In recent weeks, Americans have grown increasingly anxious over mounting threats to free expression. New revelations about government influence during COVID show this is not new.

Google and YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet, disclosed on Sept. 23 that the Biden administration pressured the company to suppress content that went against the accepted narrative during the pandemic — even when it didn’t violate company policy.

The federal government interfered with how the nation’s dominant search engine and its most widely used online video platform moderated speech.

Alphabet admitted Biden officials leaned on the company to remove posts questioning pandemic policy — even when they didn’t break its rules. In a letter to the House Committee on the Judiciary, Alphabet’s attorneys wrote: “While the Company continued to develop and enforce its policies independently, Biden Administration officials continued to press the Company to remove non-violative user-generated content.”

This comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared much the same story last year.

In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on Aug. 26, 2024, Zuckerberg said senior Biden administration officials “pressured” Meta during the pandemic to remove or demote some COVID-19 posts, including humor and satire, called that pressure “wrong,” and said Meta took actions it “shouldn’t have.”

COVID was chaotic, and officials were trying to keep people safe. But that doesn’t excuse overreach.

Government pressure on media and speech isn’t unique to the digital age, and administrations from both parties have tried to influence how Americans receive information. What’s new is the scale and speed of influence when the government leans on online platforms used by billions.

Free speech must be defended consistently, no matter which party is in power. Today’s majority will someday be the minority — and when the government leans on companies to silence dissent, everyone eventually loses.

Indeed, the Biden administration’s actions have emboldened retaliatory efforts from the Trump administration. This is a terrifying precedent for American politics that needs to stop.

When lawful content is suppressed under government pressure, it doesn’t eliminate misinformation — it fuels distrust. Many Americans who suspected authorities were hiding uncomfortable truths during COVID feel vindicated by these disclosures, and that erosion of trust makes it harder to govern in future crises. Especially because some of the ideas flagged as “misinformation” later proved credible: the lab-leak theory is now considered plausible by intelligence agencies, and studies confirmed natural immunity offered real protection.

Ironically, removing lawful posts may have worsened public health outcomes. By driving skepticism underground rather than confronting it openly, officials created fertile ground for conspiracy theories that then were harder to debunk.

If Americans want to protect free expression, we must demand consistency from leaders of both parties. No U.S. government has the right to dictate what lawful ideas can be expressed by the people.

— The Chicago Tribune

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Since Minnesota along with seven other states has been sued by the Department of Justice to turn over voter registration records, it’s a good time to check on the Trump Administration’s drive to supervise how states handle voting registration and ballot counting.

For years the president has claimed without evidence there is a great deal of voter fraud, particularly by non-citizens, occurring mostly in states which he lost. Now his administration is trying to win more control over our elections.

Before getting into specifics, remember two things.

First, the U.S. Constitution’s Article I, Section 4 says states should prescribe how elections are run and that the Congress can “by Law make or alter such Regulations”.  The President is given no constitutional authority over elections.

Second, facts don’t support Trump’s claim of widespread non-citizen voting. Two examples. The Heritage Foundation’s compilation of Minnesota criminal voting convictions between 2011 and 2022 contains only two for non-citizen voting while Minnesotans cast a total of 18,402,279 ballots in general elections during that time. (One who voted in a school board election got a year probation while the other got six months of jail time for a general election vote.)  A 2016 election study by the Brennan Center for Justice found officials raised concerns about 30 votes from possible noncitizens out of 23.5 million votes cast in 42 jurisdictions, or 0.0001% of the vote.

The most visible Trump effort has been his March executive order granting federal agencies, like Justice and Homeland Security, access to states’ data to review for voting fraud; forbidding states from counting mail-in ballots received after, but postmarked on or before, Election Day; and requiring a passport or similar document when using the national voter registration form which states must accept but can also use their own forms. Finally, the executive order requires the independent Election Assistance Commission to decertify voting machines already certified and replace them with a new system not now on the market.  (Minnesotans’ voting wouldn’t be affected because we don’t have to use the national registration form, only ballots received by Election Day are counted now, and the state has its own certification process.)

Two legal challenges to the executive order, one in Massachusetts by 19 states, including Minnesota, and the other in the District of Columbia by the Democratic Party and several other groups, have resulted in court-ordered halts to it until the cases can be tried and decided. There’s been no decision yet on an appeal. There is also a similar lawsuit in Washington state by Oregon and Washington.

Though nothing is public yet, Trump says he’s working on a new executive order to ban mail-in voting, which accounted for 30% of votes in the 2024 election. Trump blames mail-in voting for his 2020 election loss, saying Russia’s Vladimir Putin agrees with him. Directly contradicting the Constitution, Trump asserted in an Aug. 18 Truth Social post that “States are merely an ‘agent’ for the federal government in counting and tabulating the votes”. (A mail-in voting ban could be worse for Republicans than Democrats. See “Abolishing voting by mail will hurt Republicans more than help” by Mary Ellen Klas, Pioneer Press, August 21, 2025.)

In April, knowing Trump’s executive order may fail constitutional muster, House Republicans, and four Democrats, passed the SAVE (for Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) Act. Its key provision requires all voters to register in-person at their local election office with a passport or birth certificate matching their current name. Consequently, those living temporarily away from home, such as military personnel, students and overseas residents, as well as married women with changed last names, would have difficulty registering. State IDs, like driver’s licenses, would be insufficient. The SAVE Act is stalled in the Senate since it needs 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster.

In the past two weeks Trump’s Department of Justice has sued eight states, including Minnesota, to get voter information in those states including names, driver’s license numbers, partial Social Security numbers and voters’ birthdates. The DOJ says the requested data is “necessary” to determine if states are making “a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.” No evidence is cited showing any states aren’t doing so already but presumably if any is found or implied it will be used to justify taking away some or all those states’ control over elections.

Responding to the suit, Minnesota’s Secretary of State Steve Simon told MPR he hasn’t been given a strong legal justification for needing the entire list, adding “Usually when they (DOJ) ask states, us or anyone else, for information it’s about one or a handful or particular voters. But this is so broad and so sweeping, and so potentially intrusive that we really have to pay attention here.”

In addition to states being sued, the DOJ has asked at least 22 others to provide the same information. If obtained, it will be shared with Homeland Security to find registered voters who are known noncitizens. Like Minnesota, most other states refuse to provide the requested data until there is a better explanation from DOJ of why it’s needed. At least two with GOP secretaries of state — Pennsylvania and New Hampshire — have been sued while two others — Indiana and South Carolina — have fully complied with DOJ’s request, while several others have provided only information that their state’s privacy laws allow.

Our Constitution’s decentralized, state-controlled voting system has worked remarkably well for over 235 years. Americans have accepted its results and we’ve had a stable, democratically run nation. Efforts to change that system without factual basis should be energetically resisted whether, as now, coming from the Trumpian right or from future left-wing wannabe authoritarians.

Ken Peterson of St. Paul served as state Labor and Industry Commissioner under Governors Mark Dayton and Rudy Perpich and is on the board of Clean Elections Minnesota.

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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Eleven cheetah cubs were rescued from illegal trade in Somaliland in what a conservationist described on Thursday as “one of the largest confiscations of the species.”

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The cubs were packed in bags that resembled sacks of potatoes and were being transported in a small dhow off the Somaliland coast at Berbera when the local coast guard intercepted them on Sunday.

Two locals and three Yemenis were arrested during the rescue operation, and the cheetahs were taken to a rescue center owned by the Cheetah Conservation Fund, or CCF.

Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, is a major transit hub for the illegal wildlife trade. Hundreds of cheetahs and leopards from the Horn of Africa have been transported to Gulf countries through the Gulf of Aden.

Possession of wildlife is illegal in Somaliland, and police often crack down on suspected traders.

In August, local authorities arrested two people and rescued another 10 cheetah cubs that were destined for the Gulf.

CCF founder Laurie Marker said the rescued cubs were “very malnourished” and were being reintroduced to food slowly, starting with fluids.

In this photo released by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MoECC), rescued cheetah cubs are fed in Berbera, Somaliland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia, on Sep. 28, 2025. (MoECC via AP)

“The cubs were in very poor condition,” she said. “One died only a few hours after arriving at CCF’s centre, although in ICU and critical care administered. Another died the next day under same conditions. Two others are in critical care, one of which is in very bad state. The other seven are responding.”

Marker, whose center now has 128 rescued cheetahs, said the illegal trade in cheetahs was driving the species into extinction.

“Cheetahs are not pets. They are wild animals, top predators and play an important role in the ecosystem,” she said. “Wildlife belongs in the wild. Please help us stop the illegal wildlife pet trade in cheetahs and other wildlife species being illegally traded around the world.”

In this photo released by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MoECC), rescued cheetah cubs are seen in cages in Berbera, Somaliland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia, on Sep. 28, 2025. (MoECC via AP)

The rescue of cubs is “critical” in the fight to save the cheetah from extinction, Marker said, adding: “With fewer than 7,000 cheetahs left in the wild, we can’t afford to lose a single one to the illegal pet trade.”

Conservationists in the Horn of Africa have previously expressed concern over the rise in demand for exotic pets in Gulf countries and the resulting illegal trade affecting ecosystems in Horn of Africa nations.

By CEDAR ATTANASIO

SEATTLE (AP) — For much of the 20th century, a sprawling complex in the desert of southeastern Washington state turned out most of the plutonium used in the nation’s nuclear arsenal, from the first atomic bomb to the arms race that fueled the Cold War.

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Now, after decades of planning and billions of dollars of investment, the site is turning liquid nuclear and chemical waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation into a much safer substance: glass.

State regulators on Wednesday issued the final permit Hanford needed for workers to remove more waste from often-leaky underground tanks, mix it in a crucible with additives, and heat it above 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The mixture then cools in stainless steel vats and solidifies into glass — still radioactive, but far more stable to keep in storage, and less likely to seep into the soil or the nearby Columbia River.

The long-awaited development is a key step in cleaning up the nation’s most polluted nuclear waste site. Construction on the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant began in 2002.

“We are at the precipice of a really significant moment in Hanford’s history,” said Casey Sixkiller, director of the Washington State Department of Ecology, in a video interview.

Hanford’s secret was a key part of the Manhattan Project

The roughly 600-square-mile reservation is near the confluence of two of the Pacific Northwest’s most significant rivers, the Snake and the Columbia, in an area important to Native American tribes for millennia.

Wartime planners selected the area because it was isolated and had access to cold water and hydroelectric power. In early 1943, the U.S. government seized the land for a secret project, displacing roughly 2,000 residents, including farmers.

Tens of thousands of workers then responded to newspaper ads around the country promising good jobs to support the Allied effort to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II, and a new company town arose in the desert.

Most of the workers had no idea they were involved in building the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor until the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and President Harry S. Truman announced the existence of the Manhattan Project to the world.

Hanford would grow to include nine nuclear reactors churning out plutonium for the nation’s nuclear arsenal. The last of these was shut down in 1987. Two years later, Washington state, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reached an agreement to clean up the site.

Today, Hanford is focused on clean-up

Seven of the nine reactors have been “cocooned” to prevent contamination from escaping until radiation levels drop enough to allow for dismantling, near the end of the century.

There are also 177 giant underground tanks that hold some 56 million gallons of highly radioactive and chemically hazardous waste. Those tanks are well past their projected lifespan of 25 years. More than one-third have leaked in the past, and three are currently leaking.

During its years producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, Hanford dumped effluent directly into the Columbia River and into ineffective containment ponds, polluting the surrounding groundwater and contaminating the food chain of wildlife that depends on it, according to a 2013 government assessment.

Now Hanford is focused on cleanup, with an annual budget of around $3 billion.

Turning nuclear waste into glass is effective — but expensive

Encasing radioactive waste in glass — called “vitrification” — has been recognized since at least the 1980s as an effective method for neutralizing it. There are plans for two facilities at Hanford: the one now approved to process low-level nuclear waste after repeated delays, and an adjacent facility for the high-level waste that remains under construction.

More than $30 billion has been spent on the plants so far. The U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees Hanford, has faced an Oct. 15 deadline to have turned some of its stored waste into glass, per a cleanup schedule and consent decree involving the EPA and Washington state.

The first waste to be mixed with glass will include pretreated radioactive cesium and strontium, according to a statement from the Department of Energy.

Washington state Democrats question Trump administration’s commitment

The Energy Department fired Roger Jarrell, its main overseer of the Hanford cleanup, earlier this month, prompting concerns about the Trump administration’s commitment. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said Energy Secretary Chris Wright told her by phone that he was looking to stall the vitrification operations.

That prompted outrage from Washington state officials. Gov. Bob Ferguson, joined at a news conference by tribal leaders and labor representatives, threatened legal action.

But Wright insisted the department had changed nothing, and on Sept. 17, a deputy signed paperwork allowing vitrification to proceed following approvals by state regulators.

“Although there are challenges, we are committed to beginning operations by October 15, 2025,” Wright said in a statement last month. “As always, we are prioritizing the health and safety of both the workforce and the community as we work to meet our nation’s need to safely and efficiently dispose of nuclear waste.”

On Wednesday, with state approval issued, Ferguson urged the Energy Department to follow through.

“Our state has done our part to start up the Waste Treatment Plant,” said Ferguson, in a statement. “Now the federal government needs to live up to its responsibilities and clean up what they left behind.”

In a statement ahead of the government shutdown, Department of Energy said it would be able to continue all of its operations for one to five days. After that, the department’s work will cease unless operations are “related to the safety of human life and the protection of property.”