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Transgender Air Force members sue federal government

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Nov. 15, 2025, 5:15 AM ESTBy Richie Duchon and Nigel ChiwayaA former soccer boss gets a pelting, plus a costly name change and tough-to-swallow tariffs. Test your knowledge of the week in news, and take last week’s quiz here.Richie DuchonRichie Duchon is an NBC News digital editor in the Los Angeles bureau. Nigel ChiwayaNigel Chiwaya is the Senior Editor, Data Viz for NBC News Digital.
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Nov. 13, 2025, 5:00 AM ESTBy Bridget Bowman, Ben Kamisar, Alexandra Marquez, Juhi Doshi, Owen Auston-Babcock and Maya RosenbergBilly Edmonson voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 because of his stances on border security, gun rights and the economy. One year after casting his ballot, Edmonson is finding it difficult to make ends meet. “Everything’s already so expensive. … That’s the worst thing about his presidency so far, is he promised things coming down and prices are not coming down. I make more money than I’ve ever made in my life right now, and it has, financially, been a struggle,” said Edmonson, a 35-year-old construction worker from Missouri. Edmonson recalled that Trump promised to start lowering prices on his first day in office. “It just doesn’t seem like there’s been a whole lot of focus on, ‘Hey, let’s get these prices down.’ It’s just been like, ‘Hey, prices are high because Biden did this.’ It’s like, well, Biden’s not in office anymore,” said Edmonson, a self-described independent, later adding, “It’s personally frustrating.” Edmonson is not alone. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of registered voters, including 30% of Republicans, said in the recent national NBC News poll that Trump has fallen short of their expectations on the cost of living and the economy. After being one of the big reasons why Trump won a return to the White House in 2024, Trump’s performance on the economy has become one of the big drags on his second term. While a number of Trump voters told NBC News in January that they’d give Trump a relatively long leash to improve the economy, the new interviews suggest that for some he’s running out of slack.“It just doesn’t seem like there’s been a whole lot of focus on, ‘Hey, let’s get these prices down.’ It’s just been like, ‘Hey, prices are high because Biden did this.’ It’s like, well, Biden’s not in office anymore.”Billy EdmonsonTrump himself has cast doubt on surveys showing Americans are anxious about the economy, telling Fox News this week, “I think polls are fake. We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had.” NBC News spoke to 18 Trump voters who participated in the most recent NBC News poll and said Trump had not met their expectations on the economy to explore how this group was thinking about Trump and experiencing the economy — and whether they were still committed to supporting his party. None regretted their vote for Trump last year, in many cases because of a deep frustration with Democrats. A handful said they’d be open to voting for Democrats in the future, though most planned to keep voting Republican. When it comes to the economy, many said the pain they’re feeling is real.“He and his advisers claim the country is going well, prices are going down, the tariffs are doing wonderfully,” Susan, a 66-year-old retiree from Nevada, said of Trump. (Several interviewees declined to share their last name when discussing politics, with some citing the nation’s polarized political atmosphere.) “But when you go to the store, the prices are up,” she added. Navigating high pricesDuring and after his 2024 campaign, Trump not only promised to halt inflation but to bring prices lower after several years of post-Covid growth. That promise, made even though overall consumer prices essentially never decrease over time, cuts to the core of some of his voters’ complaints. “It’s always hard to bring down prices when somebody else has screwed something up like [President Joe Biden] did,” Trump said during a news conference in January, weeks before being sworn in. “We’re going to have prices down. I think you’re going to see some pretty drastic price reductions.” Jeremiah, a 48-year-old Republican from Utah who works in the aerospace industry, has voted for Trump each time he ran for president and backed him last year because he saw Trump as a change agent. But he said Trump’s handling of the economy so far has been “mediocre.” “I was definitely hoping to see a lot of prices come back down, like gas for your car, diesel, utilities, groceries. I was hoping to see it all come back down and level out at least, but it’s not. It just keeps getting worse,” Jeremiah said. “I have a 20-year-old son and a 17-year-old daughter, and they can’t live on their own,” he later added. “My son’s a welder, and he makes $28 an hour, and he’s still not out on his own. Everything is just so overpriced. It’s ridiculous. When I graduated high school, I moved out and had a $300 a month apartment, piece of cake, 10 bucks an hour.” Edmonson, the Missouri construction worker, noted that he travels often for work. But motel and grocery prices have jumped, even for items like a can of soup, he said. And the high costs have him reconsidering his work on the road. “It’s almost getting to the point where it’s time for me to find something at home,” Edmonson said, later adding, “Because if I’m gonna sink, I might as well sink at home.” “I was surprised that the groceries haven’t went down. In fact, they keep going up.”Roxanne NovitPatty, a 70-year-old Republican retiree from Pennsylvania, blamed Trump for the country’s economic woes. Trump, she said, “has always been a very rich man. He’s never had to do anything his whole life. He’s never had to go shop. So, he has no idea what a true working person in their daily life has to do.” “I was surprised that the groceries haven’t went down. In fact, they keep going up. So that would be my biggest disappointment,” said Roxanne Novit, a 69-year-old retiree from Colorado and a self-described Republican. Susan, the Nevada retiree who is not registered with any party, said Trump’s handling of the economy “is not at all what I expected,” noting she was hopeful Trump would focus on “opening up mining and gasoline exploration.” “It seems like they’re moving a little slow on that because they’re spending all the time on the tariffs or making nice to the Chinese president or something like that,” Susan said. Giving him timeBut some voters were willing to give Trump some more time to turn things around, even among the subset who said they believe he’s fallen short. Overall, most Republicans still back Trump on the economy and other issues, according to the NBC News poll and other surveys.“I would like to see the economy turn up a little quicker, but everything takes time. You can’t expect it overnight,” said independent Robert Duran, 68, a retired law enforcement officer from Massachusetts. William Scheuer, a 68-year-old New Yorker, who said he voted for Trump in 2024 because he’s “old-fashioned” on things like social issues, agreed that Trump has been “falling a little short” on the economy, specifically noting prices. “Everything’s going up, it’s going up more than what the government is telling you,” he said, before adding he’s “confident [Trump] will” turn it around. “I would like to see the economy turn up a little quicker, but everything takes time. You can’t expect it overnight.”Robert DuranCraig Lovejoy, a 32-year-old Florida independent who works in pest control, said Trump is doing “better than many” presidents on addressing the economy. “I don’t think that one president will be all it takes to get things back on track, but I think we’re headed in the right direction,” Lovejoy said. Some voters were sympathetic to Trump’s tariff policies in particular, even as they were navigating higher prices. “The steak I used to buy that used to be like 40 bucks is now 80. I get it,” said Jason Olson, a 50-year-old small-business owner from South Carolina who typically backs Republicans. “And I know tariffs have raised prices on a lot of things as well. But I also understand the reason behind the tariffs are they want to bring industry back to the U.S.” Tim Fleming, a 42-year-old self-described libertarian who works in injection molding at a factory in Tennessee, agreed that Trump’s presidency has been “a little disappointing.” He raised frustrations about how Trump’s pledge not to tax overtime and tips was implemented as a tax deduction, so he and others won’t see the fruits of that until they file their taxes next year. “My overtime is still getting taxed; my bonuses are still getting taxed,” he said. “It was not what it was made out to be.” But he noted he believes he’s seen the direct fruits of Trump’s tariff push: the return of jobs in his county that had been offshored to Mexico. “The tariffs helped create a lot of jobs where I live,” Fleming said. Those comments come as the White House has tried to argue the administration is making important strides on affordability. “The president has done a lot that has already paid off in lower interest rates and lower inflation, but we inherited a disaster from Joe Biden and Rome wasn’t built in a day. We’re going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that’s the metric by which we’ll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond,” Vice President JD Vance wrote on X the day after Election Day.Down on DemocratsWhile several Trump voters raised concerns about the economy and high prices, none of the voters, who are largely Republicans or independents, said they regretted their choice last year. “I wouldn’t change my vote, but I’m not happy,” said Elliot Muegge, a 32-year-old farmer from Oklahoma. Amanda, a 48-year-old postal worker from Missouri, said she still finds it difficult to make a budget because of high food prices. But, she said, she thinks former Vice President Kamala Harris “would have been worse.” “I wouldn’t change my vote, but I’m not happy.”Elliot MueggeA self-described conservative, Amanda said she would be open to supporting a Democratic candidate in a future election, but “not a progressive, more like an old-school Democrat.” A handful of Trump voters also said they would be open to supporting Democrats in the future, depending on the candidate. But others said backing a Democrat was off the table. “I think that they pander to friend groups and minorities and they look silly doing it. It’s fake,” Fleming, of Tennessee, said. “I haven’t found a single Democrat” that inspires trust, said Lovejoy, of Florida. Edmonson, the Missouri construction worker, said it could be years before he considers supporting a Democratic candidate, noting his strong support for gun rights. “They just don’t care about people in general. They want to say they care about people, but that — to me, all they want is, is votes,” Edmonson said, noting he is still frustrated with Trump. “I don’t feel like I can vote for a Democrat candidate,” Edmonson said. “I feel like I don’t have a candidate really.”Still, others who are open to backing Democrats warn that the economic angst coursing through the country — which Trump used to his advantage amid anger at the Biden administration in 2024 — could translate to political losses for Republicans. “Did he not promise the American people — Day 1 — that prices were going to go down? We are now in Month 11 and things continue to rise,” said Patty, the 70-year-old Pennsylvanian. While she said she regularly votes Republican, she’s split her ticket in the past, and she said she likes her state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro. “The Republican Party is in for a rude awakening, and I think it’s not a bad thing,” she added. Muegge, from Oklahoma, shared a similar sentiment about the economy hurting Trump’s political standing. While he doesn’t blame Trump specifically for the cost of living, he expressed frustration about how he “unfairly manipulates the markets with his social media presence.” He pointed to a recent conversation he had with his father, also a Republican. “He and I were having a conversation, and he said, ‘I hate Trump.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, you do, too? I thought I was alone on this island,’” he said. “I don’t know if other people are saying that quietly behind their own closed doors and then pounding their chest in public,” he said. “I just don’t know.”Bridget BowmanBridget Bowman is a national political reporter for NBC News.Ben KamisarBen Kamisar is a national political reporter for NBC NewsAlexandra MarquezAlexandra Marquez is a politics reporter for NBC News.Juhi DoshiJuhi Doshi is an associate producer with NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”Owen Auston-BabcockOwen Auston-Babcock is an intern at NBC News.Maya RosenbergMaya Rosenberg is a Desk Assistant based in Washington, D.C.
September 25, 2025
Sept. 25, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Abigail Brooks and Erik OrtizDerrick Dearman appeared to be high on drugs in his Alabama prison in the days leading up to his execution.The convicted killer raged in phone calls and emails, anguishing over how his willingness to die for his crimes wouldn’t change the perception of him as an irredeemable monster.And by the time he took his final breath, his longtime addiction to methamphetamine — the drug he blamed for fueling the murders of five people, including a pregnant woman, in 2016 — had consumed him to the end.Dearman, 36, had meth in his body when Alabama put him to death by lethal injection in October 2024, according to a toxicology report confirming what eyewitnesses believed at the time.He isn’t the only prisoner to be executed with narcotics in their system in Alabama recently.Since Alabama resumed executions in 2023, following a pause on capital punishment amid a series of failed lethal injection attempts, the state has executed 11 people, including Dearman. An NBC News review of available autopsies shows that at least three others had taken illegal drugs prior to their executions: Jamie Ray Mills, 50, was executed last year with meth in his body, while Carey Dale Grayson, 50, and Kenneth Smith, 58, died last year with a form of a synthetic cannabinoid in their system, according to their toxicology reports. Synthetic cannabinoids imitate the effects of substances like marijuana.Carey Dale Grayson; Kenneth Smith; Jamie Ray Mills.Alabama Department of CorrectionsAlabama has its fourth execution of the year scheduled for Thursday.Jon Ozmint, a former prosecutor who was the director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections from 2003 to 2011, said that the discovery during autopsy of drugs unrelated to an execution and not prescribed to an inmate would have been “a red flag for us.”“We definitely would have launched an after-action review, and then, if there was any indication of you know, staff wrongdoing, we would have launched the appropriate level of investigation,” Ozmint said.Mills was executed by lethal injection, and Grayson and Smith died by an execution method using nitrogen gas. (Smith was the first inmate in the nation to die in that manner.)The amount of the drugs found in Dearman, Mills, Grayson and Smith was relatively small, independent medical experts who reviewed the inmates’ records told NBC News, but their detection still indicates the drugs had been recently absorbed.D’Michelle DuPre, a forensic consultant in South Carolina and a former medical examiner, has analyzed about 125 death row inmates’ toxicology reports throughout her career, she said.“I have rarely seen an opioid in the inmates’ tox screen. I don’t recall seeing a narcotic,” DuPre noted.Alabama executes convicted murderer with new nitrogen method02:05Charlotte Morrison, a senior attorney with the Equal Justice Initiative, which represented Mills in his death row case, said drugs are generally less of a problem in Alabama’s William C. Holman Correctional Facility because of heightened security and inmates’ isolation.However, she said, she’s not surprised to learn that even death row inmates can score drugs, indicating the depths of the problem.“The entire system is poorly managed,” Morrison said. Drugs “are a pervasive crisis.”The Alabama Department of Corrections and the state attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to inquiries about the inmates’ toxicology results.According to the state’s execution protocol, on the afternoon of an execution, “a medical examination of the condemned inmate will be completed, with the results recorded on a Medical Treatment Record or Body Chart.” The Department of Corrections also did not immediately respond when asked if workers are checking for drug use in that final examination and what happens if it is detected.In a deposition last October involving Grayson’s case, Corrections Commissioner John Hamm acknowledged drugs are circulating in Alabama’s prisons. He agreed that, in some instances, corrections employees may be smuggling the contraband into the prisons and selling them to prisoners.In recent months, the Department of Corrections said a corrections officer was accused of the large-scale trafficking of narcotics, including meth and marijuana, at the state prison in St. Clair County. Additionally, visitors have attempted to bring drugs into facilities, including at Holman, or used drones to drop backpacks containing drugs onto prison grounds.The William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala., where death row inmates are executed.Sharon Steinmann / APThe drug trade has had lethal consequences, as well. Of the 277 deaths last year of inmates in state Department of Corrections custody, 46 were classified as “accidental/overdose,” according to an ACLU of Alabama report.In 2020, the Justice Department sued Alabama for alleged constitutional violations within its prison system, citing instances of excessive force, sexual abuse and poor sanitary conditions. The suit also mentioned the system’s “failure to prevent the introduction of illegal contraband leads to prisoner-on-prisoner violence.”“The use of illicit substances, including methamphetamines or fentanyl or synthetic cannabinoids, is prevalent in Alabama’s prison for men,” the complaint alleges. “Prisoners using illicit substances often harm others or become indebted to other prisoners.”The federal government’s lawsuit against Alabama remains ongoing, and the state has largely denied the allegations in court filings.Carla Crowder, the executive director of Alabama Appleseed, a nonprofit criminal justice reform organization that provides legal and re-entry services, said prison officials have the ability to root out drugs in prisons “from a public corruption perspective.”“Start tracking down the source — who’s in charge, who’s calling the shots,” Crowder said. “We are advocating for the state to begin to take this seriously.”During Commissioner Hamm’s deposition, one of Grayson’s lawyers pointed out the ability for some death row inmates to acquire drugs, including his own client — and questioned whether that affected Grayson’s ability to meaningfully participate in his own defense.“Mr. Grayson admitted that he was on drugs at the time of his deposition or had taken them in the immediate — in the preceding 12 hours,” lawyer Spencer Hahn told U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker Jr.“I don’t understand how a person who is being held on single block at the most secure prison in the state of Alabama is allowed to alter his consciousness using drugs before a deposition that is central to his case,” Hahn said. “So a lot of what Mr. Grayson said and may not have said, he was not in his right mind in a lot of ways.”Hahn added that Grayson had been under the influence of flakka, a synthetic stimulant similar to the more commonly known bath salts.He said Grayson’s drug use was also consistent with a synthetic cannabinoid found in Smith’s autopsy. An attorney for the state responded that the synthetic cannabinoid Smith consumed was “smoked.”Certainly taking drugs is illegal, but so is providing drugs to a prisoner. ”Said Spencer hahn, a lawyer for a Death row inmate“Having access to these mind-altering substances can absolutely impact your conscious state and your decision-making,” said David Dadiomov, an assistant professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Southern California.Dadiomov also said the way these drugs are used among people who are incarcerated is different because of the setting. “Things are misused simply based on access,” he said. “At extremely high doses, because these substances are usually very potent, they also cause psychotic-like effects, or effects that are quite different from what people classically view as intoxication from marijuana.”During Hamm’s deposition, Hahn questioned how Smith could have drugs in his system when he “had been watched for four days straight before an execution.”“Somehow he was able to, from an isolation cell, obtain flakka or whatever that synthetic cannabinoid source was,” Hahn said of Smith.“Certainly taking drugs is illegal,” Hahn added, “but so is providing drugs to a prisoner. And somebody got those drugs into that prison.”During the deposition, the judge suggested drugs could be getting into Alabama prisons another way.“There has been an issue in the state prison system of lawyers bringing in papers that have been soaked in drugs and then giving them to their clients and DOC, you know, or whatever the facility maybe can’t stop that from happening because it’s legal papers,” Judge Huffaker said. “And then the particular inmate smokes or ingests it or does whatever with it.”Hahn denied his law office had ever done so.He declined to comment about Grayson’s case when reached by NBC News this week.A lawyer for Smith also couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.Read more death row coverageAn Idaho warden acquired hard-to-get lethal injection drugs from an undisclosed supplier on a rural roadAfter Biden commuted federal death row sentences, DAs are weighing state chargesSouth Carolina prepares for first firing squad execution, ushering in return of rare methodIndiana carries out first execution in 15 years in process scrutinized for its secrecyDearman, who initially pleaded not guilty to the crimes, later fired his two court-appointed attorneys and changed his plea to guilty.In a phone interview with NBC News in April 2024, Dearman said he had dropped the appeals in his case and was ready for the state to execute him on capital murder and kidnapping charges.Dearman said he was high on meth in 2016 when he burst into a bungalow armed with an ax and firearms in a rural area near Mobile. His estranged ex-girlfriend, Laneta Lester, was staying at the home, which belonged to her brother.Dearman was convicted of killing five people while they slept: Lester’s brother, Joseph Adam Turner, 26, and his wife, Shannon Melissa Randall, 35; Randall’s brother, Robert Lee Brown, 26; and two others who lived at the home, Justin Kaleb Reed, 23, and his wife, Chelsea Marie Reed, 22, who was five months pregnant. Dearman was also convicted in the death of the Reed’s unborn child.He told NBC News last year that he was addicted to drugs since he was a teenager and that his dependency on them ignited the rampage.“Drugs turned me into a very unpredictable, unstable and violent person,” he said. “That’s not who I am. The person that committed these crimes and the person who I truly am is two different people.”Dadiomov said there is a strong correlation between long-term meth use and severe mental illness, likening meth-induced psychosis to schizophrenia.“They present similarly,” he said. “They can have the similar features of hallucinations, so seeing things that aren’t there or hearing things that aren’t there.”Morrison, who represented Mills on Alabama’s death row, said the need for inmates to turn to drugs in prison, and then potentially gain access to narcotics from corrections officers and other employees, only shows the absence of rehabilitation and programming to help prisoners — even those relegated to death row.“It impacts any sense of hope,” Morrison said. “It’s a system that reflects to an entire group of people that they do not have worth.”Abigail BrooksAbigail Brooks is a producer for NBC News.Erik OrtizErik Ortiz is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital focusing on racial injustice and social inequality.
September 25, 2025
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