DAVINA VALENZUELA watches as sanitation workers heave most of her belongings into a garbage truck. The 33-year-old has been homeless for more than a year, and was sleeping in a dusty alley in central Fresno, the biggest city in California’s Central Valley. The truck devours bags of clothes, a stroller, a pile of hypodermic needles and around $120—much of it in change. Police officers arrest her and a friend and sit them in the back of a truck. They are given tickets for camping in a public place, which became a misdemeanour crime in September in an attempt to shrink the city’s homeless encampments. “That’s all I have right there,” she says, once her handcuffs are taken off. “I don’t know how I ended up here.”

THE PENTAGON has been mired in chaos in recent months. Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defence, stands accused of mishandling classified information. Many of his aides have been let go over alleged leaks (accusations they deny). Top generals have been fired for no discernible reason beyond their colour or sex. The department is in “a full-blown meltdown”, says John Ullyot, a Hegseth loyalist who served as chief spokesman until April. Yet Mr Hegseth is pressing ahead with sweeping reforms that will change the size, shape and purpose of America’s armed forces.

BACK IN JANUARY Donald Trump signed executive order 14187, entitled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation”. He instructed federally run insurance programmes to exclude coverage of treatment related to gender transition for minors. The order aimed to stop institutions that receive federal grants from providing such treatments as well. Mr Trump also commissioned the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to publish, within 90 days, a review of literature on best practices regarding “identity-based confusion” among children. The ban on federal funding was later blocked by a judge, but the review was published on May 1st.