Washington — The federal government awarded a company owned by a Trump donor a $1.7 million contract to install a new water cleaning system for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, federal records show, as President Trump pushes to overhaul the pool — and struggles with a bout of algae and a peeling paint job.
The no-bid contract to install a “Nano Bubble” filtration system went to Green Water Solutions, an Ohio-based company whose owner is listed on federal contracting documents as “JJ Cafaro Investment Trust.” The president and CEO of that trust is identified as John J. Cafaro on Federal Election Commission filings.
Cafaro has donated to several GOP candidates and conservative causes in recent years. He has donated extensively to Mr. Trump’s campaign and to Trump-linked groups, giving $250,000 to the Trump Victory fundraising committee at one point in 2020. FEC records show he also made donations to Democrats at various points.
A businessman and real estate developer, Cafaro pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in 2010 over donations to his daughter’s congressional campaign. Nearly a decade earlier, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe Democratic Rep. James Traficant, and cooperated with prosecutors.
Cafaro and his wife own a home in Palm Beach, Florida, less than a mile from the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Green Water Solutions is also known as Greenwater Services. Inquiries to Cafaro did not yield a response, and the company referred CBS News to the National Park Service, a division of the Department of the Interior. The New York Times was first to report on Cafaro’s involvement in the Reflecting Pool project.
On its website, Green Water Solutions describes its specialty as purifying water to remove algae, bacteria and other contaminants using a system that injects ozone-infused “nano bubbles” into the water.
Federal contracting records show that the company received one other government contract: A $1 million contract in 2025 for a feasibility study on using its Nano Bubble system to treat sewage flows in the Tijuana River.
Green Water Solutions also appeared to do work on a Trump Organization property. On its LinkedIn page, the company posted photos of water treatment work it performed on a pond at the president’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, more than a year ago.
Now, Green Water Solutions has been hired to take on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a century-old basin of shallow water that spans more than 300,000 square feet and has struggled with algae blooms for years. Mr. Trump has taken a personal interest in the Reflecting Pool’s overhaul, discussing the project at length, visiting the site and handpicking the color of an industrial-grade sealant that was installed on the pool’s stone floor: “American Flag Blue.”
Green Water Solutions was hired in April by the Department of the Interior to install a Nano Bubble system at the Reflecting Pool, replacing “the existing, failing filtration infrastructure.”
The contract was awarded without a full competitive bidding process. The government cited a contracting rule designed for projects of “unusual and compelling urgency,” pointing to the need to fix the Reflecting Pool in time for the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4. It also called the Nano Bubble system a “highly specialized and niche technology with limited domestic suppliers.”
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers rebuffed any suggestion of a conflict of interest.
“This contract was awarded by the Department of Interior; the White House did not play any role in the selection process,” Rogers said. CBS News has reached out to the Interior Department for comment.
Cafaro on Friday told The Vindicator, a local newspaper in Youngstown, Ohio, that Mr. Trump “doesn’t know a thing about” his company’s work with the Reflecting Pool, saying he would “never talk to [the president] about it” because “you don’t do things to put friends in awkward positions.”
Cafaro also said, “I have no idea why this is an issue,” arguing “the system is working” to kill algae, and the public attention is driven by “people who don’t seem to like Trump.”
A separate $14.7 million no-bid contract was given to Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings to install sealant on the floor of the Reflecting Pool, federal contracting records show.
Several days ago, after water was pumped back into the Reflecting Pool, issues began to arise. A sheen of algae appeared in the water earlier this week, and by Thursday, the newly installed pool surface appeared to peel off in at least one location.
An Interior Department spokesperson said the algae bloom was caused by “residual algae” from stagnant water that sat in the pool’s supply lines, calling it “part of the normal startup process.” The department later said on X the Nano Bubble system “very effectively killed the algae.” CBS News has reached out to the department about the peeling sealant.
Work crews were then seen cleaning out algae and pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water. Also spotted in recent days: a Nano Bubble system.

President Donald Trump has unveiled a new Boeing 747-8 jet for Air Force One that the Qatari government donated last year as an “unconditional” gift to the US.
The US military has finished modifications to the luxury jumbo jet, which has been valued at an estimated $400m (£300m).
“This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody’s ever seen before,” Trump said in a speech at Joint Base Andrews on Friday.
The US Air Force said in a press release that the jet will begin initial commissioning flights – a “final exam” to test out the aircraft’s modifications – before it will be used to transport the president.
Modifications to the jet included upgrades in security, mission communications, logistics support, and advanced technology, the Air Force said. Any potential threats from the previously owned aircraft have been “neutralised”, it added.
The interiors of the aircraft have been minimally changed, and the exterior has received a fresh red, white, blue and gold paint job.
In May 2025, the Qatari royal family donated the luxury Boeing 747-8 to the US Department of Defense to be used as part of a fleet of planes dubbed Air Force One, which provides air transport for the president.
When news of the gift of the plane was revealed last year, it sparked backlash from both sides of the aisle, including from some Trump allies. Critics argued that accepting such a high-value donation posed a conflict of interest and may be unconstitutional.
While federal law indicates that US officials can only accept gifts under $480, the White House has insisted that accepting the aircraft is legal, and pledged that it will be donated to Trump’s presidential library once he leaves office.
“The workmanship of this plane is when you see it, you won’t believe it,” Trump said in his speech.
“Actually, the quality of woods, the quality of the materials, the quality of the engines – these engines are the finest, they’re the best in the world, nothing like it.”
“It’s really an honour,” the president added. “And I want to thank the Emir of Qatar.”
Prior to the addition of the Qatari jet, the Air Force One fleet included two 747-200B jets that have been in use since 1990. One of those older models appears to have now been phased out, according to White House communications director Steven Cheung.
“‘Well done, good and faithful servant'”, Cheung wrote on X, alongside a photo of the older plane. “The Last Ride,” he added.
The Air Force said the new jet will be used by the president on an interim basis until Boeing delivers its two long-promised VC-25B jets, which are meant for longer-term Air Force One use but have faced significant production delays.

What’s the most cliche possible gift you can give a relative? A digital photo frame, displaying a rotating slideshow of family photos. Now Aura has completely refreshed this product space with its gorgeous Aura Ink frame, which uses e-ink to create a display that doesn’t even look digital.
Digital frames have always been so popular (yet mostly disappointing) because there’s an undeniable allure to the idea of them — it feels like magic to imagine hanging artwork on your wall that you can change depending on your mood. In practice, these devices usually look clunky. You need to plug them in and figure out how to hide a bulky cord, and does anyone even want another bright screen in their home anyway? This problem was already on the Aura founders’ minds when they started the company 10 years ago, but color e-ink wasn’t feasible until now to use in a digital frame.
“E-ink is definitely next level,” co-founder and CTO Eric Jensen told TechCrunch. “We have people tell us that they hung it up, had friends over, and their friends were like, ‘How did you print that picture so quickly?’”
E-ink is the same technology that you see on e-readers, which lets you read a book without feeling the same strain that you get from staring at an LED screen for too long. But there aren’t that many color e-ink devices on the market aside from the Kindle Colorsoft, because the company that manufactures e-ink displays can only currently produce six colors: red, blue, green, yellow, white, and black.
It’s hard to imagine what your favorite family portraits and travel photos would look like with only six colors. But Aura has created a dithering algorithm — a technique that blends a limited color palette into patterns the eye reads as smooth gradients — that renders images close enough to the originals that its e-ink frame could finally go to market.
“I’m learning color theory from our chief scientists, and as far as I understand it, there’s not a good definition for how many colors this represents well,” Jensen said. “It’s all sort of theoretical and comes down to how people perceive it. Everyone’s a little different, so it’s actually taken a lot of testing with a lot of people in a lot of different spaces and different lighting conditions in order to get where we are today.”
All of Aura’s frames connect to the Aura app, which is where you can upload photos from your phone, web, email, iCloud, or Google Photos. I found the process to be pretty user-friendly — easy enough for a less tech-savvy relative to navigate, which matters for a product that lives or dies on whether non-technical users will actually set it up.
The app also has social features, so if your sister has a great new photo of her baby, she can upload it to your shared library and it will appear on your frame. (I didn’t try this, since I don’t know anyone else with an Aura frame, but if I did, I would probably use this feature to prank my family members with ridiculous photos. Am I a bad person?)
In addition to the 13.3-inch Ink frame, Aura also sent me its more classic, 12-inch LED Aspen frame as a point of comparison. But the LED frame surprised me with how good it looks in its own right (it feels like the Prada of digital frames). The lighting is about as unobtrusive as an LED screen can be, and it’s anti-glare, which makes the frame look way more premium. Aura’s frames also benefit by surrounding the LED screen with a paper-like matting display, which helps trick the eye into reading it as a printed photograph.
Aura says it designed its dithering algorithm for portraits of people, since users tend to highlight family photos. I’m a rebel, so I decided to load my frames with travel photos. When comparing the same photo on the Ink and the Aspen, it’s very clear that the colors aren’t exact, but as a digital photographer who isn’t that picky, I didn’t care very much. The distorted color palette almost seems like an artistic choice, even if I know it’s reflective of a technological limitation. But when I showed the two Aura frames to an analog film photographer who painstakingly studies the small color aberrations in his darkroom prints, he thought that the Ink frame needed some work. I disagree, but if you look at the photos below and are bothered that the white balance isn’t perfectly consistent across each of the three image from my phone, then you might not like the Ink frame.
By default, the Ink frame changes photos once per day, and it will usually do this change in the middle of the night, when you’re least likely to be paying attention. If you manually change the pictures via the app, do not be alarmed if the frame looks like it’s glitching — it takes about a minute for the hardware to run the dithering process and render the six-color, e-ink version of your image.
I am very bad with anything involving hammers and nails — all of the art in my apartment is hung up using Command strips — but mounting hardware that Aura includes feels sturdy. It’s easy to take the frame on and off the wall, but you probably only will need to take it down to charge the frame via USB-C once per month. (When the lights are off or you’re not in the room, the display will go to sleep, helping save battery.) I don’t think that the Ink frame looks too out of place, but if it does, maybe it’s because it’s surrounded by art made in other mediums. Or maybe it’s the black frame. Or I did a bad job at placement. Look, I can’t help that I added the Ink frame to a gallery wall that I assembled three years ago!

Gouts of flame in the skies, swords clashing below as dragons wage war on the high seas. Toys grappling with feelings of obsolescence against an onslaught of rapid technological change (something many of us can relate to). Aging bandits, alien private eyes, international spies . . . all this and more can be found in this week’s edition of your friendly neighborhood weekend streaming guide.
Widow’s Bay came to a close this past week, with a genuinely phenomenal finale that cemented the Apple TV comedy-horror series as my favorite new TV show of 2026 (so far). You can read my review of the finale right here. Other shows, like Your Friends And Neighbors and The Terror have also ended recently, but there’s no shortage of new entries to fill the gap.
I’ve been watching House of the Dragon Season 3 screeners, so I’ll have a review and a recap of the first episode here on this blog over the weekend. Be sure to subscribe! I’m definitely excited to return to Westeros, even if Season 2 left a lot to be desired.
For movie night this week I picked the 1992 Western, Unforgiven, directed by Clint Eastwood. Eastwood stars alongside Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman. I’d seen this one before, but it had been many years. I watched my 4k Blu-ray copy and it looked and sounded fantastic. Such a powerful story about justice, revenge, the nature of violence and power, one’s capacity for these things. It’s not available for free on any streaming services, but you can purchase it on Amazon Prime and other VOD services.
As always, I’ve scoured the internet for the best TV shows and movies streaming on Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+ for you to watch this weekend. If you have any recommendations, tips or other thoughts feel free to shoot me a note. Let me know what you’re watching these days, or if you’ve enjoyed any of my recommendations, on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Be sure to also check out last weekend’s streaming guide below:
MORE FOR YOU
ForbesWhat To Watch This Weekend: New Shows And Movies To Stream On Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Apple TV And More
Alright, let’s dive right in!
New TV Shows To Watch This Weekend
House of the Dragon – Season 3 (HBO Max)
The third season of Game Of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon, returns this Sunday with its season premiere. The episode is all about the Battle of the Gullet, the largest and most devastating naval battle in the history of Westeros. The prequel series was much-lauded in its first season, but faced quite a lot of pushback in Season 2, including from George R.R. Martin himself, over changes to the original story from Fire & Blood. In many ways, the second season simply didn’t push the story forward, leaving us at much the same point we were at by the end of Season 1. Season 3 has gotten much better reviews so far, with a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score (compared to 90% in Season 1 and 84% in Season 2). That’s good news! As I noted above, my own reviews are forthcoming.
Sugar – Season 2 (Apple TV)
I can think of very few shows with a more shocking twist than Apple TV’s Sugar. It’s such a shocking twist that I won’t spoil it here. The story follows private detective John Sugar (Colin Farrell) as he investigates the disappearance of the granddaughter of a wealthy movie producer in Hollywood. Things get weird. I’m very excited to start Season 2.
I Will Find You (Netflix)
Netflix’s latest miniseries based on a Harlan Coben novel stars Sam Worthington, Milo Ventimiglia, Erin Richards and Britt Lower of Severance fame. I Will Find You is based on the novel of the same name and tells the story of a man wrongly imprisoned for the murder of his son, who may actually still be alive. I’ve read one Coben novel and I was not a fan, but hopefully this is good – though a 64% RT score is only just barely fresh. I was perusing reviews and this audience review caught my eye: “I really liked it. Yes, it is missing some key elements like character development, believable plot points and the wrap up at the very end was the most unsatisfying lazily written epilogue I could imagine to the story – but I was hooked from the beginning.” Lol.
The Capture – Season 3 (Peacock)
I’ve had several readers tell me that I need to start watching the British police conspiracy series, The Capture, and it’s on my list! The show stars Holliday Grainger (who is excellent in the detective series, Strike) as Rachel Carey, a Metropolitan Police detective who finds herself in the middle of a vast high-tech conspiracy involving deepfake technology. It looks great!
The Agency – Season 2 (Paramount+)
Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Jodie Turner-Smith and Richard Gere star in this espionage thriller about a spy ordered to abandon his undercover identity and return to real life. While this kind of thing is right up my alley, I didn’t actually watch the first season though, like so many shows and movies, it’s on my list! While there aren’t enough reviews in for a Rotten Tomatoes consensus on the second season, the ones I’ve seen tend to be quite positive. The entire season drops this Sunday on Paramount+.
New Movies To Watch This Weekend
I Am Frankelda (Netflix)
I do love stop-motion animated movies and I Am Frankelda (or Soy Frankelda in Spanish) looks delightfully bizarre. The first-ever Mexican-made stop-motion film, the musical follows writer Frankelda as she journeys into her own subconscious where the monsters she created come to life. On her journey she meets a prince trapped inside of a nightmare and the wicked writer, Procustes. It sounds very creative, though the actual musical numbers have gotten mixed feedback.
Voicemails For Isabelle (Netflix)
Netflix’s new rom-com stars Zoey Deutch as Jill, who leaves voicemails for her dead sister, Isabelle, as a way to deal with her grief. The twist? A man named Wes (Nick Robinson) has been given Isabelle’s old number and apparently not set up a new voicemail message or something, because he’s been listening to all her voicemails and slowly falling for Jill in the process.
A couple other older films are landing on streaming services this weekend, with horror hit, Wolf Man, out on Peacock and sci-fi action film, The Creator, landing on Hulu.
New Movies In Theaters This Weekend
Toy Story 5
The Toys are back in the fifth Toy Story installment, this time tackling the rise of screens and the threat tech devices pose to traditional play. I haven’t seen this one yet, but I’m excited for another adventure with Woody, Buzz and the gang, even if the ending of Toy Story 3 remains the perfect end to a perfect trilogy.
The Death Of Robin Hood
Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer and Bill Skarsgård star in auteur director, Michael Sarnoski’s latest film. The director of Pig and A Quiet Place: Day One tackles notions of myth and legend in this story of an aging Robin Hood who meets a mysterious woman and a young girl and, perhaps, a shot at redemption. It’s an interesting concept, but the film has had very mixed reviews so far.
TV Shows Currently Streaming Weekly
From – Season 4 (MGM+)
We’re down to just two more episodes of MGM+ horror mystery box series, From. I have mixed feelings about the season as a whole. While it started off strong, some of the most intriguing parts of the story have been all but abandoned. What happened to the Lake of Tears? Or Julie’s story-walking? Why do they spend so much time treading water. Widow’s Bay managed to tell a tighter, more exciting story in ten half-hour episodes, and I suspect that From would be better with shorter episodes and less filler as well. A lot of fans are also mad that we haven’t gotten very many answers, but I’m not really bothered by this so much. I expect we’ll get some big revelations by the end of the season but that most loose threads won’t be tied up until Season 5. Read my review of Episode 8 right here. New episodes drop on Sundays, with the finale airing on June 28.
The Legend of Vox Machina – Season 4 (Prime Video)
Since they’re releasing these three episodes at a time, Critical Role’s animated fantasy series, The Legend of Vox Machina, is almost done airing its fourth season. I’m not quite caught up on this, but so far I’m very much enjoying the adventures of Vex and Vax, Grog and Pike, Percy and Keyleth and all the colorful characters and outlandish situations they find themselves in.
The one thing I don’t love? Scanlan isn’t in this season. Following the character’s path from the Critical Role campaign, he’s out of the group for now, replaced by Taryon “Tary” Darrington (voiced by Wayne Brady). Darrington is a fun new character, but I miss Scanlan. Three new episodes drop each Thursday on Prime Video for a total of 12, with the final three landing on June 24.
Star City (Apple TV)
Apple TV’s hit sci-fi series, For All Mankind, explores a “what if” scenario: What if the Soviet Union had landed the first man on the moon, propelling a real space race that hadn’t fizzled out decades ago? Star City takes us to the other side of the Iron Curtain, exploring this hypothetical scenario from the Soviet side. The series currently holds a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score. New episodes drop weekly on Thursday evenings for a total of eight episodes, with the finale airing on July 9.
Cape Fear (Apple TV)
Javier Bardem and Amy Adams star in this television series based on the novel The Executioners and its two film adaptations (1962 and 1991) both of which were also called Cape Fear. The story follows vicious ex-con, Max Cady (Bardem) and his revenge plot against married couple Tom (Patrick Wilson) and Anna Bowden (Adams). The series holds a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes. New episodes drop Thursday evenings for a total of 10 episodes, with the finale landing on July 30.
The Vampire Lestat (AMC+)
The Vampire Lestat follows the vampire, Lestat (Sam Reid), as he becomes a rockstar (Anne Rice based his persona on Jim Morrison of The Doors) and tries to set the record straight via his own autobiography rather than leave history to his old friend and rival, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and his infamous interview from Interview With A Vampire. New episodes drop on Sundays on AMC+ for a total of seven episodes, with the finale airing on July 19.
Dutton Ranch – Season 1 (Paramount+)
Yellowstone spinoff, Dutton Ranch, ollows Rip and Beth from Montana to Texas where they try to live a life of peace, somehow not realizing that if you own a ranch in Taylor Sheridan’s universe, someone will try to take it from you and kill you in the process. Critics and fans are all pretty upbeat about Dutton Ranch, with an 89% / 85% critic-audience split. The new show also stars Annette Benning and and Ed Harris. New episodes drop weekly on Fridays for a total of nine episodes, with the finale airing on July 3.
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed (Apple TV)
Tatiana Maslany stars in Apple TV’s new dark comedy series, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, as a divorced fact-checker who forms an online relationship with a male sex worker and finds herself the target of a blackmail scheme. Things get darker from there. It has excellent reviews from both fans and critics. New episodes drop on Tuesday evenings, with the finale landing on July 14.
Check out the week before last’s streaming guide below:
ForbesWhat To Watch This Weekend: New Shows And Movies To Stream On Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Apple TV And More
What are you watching these days? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s makeover of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool ahead of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations is not going according to plan.
First, the project overshot Trump’s initial cost estimate of under $2 million — and has already topped $14.6 million, according to a federal spending database.
Then, the new Trump-branded “American flag blue” color was short-lived as algae turned the pool green, causing the administration to send crews to dump hydrogen peroxide into the expansive pool to deal with the problem.
In recent days, NBC News spotted some blue paint chipping off the surface, with strips of it peeling away and floating atop the pool for visitors and passers-by to see as the busy summer tourist season in the nation’s capital gets underway.
On the west side of the pool Thursday, a small section of the blue painted surface appeared to be lifting away, exposing the darker unpainted layer underneath. A strip of detached paint could be seen floating beneath the water’s surface.
Algae still remain visible along the edges of the pool despite ongoing cleaning efforts. The developing deterioration drew the attention of onlookers who stopped to take a closer look.
The Trump administration is hardly the first to struggle to clean up the Reflecting Pool. But the algae-infused green color has drawn significant attention in recent days after the president slammed the pool earlier this year as “filthy” and “dirty,” promising to make it “beautiful” and blue at minimal expense.
The Interior Department’s media office didn’t return an email seeking comment Friday.
Two days earlier, on Wednesday, the department’s X account posted that the “advanced nanobubbler technology very effectively killed the algae,” while taking a jab at the Obama administration’s attempts to clean the pool up.
“The Reflecting Pool water is crystal clear, and our National Park Service team is now vacuuming up the dead algae resting on the bottom of some parts of the Reflecting Pool—just like the destroyed Iranian Navy resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf,” the Interior Department wrote.
Last week, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted a time warp of the blue paint being added to the pool’s surface.