1. In a blow to President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said his administration cannot enforce a new policy that restricts treatment for transgender inmates in federal prison. The court order included no explanation, saying only that two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, would have granted it. There are about 1,000 transgender inmates in federal custody.
2. Claims of widespread voter fraud by the Trump Administration in California have unraveled. The Trump DOJ announced charges against 28 people, far fewer than the revised 20,000 claimed the week prior. But during the press conference, some shocking admissions were made by Trump DOJ officials: that there may be U.S. citizens mistakenly on their list of 20,000 of suspected “illegal” voters. The arrests amount to “voter intimidation and a blatant attempt to undermine trust in our midterm elections,” said Janice Hahn, she serves on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
3. NFL Team Owner Arthur Blank of the Atalanta Falcons donated 1 million dollars to the Trevor Project a leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit organization for LGBTQ+ young people. Blank made the donation in honor of Carl Nassib, the first active NFL player to publicly come out as gay and play in a game, even though Nassib was never a Falcon!
4. Raffi, the children's musical entertainer has has a track on his new album ABC Democracy. The kids love it and it sparks a conversation with their parents learning about their civic duties from a very young ago.
5. The ACLU is challenging the DOJ's attempt to preemptively block Alaska from certifying their election results if president Trump's preferred candidate does not win. The Trump administration doesn't get to reject election results it doesn't like.
6. Federal Court block's Kennedy's vaccine changes, invalidates vaccine advisory panel.
7. In election results from around the globe — At almost 81, Lula has secured an unprecedented fourth non-consecutive term in office. He previously served as Brazil's president from 2003 to 2011. Bolsonaro had long held a narrow lead in the polls and won the first round with 47 per cent of the vote. Lula's victory means Brazil will not join a right-wing wave in Latin America backed by US president Donald Trump. And in Serbia on Sunday evening, former president Aleksandar Vučić acknowledged his Serbian Progressive Party's (SNS) defeat in the snap parliamentary elections. Initial projections suggest the "Student List" will win with an overwhelming majority. A clear win for Democracy.
1. U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon ordered the administration to cancel taxpayer-funded TV ads.
2. District court judge Timothy Kelly extended White House access to banned media outlets CNN, MS Now, and Politico. Now they all have the right to listen to the musings of new press secretary, lawyer (or is that liar?), Katie Zacharia…NEVER MIND
3. As of last Thursday, when sign-ups closed, over 3,000 No Kings events were registered around the world, making it “the largest early vote event in American history,” according to Indivisible co-founder, Ezra Levin.
4. Howard Buffett, Warren Buffett’s middle son, has personally visited Ukraine since the start of the war 27 times. His foundation is the largest private donor to Ukraine: $1.4 billion.
5. Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb’s homelessness program has housed 225 people and closed 77 campsites since launching in July 2024.
6. Go, team! Research at the Harvard Kennedy School suggests that sports might be the last remaining American cultural institution that spans our political divides. “Across a series of national surveys of 50,674 Americans, we found that every fan base in Major League Baseball, the National Football League and top college football programs remains politically diverse. Our team allegiances bring us into contact with people from ‘the other side’ to cheer together in common cause. We high-five each other along the way.” A related study uncovered that with the exception of airports, the most politically integrated public spaces in American life are sports stadiums.
7. The Pentagon’s plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of the Fort Hood shooter has been cancelled.
1. A federal court just blocked the Justice Department's efforts to seize access to sensitive voter data nationwide.
2. The USS Abraham Lincoln Is Finally Home! After 321 days at sea, the sailors are finally holding their families.
3. Good Morning America and ESPN have teamed up to raise $10 million for pediatric cancer research. The joint campaign, called The Victory Challenge, is raising money through The V Foundation, the cancer research charity founded in honor of legendary coach Jim Valvano.
4. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Navi Pillay, a South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief. When she learned of the award she responded, "You work in far away distant places quietly and you don't think that the world is actually paying attention. I know that it is a personal award but for me mainly it's for all the institutions I served on, all the people I worked with. I am totally surprised and deeply honored". The committee said they want to send a message that all the judges, all the institutions that are upholding the rule of law are worthy of our support. We need to strengthen international law to make sure the world is going in a more peaceful direction.
5. More than one million public comments were submitted in opposition to the Trump administration’s proposed repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, demonstrating overwhelming public support for protecting some of the nation’s most treasured national forests.
6. Residents of Kentucky’s most populous county will be able to cast their ballot on Election Day without leaving their car for the first time ever.
7. In a win for voters, a Kansas appeals court denied the state’s latest request to revive a GOP-backed law that would throw out mail-in ballots received after Election Day, even if they were cast on time.
8. Virginia’s new Clean Slate law means that thousands of misdemeanor offenses will be automatically sealed to help residents move forward with employment or loan opportunities.
9. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to immediately pull a slate of taxpayer-funded pro-Trump ads that have been running on national television for two weeks.
10. According to Tom Bonier, 23 days out from election day, the most notable trend emerging from the early vote is large turnout increases among voters of color relative to the same point in time in both 2022 and 2024. In fact, in every state reporting thus far the white vote share is lower than '22/'24.
1. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has no right to Georgia’s unredacted statewide voter registration list, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, delivering the department’s 26th straight loss in its effort to obtain sensitive voting records.
2. The Cook Report shifted 15 House races towards Democrats this week. They predict Democrats will retake the House in the midterms.
3. The California Supreme Court ruled that Sherriff Chad Bianco had violated the law during a primary ballot seizure, and ordered him to return the 650,000 ballots. The ruling affirms state power over local law enforcement.
4. Rep Jamie Raskin released this message: “Judge Edelman just permanently (“with prejudice”) dismissed the farcical charges brought against my wonderful constituent Davey Hearn. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro never had any evidence against Davey, a three-time Olympian who has taught generations of my constituents canoeing, kayaking and how not to spend $15 million of taxpayer money turning your swimming pool into an algae farm. Trump’s prosecutorial deflecting pool picked Davey as a scapegoat for Trump's Mar-a-Lago pool guy’s “rushed and botched” installation job of a new Royal hue in America’s Reflecting Pool, now known throughout the DMV as the "Strait of Warm Ooze."
5. NBC and Universal’s “Clear the Shelters” campaign helped 135,000 shelter pets find homes this summer while raising $480,000 for more than 1,000 participating animal shelters.
6. After shortchanging hundreds of thousands of workers for years and violating NYC’s Minimum Pay Rate law, DoorDash is settling with the city for $131.5 million, over $115 million of which will go straight to workers. This is a win for corporate accountability and workers’ rights. It’s also a win for immigrant communities, who make up much of the food delivery work force.
1. Governor Newsom issued an executive order directing actions to address the dangers of recent AI incidents. The order establishes first-in-the-nation independent oversight of AI companies and safety checks and advances the creation of an “AI kill switch.”
2. By a 12-point margin, registered voters say they would prefer to elect a Democrat to Congress, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.
3. The Iowa Farmers Union endorsed Democrats in all federal elections.
4. The California Supreme Court ordered a county sheriff, Chad Bianco, to return about 650,000 ballots he seized from election officials as part of an investigation into voter fraud that state officials said had no basis in fact.
5. Germany just became the third major economy to commit to phasing out fossil fuels entirely, in their case by 2045.
6. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the city had planted more than 18,000 trees, the most in a single year in a decade, with most of the trees planted in neighborhoods vulnerable to extreme heat.
7. Democratic attorneys general from California and New York sued the Trump administration over its plans to buy back offshore wind leases as Trump seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels.
8. Seattle banned surveillance pricing in grocery stores to ensure prices are the same for all customers.
9. The Cook Political Report moved 15 House races toward Democrats.
10. 550,000 people registered or updated their voter registration as a result of National Voter Registration Day.
1. After a period of much chaos and confusion, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Missouri Supreme Court issued decisive rulings that restored the state's 2022 congressional map and solidified key measures for the upcoming November 3, 2026 general election ballot.
2. In a major win for voters, the Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to reinstate its mail voting restrictions ahead of November’s pivotal midterm elections.
3. Salt Lake County Clerk Lannie Chapman said she plans to add secure drop boxes and polling places in response to uncertainty around this year's election.
4. San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder is co-sponsoring legislation that would put a moratorium on new data centers in San Francisco – right in the heartland of the AI industry.
5. Seven House Republicans broke ranks with the administration to yield a 220 – 204 bipartisan call to end military action and limit the president’s war powers in Iran. It was the third time a chamber of the Republican-controlled Congress issued this kind of rebuke.
6. U.S. District Judge George O’Toole barred the administration from posing a loyalty question on federal job applications, directing agencies to remove the question from all hiring announcements.
1. A woman's daily porch affirmations are lifting spirits across the internet. Maureen Fitzgerald, a 63-year-old federal government employee from the Hartford, Connecticut area, has been posting daily morning affirmations from her porch with a cup of coffee since July 16, encouraging viewers with lines like, "Every morning, tell yourself it's going to be a good day. Remember, positivity attracts positivity.
2. Ford’s largest factory grows a “living roof” that’s boosting birds and cutting energy use. Ford installed a 454,000 square foot “living roof” made of drought resistant sedum and wild plants atop the final assembly building at its massive Rouge Factory in Dearborn.
3. Battered by energy shocks, private Pakistani investment in rooftop solar panels has skyrocketed to the point that they now contribute one-fifth of the total national power supply.
4. On Governor’s Island in New York City, a nonprofit is turning wasted oyster shells into new oyster reefs that filter pollutants from the harbor, absorb wave energy, and supply the city’s restaurant industry.Called the Billion Oyster Project, the objective is to restore some 100 acres of lost, historic oyster reefs using the waste streams from dozens of partner restaurants.
5. Municipal governments around the country are ending their association with Flock Safety, a company that has cloaked the streets of the nation in surveillance cameras that automatically read license plates using AI. In August alone, 93 US jurisdictions ended their contracts with Flock.
1. The Save America Movement announced that it’s putting hundreds of trained volunteers at polling places this fall. The group plans to focus on battleground states with competitive statewide races including Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Ohio—starting with the 20 highest-turnout minority precincts around Atlanta, Detroit, Charlotte, and Cleveland. The program goes from early voting through Election Day.
2. North Carolina began sending out mail-in ballots on Friday, a key milestone as the US Supreme Court weighs whether to intervene in a legal fight that could help determine control of Congress after the November election
3. Nationally the registration rate for 18-year-olds is 43.2%, up 6.7 percentage points compared to the same point in the 2022 midterms. The increase in registration applies to all 18-year-olds, not only to those who have registered as Democrats. But as a matter of empirical fact, younger voters tend to vote for Democrats more than any other age cohort.
4. Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, veteran lawmaker Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) emphatically urged expanding seats on the Supreme Court from 9 to 13 justices. “A baker’s dozen would be a good number to have on the court."
5. According to a recent Gallup poll, Americans’ perceptions of government corruption in the U.S. are at their highest level in 20 years, with 89% of U.S. adults saying it is widespread. That figure is up 10 percentage points from last year and well above readings in the 72% to 79% range between 2010 and 2025.
1. Everton Blair is the first openly gay man to be elected to Congress and the South’s first openly gay Black member of Congress. He just won a special election in GA-13, defeating Marcye Scott, daughter of the late congressman he is replacing, 53%–47%—a historic victory on multiple fronts.
2. A federal court just blocked an Ohio law that made it harder for Ohioans to register to vote, after Red Wine and Blue, a pro democracy advocacy group comprised of over a half a million diverse suburban women, sued the state to challenge it.
3. A federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan has ruled that Texas’ ban on drag shows is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment. In his ruling he cited Dolly Parton, during her lifetime Dolly was a strong advocate for the LGBTQ community. In is opinion, the judge said, "If you're offended, just don't go."
4. A federal appeals court rejected the Trump administrations effort to seize the medical records of a transgender youth in NYC. This is a victory to protect everyone's right to privacy — ACLU.
5. A federal court granted the ACLU emergency request to block USPS from granting President Trump's order to restrict mail-in voting for the November election.
6. A visit to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in the season four premiere of “Ted Lasso” has driven a 5,000% surge in Google searches for the museum and legendary players like Satchel Paige.
7. The FDA approves a drug poised to transform care for pancreatic cancer.
8. There are good people out there. Royal Cothrun, 14, pulled his bike over when he saw a woman who appeared to be struggling on the side of the road in Arizona. He walked with her into the shade. As they talked, her words became harder to follow. Royal was able to get in contact with the woman’s son, who later called paramedics and got her to safety. Royal said he didn’t expect any recognition for saving a woman who was overheating. “I honestly just thought she was in need, so I helped her.”
1. Democrat Brandon Dukes flipped a PA State Senate seat in a special election last week. The district voted for Trump by an 18-point margin in 2024.
2. Florida Senate Democrat nominee Angie Nixon beat a better funded and well known candidate for a chance to take on Sen. Ashley Moody(R) in November. Nixon relied heavily on grassroots organizing to overcome the funding disadvantage.
3. French energy giant TotalEnergies has switched on the Hydra Project in South Africa’s Northern Cape, Africa’s largest hybrid renewable energy and storage plant.
4. Johns Hopkins researchers report the first-in-human demonstration of a drug designed to prevent pancreatic cancer in people with mutant KRAS, a high-risk gene present in most pancreatic cancers and precancerous lesions, by training the immune system to recognize and destroy mutated cells before they turn cancerous.
5. On Wednesday, the Little League World Series returned to Williamsport, Pennsylvania with twenty teams, ten from across America and ten around the world. The International Grove, a little village of dorms is designed to have the teams of 12 year olds share their experience with kids from other parts of the world. No parents in the rooms. No public allowed. Just kids.
1. In Shasta County, California, they passed something called Measure B to get rid of voting by mail—and erase the county’s voter list, forcing all 116,000 people to re-register three months before Election Day. The state sued, and a judge blocked it. Nobody has to re-register. Nobody loses their ballot.
2. Trump tried to use the Postal Service to destroy mail-in voting. Judge Indira Talwani had already blocked it in twenty-three states and DC, and this week she blocked it nationwide. She wrote that with less than 90 days to the election, voters need to know how they can vote.
3. A federal court issued preliminary orders blocking the Trump-Vance administration from enforcing sweeping ideological restrictions on health, housing, and safety grants administered by agencies like HHS, HUD, and the Department of Justice. The ruling protects federal funding for organizations serving domestic violence survivors, LGBTQI+ youth, and unhoused communities.
1. In Shasta County, California, they passed something called Measure B to get rid of voting by mail—and erase the county’s voter list, forcing all 116,000 people to re-register three months before Election Day. The state sued, and a judge blocked it. Nobody has to re-register. Nobody loses their ballot.
2. Trump tried to use the Postal Service to destroy mail-in voting. Judge Indira Talwani had already blocked it in twenty-three states and DC, and this week she blocked it nationwide. She wrote that with less than 90 days to the election, voters need to know how they can vote.
3. A federal court issued preliminary orders blocking the Trump-Vance administration from enforcing sweeping ideological restrictions on health, housing, and safety grants administered by agencies like HHS, HUD, and the Department of Justice. The ruling protects federal funding for organizations serving domestic violence survivors, LGBTQI+ youth, and unhoused communities.
1. On Monday, a federal judge blocked the administration’s ban on nonpartisan groups helping newly naturalized U.S. citizens register to vote. – finding the ban was likely driven by intentional discrimination against new citizens. Among the plaintiffs were the League of Women Voters and the National Council of Jewish Women.
2. The U.S. Dept of Justice was 0 for 20 on Tuesday after U.S. District Judge Philip Brimmer, a President George W. Bush appointee, dismissed the administration’s attempt to garner the state’s voter rolls. Of the 20 voter roll rulings to go against DOJ, 12 have come from judges appointed by Republican presidents; 8 of those 12 judges were appointed by the current president.
3. On Thursday, the DOJ went to 0-21, as a federal judge dismissed the administration’s request for Washington, D.C. voter rolls.
4. A Washington Post analysis found that, so far, in 2026, turnout has been rising in Democratic primaries even when they are not hotly contested.
5. About 1.5 million voters cast ballots in the Democratic primary for governor in Michigan, compared with 930,000 in the Republican primary as of midday Wednesday. The Democratic senatorial primary was similarly “huge,” according to The Detroit Free Press, with more than 1.5.million ballots cast, a record high for a state summer primary election.
6. Justin J. Pearson, who rose to prominence as one of the “Tennessee Three” after being expelled and then reinstated to the Tennessee General Assembly for a gun control protest in 2023, won the primary to become the Democratic nominee for Tennessee’s redrawn 9th Congressional District in the U.S. House.
7. Also in Tennessee, Knox County Democrats flipped the make-up of the school board, securing a 5-4 majority.
8. After being erroneously deported to Honduras, 21-year-old Jose Martinez-Andino awaits clearance at a U.S.Embassy to board an ICE return flight.
9. The so-called Clarity Act – which moves regulation authority over the crypto industry from the SEC, the strongest financial regulatory agency on the planet, to a much weaker agency – stalled on Friday as Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced that Republicans don’t have the votes to pass it before the Senate recess.
1. Attorney General Letitia James and a coalition of 11 other attorneys general secured a months long halt to Paramount Skydance Corp.'s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. James said, from the workers and artists who bring stories to life to the families who buy tickets at the box office, Paramounts illegal takeover of Warner Bros. is a bad deal for all those who count on a competitive
entertainment industry.
2. In another win for our democracy, a federal court shut down the Trump administration's unlawful attempt to seize Kentucky voters' sensitive information. The DOJ is now 0 for 17 in voter file grab attempts across the country.
3. Trump appointed Eric Tostrud to the federal bench. On Monday, Tostrud dismissed the Administration's lawsuit against Minnesota and several local governments seeking to force them to enforce its immigration policies. The ruling leaves Attorney General Keith Ellison's limits on state police cooperation with ICE in place, affirming that those officers answer to the state, not the White House.
4. Peter Navarro defied a Jan 6 subpoena and served four months in federal prison for it. The DOJ refused to defend the conviction, so Navarro's lawyer argued the appeal with nobody on the other side. Three judges upheld it Tuesday. The privilege he hid behind was never his to take.
5. Seventeen people were supposed to walk out of immigration detention in Nevada, but ICE kept the doors shut for months. Judge Richard Boulware wrote that the government was rebelling against the basic rule that courts get obeyed. He put sanctions on the table. Fifteen of those detainees are now free.
6. For years, Kansas gave mail ballots a few extra days to arrive, so votes stuck in the mail still counted. Last year, Republicans took those days away. This month, weeks before the August primary, Judge Carl Folsom put them back. Without this ruling thousands of ballots would be thrown out.
7. Ohio's environmental agency wanted to let data centers dump wastewater into rivers, streams, and Lake Erie. That water can carry PFAS, forever chemicals that never break down. Seven thousand people wrote in against it, and the agency backed off. Those every day people did the job lobbyists get paid to do.
8. Arizona Republican Jeff Weninger already represented Chandler and the state capitol, so winning it's mayor's race should have been easy. Instead he lost by 17 points to Matt Orlando, a retired Air Force colonel backed by local Democrats. Weninger had given up his statehouse seat to run. Now he has neither.
1) Strong resistance against redistricting which would dilute Black voters’ power has succeeded in Georgia. Republican state leadership told Gov. Kemp that they will not consider redistricting without further study.
2) A federal judge in Massachusetts said Democratic state attorneys general and pro-voting organizations can continue their bid to block Trump's anti-voting executive order before the midterms. The judge said that if the order is implemented, it will directly harm states’ ability to carry out elections this November.
3) MAGA Rep. Mike Collins won The Republican runoff for Senate in Georgia last week. The total republican vote was 10% less than the vote for Jon Ossoff in the Democratic primary.
4) Melinda French Gates is pledging $215 million to women’s health--specifically, expanding contraceptive access, maternal care, and menopause research globally, pushing her total investment in women’s health past $600 million over the past two years.
5) An experimental personalized skin cancer vaccine lowered the risk of melanoma returning or causing death by 49% after five years when used in combination with immunotherapy. The vaccine still has a while to go through clinical trials, but this is welcome news given the increasing skin cancer rates.
6) The FDA approved inhaled insulin (Afrezza) for children ages 6 and older with diabetes. This is the first needle-free insulin option for pediatric patients in over 100 years.
1. Thanks to the ruling of a federal judge, and despite a last-minute attempt to appeal the ruling, the current U.S. president’s name has been removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. This includes signage, the website, and all center materials.
2. Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema on Friday blocked in no uncertain terms the $1.8 billion fund to compensate January 6th rioters, by requiring a written declaration within one week’s time, signed under penalty of perjury, by both acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, that there would be no fund going forward.
3. A 2-stage clinical trial testing a new HIV-prevention drug administered via injections, has shown unimaginably positive results, with a 99.9% reduction in infection rates. The drug, Lenacapavir, was administered to 5,000 participants over a wide geographical area.
4. The California Department of Justice has launched the Affordability Response Team, a group of legal experts dedicated to investigating and going after the unlawful practices that are bringing up costs. As California Attorney General Rob Bonta put it, “Our goal is to put more money back in [Californians’] pockets.”
5. According to a study conducted by Circle/When We All Vote, and reported by Field Team 6, 56% of youth (ages 18 – 29) said they are “extremely likely” to vote in the upcoming midterms. In the 2018 “Blue Wave” midterms, the number was 34%! 68% of those extremely likely voters identified as Democrats, compared to 49% who identified as Republicans.
6. Yesterday, June 14th, we celebrated Flag Day, commemorating the adoption of the flag on that date in 1777 with the passage of the first Flag Act by the Continental Congress. Any coincidence of that date with someone’s birthday who represents everything counter to the freedom, justice, and opportunity symbolized by our flag is strictly an unfortunate twist of fate.
1. In California election results— Democrat Xavier Becerra will advance to the general election for Governor. Dems avoided being shut out, phew! Nithya Raman overtakes Spencer Pratt for second place in the LA mayoral race.
2. Federal Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island ruled that Trump officials must restart asylum and immigration processing.
3. Trump's 1.8 Billion dollar anti-weaponization fund is dead
4. Billionaire Connie Ballmer (wife of Steve Ballmer former Microsoft CEO and owner of the Los Angeles Clippers) donated 80 million dollars to NPR following Trump cutting 1.1 Billion dollars from public broadcasting.
5. The South Carolina Senate effectively killed an effort to redraw the state’s congressional lines to eliminate longtime Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn’s seat in Congress, stalling out an effort by President Donald Trump’s White House to redraw the state’s seven seats to benefit Republicans. One dozen Republicans, including several staunch conservative members of the conference, joined ten of their Democratic colleagues on a procedural motion to kill the bill.
6. Senate blocks GOP push to sneak the SAVE Act into the Immigration Funding Bill. Republicans who joined Democrats were: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, and Thom Tillis.
1. Two Federal Judges delivered blows to the President on Friday. Judge Christopher Cooper determined that the decision to add Trump's name to the Kennedy Center was illegal, and ordered the administration to remove his name within two weeks. Judge Kathleen Williams will review the Trump administration $1.8 Billion "weaponization fund" in a response to a motion brought by 35 former federal judges. The former Federal Judges urged Williams to dig into the details of the original lawsuit brought for $10 Billion which Trump filed against the IRS.
2. Republicans in South Carolina rejected Trump's efforts to gerrymander districts before the November elections.
3. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a ban on assault weapons and ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.
4. Brazil's Atlantic Forest, the country's most threatened biome recorded it's lowest level of deforestation since monitoring began 40 years ago.
5. South Korea just deployed a new ferry that purifies the water while people ride. Eco-Bot is a solar powered boat that uses AI to clean floating pollutants.