The Dictatorship
Indiana community fights to keep needle exchange going after Trump order
JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (AP) — Inside a storage room at the Clark County Health Department are boxes with taped-on signs reading, “DO NOT USE.” They contain cookers and sterile water that people use to shoot up drugs.
The supplies, which came from the state and were paid for with federal money, were for a program where drug users exchange dirty needles for clean ones, part of a strategy known as harm reduction. But under a July executive order from President Donald Trumpfederal substance abuse grants can’t pay for supplies such as cookers and tourniquets that it says “only facilitate illegal drug use.” Needles already couldn’t be purchased with federal money.
In some places, the order is galvanizing support for syringe exchange programs, which decades of research show are extremely effective at preventing disease among intravenous drug users and getting them into treatment.
In others, it’s fueling opposition that threatens the programs’ existence.
Republican-led Indiana passed a law allowing exchanges a decade ago after the tiny city of Austin became the epicenter of the worst drug-fueled HIV outbreak in U.S. history. Unless lawmakers extend it, that law is scheduled to sunset next year, and the number of exchanges has been dwindling. State officials told remaining programs to comply with Trump’s order — and even to discard federally funded supplies such as cookers and tourniquets.
For now, Clark County health workers have found a way to keep distributing cookers and other items: buy them with private money and package them in “mystery bags,” assembled by employees who aren’t paid with state or federal funds.
Democratic-led California, meanwhile, has continued using state funds for supplies such as pipes and syringes. California is home to a rising number of exchanges, with 70 of the more than 580 listed by the North American Syringe Exchange Network.
Some public health experts lament that syringe services programs have become subject to growing politicization and dissent.
Clark County Health Officer Dr. Eric Yazel says IV drug users will likely inject themselves with or without clean supplies. Exchanges prevent people from sharing needles and spreading disease, he said, “decreasing the public health risk for the whole population.”
But Curtis Hill, a Republican former Indiana attorney generalis among critics who raise the same concern Trump’s order does: “We don’t want to get into a situation where we’re promoting drug use.”
Help without judgment
When participants arrive at the Clark County health department, they look down at a list of services and say they are there for “No. 1.”
They choose from a cart with needles, bandages, sharps containers and the overdose reversal drug naloxone. They can receive testing for HIV and hepatitis C; information on drug treatment; and fliers on food banks, housing, and job placement. There are even handmade knit hats with encouraging notes like, “You’ve got this!”
“We spend a half hour, 45 minutes or so talking to them about where they are, if they want treatment, if they’re ready,” Program Director Dorothy Waterhouse said. “These are our brothers, our sisters, our mothers, our fathers. … We need compassion to make sure they’re getting into treatment.”
It’s the closest exchange to Austin, a 35-minute drive away. Scott County, where Austin is located, already ended its program.
Joshua Gay lived in an apartment across the street when he used the Clark County exchange. He shot up meth daily.
“The addiction, it took away everything. It took away my life. It took away my job, took away my health. I mean, it made my mind so bad that I wouldn’t even shower,” said the 44-year-old, who now lives in Austin. “God was telling me, ‘You need to do something,’ and he led me to the needle exchange.”
He’s sober today. He sought drug treatment at LifeSpring Health Systems after encouragement from health workers and now encourages others in recovery to stay healthy.
He believes the syringe exchange not only saved him, but helped him save someone else, providing the naloxone he used to revive a friend who overdosed on heroin.
Keeping the program going
After Trump’s order — which focused on homelessness — Indiana health officials told exchanges that certain items they provided were now off-limits, citing a letter from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Although Clark County workers have found ways to provide privately funded items for now, they worry about Indiana’s exchange law expiring on July 1. Six counties have exchanges — down from nine in 2020 — despite the programs’ successes.
Statewide, exchanges have made more than 27,000 referrals to drug treatment and provided naloxone that reversed nearly 25,000 overdoses, according to information collected by the nonprofit Damien Center in Indianapolis.
Since its 2017 start, Clark County’s program alone has given out more than 2,000 doses of naloxone; made more than 4,300 referrals to drug treatment; and made more than 4,400 referrals for HIV or hepatitis C testing. Its syringe return rate is 92%.
Local and national public health and addiction experts point to research showing exchanges don’t increase syringe litter, crime or IV drug use — and that every dollar invested returns an estimated $7 in avoided health care costs.
Exchanges are associated with an estimated 50% reduction in the incidence of HIV and hepatitis C, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last year. Scott County — where the HIV outbreak ultimately sickened 235 people — had fewer than five new cases a year in 2020 and 2021, just before that syringe program ended. The numbers have stayed low.
“When these programs first started, I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ I didn’t get it,” Yazel said. “And then I took a deep dive and started to understand the impact.”
Elsewhere, a mix of support and opposition
Indiana is among 43 states with syringe services programs, according to health care research nonprofit KFF.
Support remains strong in many places. This year in Hawaii, for example, legislators passed a law allowing people to get as many clean needles as needed rather than only one for one.
But bills elsewhere, including two introduced in West Virginia this year, propose eliminating syringe programs.
This month, West Virginia’s Cabell-Huntington Health Department stopped giving out needles. Naloxone and fentanyl test strips remain available, along with services such as education, disease testing and links to care.
“The folks who come in to see us are going to get the same smiles and the same hugs,” said Health Officer Dr. Michael Kilkenny. “We’re just not going to be dispensing syringes or the other things that are in disfavor.”
Andrew Nixon, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, stressed in an email that federal funds can still be used for “life-saving services” like education and naloxone, reflecting a “commitment to addressing the addiction and overdose crisis impacting communities across our nation.”
A murky future
Yazel expects a difficult path ahead in Indiana.
“To be very blunt,” he said, “we have an uphill battle coming up this legislative session.”
Damien Center CEO Alan Witchey, whose organization runs a syringe program, said he and a group of advocates created a website with information and a way to contact lawmakers. They’ve met with elected officials, and a state senator introduced a bill to extend the sunset date to 2036.
“Without these programs, there will be one less tool to address the diseases of substance use disorder, hepatitis C and HIV,” Witchey said. “And that could lead to a very dangerous place for us. We have seen where this leads.”
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a vote on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination, a spokesperson said late Wednesday, as two retiring Republicans on the panel dug in over President Donald Trump’s personal “anti-weaponization” deal with the government he runs.
Sen. Chuck Grassley’s decision to delay the committee vote that had been set for Thursday marks a setback for one of Trump’s highest-profile Cabinet nominees, at the hands of Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a pair of Republicans set to leave the chamber next year.
“Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure. Senators Cornyn and Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement,” the committee spokesperson said.
Blanche’s nomination to permanently head the Department of Justice needs the support of either Cornyn or Tillis to make it out of the committee to a vote by the full Senate, assuming all Democrats remain opposed.
“Why don’t you call over the Department of Justice and tell them they have one hour and 50 minutes to get me what I asked for,” Cornyn told reporters Wednesday afternoon amid the hardening standoff over his demand that Blanche and the DOJ put in writing a commitment never to pursue the president’s prized “anti-weaponization” fund, and to clarify the terms of Trump’s personal deal with the Internal Revenue Service.
Tillis told MS NOW that the conversations were complicated by the need for the Justice Department to get “several parties” to agree on the language of the statement Cornyn and Tillis are seeking.
“What I’ve advised the chair, and I would assume Senator Cornyn said something similar, is that we’re not prepared to vote yes yet,” he added.
“The Department has been in regular communication with Committee members for weeks, and we look forward to continuing to work productively with Senators to address any concerns,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in response to the decision to postpone the committee vote.
Cornyn was set to meet with Blanche on Wednesday morning, but the meeting was called off after Blanche failed to meet the senator’s demand for written proposals to modify the controversial settlement agreement he brokered between Trump and the IRS. The Republican senator is set to leave Congress when his term ends in January after a bruising May primary loss to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Trump’s chosen candidate.
“Maybe John Cornyn’s upset with me because I didn’t endorse him,” Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office. “I don’t know what it is, but I haven’t heard that there’s a problem. I heard (Blanche) is going through quite nicely.”
Cornyn made clear to Blanche during his confirmation hearing that he will not get his support until he agrees to reopen and modify the settlement. Due to the committee’s narrow Republican majority, one GOP “no” vote is enough to sink Blanche’s nomination.
The senator has asked Blanche to provide proof that the proposed nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund established as part of the deal between Trump and the IRS is formally dead, and he has also demanded Blanche narrow the tax audit immunity provisions the settlement afforded to Trump and his family.
Blanche has publicly stated that his department has dropped the fund, but he and the DOJ have dodged requests from Cornyn and a federal judge to put that in writing.
After announcing his meeting with Blanche would not take place Wednesday morning, Cornyn told reporters that changes from Blanche “in a modified release form” would be acceptable, but that “for some reason … they simply refuse to do it,” referring to the DOJ.
Shortly after the meeting was called off, a Justice Department official told MS NOW that the department “provided a written proposal to Senator Cornyn’s staff yesterday following ongoing discussion with both the Committee and the Senator’s office.”
Cornyn said that proposal was “not responsive” to his demands because it did not address the tax audit immunity provisions in the settlement, one of his key demands.
In May, Blanche signed an addendum as part of the deal that granted Trump, his family and his businesses immunity from pending IRS tax audits. That agreement, which has been decried by former IRS officials and legal experts as unlawful self-dealing, is being contested in federal court.
Cornyn noted that Blanche testified under oath that he could meet the request during his confirmation hearing.
“Maybe they think I’m just going to give up or you know, go along, but they’re mistaken,” Cornyn said when asked why he thinks the DOJ could be slow-walking his request.
Kevin Frey contributed to this report.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at BLN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived this week for his tour of Washington, he may have had a mission in mind.
Netanyahu needed to overcome his newly diminished stature and waning influence over his once close friend President Donald Trump as both leaders grapple with the unpopularity of a war they started together and is escaping their control.
His meeting at the White House with Trump on Tuesday, which was closed to the press, was the first face-to-face encounter between the two allies since the U.S. and Israel launched a joint attack against Iran on Feb. 28.
Trump gave him a muted welcome and afterwards simply described the meeting as “very good.” “Obviously, many important subjects were discussed,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Rather than an intimate one-on-one setting, the Oval Office was full of top U.S. officials — Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, and special envoy Steve Witkoff.
But Netanyahu continued the full court press on the Trump administration.
Over the course of two days, in addition to seeing Trump and attending Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral at the Capitol, Netanyahu also met separately with Vance, Hegseth, and Rubio, White House and Israeli officials confirmed to MS NOW.
The Israeli prime minister’s slate of meetings with key U.S. national security officials comes at a pivotal moment in the Iran conflict as tensions escalate in the region and Americans increasingly sour on the war. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows 60% of American voters opposing U.S. military action against Iran and 74% against sending U.S. ground troops into Iran.
Not only does Trump face pressure as Republicans face an uphill battle to retain congressional control in this fall’s midterms, Netanyahu’s fate as prime minister is at stake in Israel’s upcoming September elections – and he can’t afford to lose Trump’s favor.
The talks largely focused on what to do next as Iran continues to menace shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and retaliate against American bases in the region and launch attacks on Gulf allies.
According to a senior Israeli official who was granted anonymity to describe the closed-door meeting, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu did not come to a final decision after discussing three paths forward: get a “good deal” focused on Iran’s nuclear program and enriched material, have no deal and instead continue the blockade and economic pressure, or take escalated military action.
But Netanyahu did not tell Trump what he should do – nor did he express a preference.
The senior Israeli official noted Netanyahu has not ruled out diplomacy – as long as it is coupled with “very strong pressures,” calling the push to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program “a contest of will and a contest of force.”
“There are ways of squeezing them and squeezing them and squeezing them and negotiating at the same time,” the official said.
Netanyahu did not present President Trump with new intelligence regarding the underground Iranian nuclear facility Pickaxe Mountain, per the senior Israeli official, noting the U.S. and Israel already are constantly sharing intelligence – and know where Iran’s highly enriched material is. “We don’t think it’s moved, and I think we have a pretty good grasp on that,” the official said.
During their meeting on Tuesday, Trump and Netanyahu discussed ways Israel and the U.S. can work together to stop Iran’s nuclear program and get the Strait of Hormuz open to maritime trade, the senior Israeli official said.
The two leaders also discussed a third goal: to continue to undermine the Iranian regime and “possibly create future conditions for a change in that area.” U.S. officials have backed away from pursuing paths that would overthrow the current leadership, but Netanyahu still believes that could happen.
“The chasm that has been created between the people and the regime is not about to be closed,” the senior Israeli official said of Netanyahu’s thinking.
Netanyahu advised Trump in February that Israeli intelligence indicated launching strikes against Iran would lead to the toppling of the Islamic Republic’s regime – and five months later, the slain ayatollah’s son retains power with a close circle of hardliners, calling into question the accuracy of Israel’s intelligence apparatus.
But the senior Israeli official said at the time, Netanyahu did not promise the Iranian people would take fate into their own hands following a coordinated attack. Rather, he chose his words carefully and said that an attack could create conditions to “advance the probability or the possibility that that would happen.”
The conditions needed for the Iranian regime to fall, “did not materialize,” the official told MS NOW, adding, “not for lack of insight, but for either operational failure or decisions that were made.”
Despite Netanyahu insisting Israel and the U.S. are on the same page, differences still remain: the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey and the Saudi nuclear arrangement did not come up during Wednesday’s White House meeting, according to a second Israeli official granted anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.
Meanwhile, the conflict continues to spread, with an Iranian drone attacking a U.S. gas storage tanker off the coast of Egypt on Wednesday.
Trump indicated he would not let Iran’s latest action slide, telling reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. would retaliate against Iran even as he leaves room for diplomatic talks to resume.
“It’s our turn, and we’ll see if we get there with an agreement at some point,” Trump said. “But we’re going to hit them very hard.”
As for what it would take for Israel to join the U.S. strikes, the senior Israeli official said that if Israel is attacked by Iran, “We will respond very, very forcefully and very quickly. And I think Iran would make a great mistake.”
Julia Jester covers politics for MS NOW and is based in Washington, D.C.
International rage over FIFA’s close ties to President Donald Trump has reached a fever pitch after soccer’s governing body announced a plan to sell a significant stake to an investor group led by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law.
The president and his family have all but turned the White House into their personal piggy bank. And FIFA — which has its own sordid history of corruption — seems to have made itself a party to Trump’s self-enrichment under Gianni Infantino’s leadership, such as by paying for space inside Trump Tower in New York. (The organization has defended the office rental as a World Cup outpost.)
Soccer is seen by many as a unifying game. But Trump’s incorporation of FIFA into his political dynasty is threatening that idea.
FIFA has announced plans to sell a large minority stake in a new company that will run its main events, including the World Cup and Club World Cup, as part of a plan to triple the amount of development money it dishes out to its 211 member associations.
Under the proposals — which are subject to approval by a majority of those national associations and FIFA’s 37-member council — a new entity called FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE) will take over all commercial operations, while FIFA remains the game’s global governing body and retains a majority stake in FFE.
A press release from FIFA confirmed the plans and said Thrive Eternal, which was launched by Joshua Kushner, is expected to lead the investment group that would control FIFA Forward Enterprise. FIFA did not clarify why Thrive Eternal was selected, and Kushner was already dabbling in sports.
But Trump basically has already given son-in-law Jared Kushner carte blanche to dictate U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East while simultaneously hatching business plans in the region. (Jared Kushner has denied any conflicts of interest.)
Joshua Kushner reportedly has been a major donor to Democrats. But, predictably, the idea of another Kushner becoming financially entwined with the World Cup — the world’s most popular sporting event — and basically being dropped into a position of global significance isn’t going over well. Several other soccer governing bodies have expressed concerns, including Europe’s UEFA.
“This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross,” UEFA said in a statement about The Athletic’s report, adding: “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade — especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA’s to sell.”
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee also rebuked the plan, writing on X: “Apparently the fake Peace Prize and giant lease with Trump Tower weren’t enough — now Infantino performs a kickback hat trick by pursuing a multibillion-dollar deal with Jared Kushner’s brother to sell ownership stakes in the World Cup to private investors.”
FIFA, Donald Trump’s favorite corrupt racketeering enterprise in world sports, is now going directly into business with the Trump family!
Apparently the fake Peace Prize and giant lease with Trump Tower weren’t enough—now Infantino performs a kickback hat trick by pursuing a… https://t.co/knSZibuMea
— House Judiciary Dems (@HouseJudiciary) July 28, 2026
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has already launched an investigation into the FIFA leader’s relationship with the Trump administration, while dozens of European lawmakers — citing concerns about “potential breaches of political neutrality” — have called for the FIFA Ethics Committee to investigate Infantino. This new proposal seems unlikely to assuage those concerns.
But what it does seem likely to do is fuel global anger toward the U.S. — the kind that has been growing since Trump retook office.
And when you consider that, it’s truly remarkable how the same MAGA movement whose members whined for years about politics mixing with sports is now in lockstep with a president who seems dead-set on casting his shadow over every sports event he can.
This post on X basically sums up the foul stench around FIFA’s latest proposal.
Sepp Blatter was Infantino’s predecessor as FIFA president and oversaw the organization amid some of its many scandals. When heof all people, is warning about how Trump and Infantino’s relationship is “deeply damaging” soccer, it’s a sign of how far FIFA has descended into the gutter.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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