U.S.

Feb. 13 (UPI) — The Department of Homeland Security will shut down indefinitely at 12:01 a.m. EST Saturday after Senate Democrats opposed a bipartisan fiscal year 2026 budget .

Congress is taking a weeklong break next week, so no action is likely until at least Feb. 23.

While Congress is on break, some congressional lawmakers are planning to attend a security conference in Munich, Germany, while most others are returning to their home districts for the week.

“We are not even going to pretend that we are trying to figure it out,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told The New York Times.

She is among the federal lawmakers who are expected to make the trip to Munich next week.

“It doesn’t look great,” Murkowski said of the apparent ease with which the Senate allowed the pending shutdown to occur without doing more to overcome their differences.

The Senate voted 52-47 in favor of the department’s House-approved funding on Thursday, but the measure required 60 votes to overcome the Senate filibuster rule. Instead of returning for another go on Friday, lawmakers left the Capital.

The only Senate Democrat to support the department’s funding was Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. Senate Republican leader John Thune of South Dakota changed his vote to “no” to make it possible for the measure to be reconsidered quickly when the Senate resumes session.

Congressional Democrats have called for defunding the department after the recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge in Minneapolis that resulted in the deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January.

They are demanding that all immigration enforcement officers end broad sweeps, wear body cameras, remove their masks and use more judicial warrants instead of administrative warrants when undertaking targeted arrests, among other demands.

Border czar Tom Homan on Thursday said the surge has ended and most of the federal officers are leaving Minneapolis.

ICE and Customs and Border Protection will remain on duty amid the pending shutdown due to receiving three years of full funding in the recently One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, but Homeland Security’s remaining funding ends Friday.

The Department of Homeland Security shutdown affects the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Science and Technology Directorate, Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes visa applications.

It also affects the Coast Guard, Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Feb. 13 (UPI) — The U.S. military is sending the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, to the Middle East as tensions with Tehran over its nuclear program ratchet up, President Donald Trump confirmed Friday.

Trump told reporters he’s sending the vessel because if the United States and Iran doesn’t “make a deal, we’ll need it,” The Hill reported.

The vessel and its supporting warships, which are in the Caribbean, will join the USS Abraham Lincoln in a trek that’s expected to take about three to four weeks, The Guardian reported.

“We have an armada that is heading there and another one might be going,” Trump said in an interview with Axios on Tuesday.

An unnamed official said Trump made the decision to send the USS Gerald R. Ford to the Middle East after his Thursday meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The U.S. Southern Command said in a statement to The Hill that it was carrying out “mission-focused operations to counter illicit activities and malign actors in the Western Hemisphere.”

“While force posture evolves, our operational capability does not. SOUTHCOM forces remain fully ready to project power, defend themselves, and protect U.S. interests in the region.”

U.S. and Iranian leaders have been involved in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear arms program. Tehran has shown willingness to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of economic sanctions, but has declined to consider requests to scale back its ballistic missile arsenal.

Feb. 13 (UPI) — A grand jury on Friday indicted Terrell Storey for murder and on 58 other charges after allegedly causing the deaths of two troopers when their police helicopter crashed in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Storey, 50, faces two counts of first-degree felony murder and 58 other felony charges in the Coconino County Superior Court arising from the deaths of Department of Public Safety trooper and paramedic Hunter Bennett and DPS helicopter pilot Robert Skankey.

“Our hearts remain with the families of Hunter Bennett and Robert Skankey, and with all the families impacted by this incident,” Coconino County attorney Ammon Barker said in a prepared statement.

“We are committed to pursuing this case with the diligence and care it requires,” Barker added.

Storey is accused of using a rifle to shoot at the helicopter while he jumped from rooftop to rooftop and exchanged gunfire with local police.

Skankey and Bennett died when their police helicopter crashed while assisting Flagstaff police in responding to an active shooter on the night of Feb. 4.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating the cause of the crash and a fire that broke out after the helicopter struck the ground.

Storey also faces charges related to several other alleged victims, including 25 police officers and the residents of several homes in a neighborhood that is located north of Route 66 and between Thompson Road and Mark Lane.

The incident started at about 8:30 p.m. MST and continued for 2 hours before Storey was shot and arrested.

Feb. 13 (UPI) — All four people aboard a single-engine aircraft died when it crashed shortly after midnight local time on Friday in a remote location on the southern side of Emerald Mountain near Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Routt County Sheriff Doug Scherar confirmed their deaths in a prepared statement shared with The Denver Post.

“All four victims have been recovered from the scene, and the Routt County Coroner’s Office is working to notify their families today,” Sherar said.

The Epic Aircraft E1000 in which the four were flying is a high-end turboprop aircraft that is owned by ALC Aviation LLC in Franklin, Tenn., which bought the plane in 2024.

The aircraft crashed at 12:20 a.m. while approaching the Steamboat Springs Airport, and the crash site was located near the top of Emerald Mountain, which is 8,252 feet tall.

Franklin is about 20 miles south of Nashville and is home to many country music stars and other celebrities. The flight originated in Nashville and made a stop in Kansas City before proceeding to Steamboat Springs.

The names of the deceased have not been released pending notification of their next of kin.

The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the plane crash.

Feb. 13 (UPI) — Amazon-owned Ring announced it is ending its partnership with Flock Safety, a company whose artificial intelligence-powered technology came into question after a Ring Super Bowl ad touting new surveillance features.

In a blog post published Thursday, Ring said the two companies “made the joint decision to cancel the planned integration” they initially announced in October.

“Following a comprehensive review, we determined the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated,” the Ring post read.

Ring’s surveillance camera capabilities came under fire Sunday after the company aired a 30-second commercial highlighting its new Search Party feature.

The feature allows users to upload images of their missing pets to the Ring Neighbors app, which would then use AI to trawl footage in the cloud to find the missing pet. If a missing pet is spotted in the footage, the information would be sent to the owner of the camera that picked up the footage and give them the option to notify the missing pet’s owners.

Ring said the Search Party feature is automatically enabled on all outdoor cameras enrolled in a Ring subscription. But critics questioned whether the AI technology could be combined with Ring’s new facial recognition technology, Familiar Faces, and provide law enforcement surveillance on humans.

Of additional concern, Flock Safety’s technology allows customers to grant local and federal government agencies access to the data picked up by the cameras. Among the organizations that could have access to this data are Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Secret Service and the Navy.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., in November called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Flock Security for allowing government access to the data without “meaningful privacy protections.”

“At the urging of concerned constituents, I conducted further oversight and have determined that Flock cannot live up to its commitment to protect the privacy and security of Oregonians,” Wyden wrote in a letter to the FTC. “Abuse of Flock cameras is inevitable, and Flock has made it clear it takes no responsibility to prevent or detect that.”

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Ma., who has previously criticized Ring’s connections to law enforcement, posted his thoughts on the Super Bowl ad on X.

“This definitely isn’t about dogs — it’s about mass surveillance,” he wrote.

Emma Daniels, a spokeswoman for Ring, told The Verge, that the Search Party feature works only with dogs and is “not capable of processing human biometrics.”

“These are not tools for mass surveillance,” she added. “We build the right guardrails, and we’re super transparent about them.”

In a January blog post, Flock Safety maintained that it doesn’t work directly with ICE or other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security. The company said every piece of data collected by its technology is owned by the customers.

“Decisions about whether, when, and how data is shared are made by the customer that owns the data, not by Flock,” the post read. “There is no hidden back-door access in Flock technology.

“If a local agency chooses not to collaborate with any federal entity, including ICE, Flock has no ability to override that decision.”

MILAN — Brock Nelson might be making his Olympics debut, but he has a rich family history when it comes to playing hockey for Team USA.

His grandfather was a forward on the team that won gold in 1960. His uncle was a forward on the “Miracle on Ice” team in 1980.

And Thursday night, Nelson made a mark of his own. The Colorado Avalanche forward scored two goals to lead the U.S. to a 5-1 victory over Latvia in an opening game that included some of the best American NHL players.

“It’s pretty crazy,” said Nelson, 34, considered the old man on a team filled with some of the game’s brightest young stars. “It’s just an unbelievable experience. I’m trying to soak it all in.”

The Americans had to show resilience after two of their goals were wiped out in the first period by successful challenges. It’s rare to have two such reversals in a game, exceedingly rare to have two in the same period.

“Yeah, that was frustrating,” said defenseman Zach Werenski, who plays for the Columbus Blue Jackets. “But at the same time, you’re still getting the goals even though they got overturned. You’re doing the work to put the puck in the net, and I think that helps your confidence a little bit. After they get overturned, you’ve just got to put it out of your mind and continue to play the same way.”

Latvia was competitive early, forging a 1-1 tie in the first period, but eventually fell prey to a U.S. barrage. The Americans outshot them, 38-18, and goaltender Connor Hellebuyck needed to make only 17 saves.

Brothers Brady Tkachuk, left, and Matthew Tkachuk after the U.S. scored the first goal of the game against Latvia.

(Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)

“It was just 1-1 but there was never any panic,” said forward Matthew Tkachuk, the Florida Panthers winger. “From the second period on, we just wanted to make sure someone was at the net at all times. They were playing pretty tight, but with the skill and puck possession and strength that we have, we knew we were going to win some battles.”

Nelson, who said he takes a ribbing from his young teammates for his graying hair, has a rich family history when it comes to Olympic hockey. His grandfather, Bill Christian, won gold at the Games in Squaw Valley — now called Olympic Valley — and his uncle, Dave Christian, was on that championship team in Lake Placid.

“My brother came in today,” said Nelson, raised in Minneapolis. “He brought me a couple pins from back home, from ‘Hockeytown,’ and a couple letters from the youth team. They’ve always been supportive of me, going back to growing up there. I’m forever grateful for that.”

The U.S. team features brothers Matthew and Brady Tkachuk, and Quinn and Jack Hughes — all NHL players. It has been 12 years since NHL players last took the Olympic stage.

“To make this roster is extremely difficult when you look at the amount of talent that the United States has developed and can play at this level,” said coach Mike Sullivan, who doubles as coach of the New York Rangers.

The fans were fairly evenly divided, with every “U-S-A” chant countered with one for “LAT-VI-A.”

“It was great to see the flags, the chants, and just the support that you have here,” said U.S. forward Brady Tkachuk, who was raised in a suburb of St. Louis and plays for the Ottawa Senators. “I’m just kind of a little example of the support you have back at home. So you’re playing in front of millions of millions of Americans, and you just want to represent them well, and it’s always an honor to put this jersey on.”

Feb. 13 (UPI) — Two people are dead and a third is wounded following a shooting on the campus of South Carolina State University, officials said.

The shooting occurred Thursday night in an apartment at the Hugine Suites student residential complex on the university’s campus in Orangeburg, located about 75 miles northwest of Charleston.

The university issued a campus lockdown at about 9:15 p.m., according to officials, who said in a statement that they have asked the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to investigate.

SLED investigators are on site and investigating the crime, the university said.

Little information about the shooting was immediately available.

“Stop what you’re doing and pray,” Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said in a statement posted to her personal X account following reports of the shooting.

“Join us in prayer for the students, staff and their families. God bless our brave law enforcement responding tonight.”

The identities of the victims have yet to be confirmed, the school said.

As of early Friday, the campus remained on lockdown.

School officials said Friday’s classes were canceled and counselors would be made available to students.

The shooting is the latest at the school since Oct. 4, when one person was killed and a second person was wounded in separate shootings on the historically Black university’s Orangeburg campus.

The deceased victim from one of the October shootings was identified as 19-year-old Jaliyah Butler.

Feb. 12 (UPI) — A group of two dozen Buddhist monks completed a barefoot, 2,300-mile Walk of Peace across the United States at the Maryland State House in Annapolis on Thursday.

The monks conducted a much shorter walk of 1.5 miles on Thursday, from the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis to the State House, where a crowd of about 6,000 awaited them.

Theravada Buddhist monk Venerable Bhikkhu Paññākāra told the crowd: “Today is going to be my peaceful day.” The crowd repeated the words back at the monk’s urging.

“Peace is always with us,” Paññākāra continued. “It’s been with us, never left us, never leaves us,” he said, as reported by WMAR.

“We are way too busy chasing,” he added. “So, now, all we need to do is just slow down.”

Paññākāra said it’s important to do more than simply call for peace.

“Without practicing mindfulness, peace is just a saying,” Paññākāra said: “Peace is just a word. It will never happen.”

He said peace only happens when people make it happen.

“Don’t expect anybody to bring peace to us,” the monk said. “It will never happen, either.”

The monks initially did not plan to walk to Maryland’s Capitol building but agreed to do so after receiving an invitation from state officials.

Maryland Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller welcomed the monks after they had walked across 10 states and the nation’s capital, ending their march to promote global peace at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Tuesday after walking for 109 days.

“Your walk is a reminder that peace and compassion begin within each of us every single day, one step at a time, one person at a time, one being at a time,” Miller told the monks.

Among the thousands who attended the gathering, Shannon Shea of Silver Spring, Md., who has followed the monks since their Walk of Peace began on Oct. 26 in Fort Worth, Texas, and estimated that she saw them 10 times.

Paññākāra’s words differed at each stop, but his message remained the same.

“It’s all about you, how you react to everything. It’s not what people do to you, it’s how you react to what they do,” Shea said.

“And that message has been clear over and over again,” she added. “It’s just been amazing.”

The monks initially intended to walk back to Fort Worth, but they agreed to take a bus so that they could return in time to participate in a special event.

Feb. 12 (UPI) — The Department of Homeland Security likely will shut down early Saturday after Senate Democrats blocked a funding bill Thursday.

The Senate voted 52-47 to approve House Resolution 7147, which would have funded the department through Sept. 30. The House narrowly approved the measure Wednesday.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., was the only Senate Democrat to vote in favor of the funding measure, which failed to muster the 60 votes needed to overcome the Senate’s filibuster rule.

Senate Republican leader John Thune of South Dakota voted against the measure to keep open a procedural mechanism that would enable the Senate to quickly revisit the measure in a floor vote.

During floor debate, Thune said the House and Senate three weeks ago reached a bipartisan agreement that would fund Homeland Security for the remainder of the 2026 fiscal year that started Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 30.

That agreement included requiring federal immigration enforcement officers to wear body cams and cease enforcement sweeps in favor of more targeted operations.

“It included funding for de-escalation training for ICE, and it included additional oversight for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol spending,” Thune said.

“And then Democrats reneged on the agreement,” he added. “And so, we are here.”

After defeating the funding measure, Senate Democrats in a statement “demanded Republicans get serious and work with Democrats to pass common sense reforms and rein in ICE and end the violence” that has occurred in Minneapolis.

“They need to sit down. They need to negotiate in good faith, produce legislation that actually reins in ICE and stops the violence,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday.

After the measure failed Thursday, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., proposed extending the current short-term extension of the agency’s 2025 funding that expires at the end of the day Friday.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., opposed that effort, which effectively ended it.

The Department of Homeland Security shutdown would affect the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Science and Technology Directorate, Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes visa applications.

It also would affect the Coast Guard, Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE and the CBP would not shut down, though, as both were funded for three years via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 and will continue enforcing federal immigration laws.

Feb. 12 (UPI) — Former Ohio State University board member Leslie Wexner must testify in federal lawsuits accusing the school of enabling sex abuse by Dr. Richard Strauss, a federal court ordered.

Wexner is neither a defendant nor a plaintiff in three lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court of Southern Ohio, but a Jan. 13 subpoena seeks to depose him on the matter.

Wexner filed a motion to quash the deposition subpoena, which Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers and District Judge Michael Watson denied Wednesday.

They ordered Wexner to participate in a deposition within 60 days.

“Given the timing and length of Mr. Wexner’s tenure on the OSU Board of Trustees, including his time as vice chairman and chairman of the full board, as well as ranking positions on the board’s personnel committee, plaintiffs are entitled to discover what Mr. Wexner knew about Dr. Stauss and when he knew it,” Deavers and Watson said.

“Mr. Wexner’s testimony may also illuminate what the board did to monitor OSU’s sexual harassment compliance,” they wrote.

“If Mr. Wexner or the board had no knowledge about allegations surrounding Dr. Strauss, this would be evidence of OSU’s deliberate indifference,” they added.

Wexner argued he has no knowledge of the matter and never discussed allegations against Strauss while he was a board member or afterward, but the judges said that is insufficient cause for granting his motion to quash the deposition subpoena.

The three federal lawsuits filed by former students name Ohio State as the defendant and arise from the time that Strauss was the campus doctor from September 1978 to March 1998.

Strauss was accused of sexually abusing at least 177 OSU male student-athletes and chose to end his life by suicide in 2005.

His suicide prevented Strauss from being tried in court and potentially convicted of the alleged crimes.

His alleged victims last year held protests, during which they accused Wexner, his security staff and his attorney of preventing process servers from delivering the deposition subpoena to compel his testimony.

Watson issued the court deposition subpoena on Jan. 13 to negate the need for serving him with the prior subpoena, which Wexner’s legal team unsuccessfully sought to quash despite there being no accusations of wrongdoing on his part.

Feb. 12 (UPI) — The Trump administration announced an end to greenhouse gas emission standards for all vehicles made in model year 2012 or later Thursday.

The administration revoked the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and all other emission standards related to greenhouse gases. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a press release that the move will save taxpayers $1.3 trillion.

“The Endangerment Finding has been the source of 16 years of consumer choice restrictions and trillions of dollars of hidden costs for Americans,” Lee Zeldin, EPA administrator, said in a statement.

Zeldin was joined by President Donald Trump for the announcement in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

The Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding set the legal basis for regulating pollution tied to climate change as part of the Clean Air Act, the primary federal air quality law enacted in 1963.

Climate advocates and lawmakers sounded the alarm about the decision, gathering outside of the EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

“This is corruption, plain and simple,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said at the gathering. “This is an agency that has been so infiltrated by the corrupt fossil fuel industry that it has turned an agency of government into the weapon of fossil fuel polluters.”

Critics of the Trump administration’s rollback on greenhouse gas emission regulation say it may lead to trillions in costs for climate damages and healthcare.

Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Wednesday that her organization will take legal action.

Thursday’s move follows Trump signing an executive order on Wednesday directing the Pentagon to purchase coal-fired electricity in an effort to boost domestic coal production.

Feb. 12 (UPI) — The U.S. government issued a warning to Peru after a judicial ruling limited that nation’s oversight over the Chancay megaport, one of the country’s main port infrastructures operated by China’s Cosco Shipping.

“We are concerned by recent reports indicating Peru may be unable to oversee Chancay, one of its most important ports, under the jurisdiction of predatory Chinese owners,” the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said in a statement posted on X.

The publication underscored “Peru’s sovereign right to supervise critical infrastructure in its own territory” and questioned the origin of investment in the megaport located north of Lima.

“Let this serve as a warning to the region and the world: cheap Chinese money costs sovereignty,” the U.S. authority said.

In recent years, Beijing has expanded its presence in strategic sectors, such as infrastructure, energy and technology, across Latin America — a trend that has drawn concern among U.S. policymakers.

Chancay, opened in 2024, aims to become a key logistics hub linking South America with Asia. The project has been presented as a milestone for Peruvian trade and part of China’s growing footprint in regional port infrastructure.

The State Department’s statement followed a ruling by a Peruvian court that limited the authority of the Organismo Supervisor de la Inversión en Infraestructura de Transporte de Uso Público, known as Ositran, the national transport infrastructure regulator, over the Chancay terminal, according to local outlet RPP Noticias.

The decision upheld an injunction awarded to Cosco Shipping Ports, the Chinese state-owned majority shareholder in the port. The company argued that Chancay was fully financed with private capital, operates without a state concession contract and functions under an administrative authorization granted by Peru’s National Port Authority.

The ruling ordered Ositran to refrain from regulating, supervising, auditing or sanctioning activities at the port. It said subjecting the terminal to that regulatory framework would violate the claimant company’s constitutional rights to property, free enterprise and legal certainty, according to newspaper La República.

The court also said that public use is a functional characteristic of port services, but does not automatically trigger the legal framework applied to state-concession ports.

In practice, the decision means the regulator cannot intervene directly in terminal operations or impose administrative controls. However, the ruling does not eliminate all state oversight.

Instead, supervisory responsibilities would be redistributed among various Peruvian regulatory bodies, with Ositran excluded from comprehensive regulation except in limited circumstances.

Ositran President Verónica Zambrano said the agency will appeal the ruling, arguing the company may seek to avoid Peruvian regulations.

“They are a public-use company providing services to the public. That condition creates legal consequences, including oversight by Ositran, because we supervise public transport service providers,” Zambrano told news channel Canal N.

She added Peru’s National Port Law defines a port administrator as an operator of public-use transport infrastructure and said this applies to Cosco Shipping.

Separately, Peru’s Cabinet Office issued a statement on X regarding the judicial process involving Cosco Shipping Ports Chancay Peru S.A. Authorities said they will defend private investment while respecting Peru’s regulatory framework.

Ministers added that if conditions outlined in the ruling affect Ositran’s supervisory role, the government will use legal remedies available under existing law.

As part of the National Security Strategy promoted by President Donald Trump’s administration, the U.S. president has called a summit for March 7 in Miami with several Latin American leaders considered strategic allies.

The meeting aims to consolidate a regional bloc aligned with Washington amid growing Chinese investment, trade and diplomatic influence in Latin America, Infobae reported.

Among the invited leaders are Argentine President Javier Milei, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, Paraguay’s Santiago Peña, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz and Honduras’ Tito Asfura.

In addition to economic issues, the agenda includes coordination on security matters, particularly the fight against drug trafficking and the management of migration flows.

Feb. 12 (UPI) — Two U.S. Navy ships collided during a refueling operation in South America, injuring two people, U.S. Southern Command said.

The incident occurred on Wednesday when a Navy warship collided with a Navy supply vessel. Two people suffered minor injuries and are in stable condition.

The warship is the Arleigh Burke-class USS Truxtun guided missile destroyer. The other vessel is a Supply-class fast combat support ship, USNS Supply. Both ships remain operational and have continued to sail following the collision.

U.S. Southern Command did not specify the exact location where the crash took place. The cause of the crash was not specified either.

The supply ship has been recently posted in the Caribbean which falls under the purview of U.S. Southern Command. Southern Command presides over military operations throughout South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

The United States has increased its presence in Southern Command’s region in recent months as operations against alleged drug smuggling vessels have intensified.

Last month, President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet presided over the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and his wife.

It is rare for U.S. Navy vessels to crash into each other. In 2017, 17 sailors were killed in two separate crashes between Navy ships in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Navy determined both crashes were avoidable.

Feb. 12 (UPI) — A United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket launched successfully Thursday morning while experiencing an issue with its booster.

An apparent burn-through could be seen near the nozzle of the rocket’s fuel booster about 20 seconds after liftoff. Despite this, the Vulcan Centaur’s launch was a success.

“We had an observation early during the flight on one of the four solid rocket motors,” ULA posted on X. “The team is currently reviewing the data.”

The rocket, carrying a classified payload for Space Force, launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 4:22 a.m. EST.

The launch marks the beginning of the USSF-87 mission. The mission is to collect data to support U.S. Space Command surveillance, U.S. Space Force says. The satellites communicate with Air Force Satellite Control Network ground stations.

Thursday’s payloads include two satellites used for the United States’ Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program.

Since the program started in 2014, six spacecraft have been put into place.

“They provide ‘neighborhood watch’ services in the geostationary Earth arena, improving flight safety for all spacefaring nations operating in orbit,” Space Force said in a statement.

Thursday’s launch marked the beginning of the Vulcan Centaur’s fourth mission to space.

These days, almost every cultural or news event seems fleeting. But there’s one thing that feels nearly as momentous as it did 20 years ago: the Super Bowl.

From a personal point of view, I can say that despite basically divesting myself from football (I haven’t watched a non-Super Bowl NFL game in well over a decade, and haven’t played fantasy football for just as long), I still participate in what has become, essentially, a national holiday. Maybe that’s just it: In the ideologically fractured world of 2026, there’s something to be said for having at least one relatively universal experience.

In any case, such a uniquely shared media event inevitably reflects the cultural milieu of the moment. That’s why, for a while now, I’ve been tracking how many of the commercials that air during each year’s Super Bowl have some relation to the environmental issues that I’ve been covering for most of my career as a journalist. I started this project when I was an editor at Time magazine, and thought it merited revisiting this year. Here’s what I found.

During Super Bowl LX on Sunday, there were just two commercials that focused in a meaningful way on products that would advance a transition to a fossil-fuel-free economy. One was for the 2026 Jeep Cherokee Hybrid. The other was for a Chinese supercar made by a vacuum-cleaner company.

It wasn’t long ago that domestic manufacturers were marketing a future based on electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes. During the 2022 Super Bowl, the second year of Joe Biden’s presidency, seven different ads focused specifically on existing and new EV models. Those were in some ways the halcyon days of American EV manufacturing, following the passage of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which, in part, offered a $7,500 tax credit to anyone who bought a new electric car.

The second Trump administration quickly put an end to that; the credit was nixed as of Sept. 30 last year. That was just one of many moves Trump has made since retaking office to anesthetize the United States’ nascent green economy. Over the last year, the Trump administration has tried to shut down offshore wind energy projects while demanding the growth of the coal industry; reversed key policies that previously established legal precedent for the public health impact of greenhouse gases; and generally tried to undermine efforts by many states, California especially, to establish and regulate policies meant to make their infrastructure less dependent on fossil fuels.

So it’s no surprise that in 2026, the second year of Trump’s second presidency, there was just one Super Bowl ad for a domestically produced green product — and it wasn’t even entirely green. Indeed, it reflects a recent trend across the U.S.: Since the federal clean-vehicle tax credits expired in September, sales of purely electric vehicles have plummeted, while those of hybrids have continued to grow, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Tellingly, four different companies — Cadillac, Toyota, Volkswagen and Chevrolet — had ads that showed an EV but didn’t mention it. It’s become more something to hide than to promote.

Then there’s the one other green-energy ad this year, which, honestly, you could quibble with categorizing it as “green.” It’s a reportedly $10-million spot for an electric sports car, theoretically to be made by the Chinese company Dreame, which to date has primarily produced robotic vacuum cleaners. I say theoretical because it seems somewhat unlikely that an outfit that made its nut building knockoff Roombas will be selling an electric super car anytime soon. (As of writing, Dreame has not responded to emailed questions.)

Nevertheless, it is indicative of another trend: Tesla is down; BYD is up. U.S. car companies like Ford can’t seem to figure out how to transition to a gas-less (or, at least, less gas-forward) future, while many Chinese firms, some without any automotive heritage, such as the consumer-tech company Xiomai, are already driving laps around U.S. and European competitors in what is clearly the race for the future of global car-manufacturing dominance.

In 2025, more than half the cars made in China were EVs. And China is working to power those electric cars with renewable energy, while the U.S. is largely swimming against the tide. In 2025, China installed an estimated 315 gigawatts of solar and 119 gigawatts of wind capacity; the U.S. added an estimated 60 gigawatts of solar and 7 gigawatts of wind capacity in the same time.

Green tech doesn’t seem to have much cultural currency right now in the U.S., at least based on the Super Bowl ad lineup. What does, though, is artificial intelligence. There were at least eight different Super Bowl commercials for AI products, and many more that obviously used AI in their production.

Even setting aside the many intellectual-property and ethical issues they raise, there’s the reality that these AI tools rely on data centers that, in turn, require a huge amount of energy to operate — energy that should, ideally, be coming more and more from renewable sources.

Maybe it’s not all that sexy to advertise solar panels or wind turbines — but it also wasn’t that long ago that a pitch about talking to your hand-held computer to help with your scheduling would have seemed pretty lame.

More in climate and culture

One more thing about the Super Bowl: In this pretty cool video, Pearl Marvell, an editor at Yale Climate Connections, broke down the climate change references in Bad Bunny’s halftime performance.

In other sports+climate news, my colleague Kevin Baxter, reporting from Italy, wrote about the impact climate change is having on this — and future — Winter Olympics. The bottom line: Athletes are going to have to expect less fresh powder, and deal with more dangerous, icy conditions.

Last sports-related story of the week: My former colleague Sammy Roth recently wrote a nice profile of Jacquie Pierri, who plays for the Italian women’s hockey team and moonlights as a sustainable-energy engineer and climate activist. Italy plays the U.S. in the quarterfinals on Friday.

On a different note, on the podcast Zero, Akshat Rathi this week interviewed composer Julia Wolfe about how she uses classical music to work through, and communicate, her feelings about the climate crisis.

A couple of last things in climate news this week

California created a program meant to encourage the development of electric semi-trucks. But, as my colleague Tony Briscoe reported a few days ago, Tesla took advantage of it, claiming most of the money while failing to deliver and essentially bullying smaller manufacturers out of the space.

The Trump administration has indicated that it plans this week to rescind the so-called endangerment finding, a policy establishing the fact that greenhouse gases endanger public health, and that essentially acts as the legal underpinning for many climate regulations passed in recent years. Stay tuned — our reporters will have more on this as the story develops.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

Feb. 12 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to purchase coal-fired electricity to boost domestic coal production, a move that has drawn staunch criticism from energy and environmental experts.

Trump issued the directive via an executive order that he signed Thursday at the end of a White House ceremony attended by coal executives called “The Champion of Coal Event.”

“We’re going to be buying a lot of coal through the military now,” he said. “And it’s going to be less expensive and actually much more effective than what we have been using for many, many years. And again, with the environmental progress that’s been made on coal, it’s going to be just as clean.”

The executive order directs the Department of Defense to approve agreements with coal-fired power facilities to serve its installations and other mission-critical facilities.

The order aligns with Trump’s domestic policy focus of reinvigorating the U.S. coal industry, which has declined over recent years due to environmental concerns.

“Kentucky coal is BACK — and it’s because President Trump fights for American energy,” Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., said in a statement.

Barr was at the White House for the ceremony, and said in a recorded statement that the Trump administration was ending the “war on coal” waged by the previous Democratic presidencies of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

“We’re putting our coal miners back to work to make America energy dominant again,” he said in a recorded statement, while describing Trump’s executive order as “great.”

During the ceremony at the East Room of the White House, Trump was given a trophy inscribed with the words “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal” by the Washington Coal Club lobby group.

After receiving the trophy, which is shaped like a miner, Trump signed the executive order.

While the Trump administration and Republicans champion the resource as “beautiful clean coal,” energy economists and environmental advocates broadly describe coal as a costly and highly polluting power source.

“Rather than helping people with their crippling electrical bills, Donald Trump is illegally bailing out his coal industry buddies with precious taxpayer dollars,” Laurie Williams, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, said in a statement.

“As energy bills and hospital bills stack up for everyday families, Americans have one man to blame: Donald Trump — the undisputed champion of expensive energy and deadly pollution.”

Julie McNamara, associate policy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, lambasted the executive order as a wast of time, money and opportunity.

She said there are cheaper, cleaner and more efficient options at the president’s disposal, but he chose coal while ending development of new solar and wind projects and stopping investment to build out a modern grid infrastructure.

“Reality doesn’t lie: coal is a rapidly dwindling relic of the past, not a solution for the future,” McNamara said in a statement.

“The Trump administration’s failings come with real consequences,” she said, adding that forcing the use of aging coal plants risks power outages and will increase electricity costs.

Former Environmental Protection Agency scientist and vice president of federal policy Matthew Davis similarly said this plan risks driving up energy prices for Americans.

“Coal power not only has one of the highest costs of any energy source, but also has the worst reliability record of any form of energy, with twice as many unplanned shutdowns and interruptions in generation as wind power,” he said in a statement.

“Instead of forcing the government to waste taxpayer dollars on dirty outdated coal, we should be focusing on increasing access to clean, reliable energy sources like wind and solar that are the fastest, cheapest way to deploy energy onto the grid.”

Feb. 12 (UPI) — In a rare rebuke of the Trump administration, the Republican-led House on Wednesday moved to block sweeping tariffs imposed on Canada by President Donald Trump.

In a 219-211 vote on Wednesday evening, House lawmakers approved legislation terminating a national emergency Trump declared early in his administration to slap tariffs on the United States’ northern neighbor.

Six Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues to pass the legislation into an uncertain future in the Senate. One Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted against terminating the emergency.

The legislation, however, could end up being only symbolic. Even if the GOP-led majority approves it, President Donald Trump would be expected to veto it.

Even as the resolution faces an uncertain future, Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and sponsor of H.J.Res.72, said Democrats, joined by several GOP lawmakers, forced the measure to the floor to put Republicans on record.

“The question was simple: stand with working families and lower costs, or keep prices high out of loyalty to Donald Trump?” Meeks, who has argued the tariffs have increased household costs, said in a statement following the vote.

“House Democrats will continue fighting to lower costs, even if most Republicans won’t.”

Tariffs have been a mechanism central to Trump’s trade and foreign policy, using economic measures to right what he sees as improper trade relations and to penalize nations he feels are doing him and the United States wrong.

On Feb. 1, Trump declared a national emergency with respect to Canada over drugs entering the United States across their shared border, alleging Ottawa was “failing to devote sufficient attention and resources or meaningfully coordinate with the United States law enforcement partners to effectively stem the tide of illicit drugs.”

Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Trump imposed a sweeping 25% tariff on most Canadian goods and a 10% duty on Canadian energy products.

The tariffs have kicked off a trade war with Canada and have begun fraying the United States’ relations with Ottawa, which, in the months since, has sought to lessen its dependency on Washington.

Premier Doug Ford of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, on Wednesday night thanked the members of Congress who voted to terminate the emergency declaration, saying they “stood up in support of free trade and economic growth between our two great countries.”

“An important victory with more work ahead,” he said in a social media statement.

“Let’s end the tariffs and together build a more prosperous and secure future.”

Trump lashed out against House and Senate Republicans on Wednesday, warning that those who vote against his tariffs “will suffer the consequences come Election time,” suggesting that he could interfere with their chances of winning their next primary.

The president argued in a post on his Truth Social platform that tariffs improve the United States’ economic and national security “because the mere mention of the word has Countries agreeing to our strongest wishes.”

“Tariffs have given us Economic and National Security, and no Republican should be responsible for destroying this privilege,” he said. In a second post, Trump said Canada was taking advantage of the United States without providing proof, calling Ottawa “the worst in the World to deal with.”

“TARIFFS make a WIN for us, EASY,” he said. “Republicans must keep it that way!”

Democrats have criticized Trump’s tariffs since they were announced, and now point to economists’ estimates that say the measures — including those imposed against Canada — have increased household costs.

According to the Budget Lab at Yale University, income loss due to Trump’s tariffs, including those imposed on Canada, amounted to about $1,700 per American household last year. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation said the tariffs amount to an average tax increase per U.S. household of $1,000 in 2025 and $1,300 this year.

Though estimates vary, economists generally agree that the tariffs have raised costs for American households.

The U.S.-Canada relationship has greatly degraded during Trump’s second term. Threats to make Canada the United States’ 51st state, his imposition of tariffs and the shifting right of Washington’s foreign and domestic policies have prompted officials in Ottawa to look elsewhere for stable economic partnerships.

Last month, Trump threatened to impose a 100% tariff on Canadian imports in response to Canada seeking to forge a new trade deal with China.

Last October, the U.S. Senate passed a similar resolution to end the emergency declaration related to Canada, but the GOP-led House did not take it up before the end of the congressional session.

In the courts, the legality of Trump’s tariffs is being challenged by multiple lawsuits, with opponents, including states and companies, arguing that the president exceeded his authority in imposing the taxes, which historically are Congress’ responsibility as holder of the purse.

Feb. 11 (UPI) — The House of Representatives narrowly passed the SAVE America Act on Wednesday, but it faces a tough sell in the Senate.

The House approved the measure on Wednesday by a vote of 218-213, with one Democrat voting in favor of the proposed law that would require voters to provide a birth certificate or passport to prove their citizenship status when registering to vote and produce a valid photo ID to vote.

“It’s just common sense. Americans need an ID to drive, to open a bank account, to buy cold medicine [and] to file for government assistance,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told media. “So, why would voting be any different than that?”

Democrats oppose the measure, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called “Jim Crow 2.0.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called the proposed voting law a “desperate effort by Republicans to distract” without saying from what.

“The so-called SAVE Act is not about voter identification,” Jeffries continued. “It is about voter suppression, and they have zero credibility on this issue.”

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, was the lone Democrat to vote in favor of the measure, which now goes to the Senate for consideration. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, sponsored the bill.

Although Senate Republicans have a simple majority in the upper chamber, they likely lack the 60 votes needed to overcome the Senate’s filibuster rule.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Tuesday said he supports the proposed act but does not have the votes needed to change the filibuster rule to pass it with a simple majority.

The GOP controls 53 Senate seats, while Democrats control 47, including two held by independents who sit with the Senate Democratic Party’s caucus.

Some Republicans have suggested requiring a standing filibuster, which would require those opposing proposed legislation to physically engage in a non-stop filibuster instead of just announcing their intent to do so.

Feb. 11 (UPI) — Gallup will stop measuring and publishing presidential approval ratings this year, the analytics firm announced on Wednesday.

The company said in a statement that it is getting out of tracking the approval ratings of politicians to focus its research on “issues and conditions that shape people’s lives.”

“That work will continue through the Gallup Poll Social Series, the Gallup Quarterly Business Review, the World Poll and our portfolio of U.S. and global research,” a spokesperson for Gallup said.

Gallup’s Presidential Job Approval Rating has been used to measure the public’s sentiment toward the president’s overall performance and performance on certain issues for decades. It began to report presidential approval ratings in 1938.

President Donald Trump‘s approval rating has fallen to 36% in his second term, Gallup’s December poll said. His average approval rating during his first term was 41.1%, lower than any president since Harry Truman, who was in office from 1945 to 1953.

Trump’s immigration enforcement and tariff policies are among the areas that the public has most disapproved of during his second term.

Gallup said that ending its presidential approval ratings was not in response to political pressure from the White House.

“This is a strategic shift based on Gallup’s research goals and priorities,” Gallup said.

Feb. 11 (UPI) — The Federal Aviation Administration ended what was initially announced as a 10-day suspension of all flights over El Paso, Texas on Wednesday, hours after closing the airspace.

The FAA stopped all incoming and outgoing flights over El Paso late Tuesday night, citing “special security reasons.” It warned that deadly force may be used against aircraft entering the airspace if they pose an “imminent security threat.”

The closure was triggered by military operations from Biggs Army Airfield in Fort Bliss, about seven miles away from El Paso.

CBS reported that Mexican cartel drones breached U.S. airspace, causing the Department of Defense to disable the drones.

“There is no threat to commercial aviation,” the FAA posted on social media. “All flights will resume as normal.”

When the airspace was closed, the FAA said that it was being classified as “national defense airspace.” The closure also halted medevac helicopters from flying.

“Just pass it on to everybody else, at 6:30 for the next 10 days, we’re all at a ground stop,” an air traffic controller informed pilots in audio recorded on LiveATC.net.

Some travelers received notifications from airlines about changes to their flights and offerings of travel waivers before the closure was lifted.

El Paso is home to the El Paso International Airport, which saw about 3.5 million travelers through the first 11 months of last year. The city has a population of about 700,000.

Feb. 11 (UPI) — About 90,000 undocumented students reach the end of high school each year and researchers say their opportunities to pursue higher education are rapidly shrinking.

The President’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration and the Migration Policy Institute found that about 75,000 students without legal status graduate annually. It is a milestone that has been encouraged by state and federal policy for decades as migrants seek citizenship in the United States, but rollbacks on tuition equity and other policies are making it harder for many of them to continue their education.

The study is based on U.S. Census Bureau and National Center for Education Statistics data from 2023, prior to President Donald Trump‘s return to the White House.

However, his more aggressive immigration enforcement tactics and pressure to end birthright citizenship and temporary protected status have made the future of these students one with even more challenges, Corinne Kentor, senior manager of research and policy with the President’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, told UPI.

“We’re seeing a lot of institutions who are trying very hard to retain services for students and also comply with a bunch of very confusing directives coming at the federal level,” Kentor said. “There’s a fear about keeping programs and services that are particularly geared toward the immigrant-origin students available because the institution wants to make sure that they’re in compliance with federal directives.”

Prior to 2024, 25 states and the District of Columbia had policies guaranteeing undocumented immigrant students access to in-state tuition. This granted a path for those students to receive financial aid services and made enrollment in local colleges and universities possible for many.

Kentor said these policies helped these students not just enroll in their degree programs but also finish them.

In the past year, that has begun to change.

Florida’s legislature repealed its in-state tuition policy that had been in place for 10 years. The Department of Justice followed with a lawsuit to repeal the Texas Dream Act after its state legislature shot down numerous similar attempts. A permanent injunction blocking in-state tuition access for an estimated 12,000 students each year was granted.

The Justice Department was also successful in a lawsuit against Oklahoma.

The Trump administration has filed similar lawsuits against California, Virginia, Illinois and Minnesota. Kentucky officials settled such a lawsuit by agreeing to end their tuition policy in September.

Texas, Florida, California and New York account for nearly half of all undocumented immigrants graduating each year. California has about 11,000 who graduate annually, Florida has about 8,000 and New York, about 4,000.

The lawsuits by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi claim that offering in-state tuition to non-citizen students is “illegally discriminating against American students.”

Kentor said this is a common misconception that leads people to oppose opportunities for immigrants in education as well as other places in society like the workplace.

“There’s this sense that if one person gets a spot, then another person doesn’t,” she said. “The reality is that welcoming immigrant students into higher education, into workplaces, into the communities that they’re already a part of, creates more opportunities for U.S. citizens. There’s this scarcity mindset that moves into a competition mindset when actually providing opportunities just opens up more spots.”

As legal battles and policy decisions play out in courtrooms, statehouses and government offices, the effects are being felt in classrooms, at bus stops and in homes.

The population of undocumented students reaching the end of high school has continued at similar levels each year but this year’s class is in a particularly precarious position. Immigration raids across the country have not just seniors but all immigrant students, regardless of legal status, facing fears of losing family members to detention and physical harm.

Jeanne Batalova, senior policy analyst and data manager for the Migration Policy Institute and its Data Hub, authored the organization’s report “Graduating into Uncertainty: Unauthorized Immigrant Students in U.S. High Schools.” She told UPI that current immigration crackdowns are also affecting the education students are receiving in K-12 schools.

Batalova said California reported a 22% increase in absences in January and February 2025 over 2024.

This was as Trump returned to office and issued a slate of executive orders directing ramped up immigration enforcement. Among his executive orders was a day one order to end the sensitive locations policy that barred immigration officials from doing enforcement activities at schools, hospitals, churches and community event sites.

“This fear that anyone knocking on the door could be an [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] team busting through the door, I can only imagine the impact it is having on the entire family,” Batalova said. “When immigration enforcement ramped up at work sites during the first Trump administration, the impact on mental health was very noticeable. There was difficulty focusing on studying for children whose parents or family members were affected. At that time, kids themselves were not in the line of fire, so to speak.”

Ending policies like the sensitive locations policy and reversing course on pathways to higher education mark a change in direction from more than two decades of bipartisan support for paths to citizenship.

“For this particular population, education, both secondary and post-secondary education, has always been closely tied to their opportunity to legalize their status,” Batalova said. “A status that they themselves had no control over when they were first brought here as young children, and second, by policymakers in the United States.”

Batalova said education has been a “major engine for social and economic mobility” because it opens doors to new career opportunities and self-improvement. At a time when the president is offering a “gold card” for wealthy migrants to buy their way into U.S. citizenship, closing doors to undocumented children is a stark contrast.

“At a time of anti-immigrant rhetoric and stepped-up enforcement on the part of this administration, the future for the students is uncertain,” Batalova said. “Not only in terms of if they can go on to pursue a college degree because of state tuition. It’s if they can go outside to the library, to the university, as well as the mental impact of studying.”

Voting is fundamental to democracy, but here in the U.S. people don’t vote very much. In December, Miami held a runoff election for mayor, and all of 37,000 voters turned out. This was 2,000 fewer people than voted in comparable off-cycle elections in Apizaco, a small city in the mountains of central Mexico. It was no blip: The median turnout in U.S. city elections is 26% of the voting age population. In Mexico, by contrast, turnout rarely dips below 50%, and unglamorous small-town elections attract higher numbers, often more than 70% of the citizenry.

Nevertheless, the United States disdains Mexico as a pale shadow of its own democracy. Mexican elections are written off as corrupt, violent and unrepresentative. This was part-true for much of the last century, when versions of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional ruled without interruption for 71 years. Mexicans were “oriented” to vote by party managers, fined if they didn’t, violently dissuaded from voting for dissidents, disenfranchised with stuffed ballot boxes. Impressive turnouts were coerced. Even today, decades after the arrival of a competitive democracy, the violence persists. Thirty-four candidates were murdered in the 2024 elections.

Yet Mexicans also vote in impressive numbers because they have always cared profoundly about representative politics, and particularly at a local level. Many of those large turnouts in authoritarian Mexico were crowds of everyday people struggling to elect legitimate authorities in the teeth of a rigged system. Those struggles meant that sometimes they won.

Historical outcomes are revealing. More than 200 years of elections in Mexico have given results significantly more diverse and representative than those of the United States. In 2024 Mexicans elected the first female president in North American history, climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum. In 1829 Mexicans elected the first Black president in North American history, mule driver Vicente Guerrero. In 1856 they elected lawyer Benito Juárez as the only Indigenous president in North American history.

The United States was born committed to rule by freely elected representatives. “We the people” is a good start to a piece of political writing and a good start to a country. When the French sociologist Aléxis de Tocqueville visited New England in the 1820s he was struck by how the citizens of small towns argued out their differences and came up with solutions together. The federal republic was a scaling up of those habits. The sum of those people’s beliefs, institutions and bloody-mindedness, Tocqueville wrote, was democracy in America.

The peoples of the United Mexican States, founded in 1824 after gaining independence from Spain, shared those ambitions. Mexico was likewise a federal republic, its rulers elected, its powers divided among executive, legislature and judiciary. As in the U.S., the female half of the population was excluded. But Mexico’s founders were ahead of ours in one sine qua non of genuine democracy: racial equality. In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton claimed that “to all general purposes we have uniformly been one people; each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.” That was a self-evident untruth, because Black and Indigenous peoples were not included.

In Mexico, people of color had some standing from the founding onward. Mexican history has its own wrenching tragedies of race: the slavery of West Africans, the ethnocides of the North, the systematic impoverishment of peoples like the Maya of Chiapas, a eugenic hunger for white migration. But from the colonial outset Black people were acknowledged to be fully human, their enslavers’ abuses punished, their lynching unknown. Many Indigenous peoples preserved their language, lands and governments over centuries. Asians joined them; the first Japanese ambassador arrived in 1614. Mexico was the world’s first great melting pot.

So the founders of the United Mexican States made no formal distinction among the multitudes they contained. Their leaders in the War of Independence abolished slavery. Their post-independence congress mandated “the equality of civil rights to all free inhabitants of the empire, whatever their origin.” The 1824 Constitution extended the vote to every adult male. All would be free, all equal under law and all voters with a stake in the outcome.

In 1917 Mexicans passed the most progressive constitution in the world following their own revolution. It mandated an eight-hour working day, a minimum wage, equal salaries for men and women, and paid maternity leave. While women didn’t get the vote until the 1950s, they exercised notable power behind the scenes; even the most conservative parties had female organizers and supporters. Progressive social policies inspired leaders across the hemisphere, including Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Three core beliefs inspire Mexicans to vote. They believe that face-to-face freedom, embedded in the power and autonomy of the municipio libre, the free county, is sacrosanct. And they believe that to preserve communal freedom, whether from federal abuse or oligarchs, requires two things, sufragio efectivo y no reelección; in historian John Womack’s translation, “a real vote and no boss rule.”

Historically enough Mexicans — of all political stripes, from conservatives to anarchists — cared about those three beliefs to fight in elections tooth and nail.

Alongside the belief that voting is a duty comes clear-eyed rejection of boss rule. While Mexican Mayor Daleys are historically ubiquitous — they sparked the Mexican Revolution — there are none of the national dynasties that beset U.S. politics. The great dictator Porfirio Díaz left his ambitious nephew struggling to make army captain for eighteen years. Dynastic power befits monarchies, not democracies, and Mexicans know it.

Neither do Mexican politicians enjoy the unfettered power of their American counterparts to buy elections. Parties are publicly funded, under a system designed to promote fairness. Each party gets a certain amount from the state: 30% of that amount is the same for all, the remaining 70% proportional to their success in the previous elections. Private donations are transparent, regulated and capped at a very low level, on paper at least. The system unduly favors incumbents, and illegal, off-books funding is rife. Yet the need for sizable contributions to be covert keeps election results out of the hands of the likes of Elon Musk. A national watchdog and a diverse and competent press ensure it.

Sheinbaum spent $18 million winning her presidential election. In losing New York City’s mayoral election, Andrew Cuomo spent three times as much. A single oligarch, Michael Bloomberg, chipped in $13 million. Mexican elections are sometimes bought and sold, but never with the obscene unconcern prevalent in the U.S. since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.

Republics that endure rely on egalitarian beliefs, hard-nosed pragmatism, unwritten rules of decency and written rules of institutions — and unrelenting struggle against all who break those rules. Democracy relies on people of all races being recognized as fully human and guaranteed access to the ballot. It then relies on those people turning up to vote whenever given the chance. Mexicans have repeatedly demonstrated how deeply they know that across their history, against sometimes heavy odds. Their government documents come stamped with the revolutionary slogan sufragio efectivo y no reelección, a real vote and no boss rule, as a reminder. We could use one ourselves.

Paul Gillingham, a professor of history at Northwestern University, is the author of “Mexico: A 500-Year History.”