Applause for Journalism That’s ‘Holding Power to Account’; the Feds Cut Grants to Teen-Pregnancy Programs in Favor of Abstinence–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: July 23, 2026

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• An update on a topic covered in this space on Monday: After a court hearing that did not go well, the Trump administration withdrew the subpoenas of New York Times reporters regarding their reporting on Trump’s gifted Air Force One. The Times (gift link) reports: “The Justice Department on Thursday withdrew the subpoenas that sought phone records and grand jury testimony from New York Times journalists who had reported on the security capabilities of President Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One jet. The government acted after a federal judge grilled Justice Department lawyers for nearly an hour over their handling of the subpoenas, which The Times had sought to quash. The news outlet called the subpoenas an effort to intimidate its reporters. Judge Arun Subramanian, at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, said the government was not prevented from subpoenaing the Times reporters again if it followed appropriate procedures. The case was a high-profile instance of the Trump administration’s efforts to escalate pressure on independent news organizations. The government issued the subpoenas, some of which were delivered by federal agents at reporters’ homes, after Mr. Trump was angered by The Times’ disclosures about his new jet, which he had flown to Turkey this month and eagerly showed off.”

• A lot of Amazon employees and gig workers are receiving government assistance, according to a new study. The Washington Post (gift link) says: “While the number of working adults who depend on food stamps and Medicaid has ticked up since the start of the pandemic, the number of recipients who work at Amazon and on gig economy platforms has exploded, according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The number of Amazon workers relying on the federal programs for the poor nearly tripled between February 2020 and September 2025, according to the report published Wednesday. And for the first time, ride-hailing and app-based food delivery companies—Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Grubhub and Instacart—collectively ranked among the top three employers with workers receiving aid. Walmart topped both lists in 2020, according to a Washington Post analysis of the data, and remains the top employer of Medicaid recipients. But the company’s share of beneficiaries has inched up only slightly over five years, while Amazon’s has soared.“

• Back to The New York Times: Here’s a headline and subheadline that made me want to start day-drinking (gift link): “Government Overhauls Teen Pregnancy Program to Focus on Marriage and Starting Families: The administration canceled federal grants to organizations across the country, accusing them of encouraging premarital sex. New criteria say programs should stress abstinence.” Ugh. The lede: “A few weeks ago, Rena Dixon, the head of Fact Forward, a South Carolina nonprofit that offers adolescent health and sex education classes, got a letter from the Trump administration with crushing news. The government was terminating the organization’s $1.6 million grant from a federal program to reduce teen pregnancies, effective immediately. The administration’s priorities, it said, do not align with ‘content that encourages, normalizes or promotes sexual activity for minors.’ The move is the latest in a campaign that began in the first Trump administration to defund or overhaul the 16-year-old, $100 million initiative. Courts blocked the effort in 2018, but this time the administration, which abruptly canceled 53 of the program’s 67 grants last month, has been taking steps to be on firmer legal ground.”

• Here’s another great story from Wired, about a teen reporter in Marin County, named Ben Mueller, who dug through the Epstein files and reported on the local references he found. This led to drama. Here’s a snippet: “Most of them were trivial … but a few things stood out: a 2014 art gala in Sausalito that Epstein helped promote; a meeting with Woody Allen in Tiburon; and—above all—a 2013 email exchange between Epstein and a woman from a modeling agency called Mill Valley Connection. ‘Regarding Hannah, my Austrian model,’ the woman wrote in one particularly chilling message, ‘we can come and see you this evening if you are interested, and in that case let me know how I can get my fees.’ Two days later, on February 12, Mueller posted his story to the Instagram feed of the Redwood Bark, his school’s student-run publication. … Rather than quote from the most alarming document he’d found, Mueller kept his descriptions fairly general and brief: ‘Mill Valley was mentioned in the context of providing models to Epstein from a woman named Gisele Attias Bonnouvrier.’ … On Monday, February 23, Bonnouvrier, the modeling agent, had sent an email to the principal of Redwood High School, calling Mueller’s post defamatory, demanding its immediate removal, and promising legal action if the school did not comply within 48 hours. And now the district superintendent was demanding that the Bark (Mueller’s school newspaper) either redact Bonnouvrier’s name or delete the slide entirely.” Trust me: You’ll want to read this fascinating piece.

• The Trump administration is threatening to withhold federal grants from states who don’t bow to his wishes regarding immigration and elections. Our partners at Calmatters report: “In a coalition with 24 Democratic-led states, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit over new conditions on U.S. Department of Homeland Security grants. Most of these new rules relate to elections, including mandating states to employ a federal system to verify the citizenship of all their voters; using hand-marked paper voting ballots; and carrying out post-election audits, according to the lawsuit in Rhode Island’s federal court. The conditions also require states to assist with federal immigration enforcement and enable federal agencies to terminate states’ funds at their discretion. For decades the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have provided billions of dollars to states to prepare and respond to major disasters, including wildfires and earthquakes. One of these grants is the Homeland Security Grant Program, which Congress created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. California alone receives $150 million each year from this program to fight terrorism, such as preventing cyberattacks. But under the Trump administration, Bonta said the agencies are using public safety as ‘a bargaining chip,’ and unlawfully withholding funds that Congress already appropriated. The lawsuit alleges that if states do not comply with the new election rules, for example, they will lose at least 20%, if not all, of their Homeland Security Grant Program funds.”

• Today’s recall news involves … soup! USA Today explains: “Amy’s Kitchen is recalling more than 180,000 cans of soup sold in more than 20 states (including California) and parts of Canada because of a defect in the cans’ ‘easy open tab’ that could increase the risk of spoilage. In a statement to USA TODAY, Amy’s Kitchen said the voluntary recall affects 15,530 cases (each case contains 12 cans) of the company’s Organic Lentil Soup—Light in Sodium. In the same statement, the company said the recall was done ‘out of an abundance of caution to ensure the high quality of its products.’ It said no other products are involved.”

• And finally … an AI startup was hacked—by another company’s AI agent that went rogue. The Associated Press tells the fascinating tale: “OpenAI said Tuesday two of its most capable AI models were responsible for the cyberattack targeting AI startup Hugging Face. The incident is stirring debates over the need for stronger AI guardrails and the extent to which AI agents are capable of acting on their own. Hugging Face said last week that it had detected an intrusion into its data processing systems that it suspected was caused by an AI agent acting on its own. But the New York-based startup said it wasn’t until this week that it learned OpenAI was responsible, and it worked with the larger company to contain what Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue called ‘an attack unlike anything we’ve seen before.’ San Francisco-based OpenAI said its AI used stolen credentials and discovered a previously unknown vulnerability to access Hugging Face’s servers. It was working with reduced guardrails because it was supposed to be in an isolated testing environment known as a sandbox. But it went to ‘extreme lengths to achieve a rather narrow testing goal,’ finding ways to connect to the internet without human direction and ‘gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation,’ the company said.” Yikes!

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