CURE News for June 15th
Mark David
1) 'Tens of thousands' of mail-in ballots for Spencer Pratt weren't rejected in LA. Here's the proof
The reality TV personality finished third in the city's 2026 mayoral primary. By Jack Izzo for SNOPES
ens of thousands of mail-in ballots cast for Republican Spencer Pratt in the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral primary were rejected for "signature irregularities."
Context
According to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, which is in charge of running the county's elections, about 12,700 mail-in ballots across the county (not just in the city of Los Angeles) required additional verification due to signature differences. Information was sent to affected voters explaining how they could ensure their vote was still counted. There was no evidence all of those ballots had been cast for Pratt, and that total would not have been enough for him to advance to the general election.
Jallicia Jolly, Amherst College THE CONSERVATION
Limits on healthcare for undocumented women are reshaping pregnancy and family health.
3) Trump proposes putting political goals above objective criteria in deciding who gets government grants, from childcare to research to public safety
June 15, 2026 Mirae Kim Associate Professor of Nonprofit Studies, George Mason University THE CONSERVATION Beth Daley Editor and General Manager
The federal government provides grants – any amount of money that the recipient doesn’t have to pay back – for a wide array of purposes that serve the public interest. States, local governments, colleges and universities, students, nonprofits and other kinds of organizations receive these funds.
Huge sums are involved.
The federal government dispatches at least US$1.2 trillion – more than $1 out of every $6 it spends – through grants and other kinds of transfers. That money has historically been distributed through programs authorized by Congress, using statutory, regulatory, formula-based or competitive criteria, rather than direct tests of political loyalty.
But the Trump administration aims to rewrite the federal government’s rules for awarding those grants. The Office of Management and Budget, a government agency that develops budgets and helps set policy priorities, says its proposed revisions of those rules are designed to ensure that all grants “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.” The OMB published the proposed changes on May 29, 2026, in a 400-page document,
4) Medicare weight-loss drug coverage could overwhelm doctors by Rina Reed for AXIOS
Next month's launch of a Medicare program providing weight-loss drugs for $50 a month is expected to unleash pent-up demand for Wegovy, Zepbound and other blockbuster treatments — and create new bottlenecks at doctors' offices.
The big picture: It could become one of the biggest drug rollouts ever — and it could test an already burdened system as seniors seek new GLP-1 prescriptions.
- Clinicians worry that could also give short shrift to patient counseling on how to take the injectables and pills, adjust dosages and deal with side effects.
- Medicare has been prohibited by law from covering weight-loss drugs.
5) Trump Turns Eighty But Claims He Has Brain of Four-year-old Andy Borowitz
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Taking his milestone birthday in stride, on Sunday Donald J. Trump told reporters, “I may be eighty, but I have the brain of a four-year-old.”
“People who think I’m too old should take a look at this UFC fight,” he argued. “That’s an idea that could only come from a four-year-old’s mind.”
Trump said his self-assessment was corroborated by doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, who told him at his most recent exam that his cognition had scored at a four-year-old level.
6) Justice Jackson Sits Out Supreme Court Decision on Trump Ally v. Comey : Newsweek
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to revive Carter Page’s lawsuit against former FBI officials, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson notably recusing herself from the decision.
The ruling effectively ends Page’s attempt to hold individual FBI leaders liable for surveillance errors tied to the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The outcome leaves Page without further legal avenues, closes the case against former officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, and cements a lower‑court ruling that his claims were filed too late.
7) Historic Kyiv monastery damaged, 10 people killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine
By Pavel Polityuk and Anna Voitenko REUTERS
- Summary
- Five killed, 34 injured in Kyiv in major Russian air attacks
- Another five killed, at least five more wounded in Kharkiv
- Historic Kyiv monastery badly damaged in blaze, authorities say
- French minister compares strike to an attack on Notre Dame
KYIV, June 15 (Reuters) - A 1,000-year-old monastery that symbolises Ukraine's spiritual and cultural heritage was badly damaged in the heaviest Russian aerial attack on Kyiv in two weeks, authorities said on Monday, while 10 people were killed nationwide in the overnight strikes.
8) Boris Epshteyn: Trump's "psychiatrist" and counsel by: Marc Caputo,and Alex Isenstadt for AXIOS
Boris Epshteyn is such a fixture in Donald Trump's White House that he's in Oval Office meetings when some attendees don't even know it.
- Epshteyn, the president's senior personal counsel, speaks with "the boss" so often that Trump sometimes puts him on speakerphone without telling others in the room, two people familiar with the routine tell Axios.
Why it matters: In a White House where proximity to power is power itself, Epshteyn is one of the most influential people in D.C. — not just because he's listening in, but because Trump listens to him as well.
9) San Francisco Chronicle Posting via BlueSky
https://bsky.app/profile/sfchronicle.com/post/3mo76vu4hgj2o
On the eve of President Donald Trump’s highly orchestrated celebrations of his 80th birthday, protesters at S.F.'s Ocean Beach formed a human banner on Saturday, calling for the release of redacted files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that reference Trump. 📸: @joshedelsonphotography
10 The Age of the Super A*sholes by Robert Reich
Trump and Musk are dominating our economy and our politics, which tells us something
Elon Musk has just become the world’s first trillionaire. Donald Trump is America’s first dictator. But they have more in common than their economic and political dominance.
To describe both as selfish narcissists would be a wild understatement. Both are maniacally obsessed with increasing their own personal wealth, power, and control.
Both have been willing to break laws, norms, and other social constraints in pursuit of these goals. Both have manipulated, bribed, conned, robbed, and bullied their ways to dominance.
11) June 14, 2026 Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American
On June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress resolved “[t]hat six companies of expert riflemen, be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, and two in Virginia; that each company consist of a captain, three lieutenants, four serjeants, four corporals, a drummer or trumpeter, and sixty-eight privates…[and that] each company, as soon as completed, shall march and join the army near Boston, to be there employed as light infantry, under the command of the chief Officer in that army.”
And thus Congress established the Continental Army.
12) Reclaiming Patriotism this Flag Day. June 14th Lincoln Square
It is profoundly sobering to witness the sacred symbols of our republic reduced to cheap props for personal grievances and corporate counter-culture. Today, as we mark Flag Day, we find ourselves at a crossroads that our ancestors would have recognized with a collective shudder. We are living through an era where the American flag hasn’t just been commercialized; it has been hijacked.
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