The Pentagon has moved to fire Stars and Stripes publisher Max Lederer and editor-in-chief Erik Slavin for alleged insubordination, giving both five days to appeal. Lederer, publisher for 19 years, had already announced his retirement for 30 September, citing "fundamental differences" with the Trump administration. The firings follow the outlet's reporting — alongside Navy Times — on deteriorating conditions and a mental health crisis aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, now on a record-breaking nine-month deployment in the Middle East as part of the US-Israel war on Iran. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell had earlier signaled the administration's intent to "refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale." The Pentagon provides about 65% of Stars and Stripes' funding. The Navy is reportedly considering renaming aircraft carrier CVN-81 — approved during Trump's first term as the USS Doris Miller, honoring the Black Pearl Harbor hero — to potentially bear Donald Trump's name instead. Trump's executive order last week on naval shipbuilding referred to the vessel only by hull number, never as the USS Miller. The Miller family learned of the potential change from CNN, not the Navy. Great-nephew Thomas Bledsoe called it "quite a shock," adding: "It's about what it means to be an American and it's also about how we as a community can grow as one." Chief Justice John Roberts allowed construction on Trump's $400 million White House ballroom to continue, issuing a one-page order with no reasoning as the Supreme Court considers the administration's emergency request. Lower courts had halted the project, ruling it requires congressional approval. The administration claims national security necessity — a justification Trump did not invoke when first announcing the ballroom. Originally promised as privately funded, the project was revealed in June to have quietly redirected $352 million in federal funds designated for the Secret Service, after Congress explicitly refused to provide $1 billion for it. Five migrants who resisted deportation to Liberia were told they would be returned to the US but were instead flown to Equatorial Guinea and forced to disembark against their will. The group — three Cuban men, one Brazilian man, and one Cameroonian woman — are now held with more than 30 other migrants previously sent there under a Trump administration deal. These are third-country deportees who, in most cases, have obtained legal protection after US immigration judges ruled they risked torture or abuse in their home countries. The UN issued a rare public appeal in May urging Equatorial Guinea to halt repatriations. Senator Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican and cattle rancher, publicly opposed Trump's plan to allow 300,000 metric tonnes of imported ground beef, warning it would harm American ranchers — "most of whom are MAGA Republicans" — who are already struggling against the packer monopoly and the Mexican screwworm outbreak. The intra-coalition crack is notable: Sheehy framed his dissent as loyalty to Trump's base rather than opposition to Trump himself. With midterms less than three months away, voters are tracking grocery prices, the Iran war, and — unexpectedly — datacenters, as AI backlash enters the electoral conversation. Historian Jill Lepore discussed whether this marks the beginning of the end of the "artificial state." The convergence of military overextension, institutional capture, spending circumvention, and deportation-by-deception forms a coherent pattern: executive power expanding into every institutional gap it can find, with accountability mechanisms being neutralized one by one.
