The rising tides of change hit the United States hard during the summer of 2025. There were new executive orders, laws and natural disasters all affecting millions of people in various ways. Here are some of the changes that might’ve affected you or someone you know.
The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was signed into law by President Donald Trump July 4, 2025. Among other things, it contained historically large cuts to Medicaid, causing 11.8 million Medicaid recipients to lose their coverage over the next ten years.
The OBBBA blocks regulations that make it easy for Medicare recipients to enroll in Medicare Savings Programs (MSP), bringing about more difficulty for recipients to enroll in MSP’s. This, in turn, makes health care less accessible to low-income enrollees and increases out-of-pocket costs.
The bill has also defunded Planned Parenthood for one year.
“Whether Congress ‘defunds’ Planned Parenthood health centers for one year or ten, the impact is the same: ‘defunding’ will exacerbate the chaos of our country’s already fragile reproductive health care infrastructure, and disrupt access to birth control, cancer screenings, and other essential, preventive sexual and reproductive health services across the United States. On top of the catastrophic impact on our bodies, lives, and futures, this bill will cost taxpayers money they don’t have to fund a policy they never asked for,” stated Alexis McGill Johnson, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
Johnson emphasizes the importance of the other services provided by Planned Parenthood.
“Patients need access to birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and more. And right now, lawmakers in Congress are trying to ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood as part of their long-term goal to shut down Planned Parenthood and ban abortion nationwide,” Johnson described in a statement.
The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act has brought huge changes in the nation’s accessible health care.
Alligator Alcatraz
The Florida Everglades immigration detention center, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz” because of the remote location and its surrounding land, is riddled with alligators and pythons. It opened July 3, 2025, and started accepting immigrant detainees the very same day.
The center itself was built over the homes of Native American tribes and endangered animals, bringing in hundreds of protesters. But the main reason it drew protesters to the area was the inhumane treatment of its inhabitants.
The immigrants in the center are allegedly constantly mistreated, often not being provided with basic human rights. There have been reports of “maggot-filled food, flooding floors, insects everywhere, and poorly functioning air conditioning.”
Trump noted, “Pretty soon, this facility will handle the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet,” stating that the targeted people for the detention center would be dangerous criminals. This goes along with his other claims that he would focus on deporting criminals back to their country. But this isn’t necessarily what he has done.
There are multiple accounts of non-criminals being detained in these centers, being mistreated as if they were violent criminals.
However, less than two months after its opening, on August 21, “U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued a preliminary injunction blocking further expansion of the detention center and effectively called for it to be dismantled within 60 days.”
Alligator Alcatraz was set to close in October 2025, but was blocked by the US Court of Appeals of the 11th circuit with no close date to be specified.
The D.C Takeover
The Home Rule Act of 1973 allows city residents of Washington, D.C. to elect their mayor and city council, while still giving the federal government some control over Washington, D.C. matters.
The act also gives the president control over the Washington, D.C. police for up to 30 days under “special conditions of an emergency nature.” This “emergency nature” is justified by Trump, as he claims a rise in crime over the past year.
Trump maintains that the murder rate in Washington, D.C. is out of control, but reports say that violent crimes have actually gone down this year. Because of the “higher than usual” crime rates, the Home Rule Act was invoked on Aug. 12, 2025.
In doing so, Trump has sent hundreds of new recruits, cadets and police officers to Washington, D.C, his goal being to bring down the number of violent crimes before the emergency event expires on Sept. 10. But their attempts won’t stop when the emergency ends.
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowers said, “I want the message to be clear to the Congress: We have a framework to request or use federal resources in our city. We don’t need a presidential emergency.”
Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag
On August 25, 2025, Trump made the executive order (EO) “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag,” stating that burning the American flag is now punishable by a year in jail.
“What the penalty is going to be is: if you burn the flag, you get one year in jail, no early exits, no nothing,” declared Trump. However, many concerns were brought up on if this went against citizen’s freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. But this is not the first time there has been a penalty for burning the American flag.
In 1968, Congress passed the Federal Flag Desecration Law, making it a federal crime to burn the flag as a way to express contempt for it. Six years later, in 1984, Gregory Lee Johnson was arrested under Texas law for desecration of the American flag in protest of the law.
Then, in 1989, in Texas vs. Johnson, the Supreme Court agreed with Johnson that the law goes against freedom of speech because flag burning is a form of “symbolic speech.” The Senate passed the Flag Protection Act in 1989, arguing that it is protected under the First Amendment.
“The Attorney General shall prioritize the enforcement to the fullest extent possible of our Nation’s criminal and civil laws against acts of American flag desecration that violate applicable, content-neutral laws, while causing harm unrelated to expression, consistent with the First Amendment,” stated in the EO. Now, Trump has concluded that burning the flag is provocative, which in turn, incites riots and violence, ultimately leading to criminal acts in our country.
Burning of the American flag itself isn’t considered a crime, but because of the claims that it incites violence, the burning entails jail time.
The Kerrville Floods
On July 2, 2025, the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) declared that state emergency resources were activated in response to threats of flooding in West and Central parts of Texas. Texans were “encouraged to monitor local forecasts and to avoid driving or walking into flooded areas.”
The next day, an alert is issued by the NWS Austin/San Antonio office, warning that there could be an isolated amount of five to seven inches of rainfall in Kerr County, possibly causing flash flooding.
The flooding took people by surprise, with the first evacuation call being at 3:39 a.m. It quickly became the highest flood on record in this county, with the Guadalupe River rising 36 feet.
The floods were deadly, with 119 people tragically losing their lives. The list of names was released by authorities Aug. 8, over a month after the initial floods.
This summer was filled with changes affecting a huge variety of people. Most of these changes happened around the same stretch of days, making it hard to stay informed with everything that was going on.