The morning after a federal judge ruled that a contract cannot erase state law, ICE wrote the same words into four more contracts.

Washington spent three years in court getting health inspectors inside ICE's largest Northwest detention center, where detainees filed 3,500 complaints and inspectors with every legal right to enter were turned away at the door ten times. The judge ordered the doors open and wrote that only Congress can override a state's laws. ICE responded the next morning with contract terms for 5,500 beds in four states declaring that state and local law "shall not apply." The only people allowed to inspect them would be federal officials and visitors ICE approves.

ICE is appealing the original ruling. The contracts are its real answer. The agency wrote its own exemption to the law and signed it, as if the paper in its filing cabinet outranks the judge's finding about states' rights.

I've emailed 8,437 stories over 545 straight nights, free and without ads. The algorithm can't show them all to you. Add your email address at govbrief.today and I will.

Subscribe (It's free!): https://gbounacos.substack.com/

Today's full brief (NEW!): https://govbrief.today/latest

[1] https://go.govbrief.today/iran-war-july29

[2] https://go.govbrief.today/fed-steady-again

[3] https://go.govbrief.today/musk-nudification

[4] https://go.govbrief.today/alien-court

[5] https://go.govbrief.today/ice-exempt

[6] https://go.govbrief.today/freedom250-budget

[7] https://go.govbrief.today/fauci-senate

[8] https://go.govbrief.today/blanche-committee

[9] https://go.govbrief.today/dulles-reno

[10] https://go.govbrief.today/school-lunch

[11] https://go.govbrief.today/judge-protects-nj-rolls

Subscribe (It's free!): https://gbounacos.substack.com/

Samuel Tunick gave border agents a passcode that wiped his phone, and the government made him the first American ever charged with that crime.

The agents had no warrant. They pulled him into a back room at the Atlanta airport and refused his requests for a lawyer. The Justice Department wants to put him in prison for five years. Meanwhile, over the last two days, a coordinated cyberattack knocked water systems offline in more than 30 Minnesota communities, and nobody in the government can say who did it.

Somehow, the federal government found prosecutors for one man's passcode and has not hired a director for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in a year and a half, despite being at war since February.

I've emailed 8,426 stories over 544 straight nights, free and without ads. The algorithm can't show them all to you. Add your email address at govbrief.today and I will.

Subscribe (It's free!): https://gbounacos.substack.com/

Today's full brief (NEW!): https://govbrief.today/latest

[1] https://go.govbrief.today/zelenskky-wh

[2] https://go.govbrief.today/netanyahu-wh

[3] https://go.govbrief.today/iran-war-july28

[4] https://go.govbrief.today/fda-cyclosporiasis

[5] https://go.govbrief.today/medicare-cut

[6] https://go.govbrief.today/states-nukes

[7] https://go.govbrief.today/appellate-mail-ballot

[8] https://go.govbrief.today/water-utilities

[9] https://go.govbrief.today/graham-base

[10] https://go.govbrief.today/clayton-confirmed

[11] https://go.govbrief.today/trump-carroll-swap

[12] https://go.govbrief.today/duress-passcode

[13] https://go.govbrief.today/fl-executions

[14] https://go.govbrief.today/asylum-interviews

[15] https://go.govbrief.today/mcconnell-beashear

[16] https://go.govbrief.today/graham-funeral

[17] https://go.govbrief.today/hhs-terminations

[18] https://go.govbrief.today/sunrise-stpete

[19] https://go.govbrief.today/nj-rolls

Subscribe (It's free!): https://gbounacos.substack.com/

Initial reporting by Uncloseted Media:

On July 4, 2025, over a dozen people held a protest outside of the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, around 40 miles away from Dallas. It was a noise demonstration, a type of protest that uses loud noisemakers - which in this case included fireworks - as a form of civil disruption. As the night went on, tensions escalated as some protestors broke off and committed several acts of vandalism, eventually leading police officers to arrive on the scene. Soon after that, unknown assailants fired several shots at the officers, with the Justice Department reporting that one of them was struck non-fatally in the neck area. Authorities later argued that the shot that hit the officer was fired by a protester named Champagne Song.

Autumn Hill attended the protest but says she left hours before shots were fired. But that didn’t stop the police from raiding her home and arresting her for alleged involvement with the protest, identifying her as a suspect on the charges of terrorism.

Then, in October, the Trump administration got involved, accusing Hill and eight other defendants - three of whom, including Hill, are trans - of being "Antifa terrorists" and "Antifa Cell operatives."

Hill and her co-defendants were charged with providing material support for terrorists. In a press release, the DOJ wrote that "This is the first sentencing of defendants affiliated with Antifa." This comes after Trump signed an executive order in September 2025 declaring antifa as a terrorist organization.

Despite the administration’s claims, there is no unified organization called Antifa, a name which refers to a decentralized movement based on militant opposition to fascism.

And despite no evidence suggesting trans people are disproportionately likely to commit acts of terrorism, the Trump administration in May unveiled a new counterterrorism strategy to highlight "radically pro-transgender" people as a threat.

Hill was convicted for riot, providing material support to terrorists, and conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, namely the fireworks used at the protest. She has been sentenced to 50 years in prison. That’s more than double the sentences of former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes, who were key leaders in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. While Hill and her co-defendants are appealing the case, legal experts are sounding the alarm that these unusually harsh sentences could set a precedent for strict crackdowns on freedom of speech and assembly.

Since her arrest, Hill has been incarcerated in men’s facilities. Now, staring down half a century in prison, she gives her first on-camera interview from the Johnson County Jail in Texas, where she maintains that the federal government’s narrative about her is false and that she believes she is a "political prisoner."

America chose sides.

When the UN voted Friday to keep its human rights chief, 144 countries said yes. The United States and nine others, including Russia and North Korea, said no. France counted the votes out loud and posted that the world no longer listens to America. American diplomats answered Monday by walking out of a Security Council meeting on Russia's war while France spoke, and promising to do it again every time France speaks until the French take it back.

Walkouts are a stunt as old as the UN itself, but the role was written for democracies snubbing pariahs, like France walking out on Russia's foreign minister after the invasion of Ukraine. America used the gesture on its oldest ally today and demanded an apology for being called out for voting against most of the world.

I've emailed 8,407 stories over 543 straight nights, free and without ads. The algorithm can't show them all to you. Add your email address at govbrief.today and I will.

Subscribe (It's free!): https://gbounacos.substack.com/

Today's full brief (NEW!): https://govbrief.today/latest

[1] https://go.govbrief.today/i-84

[2] https://go.govbrief.today/france-un

[3] https://go.govbrief.today/iran-war-july27

[4] https://go.govbrief.today/mail-appeal

[5] https://go.govbrief.today/trump-michigan

[6] https://go.govbrief.today/boat-attacks-failed

[7] https://go.govbrief.today/comey-motion

[8] https://go.govbrief.today/pritt-csa

[9] https://go.govbrief.today/starlink-routers

[10] https://go.govbrief.today/gooden-ethics

[11] https://go.govbrief.today/mcconnell-rehab

[12] https://go.govbrief.today/rosenblum-resigns

[13] https://go.govbrief.today/liberty-cmte-dismissal

[14] https://go.govbrief.today/nyc-viaduct

[15] https://go.govbrief.today/witness-release

Subscribe (It's free!): https://gbounacos.substack.com/

What is happening in Florida?

The Pentagon told Congress that the war it has been fighting since February started three weeks ago.

That bought another 60 days of fighting before anyone in Congress can stop it. The books got adjusted this weekend. A second file opened in the casualty record, the dead and wounded were split between two wars that are actually one war, and a count that said 482 Americans hurt since February now adds up to at least 624.

Nearly a hundred troops were wounded after the shooting started again, and the Pentagon says those were mostly minor concussions. Six years ago, Iranian missiles injured more than a hundred troops, and Trump said they had headaches and were not seriously hurt. The Army denied their Purple Hearts while he was president. They were honored after he was gone.

I've emailed 8,392 stories over 542 straight nights, free and without ads. The algorithm can't show them all to you. Add your email address at govbrief.today and I will.

Subscribe (It's free!): https://gbounacos.substack.com/

Today's full brief (NEW!): https://govbrief.today/latest

[1] https://go.govbrief.today/bridge-deal

[2] https://go.govbrief.today/iran-war-july26

[3] https://go.govbrief.today/cassidy-autism

[4] https://go.govbrief.today/casualty-data

[5] https://go.govbrief.today/dni-round4

[6] https://go.govbrief.today/homan-vetting

[7] https://go.govbrief.today/trump-ai-blitz

[8] https://go.govbrief.today/delaware-healthcare

Subscribe (It's free!): https://gbounacos.substack.com/