As the war with Iran continues to upend energy markets, many of the world’s biggest oil companies are reporting their highest quarterly profits in years.
International oil prices averaged around $96 a barrel in the second quarter, up 45 percent from the same period last year. That rewarded the companies that remained able to extract oil and ship it around the world despite the fighting in the Middle East.
Exxon Mobil, the largest U.S. oil company, said on Friday that it had earned $14.53 billion in the April through June period, more than twice as much as it did in the second quarter of 2025. Chevron’s second-quarter profit soared to $12.07 billion, from $2.49 billion a year earlier.
The longer the war drags on, the more profitable this year is likely to be for oil companies, which generally benefit when energy is scarce and prices are high.
Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes the DoD's inability or refusal to care for troops injured in the Iran War back in March.
Lisa Desjardins:
Nixon Giovanni, Perez Paz, and Glendy Marisol Gonzalez de la Cruz were found bound, gagged, and shot in a sugarcane field in Guatemala. Their 14-month-old daughter was alive and crying next to her mother's body. The couple, whose funeral was last week, leaves behind two other young daughters as well.
Gonzalez de la Cruz left the United States with her daughters just weeks ago, self-deporting after her husband was detained by ICE and deported last year following a traffic stop. Now two communities in two countries are reeling and searching for answers.
For more, I'm joined by Brian Munoz. He is with St. Louis Public Radio, and he broke the story.
Brian, first of all, help us understand what we know about the murders of this couple and in particular the status of their children.
Brian Munoz, St. Louis Public Radio:
Absolutely.
So this is just the latest harrowing story out of Missouri about people perishing after interactions with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In this specific case, Glendy and Nixon had came to the St. Louis area and were separated after Nixon and his brother Rolando were stopped by ICE officials on the way to work one day last April.
They say that -- the brother tells me, that is, that they were on the way to their roofing jobs when an unmarked vehicle started chasing them down and pulled them over. After they stopped, agents swarmed the vehicle and they were taking in and subsequently deported.
Lisa Desjardins:
And that happened last year, right?
Brian Munoz:
Yes. That happened last April, according to an ICE spokesperson.
And so Glendy decided, hey, I'm going to stick it out. She stayed and decided to work two jobs, trying to put food on the table, but the rising cost and the fear of being detained and separated from her children made her do the unthinkable and decide, hey, I'm going to go back.
She had an act of asylum claim here, according to federal records, and her friends tell me that, like I mentioned, she was afraid. She was afraid for her safety and for the safety of her children. So, after having said, hey, this is too much, she decided to go, and she took her three kids with her.
And not even a month later, I think a week or two, she was found shot and killed. So her three daughters, young, in grade school, the youngest is only 14 months old or so, are now in the custody of their aunt and uncle, Nixon's brother.
Lisa Desjardins:
Do we know anything about the motive here?
Brian Munoz:
That's an excellent question. And there's so many things that are unknown.
From what I have gotten from family and friends this week is, the motives are known. Really, these folks were on their way to register a motorcycle that Nixon had with their youngest daughter when they were ambushed by assailants. They don't know who, they don't know the motives, but their families and friends have been left grieving.
Lisa Desjardins:
Now, ICE sent you a statement reading in part: "ICE remains committed to removing criminal aliens from our community by enforcing immigration laws and maintaining the integrity of our borders."
Did either of these two have a criminal record?
Brian Munoz:
Yes, so, Nixon, the only thing I could find, and as it was also pointed out in the ICE statement, was, he was cited and charged with driving without a license in 2024 in suburban St. Louis. There was about a $200 fine that was paid. And ICE said that there were two drunk driving charges in Overland, Missouri.
I scoured the court system that's publicly facing that would have those records in it, and I wasn't able to find them. They also pointed to a 2010 citation in Palm Beach, Florida, where Nixon was charged with an ordinance violation for having an open container, but it appears the prosecutors ended up not pursuing that case.
Lisa Desjardins:
And we know that traffic stop you mentioned, the fine, that is usually a misdemeanor.
Glendy, I want to talk about her as well. She had filed for asylum, as you said. She was awaiting a hearing next year, when she self-deported. What does this case and her fate tell you about the system overall?
Brian Munoz:
Yes.
I think this case is indicative of a system that advocates say is broken. So, right now, right before this interview, I looked at the track -- online immigration case tracker, and it says that there are roughly 45,000 to 50,000 backlogged cases in the Kansas City Immigration Court, which oversees the entire state of Missouri and Kansas.
Of those, about 11,500 or so are backlogs in asylum cases. So attorneys for immigrants across the state are telling me, we're waiting years and years and years to be able to even get a hearing. And right now, the rules are changing so much that it's difficult to best serve our clients and to give them a fair shake, because we don't know what's going to happen from one day to the next.
In February, Rob Copeland, Maureen Farrell, Lauren Hirsch and Duy Nguyen (NEW YORK TIMES) reoirted:
She educated him on how the law differentiates between underage victims of sex crimes and adult prostitutes. “I think the point is that if she was underage, she could not legally consent to engaging in prostitution,” Ms. Ruemmler wrote to Mr. Epstein in 2015.
She offered advice on how to knock down the credibility of one of his accusers, writing in one email that Mr. Epstein’s lawyer could push the woman into a “perjury trap.”
Ms. Ruemmler signed some emails “xoxo” and swapped photos. She joked with Mr. Epstein about the weight of visitors at New Jersey rest stops and speculated about the sexual orientation of a well-known hedge fund billionaire.
And over a series of meetings, she sought his advice on personal and professional matters, (“men aren’t interested in women my age,” one email lamented).
In 2019, while interviewing for the job at Goldman, Ms. Ruemmler told Mr. Epstein that she was wearing gifts from him. “Am totally tricked out by Uncle Jeffrey today!” she wrote.
Murray: “If Trump had simply done nothing, and left the seven percent cap in place, some of these families would have ended up saving as much as $15,000 a year for their family. This is really a slap in the face to moms and dads all over the country.”
ICYMI: Murray, Bonamici, Scott, Jacobs Introduce Legislation to Overturn Harmful Child Care Rule
***WATCH: Senator Murray’s floor speech***
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), spoke on the senate floor ahead of a vote on her Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval on the Trump administration’s May 2026 rule to remove regulations for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program. As of July 13, 2026, the rule reverses critical provisions that cap families’ copayments for their child care subsidy at no more than 7% of income; pay child care providers prospectively and based on enrollment; and ensure more child care slots for children in underserved geographic areas, infants and toddlers, and children with disabilities.
Republicans ultimately voted against the resolution, showing the stark contrast between Trump and Republicans’ making costs rise for families across the country and Democrats’ efforts to expand access to affordable child care.
““How about instead of a $1.5 trillion war budget, we make sure every working family in America can afford child care? Well, Trump’s tariffs already tax diapers, formula, and the car seat. Now he is coming for common-sense child care policies, taking us in the wrong direction, at a time when families need affordable child care more than ever. If Trump had simply done nothing, and left the seven percent cap in place, some of these families would have ended up saving as much as $15,000 a year for their family. This is really a slap in the face to moms and dads all over the country, and to child care providers who are already stretched thin to make budgets work and keep their doors open, and keep qualified employees in a field that has very high turnover,” said Senator Murray. “Trump just wants to use our taxpayer dollars to fund war and tax cuts for billionaires. Trump says we can’t afford child care. But he is wrong. The truth is we can’t afford to ignore child care. I know that an investment in child care is an investment in our families and an investment in a stronger economy.”
This effort builds on a previous letter
to HHS to halt the rollback of the CCDF rules. Representative Suzanne
Bonamici (D-OR) is leading a companion resolution in the House.
Senator Murray is Congress’ top advocate for child care, and is the author of the Child Care for Working Families Act, comprehensive
legislation to address the child care crisis, cosponsored by 44
Senators. Senators Murray and Warren announced the launch of a new Child Care for America Working Group in March. In June, Senator Murray and Senate Democrats released a new “Broken Promises” report revealing how Trump has accelerated the child care crisis.
Over the last ten years as a top appropriator, Murray has led efforts in Congress to more than triple funding for Child Care Development Block Grants (CCDBG). A cumulative $31 billion more has been provided for CCDBG than if funding had just kept pace with inflation over that same period. Every single year for the last decade essentially, Murray has made sure there is at least a modest increase in federal child care funding. As then Chair of the HELP Committee, Murray also helped write the American Rescue Plan where she pushed Congress to take action and deliver the largest ever one time investment in child care to date, this funding was widely credited with saving a fraying national child care system from collapse.
Senator Murray has pressed to deliver investments in child care across government. She founded the VA child care pilot program and continues to fund and expand the pilot. She consistently ensures funding for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program, which helps low-income parents pursue a higher education by supporting campus-based child care programs. She has also worked to greatly expand DOD’s child care initiatives and worked to build child care centers on military installations to support military families, and more—she has even worked to expand child care options for Congressional staff on capitol hill.
The resolution is endorsed by Caring Across Generations, Center for American Progress, Child Care for Every Family Network, CLASP, Community Change Action, Council for Professional Recognition, Home Grown, Molly Moon’s Handmade Ice Cream, MomsRising, National Association for Family Child Care, National Indian Child Care Association, National Women’s Law Center, SEIU, Small Business Majority, ZERO TO THREE.
Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:
“While President Trump’s top priorities are $1.5 trillion in war spending and a golden ballroom. Those are not the priorities that American families are focused on. Everywhere I go, I hear from families about the crushing cost of child care. So, it is no surprise to me that eighty percent of voters say the high cost of child care is a major problem. This is at the beating heart of our economy. If mom and dad don’t have affordable, high quality child care—mom and dad can’t go to work. But Mr. President, while Trump has plunged us into an affordability crisis, a war no one asked for, all the while families are struggling to get by. He is hellbent on making our country’s child care crisis even worse.
“Right now, Trump’s HHS ended a seven percent co-payment cap on child care costs for very low-income families who already receive federal child care support. This is already a very modest federal program that needs to be supersized in order to meet the needs of every child who needs it. Even with this program, many households are paying more than twenty percent of their household income on child care costs. When Democrats put forward this policy, we said no family who qualifies for this subsidy should pay more than seven percent of their income for child care. Trump tore that up. We should be having a debate about how we increase child care funding.
“How about instead of a $1.5 trillion war budget, we make sure every working family in America can afford child care? Well, Trump’s tariffs already tax diapers, formula, and the car seat. Now he is coming for common-sense child care policies, taking us in the wrong direction, at a time when families need affordable child care more than ever. If Trump had simply done nothing, and left the seven percent cap in place, some of these families would have ended up saving as much as $15,000 a year for their family.
“This is really a slap in the face to moms and dads all over the country, and to child care providers who are already stretched thin to make budgets work and keep their doors open, and keep qualified employees in a field that has very high turnover. The good news? Congress can now force Trump to reverse course on this today, right now. Very soon, we will be voting on my resolution to overturn Trump’s anti-child care rule and bring back that seven percent income cap.
“This shouldn’t be controversial. You are either voting to lower child care costs or to increase them. Now, not too long ago President Trump said openly that he believes—and I’m going to quote him: ‘we can’t afford daycare—we have to pay for the war.’ Mr. President, we can afford child care. Trump just wants to use our taxpayer dollars to fund war and tax cuts for billionaires.
“Trump says we can’t afford child care. But he is wrong. The truth is we can’t afford to ignore child care. I know that an investment in child care is an investment in our families and an investment in a stronger economy. To my colleagues: if you vote to let this rule stand, own it. Go home and tell the parents in your state you voted to raise their child care bill. You cannot call yourself pro-family while voting to make it more expensive to raise one—you just can’t. And that’s why, Mr. President, I am calling on my colleagues to join me and pass this resolution. Now every Senator is going to cast a vote on one simple question: should working parents pay more for child care, or less? Donald Trump wants them to pay more. More at the pump, more at the grocery store, and now to drop your child off at day care.
“Now the Senate will give its answer. And I promise you this: parents are watching. And parents remember. To my colleagues: Vote for the moms. Vote for the dads. Vote for the kid in the back seat at the 7 a.m. drop-off. When child care costs as much as the mortgage, whose side are you on?
“So again, I urge my colleagues, vote yes to lower child care costs.”
###
BlackCommentator.com July 30, 2026 Issue 1096 |
Our email address is BlackCommentator@gmail.com Our voicemail number is 856.823.1739 |
