, as voters saw recently in their eagerness to gut Medicaid.

Other Republicans who once loudly pushed for a strong NASA are now silent in the face of Trump’s sweeping cuts. In April, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz warned in a post on X that a“ moon mission MUST happen in President Trump’s term or else China will beat us there and build the first moonbase.” 

Daily Kos reached out to Cruz’s office to ask if he still feels confident in NASA’s ability to deliver a moon landing. As of publication time, his office hasn’t responded. 

That’s probably smart. With thousands of NASA employees leaving or being forced out, and the White House openly threatening Elon Musk and SpaceX, it’s unclear how Cruz intends to get anyone to the moon any time soon. He might want to check on that. As of 2023, NASA supported nearly 42,000 jobs in the state and had an economic impact there of over $9 billion, according to the agency. It makes sense given that Houston is the site of Johnson Space Center, one of NASA’s major field centers.

There’s another big problem roiling NASA: It has no real leader. The agency has been without a Senate-confirmed NASA administrator since Trump took office in January. Late last year, Trump announced he would nominate Jared Isaacman, a billionaire ally of Musk, to lead the agency.

But Trump pulled Isaacman’s nomination in May, days before it was set to be voted on in the Senate—and around the time of his falling-out with Musk.

Since January, Trump has gotten by with acting administrators. First was Janet Petro, whose defining achievement was eliminating NASA’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion. But on Thursday, Trump pulled his nominee for the spot and said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, an alumnus of MTV’s “Road Rules,” will be the new acting head, replacing Petro.

Of course, fittingly for the Trump administration, Duffy has no relevant experience to lead NASA. 

A cartoon by Clay Jones.

Related | EPA chief clashes with MAGA over weather conspiracies

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Mirelys Casique was ready to be reunited with her son, 24-year-old Francisco Garcia Casique. In March, Francisco called Mirelys from an ICE facility to say that he was being deported back home to Venezuela the following day. After 6 years apart, they would finally see each other again. 

But Francisco would never arrive on Venezuelan soil. 

Instead, he was deported to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison along with more than 230 others.

“I was so hopeful, waiting for him on the couch, waiting for the news that the planes were arriving in Venezuela,” Mirelys told Daily Kos. 

Francisco Garcia Casique working as a barber

But when images began to circulate on social media of the shaved and shackled men forced to kneel on CECOT’s concrete floors, Mirelys knew that Francisco would not be coming home. 

“I wanted to bang my head against the wall, refusing to believe my son belonged in that place,” she said.

Francisco, like many of the people who President Donald Trump deported without just cause through use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, had no prior criminal convictions. Rather, he was targeted because of his tattoos and the fact that he’s from Aragua, the Venezuelan town home to the Tren de Aragua gang. 

And while the Trump administration has labeled Francisco a dangerous criminal to justify keeping him in El Salvador, his mother says otherwise.

“He was always a barber, a worker, responsible,” she told Daily Kos. 

Before arriving in the United States in 2023, Francisco was living in Peru working as a barber. Ultimately, Francisco would cross the border illegally into the United States and later turn himself in, beginning a lengthy process of mandatory court hearings as he attempted to become a legal resident. In the meantime, he lived and worked in Texas. 

“He left Venezuela to help his family as the eldest son, not to end up abused and locked in a prison as if he were a terrorist,” Mirelys said. 

And while the Department of Homeland Security insists that Francisco is a member of Tren de Aragua, the young barber was part of an administrative mixup in the past. 

An online Texas database listed suspected gang members, including Francisco. But the photo was incorrectly identified and was actually of an older, bearded man completely unaffiliated with Francisco. Despite being listed in the database, Francisco was released from ICE custody, given an ankle monitor, and labeled nonthreatening as he awaited trial.

Francisco Garcia Casique is seen shackled with a shaved hed after being deported to El Salvador.

But after Trump took office, Mirelys told Daily Kos, everything changed. On Feb. 6, ICE agents broke down Francisco’s door and violently abducted him in the middle of the night. 

“It was a kidnapping,” she said. 

Mirelys, like many other relatives of the Venezuelan men being held in CECOT, has not heard from her son since he boarded the deportation flight. 

“Francisco is a humble young man. We are low-income people, but that doesn’t mean we should be labeled criminals or bad people,” she said. 

On June 16, Mirelys—along with four other relatives of detained men—traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, to plead for the United Nations to step in. Many have also tried traveling directly to El Salvador to see their loved ones. But even with lawyers at their side, the trips have been unsuccessful. 

And while Mirelys’ story of a heartbroken mother may resonate with the citizens of Geneva, she has returned to Venezuela without the results she was hoping for. 

“Many have spoken out in support, but we want action,” she told Daily Kos. “We want this to end soon. We don’t know the extent of their physical and mental deterioration.”

As reports have surfaced regarding the torture inside CECOT, the wellbeing of the deported Venezuelan men is a top concern. 

It’s unclear what the next legal steps will be as people like Mirelys await their relatives’ hopeful release. While the Trump administration previously said that the responsibility to release anyone was in the hands of El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele has now insisted that El Salvador is simply holding them as a favor for the United States. 

For Mirelys, all she can do is continue to tell her son’s story and hold onto hope. 

“I want the world to know that even though we are going through this great pain and we are destroyed because this is an injustice—because evil wants to stalk us and hurt our families—we still believe in God, and God is just and good,” she said. “He will return our children to us.”

In the last nine years, federal funding for a system has been denied to the county as it contends with a tax base hostile to government overspending.

By Terri Langford and Dan Keemahill for The Texas Tribune

In the week after the tragic July 4 flooding in Kerr County, several officials have blamed taxpayer pressure as the reason flood warning sirens were never installed along the Guadalupe River.

“The public reeled at the cost,” Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly told reporters one day after the rain pushed Guadalupe River levels more than 32 feet, resulting in nearly 100 deaths in the county, as of Thursday.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly discusses the ongoing search and rescue efforts on July 5 in Kerrville, Texas, after flooding along the Guadalupe River.

A community that overwhelmingly voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024, Kerr County constructed an economic engine on the allure of the Guadalupe River. Government leaders acknowledged the need for more disaster mitigation, including a $1 million flood warning system that would better alert the public to emergencies, to sustain that growth, but they were hamstrung by a small and tightfisted tax base.

An examination of transcripts since 2016 from Kerr County’s governing body, the commissioners court, offers a peek into a small Texas county paralyzed by two competing interests: to make one of the country’s most dangerous region for flash flooding safer and to heed to near constant calls from constituents to reduce property taxes and government waste.

“This is a pretty conservative county,” said former Kerr County Judge Tom Pollard, 86. “Politically, of course, and financially as well.”

County zeroes in on river safety in 2016

Cary Burgess, a local meteorologist whose weather reports can be found in the Kerrville Daily Times or heard on Hill Country radio stations, has noticed the construction all along the Guadalupe for the better part of the last decade.

More Texans and out-of-state residents have been discovering the river’s pristine waters lined with bald cypress trees, a long-time draw for camping, hiking and kayaking, and they have been coming in droves to build more homes and businesses along the water’s edge. If any of the newcomers were familiar with the last deadly flood in 1987 that killed 10 evacuating teenagers, they found the river’s threat easy to dismiss.

“They’ve been building up and building up and building up and doing more and more projects along the river that were getting dangerous,” Burgess recalls. “And people are building on this river, my gosh, they don’t even know what this river’s capable of.”

By the time the 1987 flood hit, the county had grown to about 35,000 people. Today, there are about 53,000 people living in Kerr County.

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In 2016, Kerr County commissioners already knew they were getting outpaced by neighboring, rapidly growing counties on installing better flood warning systems and were looking for ways to pull ahead.

During a March 28 meeting that year, they said as much.

“Even though this is probably one of the highest flood-prone regions in the entire state where a lot of people are involved, their systems are state of the art,” Commissioner Tom Moser said then. He discussed how other counties like Comal had moved to sirens and more modern flood warning systems.

“And the current one that we have, it will give – all it does is flashing light,” explained W.B. “Dub” Thomas, the county’s emergency management coordinator. “I mean all – that’s all you get at river crossings or wherever they’re located at.”

Related | Trump and Texas point fingers as flood death toll rises

Kerr County already had signed on with a company that allowed its residents to opt in and get a CodeRED alert about dangerous weather conditions. But Thomas urged the commissioners court to strive for something more. Cell service along the headwaters of the Guadalupe near Hunt was spotty in the western half of Kerr County, making a redundant system of alerts even more necessary.

“I think we need a system that can be operated or controlled by a centralized location where – whether it’s the Sheriff’s communication personnel, myself or whatever, and it’s just a redundant system that will complement what we currently have,” Thomas said that year.

By the next year, officials had sent off its application for a $731,413 grant to FEMA to help bring $976,000 worth of flood warning upgrades, including 10 high water detection systems without flashers, 20 gauges, possible outdoor sirens, and more.

“The purpose of this project is to provide Kerr County with a flood warning system,” the county wrote in its application. “The System will be utilized for mass notification to citizens about high water levels and flooding conditions throughout Kerr County.”

But the Texas Division of Emergency Management, which oversees billions of FEMA dollars designed to prevent disasters, denied the application because they didn’t have a current hazard mitigation plan. They resubmitted it, news outlets reported, but by then, priority was given to counties that had suffered damage from Hurricane Harvey.

Political skepticism about a windfall

All that concern about warning systems seemed to fade over the next five years, as the political atmosphere throughout the county became more polarized and COVID fatigue frayed local residents’ nerves.

In 2021, Kerr County was awarded a $10.2 million windfall from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, which Congress passed that same year to support local governments impacted by the pandemic. Cities and counties were given flexibility to use the money on a variety of expenses, including those related to storm-related infrastructure. Corpus Christi, for example, allocated $15 million of its ARPA funding to “rehabilitate and/or replace aging storm water infrastructure.” Waco’s McLennan County spent $868,000 on low water crossings.

Kerr County did not opt for ARPA to fund flood warning systems despite commissioners discussing such projects nearly two dozen times since 2016. In fact, a survey sent to residents about ARPA spending showed that 42% of the 180 responses wanted to reject the $10 million bonus altogether, largely on political grounds.

“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.

“We don’t want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much,” another resident told commissioners. “We’d like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money.”

Even Kelly, the Kerr County judge remarked that this “old law partner” – U.S. Sen. John Cornyn – had told him that if the county did not spend the money it would go back to blue states.

“As far as where that money sits for the next year or two, my old law partner John Cornyn tells me that if we send it back it’s going to New Jersey or it’s going to New York or it’s going to … or California,” Kelly said. “And so I don’t know if I’d rather be the custodian of the money until we decide what we have to do with it rather than giving it back to the government to spend it on values that we in Kerr County don’t agree with.”

When it was all said and done, the county approved $7 million in ARPA dollars on a public safety radio communications system for the sheriff’s department and county fire services to meet the community’s needs for the next 10 years, although earlier estimates put that contract at $5 million. Another $1 million went to sheriff’s employees in the form of stipends and raises, and just over $600,000 went towards additional county positions. A new walking path was also created with the ARPA money.

While much has been made of the ARPA spending, it’s not clear if residents or the commissioners understood at the time they could have applied the funds to a warning system. Kelly, the Kerr County judge, and Thomas have declined repeated requests for interviews. Moser, who is no longer a commissioner, did not immediately respond to a Texas Tribune interview request.

Many Kerr County residents, including those who don’t normally follow every cog-turn of government proceedings, have now been poring over the county commissioners meetings this week including Ingram City Council member Raymond Howard. They’ve been digging into ARPA spending and other ways that the county missed opportunities to procure $1 million to implement the warning system commissioners wanted almost 10 years ago, and to prevent the devastating death toll from this week.

Related | Climate change helped fuel heavy rains that led to devastating Texas flood

A week ago, Howard spent the early morning hours of July 4 knocking on neighbors’ doors to alert them to the flooding after he himself ignored the first two phone alerts on his phone in the middle of the night.

In the week since, the more he’s learned about Kerr County’s inaction on a flood warning system, the angrier he has become.

“Well, they were obviously thinking about it because they brought it up 20 times since 2016 and never did anything on it,” Howard said, adding that he never thought to ask the city to install sirens previously because he didn’t realize the need for it. “I’m pretty pissed about that.”

Harvey Hilderbran, the former Texas House representative for Kerr County, said what he is watching play out in the community this week is what he’s seen for years in Texas: A disaster hits. There’s a rush to find out who’s accountable. Then outrage pushes officials to shore up deficiencies.

It’s not that Kerr County was dead set against making the area safer, Hilderbran said. Finding a way to pay for it is always where better ideas run aground, especially with a taxbase and leadership as fiscally conservative as Kerr’s.

“Generally everybody’s for doing something until it gets down to the details paying for it,” Hilderbran said. “It’s not like people don’t think about it … I know it’s an issue on their minds and something needs to be done.”

Related | The Texas flash flood is a preview of the chaos to come

Howard, the 62-year-old Ingram city council member, came to Kerr County years ago to care for an ailing mother. Although he has now been diagnosed with stage four cancer, he said he intends to devote his life to make sure that his small two-mile town north of Kerrville has a warning system and he already knows where he’s going to put it.

“We’re going to get one, put it up on top of the tower behind the volunteer fire department,” he said. “It’s the thing I could do even if it’s the last thing I do …to help secure safety for the future.”

Hayden Betts contributed to this report.

The order reiterates measures included in the recently passed budget reconciliation bill, leading renewable energy advocates to question its significance.

By Dan Gearino for Inside Climate News

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on July 7 that he said will “end taxpayer support for unaffordable and unreliable ‘green’ energy sources” such as wind and solar.

But it’s not clear whether the order will have much of an effect other than to underscore the president’s antipathy for those power sources. Some observers speculate this action is fulfilling a promise to hardline conservative House members in order to win their votes last week for the massive budget reconciliation bill.

The order is titled “Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable Foreign Controlled Energy Sources.” It directs the Treasury department to “strictly enforce the termination of the clean electricity production and investment tax credits” as specified by the bill.

Related | Trump thinks ‘windmills are killing our country’—yes, really

The legislation, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed on July 4, says that projects must begin construction by mid-2026 or be placed in service by the end of 2027. This is a rapid phaseout compared to the previous law that had a phaseout that was to begin in 2032.

The executive order advises the Treasury department to allow no wiggle room on the new deadlines. It also says the department must take prompt action to follow the bill’s new limits on tax credits going to entities with ties to China.

In addition, it says the Department of the Interior must revise any policies or practices that give solar and wind power preferential treatment compared to other energy sources.

A solar array atop a parking structure in Scottsdale, Ariz., in Jan. 2015.

The Treasury and Interior departments also must make reports within 45 days about how they are complying with the order.

Analysts, lawmakers and officials from renewable energy industry groups had mixed reactions about the significance of the order.

But they do not downplay the effects of the bill that has become law. It is a gutting of incentives from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that will reduce federal government support for renewable energy, electric vehicles and manufacturing of those products and related components. The result, according to reports from Rhodium Group, Princeton University’s REPEAT Project, the think tank Energy Innovation and the Clean Energy Buyers Association, is likely to be a decrease in U.S. jobs and an increase in electricity prices.

And yet, the executive order is likely to have minimal additional effect, said Pavel Molchanov, a managing director for the investment firm Raymond James.

“Contrary to the EO’s headline, the EO does not abolish any tax credits,” he said in an email. “To state the obvious, only Congress can change tax law—which, in fact, is what Congress did last week via the budgetary megabill.”

He expects little or no practical effect from the Interior department provision

“It is worth noting that, under the Federal Power Act, the government cannot favor one type of power generation over another,” he said. “Thus, the EO simply restates existing law in that regard.”

Derrick Flakoll, a senior policy associate for BloombergNEF, sees much greater potential for harm to the wind and solar industries.

“It’s a big deal, but how big a deal it is we don’t know,” he said.

He explained that the order is attempting to create uncertainty around the 2026 deadline, which is a crucial deadline for projects to have a smooth path to qualifying for tax credits.

“It could push a lot of projects out of eligibility or into such an uncertain state of eligibility that it becomes hard to build and finance them,” he said.

Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, offered this statement:

“This executive order appears to target long-standing and well-established tax standards that allow for realistic financing timelines for all sorts of energy projects—including solar, wind, carbon capture and hydrogen projects,” she said. “We will continue to make the case that business certainty, predictability, and even-handedness are bedrocks of federal policy that cannot be undone by the stroke of a pen. We expect the Treasury Department to follow the law.”

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Rep. Sean Casten (D-Illinois), who has a background running clean energy businesses, said the order is about helping the market for fossil fuels by harming competing sources of electricity.

“Donald Trump doesn’t hate renewable energy because it is clean,” he said in an email. “He hates it because it’s cheap. His latest executive orders are about making it harder for Americans to access cheap and reliable energy to ensure he keeps profits up for his friends in the fossil fuel industry.”

Taylor Rogers, an assistant press secretary for Trump, pushed back on concerns that the president’s actions would lead to higher energy prices.

“No one takes disingenuous cost concerns seriously from ‘clean energy’ groups that supported a $200 billion tax hike on the American people to fund the Green New Scam,” she said. “The One Big Beautiful Bill will continue to unleash America’s energy industry, dropping electricity costs that increased dramatically due to Joe Biden’s climate agenda.”

She listed the many aspects of the bill that increase oil and gas production and reduce regulations, which she said will cut costs for consumers.

Her response to questions did not include any comment about whether the executive order was part of a commitment made to Congressional Republicans.

The budget bill passed the House on Friday, 218-214, with all Democrats and two Republicans voting against it. Several fiscally conservative House members initially balked at the spending levels in the bill, but most of them ended up voting for it after meeting with Trump.

Related | We’re getting coal, whether we want it or not

Asked about how Trump had earned their votes, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told CNBC on Friday that the president had told members he would use executive powers to stop renewable energy sources from being able to use subsidies.

“A lot of these subsidies won’t remain in effect from here on out,” Norman said.

He posted on Facebook on Tuesday that the order was “a pledge [Trump] had made, and one he kept.”

He added, “I proudly support an all-of-the-above energy approach—ensuring coal, gas, nuclear, hydropower, and yes, responsibly advanced renewables can compete in an honest market. THIS is how you make energy policy work for everyday Americans, not special interests.”

It’s not much of a stretch to see a connection between Norman’s comment on CNBC and the executive order, said Glen Brand, vice president of policy and advocacy for Solar United Neighbors, a nonprofit that works to expand access to rooftop solar.

“I assume that this is the direct response to that promise,” he said.

He said it’s difficult to predict the ramifications of the order without knowing how federal agencies will choose to respond.

“It all depends on how Treasury interprets the guidance. It could be nothing. It could be a lot,” he said.

Brand believes the order’s intent was to increase uncertainty and discourage companies from using the tax credits, which it may succeed in doing even if it doesn’t lead to any substantive changes in the way the credits work.

One of the most complex current issues in sports can be traced back to a track meet in Germany in 2009, when an unknown 18-year-old from South Africa blew away a field of the best female runners on the planet to win the world title. The teenager was hardly out of breath when she flexed her muscles at the end of it.

What quickly became clear is that sports faced an unprecedented dilemma with the arrival of Caster Semenya.

Caster Semenya sits in the European Court of Human Rights before its decision over sex eligibility rules in sports on July 10 in Strasbourg, eastern France.

Now a two-time Olympic and three-time world champion in the 800 meters, the 34-year-old Semenya has been banned from competing in her favored event since 2019 by a set of rules that were crafted by track authorities because of her dominance.

They say her natural testosterone level is much higher than the typical female range and should be medically reduced for her to compete fairly against other women.

Semenya has refused to artificially alter her hormones and challenged the rules claiming discrimination at the Court of Arbitration for Sport court in Switzerland, then the Swiss Supreme Court and now the European Court of Human Rights.

A ruling Thursday by the highest chamber of the European court — Semenya’s last legal avenue after losing at the other two — found that she was denied a fair hearing at the Swiss Supreme Court.

It kept alive Semenya’s case and reignited a yearslong battle involving individual rights on one hand and the perception of fairness in sports on the other, with implications across the sporting world.

A complex issue

Semenya is not transgender and her case has sometimes been inaccurately conflated with that of transgender athletes. She was assigned female at birth, raised as a girl and has always identified as female.

After years of secrecy because of medical confidentiality, it was made public in 2018 that she has one of a number of conditions known as differences of sex development, or DSDs. They are sometimes known as intersex conditions. Semenya was born with the typical male XY chromosome pattern and female physical traits. Her condition leads to her having testosterone levels that are higher than the typical female range.

Caster Semenya competes in the Women’s 800m race during the Prefontaine Classic in Stanford, Calif., in June 2019.

World Athletics, the track governing body, says that gives her an unfair, male-like advantage when racing against other women because of testosterone’s link to muscle mass and cardiovascular performance. It says Semenya and a relatively small number of other DSD athletes who emerged after her must suppress their testosterone to below a specific level to compete in women’s competitions.

The case has transcended sports and reached Europe’s top rights court largely because of its core dispute: Semenya says the sports rules restrict the rights she has always known as a woman in every other facet of life and mean she can’t practice her profession. World Athletics has asserted that Semenya is “biologically male.”

How the rules work

Track and field’s regulations depend on the conclusion that higher testosterone gives rise to an athletic advantage, though that has been challenged in just one of the many complicated details of Semenya’s case.

To follow the rules, DSD athletes must suppress their testosterone to below a threshold that World Athletics says will put them in the typical female range. Athletes do that by taking daily contraceptive pills or using hormone-blocking injections and it’s checked through regular blood tests.

Track first introduced a version of its testosterone regulations in 2011 in response to Semenya and has made them stricter over the years. The current rules require athletes affected to reduce their testosterone for at least two years before competing and throughout competitions, effectively meaning elite DSD runners would be constantly on medication to stay eligible for the biggest events like the Olympics and world championships.

That has troubled medical experts and ethicists, who have questioned the “off-label” use of birth control pills for the purpose of sports eligibility.

Semenya is not alone

While Semenya is the only athlete currently challenging the regulations, three other women who have won Olympic medals — Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi, Margaret Wambui of Kenya and Christine Mboma of Namibia — have also been sidelined by the rules.

The issue came to a head at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when Semenya, Niyonsaba and Wambui won the gold, silver and bronze medals in the 800 meters when the rules were temporarily suspended. Supporters of the ban cited that result as evidence they had an insurmountable advantage over other women.

World Athletics is now considering a total ban on DSD athletes like Semenya. Its president, Sebastian Coe, said in 2023 that up to 13 women in elite track and field fell under the rules without naming them.

What Thursday’s decision means

Caster Semenya and her lawyers on July 10 after their partial victory at the European Court of Human Rights in her seven-year legal fight against track and field’s sex eligibility rules.

Track’s DSD rules became a blueprint for other sports like swimming, another high-profile Olympic code that has regulations. Soccer is considering testosterone rules in women’s competitions.

Sex eligibility is a burning issue for the International Olympic Committee and new president, Kirsty Coventry, who was elected in March. It was brought into urgent focus for the IOC after a sex eligibility scandal erupted at last year’s Paris Olympics over female boxers Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.

Most sports will watch the direction of Semenya’s case closely as it is sent back to the Swiss Supreme Court, and possibly to sport’s highest court, even though that could take years. The ultimate outcome — whether a victory for Semenya or for World Athletics — would set a definitive precedent for sports because there has never been a case like it.

 Black Music Sunday is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 270 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.

Folks across the nation have been hit by sweltering heat waves this spring and summer, and my thoughts have turned to songs I grew up with, which, back then, never referenced climate change but did talk about heat and hot sun. 

I’ll never forget the opening lyrics to “Under the Boardwalk,” sung by The Drifters in 1964: 

Oh, when the sun beats down and burns the tar up on the roof
And your shoes get so hot you wish your tired feet were fire proof
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
On a blanket with my baby is where I’ll be…

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If you don’t know The Drifters’ history, Musician Guide has a complete biography written by Ronald D. Lankford Jr: 

The Drifters held their ground as a premier doo wop and R&B band from the early 1950s until the mid-1960s, recording such unforgettable hits as “Some Kind of Wonderful” and “Under the Boardwalk.” “The Drifters are part of an … exclusive fraternity,” maintained Bruce Eder in All Music Guide, “as a group that managed to carve out a place for themselves in the R&B firmament and also define that music.” While lineup changes plagued the group throughout both decades, lead singers like Clyde McPhatter and Rudy Lewis, along with the production team at Atlantic Records, assured the Drifters’ continued success. Twenty-five of their 37 hits reached the top ten, and five topped the charts at number one. Innovations such as the string section the group used on “There Goes My Baby” influenced the soul sound developed by Phil Spector and Motown Records during the 1960s. Although hits stopped coming for the group after 1964, the Drifters continued to draw fans through performances in various combinations in England and the United States from the 1970s onward.

“The Drifters are an institution,” noted Bill Millar in The Marshall Cavendish History of Popular Music. “Very few vocal groups have remained popular for more than 30 years, and in an area notable for its lack of consistency the Drifters’ longevity is almost without parallel.” The complex history of the Drifters can best be divided into two separate phases: the first begins with McPhatter’s leadership in 1953, and the second six years later when Ben E. King took over lead vocals. In the first stage, the band performed as a classic doo wop unit, incorporating harmonies from groups such as the Mills Brothers as well as from gospel. In the second stage, they performed as an R&B band, recording a series of pop hits that can still be heard on oldies radio stations.

Interestingly, “Up on the Roof,” written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin in 1962, echoes “Under the Boardwalk.” I remember many a sweltering night when I lived in an old crumbling four-story walkup, un-air-conditioned apartment in a brownstone in East Harlem (aka Spanish Harlem) when we either had to sit out on the fire escape or head up to the roof to catch a breeze. 

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Bill Janovitz at All Music wrote:

Carole King wrote the song with her former partner and husband, Gerry Goffin, soon after penning their first hit, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” while working for impresario Don Kirshner at his Brill Building-like company, Aldon. Goffin’s lyrics are playful, wistful, and empathetic: “At night the stars put on a show for free/And, darling, you can share it all with me/I keep a-telling you/Right smack dab in the middle of town/I’ve found a paradise that’s trouble proof/And if this world starts getting you down/There’s room enough for two/Up on the roof.”

Couldn’t resist posting one of my favorite “Up on the Roof” covers, which was recorded by the late great (my High School of Music and Art classmate) Laura Nyro. 

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When dealing with the heat waves criss-crossing the nation this summer, on my playlist is, of course, Martha and The Vandellas’ “Heat Wave,” which, though referencing a different kind of “heat,” has become an anthem for long hot summers. 

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The Michigan Legend Rock & Roll Hall of Fame reports:

“Heat Wave” was the second single and the first Top Ten hit written for Martha & The Vandellas by Motown’s new writing and production team of Holland-Dozier-Holland. Produced with a gospel-like fervor, the song opens with a 27-second instrumental passage featuring handclaps, Joe Hunter’s piano, Thomas “Beans” Bowles sax, and the drumming of “Pistol” Allen.  “Heat Wave” is often credited as being one of the first songs to exemplify the style of music that would later be called the “Motown Sound”.

“Heat Wave” is probably Martha Reeves greatest vocal performance, and it helped Martha & The Vandellas become the first Motown group to receive a Grammy Award Nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. Martha Reeves remembered watching the network news during the summer of 1963. “I was in my mom’s living room when the anchorman said, ‘There’s a heat wave in Los Angeles,’ it was a hundred and something and then they played “Heat Wave”. I jumped all over the floor. My mom told me to sit down and shut up! I screamed, ‘We’re on network TV! They’re playing our song!”

This summer, we lost Sly Stone, who joined the ancestors on June 9, 2025.

xOur MOST-READ ARTICLES of June include our tribute to the late great Sly Stone by @tenelson65.bsky.social | Read more here: album.ink/SlyStone[image or embed]— Albumism (@albumism.com) June 30, 2025 at 11:01 PM

I really appreciated reading Terry Nelson’s memories about his introduction to Sly in “Remember Who You Are: Celebrating Sly Stone’s Life & Legacy” at Albumism:

I grew up in a household where Motown and Stax got the top billing, while Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday made frequent guest appearances. One day, Sly and the Family Stone’s Stand! (1969) album made its way into our apartment. I was mesmerized by the album cover because it was collage of unknown faces and I couldn’t wait to hear what this “Family Stone” sounded like.

The three second drumroll on the title track gave you little time to prepare yourself for what was about to happen. It was like the opening credits to a movie. You bob your head along to the music, then at 2:17, it shifts into what appears to be a new song. To this day, it’s one of the best abrupt changes in any song I’ve heard. I can’t think of another one on the spot. Its presence in the track is a way of saying, “Brace yourselves, we’re about to blow your mind.”

The next track, “Don’t Call Me N****r, Whitey” went over the head of four-year old Terry. The N-word was just a term of endearment tossed around by family members from time to time. Two years later, when a white classmate directed it at me, that shit hit differently. I listened to the song again and had a conversation with my mother about the incident. That told me everything I needed to know.

After listening to the album, I had to find out more about Sly & The Family Stone. I recall being completely dumbfounded and amazed the first time I saw them on TV; their act was unlike anything I’d ever witnessed before. A band with a diverse gender and racial makeup, playing multiple instruments, was unheard of. To my knowledge, Booker T. & the MGs were the only racially integrated band at the time, and the only reason I knew that was their album cover.

He and the Family will always signal summer for me.

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Sly and The Family Stone weren’t the only big R&B group to have a hit with a funky summer sound. 

From their bio at Musician Guide, James M. Manheim:

Kool & the Gang were one of the most successful R&B and pop groups of the 1980s, placing more singles in the pop top ten during the first half of that decade than any other group. They experienced moderate success during the funk years of the early and middle 1970s as well, appearing regularly on R&B charts and impressing live audiences with their showmanship and instrumental skills developed during the group’s early years as a jazz ensemble. Kool & the Gang remain known above all for a single song: “Celebration” (1980) is as close to a universal wedding reception standard as exists in American music, and it is often played at parties and dances for audiences not even born when the song was recorded.

Kool & the Gang came together in 1964 as the Jazziacs in Jersey City, New Jersey. At the center of the group were two brothers, Robert and Ronald Bell, born in 1950 and 1951, respectively, in Youngstown, Ohio. Their father, a champion featherweight boxer, had also dabbled in jazz and was a friend of pianist Thelonious Monk. When the family fell into dire poverty due to steel mill closures in Youngstown, their mother, Mabel, sent President John F. Kennedy a letter containing a picture Ronald Bell had drawn of their falling-down home, and Kennedy read the letter on national television. Robert Bell was a bassist, and Ronald played tenor saxophone. The other members of the Jazziacs were trumpeter Robert “Spike” Mickens (born in Jersey City in 1951), saxophonist and flutist Dennis “Dee Dee” Thomas (born in Orlando, Florida in 1951), lead guitarist Claydes Smith (born in Jersey City on September 6, 1948), keyboardist Ricky Westfield, and percussionist George “Funky” Brown (born in Jersey City on January 5, 1949).

Though we lost Kool and the Gang co-founder Ronald “Khalis” Bell in the fall of 2020, their music lives on. This extended-play mix of their 1974 song “Summer Madness,” which has been widely sampled, keeps on humming.

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Video channel owner DJDiscoCat has a lot to say about beating the heat and crafting this mix:

“Summer Madness” is the song Rocky played when he fed his fish in the hit movie. It was already a jazx funk classic in 1977 with its dramatic and engaging mix of shimmering jazz that makes me think of the visual distortion you see on the roads during heatwaves, they almost look like puddles sometimes and the tension filled ARP synth performance that is couched in a totally funky and sublime drum track. They created magic.

It was the B side to “Higher Plane” and while it has become infinitely more popular even though it never charted. Sampling gave the song new life starting in 1988 with Rodney O And Joe Cooley’s single “Give Me the Mic”. Since then, hip hop culture has heavily sampled the R&B classic.

Even more popular now than in 1974, “Summer Madness” has been used in the 2000’s in movies, video games, soundtracks and even at UFC. The simple but intricately complex song touches just about everyone who listens to it. Man, is it hot! it is currently 27 Centigrade or 81 degrees and the low will be 21 at 11PM. The heat is driving me crazy so much so I had to put down this remix cos I didn’t have the energy after working all day…it is draining! Drink lots of water, it makes a difference. I have been taking cold water baths right from the tap, and refreshing soak in spearmint scented epsom salt. In the last three weeks we will have had two nights that dropped to 57.2 F.

Anyway, I finally finished this hour long Monster Mix, it’s not the one song repeated 40 some times back to back but a real remix that lasts a little over an hour. I looped a lot of the hypnotic pulsing to give the song more space to breathe and the next thing I knew I was at an hour and four minutes….and I feel like I am on a journey headphones on and eyes closed.

So I present to you, the Monster Mix of Kool & The Gang’s “Summer Madness” on this steamy Monday night in the middle of a heatwave that has been going on for nearly three weeks. Its a cool breeze for your ears and brain.

While writing this, I had some song lyrics floating around in my head about “summer in the city.”

Hot town, summer in the city

Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty

Been down, isn’t it a pity

Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city

All around, people looking half-dead,

Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

I realized that they were from “Summer in the City,” originally recorded in 1966 by Canadian- American rockers The Lovin’ Spoonful. However, the version I’m most familiar with is this mostly instrumental cover, recorded in 1973, by the late, great Quincy Jones, with vocals toward the end by Valerie Simpson. A masterpiece.

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To close, if you are currently enduring a hot spell, here’s wishing you a summer breeze, with the Isley Brothers cover of the Seals & Crofts tune, from their 2005 “Live in Columbia” DVD.  

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GIGS Mercury Studio video notes:

The Isley Brothers have enjoyed a long and distinguished career from the early fifties to the present day. They have enjoyed considerable chart success and huge album sales on both sides of the Atlantic and remain a major live draw. Their music has evolved to encompass a variety of styles from gritty R & B through Motown soul and on to blistering funk, all of which they have delivered with fine musicianship and considerable style.

The concert on this DVD was filmed in America in spring 2005 and captures the band in excellent form led by Ron Isley’s smooth vocals and Ernie Isley’s hard edged guitar leads.

See the curtains hanging in the window

In the evening on a Friday night

A little light a-shining through the window

Lets me know everything’s alright

CHORUS:Summer breeze makes me feel fine

Blowing through the jasmine in my mind

Summer breeze makes me feel fine

Blowing through the jasmine in my mind

See the paper lying on the sidewalk

A little music from the house next door

So I walk on up to the door step

Through the screen and across the floor

Repeat chorus

Sweet days of summer, the jasmine’s in bloom

July is dressed up and playing her tune

When I come home from a hard days work

And you’re waiting there, not a care in the world

See the smile a-waiting in the kitchen

Food cooking and the plates for two

Feel the arms that reach out to hold me

In the evening when the day is through

I don’t know what the weather conditions are where you are, but here in the Hudson Valley of New York, where I am, we are currently under a heat advisory. I could sure use one of those cool breezes.

Join me in the comments section below for more, and please post some of your favorite hot summer tunes. 

A cartoon by Clay Bennett.

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A number of developments this week indicate that a blue wave may swell in the 2026 midterms.

From Democrats landing top-tier recruits in critical races, to Republicans in competitive races retiring or forgoing bids, to the fact that President Donald Trump is desperately trying to rig House districts, sign after sign shows that the wind is at Democrats’ backs.

First, former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina seems close to entering the Senate race following GOP Sen. Thom Tillis’ abrupt and unexpected retirement.

Cooper, who left office after two terms with a positive approval rating, would perhaps be the best Democratic nominee in the race. His entrance into the contest would give Democrats an exceptional opportunity to pick up a critical Senate seat, bringing the party one step closer to taking control of the chamber. 

GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina

That’s especially true if Republicans nominate a wackadoodle, which they could very likely do as Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump seems poised to run—something Tillis is warning Republicans not to do.

“This is going to be a tough race for someone. They need a good, solid, business, right-of-center conservative to match up against [Cooper],” Tillis told Washington Post reporter Patrick Svitek.

Meanwhile, in Texas, former Democratic Rep. Collin Allred announced that he is running for the seat of Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who is struggling in a primary against scandal-torn Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. In fact, Paxton’s scandals grew this week, as his wife announced that she filed for divorce, citing “recent discoveries.”

If Allred is up against Paxton, Republicans fear that Democrats could pick up the seat—so much so that they’re now trying to meddle in the Democratic primary.

And Dan Osborn, an independent who surpassed expectations in a Nebraska Senate bid in 2024, announced that he is taking another swing at the race to possibly oust a GOP incumbent.

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On the flip side, GOP officials are retiring and the party is struggling to land top recruits in other key races—a telling sign as candidates often forgo bids when they expect that the political environment would be bad for their party.

Aside from Tillis, GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska announced that he is retiring, and the nonpartisan Cook Political Report predicts that the seat will be a Democratic pickup with Bacon out of the race—putting Democrats one seat closer to the three needed to win the speaker’s gavel.

In Pennsylvania, GOP Rep. Dan Meuser recently decided against challenging Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro in 2026, even though Trump offered to endorse Meuser. That’s not something a candidate does if they think they have a good shot at winning.

Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia

And earlier this year, GOP Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia said he would not try to oust Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in 2026—leaving Republicans without a top-tier recruit in the swing state.

But perhaps the most obvious sign that Republicans don’t think 2026 will be great for their party is Trump himself forcing Texas to redraw its congressional maps to eke out more GOP seats—a desperate effort to offset losses in other parts of the country.

Trump reportedly said that he thinks Republicans will lose the House and that gerrymandering House districts in Texas and Ohio could help him rig a different outcome.

“It’s shameful that while Texans are still responding to the deadly and tragic floods, Governor Abbott, House Republicans, and Donald Trump are focusing their time and resources trying to push through new, rigged Congressional maps,” Democratic Rep. and DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene said in a statement. 

“Republicans are running scared because they know the American people will reject them next year for their broken promises and failed agenda. They also know they cannot win fair and square, so they are trying once again to rig the maps,” she added.

Ultimately, the 2026 midterms are a long way away. But pieces are falling into place showing that it could be a great year for Democrats.

A cartoon by Pedro Molina.

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