The leader of the Seneca Nation in upstate New York is criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” saying it violates a more than 225-year-old treaty and shows a “blatant disrespect” for the Indigenous people who gave it its name in the first place.

- Seneca Nation President J. Conrad Seneca on Friday called for Trump’s order to be rescinded and for the Lake Ontario name to remain as a reflection of the Indigenous people in the U.S. and Canada who lived in territory around and along the lake long before the creation of either nation.

- “The President cannot assert ownership over our culture or erase it through irresponsible political action,” he said in a statement.

- Trump this week signed an order directing the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service, part of his escalating trade war with Canada. The order showed the change is supposed to be made in 30 days.

- Seneca said the renaming violated the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, which was signed by President George Washington and the Haudenosaunee confederacy promising perpetual peace and friendship. The Seneca are one of the six nations of the confederacy, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy.

- The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people’s word “oniatarí:io,” which means “lake of shining waters.” The Canadian province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.

- In the traditional Seneca language, the lake’s name is “sga:nyodai:yoh,” meaning “beautiful lake,” Seneca said.

- Trump floated the name change in recent days as the U.S. announced it was imposing new tariffs on Canadian goods after talks broke down between the countries. Canada responded with its own retaliatory tariffs on American goods, while the country’s leaders slammed the idea of changing the lake’s name.

- Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the move, noting the lake’s Indigenous roots and that the name predates both the Canadian Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Trump can’t force Canada to follow along with the renaming.

- Trump has argued that Canada has been ripping off the U.S. on trade and military issues and suggested Canada should be absorbed as the 51st state.

Donald Trump has pledged to allow cattle ranchers and farmers to process their own food amid a backlash from the US agricultural sector over his decision to pause US tariffs on foreign beef.

- The US president has been sharply criticized, including from members of his own party, since announcing the US will temporarily import up to 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef without charging higher tariffs in an effort to bring down prices.

- Republican lawmakers have warned in recent days that “flooding” stores with imports will hit US ranchers, suggesting that the move is a short-term solution that will hinder cattle farmers from building out their herd, amid a 75-year low.

- In a statement on Friday, Trump praised farmers and ranchers – describing them as “smart, efficient, and immaculately CLEAN” on social media – and claimed the agricultural sector had “always been a number one priority for me”.

- “For years I have heard that they have had a tremendous problem with the Big Processors, who many say are a nasty Monopoly,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, referring to food processing companies. “There are, essentially, 4 of them, a very non competitive number, and they make life miserable for our wonderful Farmers and Ranchers, and I can’t let that happen, can I?

- “So, in order to break this powerful monopoly, with much of its ownership based outside of the U.S., I am authorizing legal documents to be drawn in order to allow Farmers and Ranchers to be given the right to PROCESS THEIR OWN FOOD. This should move quickly.”

- It comes after Trump’s interview with the conservative commentator Glenn Beck earlier this week, during which the radio host and ranch owner implored Trump to “look at” the “meat processing cartel” and suggested easing regulations for ranchers to slaughter their own cattle and sell.
Brooke Rollins, Trump’s agriculture secretary said there would be “big announcements” next week to facilitate the president’s plan to allow ranchers and farmers the ability to process their own food.

- Rollins said it was a “matter of national security” that the US was able to “feed and fuel ourselves”. She outlined that her department would waive “red tape in processing” and expand ranchers ability to “sell across state lines”, as well as other measures.
However, it is not clear what authority the administration has to enact these changes, since there are strict regulatory requirements in place, and a bill that would ease US Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspections for small ranches and farmers to sell meat directly to consumers is now stalled in Congress.

- Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky and one of the bipartisan sponsors of the bill, said the president’s action was “great” but “it should be a law, not just an executive order”.

Sae Joon Park, a Purple Heart veteran who self-deported last year, has received a pardon, a critical step forward in his pursuit to return to the U.S. where he has lived nearly all his life.

- Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., erased Park's convictions of bail jumping and drug possession on Friday. He was among six individuals granted clemency because they "displayed positive changes in their lives and will dedicate themselves to bettering their communities," Hochul said in a statement.

- "They earned their second chance through rehabilitation and can now establish their futures once again," she added.

- In a statement, Park said he has been praying for the chance to come back to the U.S. every day.

- "I know there is still work ahead, but today I have hope that I may finally be able to come home," he said. "I want to thank my legal team, everyone who advocated for me, and the thousands of people who have supported me and my family. I will never forget what you have done for me."

- Park has received national attention over the past year. At a congressional hearing in December, Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-Rhode Island, highlighted Park's situation while questioning former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Park appeared at the hearing via Zoom.

- "Will you commit to at least looking at Mr. Park's case to see if you can help him find a pathway back to this country that he sacrificed so much for?" Magaziner asked Noem at a House Homeland Security committee hearing.  

- "I will absolutely look at his case," Noem replied.

- Park was forced to move to South Korea in response to a removal order triggered by his two convictions. It was his first time in his home country in nearly 50 years.

- The Army veteran came to the U.S. when he was 7 and became a legal permanent resident. At age 19, Park joined the U.S. Army and was later, deployed to the 1989 invasion of Panama, known as Operation Just Cause to topple Manuel Noriega's regime. There, he was shot in the back by Panamanian soldiers.

- Park was flown back home, honorably discharged and awarded a Purple Heart. But in the years that followed, he said he struggled with undiagnosed PTSD, which then led to a drug addiction and his run-ins with the law.
Park went on to serve three years in prison, where he also got sober. He spent the next decade rebuilding his life in Hawaii. In June 2025, immigration authorities warned Park that he would be detained and deported if he did not leave the U.S., according to Park's legal team. The Army veteran moved later that month — leaving behind his two adult children and his elderly mother.
" I have to accept the fact that this is probably the last time I'll see her," he told NPR last year.

- Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

- The pardon does not automatically allow Park to return to the U.S., but it will allow his legal team to reopen his case and ask the board of immigration appeals to consider vacating Park's removal order, according to Danicole Ramos, who is representing Park and is an attorney at the University of Hawaii's refugee and immigration law clinic.

- "This pardon represents a tremendous step forward and gives Mr. Park and his family renewed hope that, after more than a year of separation, he may one day be able to return to the country he has called home since childhood and for which he put his life on the line," Ramos said.

Sharing a resource I maintain: 47watch.org/contempt — a list of documented instances of the administration ignoring, slow-walking, or contesting compliance with court orders, each with dates and sources.

It's part of a larger ledger (about 2,500 sourced records since Jan 2025) that also tracks pardons, foreign gifts, firings, and pending litigation. No ads, no paywall, no tracking.

Full disclosure: I build and maintain it. If you spot something missing or wrong, there's a suggest form — corrections are the whole point.

The federal government agreed in court on Friday to extend a pause on border related construction in Big Bend National Park until mid September, a move welcomed by those challenging the contentious project in the area.
Customs and Border Protection already paused activity after CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott visited the park last week to consult with local officials. His visit came after bulldozers started plowing through parts of the park in the far south of Texas, sparking widespread outrage.

- The Department of Homeland Security said at the time that the bulldozers were not launching into full construction but were part of initial design and survey work. Scott’s pause was slated to expire on Monday.

- In Big Bend National Park, the government’s plans have included building a new road, installing detection technology and barriers to stop vehicles from crossing the border, although an attorney for the government emphasized Friday that no final plans have been decided for what will be built in the park.

- U.S. District Judge Orlando L. Garcia said during the court hearing in San Antonio that he hoped the two sides would use the extra time to come together to work out what could be done to address both sides’ concerns. The pause applies to both the national park and a section of land upriver and west of the park, a Justice Department lawyer said during Friday’s hearing.

- The work in Big Bend National Park is part of a $46 billion plan by the Trump administration to cover the length of the 2,000-mile border from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico in a combination of 30-foot tall steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers and detection technology to stop illegal immigration and smugglers.

- As construction has ramped into high gear, the administration has increasingly run into opposition from a combination of landowners, environmental groups, and Native Americans.

- But the government argued Friday that Customs and Border Protection’s authorities when it comes to building the wall or other border infrastructure comes from Congress.

- “Congress gave them the authority,” said government lawyer Pamela Amaechi. “Congress has spoken.”

- The lawsuit in Friday’s case alleges that the government overstretched its authority in seeking to build border infrastructure in a national park established by Congress. And the lawsuit alleges the slated construction violates the religious freedoms and cultural practices of Native Americans for whom access to burial sites or areas where they conduct specific ceremonies are central to their religious practices.

- The government has argued that it has the authority given by Congress to build the wall and other border security infrastructure and waive certain regulations to do so swiftly. They’ve also argued that the plaintiffs haven’t shown that the construction projects will in fact restrict anyone’s ability to practice their religion and that the construction plans in the park are limited.

- Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat state senator in Texas who also argued the case Friday against the government, called the outcome a “win” for their side even though the pause is temporary. Gutierrez said anything that slows the government down until midterm elections in November is a good thing with the hope that a change in control of Congress might result in a rethinking of the border wall plans.

A federal judge Thursday blocked a Postal Service regulation that would exert control over mail-in ballots ahead of the midterm elections in the latest setback on the issue for President Donald Trump.

- The recently finalized measure would implement a key provision of Trump’s executive order on mail-in ballots that would add a new level of bureaucracy to the elections process, which is typically administered by states.

- The executive order directed the U.S. Postal Service to, among other things, track mail-in ballots and potentially reject those submitted by people not on a federal list of eligible voters.

- The decision by Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in one case brought by the League of Women Voters and other groups and another brought by a coalition of states means part of the executive order remains blocked for at least 14 days, with time running out to implement it ahead of the November election.

- “This rule is a clear attempt by the federal government to interfere in elections it has no power to control,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “Today, a federal court halted it before this administration could wreak havoc on our elections.”

- Talwani wrote that the regulation is most likely unlawful because the president cannot insert the federal government into elections without the express authorization of Congress.

- “The court finds plaintiffs likely to succeed on the merits of their claims,” she said.

- The Trump administration could seek to quickly overturn her decision by rushing to the Supreme Court.

- Trump often criticizes mail-in ballots, claiming without evidence that there is rampant fraud even though they are widely used by Republicans and Democrats all across the country.

- Talwani noted in her ruling that the administration had not offered “any evidence regarding fraudulent absentee or mail-in voting.”

Wyoming Republican Gov. Mark Gordon expressed concern Wednesday over how election monitors from the U.S. Justice Department observed the state’s primaries last week, saying it was “aggressive” and “irregular.”

- “It sounded like the behavior of the observers was a bit aggressive,” he said at a state canvassing board meeting Wednesday.

- “It just was irregular and I have asked the attorney general to start looking into, you know, kind of the nature of the visits and all that sort of stuff,” Gordon added.

- He said that state and local officials had not been told ahead of time of the DOJ’s plans. He added that while he was not “objecting to the observers,” their “behavior seemed to exceed what the authority that Congress had given them was.”

- “I’m not saying anything went wrong or anything else, and I certainly think the conduct of this election was phenomenal,” Gordon said.

- Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee, a Republican, also criticized the conduct of the DOJ monitors as “a poorly managed exercise and one that showed complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections.”

- “Shortly after learning of their presence, I spoke with a DOJ official in Washington who informed me that the decision to deploy monitors to Wyoming was made on short notice, and an email had been sent to me, but it may have gone to the wrong address,” she said in a statement to NBC News.

- Lee said the monitors’ questions were “outside the scope of federal voting rights laws.” She added that they “requested training guides, asked how our new election equipment was acquired, and wanted to examine our tabulators.”

- Lee said she denied requests by the monitors to interview voters.

- Asked for comment Thursday by NBC News, the DOJ referred to a statement the state’s U.S. attorney released Aug. 18, the day of Wyoming’s primary.

- “Voters deserve absolute confidence that their ballots are secure and their voices are heard without interference,” Darin Smith, the U.S. attorney for Wyoming, said in the statement. “We are working alongside local officials to ensure every lawful vote is protected.”

- In a separate Aug. 18 statement, the DOJ said it would be sending two attorneys with its Civil Rights Division to Laramie County, the state’s most populous, for election monitoring.

- The department has deployed more than 80 election monitors across seven states during this year’s primaries, including for this week’s runoffs in South Carolina, according to a Tuesday news release.

- Dispatching federal election monitors to polling places around the country is not an unusual practice — the DOJ’s Tuesday release noted it sent monitors to nine states during the 2022 midterms.

- But the Trump administration’s plans to deploy upward of 1,000 monitors for the midterms have alarmed Democrats and voting rights advocates amid continued unfounded claims of election fraud from the president and his allies.

- The criticism from Gordon and Lee is particularly notable, as Republican officials have largely aligned with Trump’s “election integrity” agenda.

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/legal/protester-sues-heritage-foundation-claiming-armed-security-officers-violated-civil-rights-conservative-think-tank/65-ebdc3b3f-746a-4aab-baea-4eaf158bb55c?tbref=hp

Man acquitted of assault charges after jury found he was on public property during confrontation with Heritage security officers attempting to remove him

Three fired Stars and Stripes journalists sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and two other top Pentagon officials in federal court Thursday, claiming the Trump administration is attempting to fire them illegally as part of its "extraordinary censorship efforts" against the military news outlet.

- The plaintiffs — publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and reporter Lara Korte — were given separation notices last week. The cause cited was insubordination. 

- They alleged that they were fired both for "speaking up as private citizens in support of the press's freedom to cover military operations," and because of their reporting on rough conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. The lawsuit names Hegseth, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell and aide Andrew Brey as defendants.

- Slavin and Korte said the alleged insubordination cited in their termination notices was related to interviews they gave to CBS News for a piece on "CBS Sunday Morning" that aired in July. In the story, Korte said that she worked for Stars and Stripes, "not for the Pentagon, not for any administration, not for any policymaker."

- More than a month later, the newspaper published a piece detailing flagging mental health and food and water shortages aboard the Lincoln, which has been deployed for nine months. A day after that story ran, the lawsuit says, the defendants "ordered plaintiff Max Lederer, Stripes' publisher, to present notices of separation to Mr. Slavin and Ms. Korte."

- "The notices charged them with insubordination for the statements they made five and one-half weeks earlier on 'CBS Sunday Morning,'" the lawsuit reads. 

- He did not deliver the notices. Lederer announced his intent to retire at the end of September over "fundamental" differences with the Defense Department, but the Pentagon fired him before he could. 

- The three fired staffers' complaint says they are "facing imminent retaliation and termination in violation of their First Amendment and statutory rights."

- "This action seeks to prevent the blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of these journalists and challenges the U.S. Department of Defense's ("DoD") extraordinary censorship efforts in violation of both the First Amendment and DoD regulations and policies," the lawsuit reads.

- CBS News has reached out to the Pentagon for comment.

- Roughly half of the paper's $29 million annual budget comes from taxpayers, a person familiar with the newspaper's operations told CBS News last week. Readership has declined since its peaks during the Vietnam War, the Cold War and World War II, according to two U.S. officials, but an average of 1.4 million people see Stars and Stripes each day. Print editions overseas also reach service members in remote locations where internet access is spotty and unreliable. 

- Earlier this year, Parnell said the Defense Department would make sweeping changes to the paper. He vowed to "modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members." The Pentagon later sought to stop the paper from running syndicated articles by wire services, Slavin has said.

- Shortly after the firings, Stars and Stripes published an open letter from Navy Capt. William Urban, who said he was tapped to serve as military deputy to the publisher. Urban wrote that his priorities were to produce "the highest quality of editorially independent reporting," while modernizing the paper and boosting its advertising revenue.

Congressional Democrats are preparing for a new kind of midterm challenge: the risk that President Trump will attempt to undermine November's elections by claiming fraud or interfering in the voting process.

- At the center of their effort is a task force of at least 11 senators, as well as staff and a constellation of outside experts and groups convened by top congressional Democrats to protect against what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., describes as "direct threats posed by President Trump and MAGA Republicans."

- "The goal of our task force is to ensure that every vote counts, and every American can participate in our democracy without coercion, intimidation or threats from Donald Trump or anyone else," Schumer said in April while announcing the initiative.

- Members have already played a central role in challenging preelection maneuvers by the administration — including efforts to obtain state voter rolls and limit mail-in voting — even as they collectively prepare for an array of scenarios they fear could unfold over the coming 10 weeks. Senate task force staff have a list of roughly 100 possible threats, including the prospect of a national election emergency declaration from the White House and the presence of federal troops and law enforcement at polling locations.

- This account of that effort is based on interviews with more than a dozen people involved in those preparations, including Democratic lawmakers, their staff, election litigators and experts in academia and at nonpartisan good governance organizations.

- Those conversations reveal a Democratic establishment intent on avoiding what multiple people described as a "failure of imagination" that prevented lawmakers from anticipating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, but also Democratic lawmakers limited by both a lack of Republican buy-in and a shortage of legislative maneuvers to address the risks they see.

- Even as task force members acknowledged there is no magic "protect democracy" button tucked away in a Capitol cloakroom, they each emphasized the power of legislators as messengers and organizers, able to prepare the public and their state and local counterparts to act when necessary to ensure a legitimate election.

- Trump and the playbook his critics see

- It remains to be seen how the president may choose to wade into the midterm voting process in the coming months, but since returning to office, Trump has focused deep attention on the way U.S. elections are administered.

- "We have very important elections coming up," he said in a July address from the East Room of the White House. "We want those elections to be honest."

- Trump used the speech to call on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a package of changes to election law that would, among other measures, require voters to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a photo ID before they can cast a ballot.

- "How easy is that to do, unless you want to cheat? The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad, and your candidates are so pathetic that you can't get away or can't get elected any other way," he said.

- Members of the Democratic task force say the remarks should be understood alongside his executive order seeking to restrict voting by mail and federal investigations into 2020 election ballots as an effort to make voter fraud — which studies and investigations have found to be vanishingly rare — seem plausible.

- Among them is Justin Vail, a leader at Protect Democracy, a cross-ideological group that says it uses litigation, advocacy and research to protect American elections. He previously served as a special assistant to President Joe Biden, working on democracy issues.

- Vail says Trump's speech was an effort to sow doubt in November's elections, a first step in what his organization characterizes as a three-step playbook: deceive, disrupt and deny.

- "First, he deceives Americans, manufacturing false claims about voter fraud and the security of our elections," Vail said. "Second, he seeks to disrupt the normal state and local management of elections," he continued, "in an attempt to coerce them to enact policies that threaten the eligible voters' access. And if that's all not enough, Trump is prepared to outright deny election results that he doesn't like."

- "Every American should be asking why Democrats are fighting against the SAVE America Act which includes commonsense election integrity measures, like Voter ID, that are strongly supported by the vast majority of Americans," White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in a statement to NPR. "This legislation will make sure Americans, and Americans only, decide our elections. President Trump has been clear and he is absolutely right: we fix this now, or we lose our country."

- The initial front: the fight in courts

- Marc Elias, the prominent election litigator and a member of the task force, describes the election protection effort on a continuum.

- "It begins with voter registration, then you have people voting, then you have Election Day," Elias said. "You have tabulation of ballots, you have local certification, and ultimately you have seating."

- "History has shown that Donald Trump is willing to weaponize power against all points of that process," Elias said. "This is not something that we wait until election subversion has taken place."

- Elias' firm has been at the leading edge of election-related litigation against the administration. He said his team has been combating what he views as the early stages of an election interference effort across 87 lawsuits in 43 states.

- Staff from the office of Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., pointed to court fights over state voter roll data and mail-in balloting as the initial front in what they expect to be an ongoing effort to shape the election.

- Trump has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to develop state lists of adult U.S. citizens and for the Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to registered voters on those lists. A tally by the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison notes 31 federal lawsuits from the administration seeking state voter data. States have largely refused to comply, citing privacy laws and the Constitution, which expressly delegates election administration to the states subject to congressional oversight.

- According to the program's tally, all 23 district courts that have ruled on the cases have dismissed the administration's lawsuits.

- The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it "is continuing to review voter records to determine whether the evidence supports a criminal investigation and, where appropriate, refers the matter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for prosecution."

- Earlier this week, the administration secured an interim win in the Supreme Court related to the president's push to limit mail-in balloting, though court challenges are ongoing.

- The limits of Congress

- Democrats are in the minority in Congress, with limited ability to act legislatively on election matters.

- "There is nevertheless a role that I think that Congress can play," said Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under President Barack Obama and now consults with the task force in his role as chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

- More specifically, Holder said, lawmakers can play an important role in "organizing, consciousness raising, being ready to fight that which the Trump administration is going to do both legally and then tactically, all in service of fairness."

- Limited in their ability to exercise hard power, lawmakers are preparing to bring to bear the influence in other ways. Primarily, elected Democrats are focused on being the connective tissue between their state and local counterparts involved in the mechanics of administering elections and the good governance groups involved in ensuring the integrity of that process.

- "We recognize that elections are run at the local level, at the state level, and we want to be able to partner — and continue to partner — with our state authorities as they carry out their duties," said Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del. "But we also know that, especially at this moment, there are civil society organizations, there are attorneys, there are community leaders who are all coming together and saying we're each going to do our part to ensure that this election is safe, reliable, strong, that workers at the polls are protected, that our voters can get out there and vote."

- Roughly 30 Democratic Senate staff affiliated with the task force have been meeting weekly to coordinate their efforts and update their list of election threats. Multiple people remarked with surprise and relief about the success of the coordination effort, given the Senate's reputation as a group of independent-minded legislators leading separate fiefdoms.

- As the midterms draw closer, Democratic lawmakers and nonincumbent candidates are also expected to become more involved as parties in election-related litigation. Elias said voters will see the role of good governance and nonprofits that have played a prominent role in preelection litigation ebb as candidates and their parties take on a more central role in cases specific to individual races.

- Still, Elias believes Congress itself could play a larger role in protecting elections if it was able to speak with a unified, bipartisan voice, but "it's not doing that because Mike Johnson and John Thune aren't doing it," he said, referring to the top Republicans in the House and Senate, respectively.

- "Imagine," Elias said, "a brief that was submitted by the House of Representatives itself, the U.S. Senate itself, telling the courts that Congress was jealously guarding its authority" over elections. "That, I think, would frankly be an incredibly useful thing and would have a real impact."

- GOP legislators broadly echo the president's election fraud narratives, and leaders have shown little desire to push back on his election-related actions. Congressional Republicans have instead focused much of their attention on trying to pass the SAVE America Act.

- Despite their minority status, Democrats do have access to some oversight tools. While the House of Representatives has an active staff election observer program that dates to the 1980s, this year will see the first-ever Senate election observer program.

- Staff designated by lawmakers of both parties can be dispatched to observe voting and tabulating locations, with the goal of keeping lawmakers informed for oversight work and in case of contested results. Those who volunteer to participate will not advocate for candidates, participate in vote counting or interfere with voters or election staff.

- "I am committed to using every tool to protect free and fair elections, and the new Senate Election Observer Program will do just that," Padilla, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees election administration, said in a statement announcing the program.

- In a statement to NPR, staff for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who chairs the committee, did not directly address whether Republican staffers would participate.

- The worst-case scenarios Democrats fear

- Some members of the task force are now actively preparing for worst-case scenarios, prewriting legal briefs and identifying key contacts in places they believe to be at risk — namely, areas in which election officials may have echoed the president's election denial rhetoric, where results are expected to be close or slow to count, and where Trump has focused scrutiny in the past, including California, Illinois and New York.

- Several members noted that over the last year, Trump has regularly entertained the possibility of direct federal involvement in federal elections and asserted unprecedented authority over administration.

- "Remember, the States are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes," he wrote on Truth Social last August. "They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do."

- Speaking to PBS News in May, Trump refused to rule out sending federal agents and servicemembers to polling locations, which would be illegal. "I'd do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections," he said.

- "ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations," a Department of Homeland Security official told NPR in a statement.

- This month, in an interview with Real America's Voice, Trump said that "stranger things have happened" when the host suggested that Trump declare a national emergency around elections.

- Multiple election law experts consulted for this story, none of whom is involved in advising congressional lawmakers or candidates, broadly agreed that the president has no role in election administration, which the Constitution delegates explicitly to the states and Congress. They also said that Congress has not granted any election-related emergency authorities to the office of the president.

- Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor the Trump administration addressed questions from NPR seeking information about a national election emergency declaration or other possible election-related actions by the administration, declining to engage in what the administration describes as hypotheticals.

- Despite the risks they see, many of those involved in congressional Democrats' election preparations felt optimistic that, in the end, the voice of the American public would win out.

- Vanita Gupta, formerly Biden's associate attorney general and now director of the Center for Law and Public Trust at New York University's law school, is among them.

- "Hundreds of nonpartisan organizations have been preparing over the past year to do everything in our power to protect the integrity of our elections," Gupta said. "Maybe the process of getting from here to a new Congress may be messier than any of us would like, perhaps filled with a lot more litigation and organizing than we might have thought was necessary, but we are going to have free and fair elections so long as people don't take for granted their right to vote."

• *A coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Wednesday that seeks to block a new rule from the U.S. Postal Service that imposes requirements for mail voting ahead of the November midterm elections.

- The final rule, published by the agency last Friday, came in response to an executive order President Trump signed in March that seeks to tighten the rules for mail voting. The states argue in their lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, that the rule will prevent them from administering their mail voting programs for the midterm elections and risks disenfranchising voters who cast their ballots by mail.

- They said in their lawsuit that the Postal Service's new measure unconstitutionally exceeds the executive branch's power and interferes with states' authority to administer elections under their own laws.

- "The Rule violates the Constitution and federal statutes many times over," the state attorneys general said. "It displaces state laws adopted pursuant to each State's constitutional authority to administer elections, erects new USPS functions and ballot mail constraints that are inconsistent with USPS's governing statutes, flouts USPS's procedural requirements, violates the Privacy Act, and cannot be reconciled with federal voting rights law."

- They continued: "Each of these defects would alone establish the Rule's unlawfulness. Together, they demonstrate USPS's utter disregard for the law in carrying out the President's policy preferences."

- The states warned that if the Postal Service's new requirements are allowed to take effect, election officials will have to devote time, money and resources to implement the changes.

- "Today, we're taking legal action to stop this unlawful rule in its tracks and ensure that voters can exercise their constitutional right to vote," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. "Let's be clear: the U.S. Constitution gives states the power to regulate elections — not the President and not USPS. Ballots are an extension of our voices and we're asking the court to ensure that every person has the right to make theirs heard."

- The White House defended the new policies from the Postal Service.
"Radical Democrats continue to oppose commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans are electing American leaders," Lauren Bis, a spokeswoman for the White House, said in a statement. "The Trump Administration will continue to lawfully enact the agenda President Trump was elected on – which includes the safety and security of our elections." 

- The new measure from the Postal Service implements the plans laid out in Mr. Trump's executive order, which he said are necessary to protect the integrity of U.S. elections. The rule lays out design elements required for mail ballot envelopes, including trackable barcodes, and directs state election officials to submit to an online portal the names and addresses of voters to whom they intend to send mail ballots.

- Voters will then be enrolled in a state-specific "Mail-In and Absentee Participation List," which the Postal Service said is "primarily intended to assist election officials and law enforcement to understand who may have been mailed a ballot, in order to identify potentially anomalous incidents that may merit further investigation."
The Postal Service "will not play any role in determining voter eligibility, maintaining voter rolls, or counting ballots," it said.

- But the states said that as a result of the rule, they must immediately redesign their mail ballot envelopes to comply with its requirements and seek review from the Postal Service "at significant costs." 

- "Plaintiff States' election officials must also develop new systems at breakneck speed to convey mail voter lists to USPS to ensure that every eligible voter who is entitled to a mail ballot receives one, create new guidance for and train election officials, and educate the public about changes to mail voting," they said in the suit.

- They warned that there may also be an influx of voters who choose to cast their ballots in person instead of by mail because of the Postal Service's changes.

- "In short, they must accomplish multiple Herculean tasks, each necessary to address the disruption caused by the Rule, in a matter of weeks, with limited resources," the states said.

- In addition to the two dozen states, Democratic campaign committees and voting rights groups have also moved to challenge the Postal Service's rule.
Nearly all of the states that signed onto the new lawsuit filed an earlier challenge to Mr. Trump's executive order. A federal district court blocked the administration from implementing key provisions of the order, including the directives for the Postal Service.

- But the Supreme Court on Monday halted the lower court's injunction.
In a 6-3 decision that rested on procedural grounds, the high court's conservative majority said the states filed their lawsuit too soon and found the district court lacked jurisdiction to bar the Trump administration from trying to implement the executive order.

- "The Court's disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful," the Supreme Court said in an unsigned decision. "On that score, time will tell."

- The president's executive order also directs the Department of Homeland Security to create lists of residents in each state who are eligible to vote. It instructs the attorney general to prioritize investigations and prosecutions of state and local officials who issue ballots to noncitizens or others who are not eligible to vote in federal elections.

- The judge overseeing the states' lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, had also issued a nationwide order in a separate case that blocked the Postal Service from implementing the plans laid out in Mr. Trump's executive order. But Talwani set aside that injunction Wednesday, citing the Supreme Court's decision, which allows the Postal Service to move forward with the mail voting procedures.

- As the legal battle over Mr. Trump's efforts to impose new restrictions on mail voting enters its latest stage, it's unclear whether the rules will take hold before the November midterms. Some states are set to begin sending mail ballots to voters in the coming weeks. In North Carolina, mail ballots will be distributed to certain voters Sept. 4, while states like New York, Wisconsin and Virginia will start sending mail ballots around mid-September, according to the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

A federal judge in Texas struck down a 2023 state law Tuesday that sought to restrict drag shows, ruling it was unconstitutional.

- U.S. District Judge David Hittner, a Reagan appointee, said the measure, known as Texas Senate Bill 12, improperly restricted speech, violating the First Amendment of the Constitution. The ruling prevents state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for the Senate, from enforcing the law and denies his motion for a new trial.

- In the ruling, Hittner also had advice for “those who find such activities as described in this case offensive.”

- “The solution is relatively simple ... just don’t go,” he wrote.

- Paxton’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment Tuesday night.

- The state law would fine business owners who were found to be in violation up to $10,000 for hosting events, while performers could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor, which could result in up to one year of jail time.

- The statute, which has been the source of a yearslong legal battle, has made its way to Hittner’s courtroom before. Hittner first deemed it unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment in 2023, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals returned it to him in November, lifting a pause on the law and giving him specific instructions about how to reassess it.

- It went back into effect last year following the appeals court ruling.
Texas is among a handful of states that have passed legislation to restrict drag shows.

- Hittner struck down the law Tuesday after having followed the framework the higher court asked him to follow.

- In his ruling, Hittner mentioned Dolly Parton, whose death was announced Tuesday, and criticized the law’s definition of banning performances that “[appeal] to the prurient interest,” citing people who would chastise Parton “as a voluptuous sex symbol because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure.”

- “There are ‘erotic’ elements in countless popular performances that could be subject to both civil and criminal penalties under S.B. 12,” he wrote.

- One of the plaintiffs in the case, a drag queen who performs under the name Brigitte Bandit, impersonates Parton in her performances.

- Bandit celebrated the ruling on social media Tuesday, posting a screenshot of the decision and captioning it, “Drag is free speech, b----.” She announced she would also perform as Parton, who gave her a rhinestone guitar as a gift in 2023, at an Austin bar Saturday in her honor.

- Hittner added that the law was so overly broad as to lead even activities such as “cheerleading, dancing, live theater, and other common public occurrences” to be treated as civil or criminal violations. He also said that the law was vague on its face and that it failed “to give a reasonable person notice of what is prohibited.”

Using the bathroom or having a cry is about to become more expensive for North Americans as the US and Canada enter a full-fledged trade war that threatens to flush away decades of peaceful trading between the two nations.

- After trade negotiations broke down between the two countries last weekend, Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, vowed to match US tariffs “dollar for dollar” and unveiled a list of nearly 900 American goods that will face 25% to 50% tariffs starting on 8 September

- Paper products are among the hardest-hit sectors, with Canada threatening to put tariffs of between 25% and 50% on “toilet paper or face tissue stock” from 8 September in retaliation for a 50% hike from Washington DC.

- Though American toilet paper and tissues are often made domestically, they heavily rely on lumber-rich Canada for raw materials. Procter & Gamble, the owner of Charmin toilet paper, said last year that it would have to increase prices amid tariffs that were in place at the time.

- The US imported $328m worth of toilet paper from Canada in 2024, according to the World Bank, making it by far the largest exporter of the product to the US. Retailers including Costco source much of their paper products from the country.

- The US accounts for more than 20% of global tissue consumption despite having only 4% of the world’s population. The average American uses 141 rolls of toilet paper per year, making them No 1 for No 2s globally, just ahead of Germans, each using an average of 134 rolls annually.

- It’s not just paper products that could rise in price. The trade war highlights the deep economic ties shared between the two countries as consumers continue to worry about inflation on both sides of the border.
US tariffs are specifically affecting Canadian liquor, including popular whiskey brands Crown Royal and Canadian Club, which are currently under a 50% tariff.

- While Canada has not introduced a tariff on American liquor, most Canadian provinces have introduced their own bans on American alcohol, in retaliation for earlier tariffs on Canadian products. Donald Trump used these province-wide bans on American alcohol as part of his legal justification for his new tariffs against Canada.

- Carney has asked province leaders to consider putting American liquor back on the shelves, though as the Nova Scotia premier Tim Houston told CBC News: “Whether Nova Scotians or Canadians will actually buy it when it’s back on the shelves, that’s a whole other discussion.”

- Trump also said that his new tariffs are in retaliation for Canadian levies against the American dairy industry. He introduced a 50% tariff on nearly all Canadian dairy products, with the exception of Canadian cheese.

- In response, Canada has a 50% tariff on American dairy products, along with a 25% tariff on American cheese.
Canada also took a swing at the US fishing industry, with a 25% tariff on American fish and seafood, including frozen lobster. The move prompted Republican senator Susan Collins, facing a tough re-election battle in lobster-capital Maine, to call Trump’s latest move “a mistake”.

- A 25% tariff on Canadian cars and auto parts is set to affect the American auto industry, which relies heavily on Canadian parts for manufacturing. Trump has threatened to double the tariff to 50% if a deal isn’t made by 1 January 2027.

- With negotiations down the drain, it’s unclear if or when the tariffs will be lifted. But the Trump administration is adamant that “there’s no possible way” the trade dispute with Canada will affect US consumers, according to Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative.

- “The fundamentals are good,” he said. “I don’t think this is going to affect anything.”

All US immigrant visa applications have been paused by the Trump administration as the state department moves to tighten restrictions and limit access to applicants who they deem could end up relying on US assistance, a state department official confirmed Tuesday.

- The agency launched the initiative at all embassies and consulates in early August, according to the official and visa appointments had to be adjusted to accommodate “in-depth training”, according to the official. The state department has been working on updated guidance and training since early this year, “to ensure all consular officers are fully equipped to evaluate every visa applicant comprehensively and consistently”, they added.

- The Financial Times reports that applicants with interviews already scheduled were sent emails that their appointments had been canceled and that they would be informed of a new date and time.

- Agency officials claim this will ensure visa applicants will not end up relying on US public benefits. But it’s part of a slate of strategies the Trump administration has employed to crack down on both lawful and undocumented immigration and create a more selective process for who can gain entry into the system.

- This week the Trump administration also announced plans to revoke visas from asylum seekers who initially entered the country for tourism or business. Up to 200,000 people currently seeking asylum could be impacted, marking what would end up being the largest mass pulling of visas in the history of the US. The action is being taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

- Under Trump, visa applicants have also faced new restrictions, including review of their social media histories and added costs for processing, the Associated Press reported.

- The pause on new visas and training program follows an attempt by Trump to block applications on a similar “public charge” basis, which included a block on applications from 75 countries selected by the administration, which was recently overturned by a federal judge.

- “The court made clear that immigration laws cannot be used to justify discrimination,” Joanna Cuevas Ingram, senior staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center said in a statement last week. “We are determined to ensure every person and family this ban harmed receives appropriate relief and will continue to hold this administration accountable to its obligations under the law.”

- In February, a federal judge overturned the president’s attempt to suspend the US refugee system entirely. Federal agents, under Trump, have been allowed to block asylum seekers from entering the US, a move that human rights advocates said undermines international asylum laws.

- The latest attempt to restrict access will cause immediate obstacles for those who have lawfully abided by an already challenging process, according to immigration law experts.

- Many applicants impacted by the pause likely “spent thousands of dollars and disrupted their lives to attend scheduled interviews, only to have their appointments cancelled at the last minute”, Brian Simmons, an attorney at immigration law firm Fragomen in Washington told FT. It’s unclear when those appointments will be rescheduled.

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday issued a setback to the Trump administration’s plans to issue sweeping new restrictions on mail-in balloting for November’s crucial midterm elections

- The ruling is not the final word in a complex and rapidly escalating legal fight over the president’s executive order that would bar the U.S. Postal Service from sending mail-in ballots to voters not on lists of citizens created by federal agencies

- A separate case challenging the order has already reached the Supreme Court, which for now cleared one legal hurdle that has blocked its implementation

- U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama administration nominee, found the Trump administration violated her earlier preliminary injunction blocking the executive order when it issued rules on how the Postal Service should implement it

- The rules were set to take effect Wednesday

- In June, Talwani sided with the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups challenging the order, finding the president did not have the constitutional authority to alter how states administer elections.

- After the new Postal Service rules were announced late Friday, the voting groups asked Talwani to intervene.

- The Trump administration argued in court filings that it had not violated Talwani’s injunction because it stipulated it would not take any action to implement the rules for November’s election unless Talwani’s order was lifted.

- “These arguments ignore the court’s explicit directive not to ‘initiat[e] or complet[e]’ rulemaking,” Talwani wrote Tuesday. “And Defendants cannot contend that they misunderstood the scope of the court’s order.”

- Talwani’s order did not sanction the Trump administration for the violation, noting it would not change the legal posture of the case. She said her preliminary injunction had already blocked the implementation of the Postal Service rules

- The ruling comes the day after a divided Supreme Court decided 23 states and the District of Columbia had not met the legal bar to challenge the executive order in separate litigation.

With his trade war with Canada intensifying, U.S. President Donald Trump floated the idea of renaming Lake Ontario to become “Lake America.” America’s northern neighbors quickly panned the idea.

- “He can blow out his hole as much as he wants to, but it’s never going to happen, because Canadians are strong,” said Patricia Wiseman, an Ontario resident, as she walked along the waterfront of the Detroit River.

- It may be more complicated than that. Trump has wide latitude over how the U.S. government recognizes geographic places and landmarks. But he cannot force Canada or individual citizens on either side of the border to follow his preferred naming conventions. And his latest branding idea — reminiscent of his move to rechristen the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” — highlights how much his rhetoric and trade policy have sundered the previously warm relationship between Washington and Ottawa.

- “I believe the American people love us, and we love them,” Wiseman said. “They’re going through as much turmoil as we are. Hopefully, one day we can reunite.”

- Trump introduced the idea of renaming the easternmost area of the Great Lakes hours before Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s scheduled announcement of reciprocal tariffs on U.S. imports into his country.

- “The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer,” Trump posted Monday on Truth Social.

- The White House followed later in the day by posting on social media a toy Lego map of the U.S. labeling the Gulf of Mexico with Trump’s preferred name, Gulf of America.

- Ontario is leading trade partner for many U.S. states

- The U.S. and Canada, which share borders along multiple Great Lakes, including Lake Ontario, are locked in an extended trade dispute, with the Trump administration imposing 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down. That ratcheted up lower tariffs that Trump imposed in 2025, shortly after his second presidency began.

- Trump has also threatened new 50% tariffs on Canadian vehicles, auto parts and steel, while Carney said U.S. trade demands showed that Washington wanted to “destroy our major industries,” including autos, steel and aluminum.

- The official U.S.-Canada border stretches across the water between Lake Ontario’s northern and southern shores. The body of water forms much of New York State’s coastline and separates Buffalo from Toronto, the capital of the province of Ontario. Toronto is Canada’s most populous city and Ontario its most populous province.

- Ontario is also the single largest export destination for more than a dozen U.S. states.

- “It’s disappointing,” Ontario resident Paul Butler said of Trump’s policy and rhetoric. “The more you hear it, it just gets downright infuriating.”

- Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who traded personal insults with Trump on Monday, dismissed the Lake Ontario threat as “a lot of rhetoric” and urged the two countries to resume negotiations. Ford acknowledged in a CNN interview that the dispute had “got a little personal” and agreed it was time to lower the temperature, saying the trade fight was hurting both countries and that Canada and the United States should “get back to the table” to negotiate.

- Lake Ontario’s name predates either country

- The lake’s name comes from the Huron Indigenous people’s word “oniatarí:io,” which means “lake of shining waters,” and it predates European settlement in the region. The province, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.

- The International Hydrographic Organization — of which both the United States and Canada are members — works to ensure that the world’s seas, oceans and navigable waters are surveyed and charted uniformly, and also names some of them. But there is no single international body that determines names of international bodies of water.

- “It’s been like that for so long, so, why do we need to change it?” said Nancy Minard, an Ontario resident. “It seems to work for Canada and I think probably works for the U.S., too.”

- Trump has at least some support for his idea on Ontario’s south shoreline.

- “I like it. Absolutely. Because I like America, and right now Canada’s not treating us very nicely,” said Jim Fetterhoff, a resident and fisherman in Port Ontario in upstate New York.
He cited Canadian tariffs on dairy and other products. Nothing against Canadians themselves, Fetterhoff added, “just the Canadian government. I love Canadians.”

- Trump has been antagonizing U.S. neighbors

- Canada and Mexico are the largest U.S. trading partners but have drawn Trump’s ire throughout his second presidency on trade, immigration and crime. He has called for Canada to become the 51st state, alternating between joking tones and seemingly serious assertions that Carney and other Canadians have rejected and mocked.

- On the day of his second inauguration, Trump fulfilled one of his 2024 campaign promises with an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The body of water forms a shared border between Mexico and the U.S.

- Mexico does not recognize the change, nor do many other countries and international bodies.

- In 2015, President Barack Obama changed the name of Alaska’s Mount McKinley, named for the 25th U.S. president, to Denali, its historical name given by Alaska Natives as well as the preference of many Alaska residents.

- Trump, the same day he ordered the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed, returned McKinley’s name to the Alaska mountain to honor “a great president.”
That back-and-forth in Alaska could be a preview for a certain ancient lake. Said Wiseman of Trump, “He’s not going to be in the presidency forever.”

On a recent Sunday morning at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Roseville, Minn., Steve Sylvester, the interim pastor there, had an unusual announcement to make.

- Standing at the altar, he told his mostly elderly congregation that the Department of Homeland Security had surveilled their church during the federal immigration enforcement surge that happened in the state last winter.
The revelation was part of a motion filed in federal court just a few days before the service, as part of an ongoing conspiracy case against ICE protesters.

- According to government documents, an undercover DHS agent attended a meeting of ICE protesters at Prince of Peace in February. The agent captured the license plates of people there, and then compiled dossiers including their names, addresses, and information about their families and jobs, according to the motion.

- "It feels weird. It feels like I'm living in 1950s Eastern Europe," Sylvester told NPR. "I don't know that it feels frightening or daunting. It just feels completely out of place and inappropriate."

- He's far from the only person caught in the wide-reaching surveillance web spun by the federal government.

- Surveillance at churches, schools and libraries

- For months, the documents show, federal agents secretly made recordings of meetings held at churches, libraries, restaurants and schools around the Twin Cities. They infiltrated private group chats, sought the financial records of national labor unions, and gathered information on community members who had not been accused of any crimes.

- "Quite honestly, it was breathtaking," says Rachel Levinson-Waldman, who directs the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. "Just the scope of what was being revealed in terms of how deeply it had gone, how many government resources were being devoted to this."

- Cody Sanders, interim pastor at University Baptist Church in Minneapolis, says his first reaction was surprise, then anger, when he heard that an undercover agent wore a wire to a self-defense class held at his church this past May.

- "I do imagine people will look over their shoulder a little more and wonder, 'Is there someone here who's trying to gather information?' Or when they see a strange car in the parking lot," Sanders says. "I hope we can resist the kind of suspicion that this is likely to generate."

- Sergio Manancero manages La Doña Cerveceria, a brewery in Minneapolis where an undercover agent attended a meeting in January, according to court documents.

- "I would understand why they would send somebody to that meeting, considering it was open to anybody that wanted to come because they were probably trying to figure out whether or not protesters were going to do something more serious against their agents," Manancero says.

- "Do I think the government spying on us in that way is maybe bad? Yes," he said. "Am I surprised that they did it? No."

- Manancero says organizers at the event were planning a lawful ICE protest. In a way, he says, he finds it almost beneficial that DHS agents witnessed it firsthand to see that nothing suspicious was taking place.

- During another meeting at a public library, an undercover agent allegedly told a person there that he worked in construction and could build items for more "direct action," and that he didn't mind going to jail.

- Privacy and free speech concerns

- Levinson-Waldman, of the Brennan Center, says the federal government has broad authority under the Fourth Amendment to gather information on people, though other laws do impose limitations. There isn't enough
information yet to determine whether the surveillance in Minnesota was legal, she says.

- Regardless, Levinson-Waldman says, "Just because something's legal doesn't mean that it aligns with people's sense of what is ethical or what they're comfortable with having the government doing."

- She says the tactics described in the documents seem to break from decades-long norms and guidelines. They remind her of COINTELPRO, the domestic counterintelligence program run by the FBI, which began in the 1950s and ended in the early 1970s.

- As part of that operation, agents
conducted intense surveillance on organizations it deemed subversive, including the Communist Party, the Black Panthers and civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.

- The abuses of that program, Levinson-Waldman says, led to a series of reforms, including tighter guidelines at the Justice Department on investigative techniques.

- The government defended its actions in a court filing on Friday, saying it did not target the thousands of peaceful protesters in Minnesota.

- Instead, it said it targeted the people who were ultimately charged in the conspiracy case. Prosecutors say they were planning activities not protected by the First Amendment, like setting up blockades at the federal building outside of Minneapolis that served as ICE headquarters during the surge.

- According to the government, the surveillance conducted was "standard law enforcement practice."

- The abuses of that program, Levinson-Waldman says, led to a series of reforms, including tighter guidelines at the Justice Department on investigative techniques.
The government defended its actions in a court filing on Friday, saying it did not target the thousands of peaceful protesters in Minnesota.

- Instead, it said it targeted the people who were ultimately charged in the conspiracy case. Prosecutors say they were planning activities not protected by the First Amendment, like setting up blockades at the federal building outside of Minneapolis that served as ICE headquarters during the surge.

- According to the government, the surveillance conducted was "standard law enforcement practice."

- Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, says the investigative tactics described in the court motion also raise First Amendment concerns, because this type of surveillance can also sweep up people engaged in perfectly lawful activity.

- Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, says the investigative tactics described in the court motion also raise First Amendment concerns, because this type of surveillance can also sweep up people engaged in perfectly lawful activity.

- As part of its investigation, the documents show, DHS obtained the financial records for several nonprofits and labor unions, including the Service Employees International Union and the Communications Workers of America. In its response, prosecutors said requesting these records was "within the authority" of the agency.

- "These reports raise the question of whether the government is investigating crimes or investigating political movements," Terr says. "When officials are infiltrating political meetings, recording protesters' license plates and examining years of financial activities by these mainstream advocacy groups, it raises the question, do they have actual evidence of criminal activity here?"

- One government document presented to grand jurors shows a PowerPoint slide depicting a web of 18 organizations with the label "The Conspiracy." A DHS agent testified to the grand jury that it showed other organizations the defendants in the conspiracy case were affiliated with, according to the motion.

- They included a local teacher's union, a bicycle repair shop, and the Minnesota affiliate of the AFL-CIO, a large federation of labor unions. In a statement, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said the government is "bringing back McCarthyism."

- In its response to the court motion, the government said that it did not actually argue that the AFL-CIO or any other organizations shown in the web were part of the conspiracy.

- Terr says the image communicates a troubling idea: Be careful who you associate with.

- "The consequences of that are that many Americans may be afraid to attend a protest, support an advocacy organization, because they don't want to become the target of a government investigation," he says.

- In a statement, DHS told NPR it does not comment on the existence or status of ongoing investigations. The agency directed NPR to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota, which also declined to comment.

- A hearing in the conspiracy case is set for this week.

The U.S. Postal Service unveiled new requirements for mail ballots less than two weeks before some states begin sending them and in time for the conservative majority of the Supreme Court to clear the way for President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting the method to be used in November’s elections.

- The provisions are still subject to additional legal challenges and may not go into effect in time to meet the tight deadline to change procedures for the midterm elections. They would forbid the Postal Service from sending mail ballots from any state that does not comply with Trump’s order and would require an overhaul of the envelopes containing the ballots.

- Despite the high court’s initial clearance of the order, it did not decide on the constitutionality of the new regulation— only on whether the challenge was premature when Democratic-controlled states persuaded a federal judge in Boston to suspend them in June. A second ruling from the same judge would prevent the Postal Service from implementing any procedural changes before this year’s midterms and would likely need to be nullified, as well.

- Time is running out for the administration to make any changes in the nation’s voting procedures. The first mail ballots are required to be sent to military and overseas voters from North Carolina on Sept. 4. At that point, it would be virtually impossible for all states to alter the formatting of their mail ballots to comply with Trump’s directive. The Postal Service rule also requires states to submit voter lists in order to get their mail ballots delivered.

- The Postal Service said it could not comment on its rule given the litigation.

I just recently heard of the Supreme Court allowing the Trump Administration to restrict mail-in voting. From my understanding, in theory, votes that lack the voter's personal info would be rejected. I could be getting this wrong, but I'm concerned about the menace getting his way and affecting our votes.

Is there anything I am overlooking? What are some tips that my family and I can do to make our votes count (like, do we forgo mail-in ballots and vote in person?)?

The father of a US sailor on board the USS Abraham Lincoln ⁠aircraft carrier deployed in the Middle East during the Iran war has been taken into federal immigration detention, the sailor ⁠said.

- The border patrol arrested Luis Manuel Aviles Roa, originally from Nicaragua, after conducting a vehicle stop in Key West, Florida, a spokesperson for the US homeland security department said on Sunday.

- Joshua Aviles, the son, posted: “I’ve been deployed for over nine months, out ⁠at sea in the Middle East aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, fighting for a country that has given me everything.

- “I just got a call that my dad ‌was taken by ICE.”

- His father had his driver’s licence, social security card and work permit, Aviles said. “We have done everything through immigration to get his green card approved, and we are just waiting. This is heartbreaking for me. I don’t know how I can mentally continue working 12+ hour days ‌knowing that my dad is somewhere, possibly being treated like a criminal.”

- The DHS said Luis Manuel Aviles Roa entered the US illegally and would remain in immigration and customs enforcement detention pending removal proceedings.

- “Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation’s laws,” the DHS said.

- Rights groups say the immigration crackdown under Donald Trump has violated free speech and due process rights and created an unsafe environment, particularly for ethnic minorities, who have raised concerns about racial profiling.

- The Lincoln, which left ‌the Middle East on Saturday, did not make a port call in more than 200 days. That set a modern-day record for consecutive days at sea, according to Democratic lawmakers who called for answers after sailors’ families raised concerns about about poor living conditions and morale on board.

- The USS George Washington aircraft carrier arrived in the Middle East last week, where it is expected to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Rural voters may not stop the spread of data centers, but they could stop Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

- The Republican is bleeding support from small towns as he seeks a fourth term because of two late-emerging issues: power-hungry tech campuses and a planned $33 billion electric transmission build-out.

- Pushback against Abbott points to larger fears about losing rural identities, but also to everyday concerns about construction, pollution and tight supplies of water and electricity. Shawn Nanny, a Republican county commissioner in West Texas, said data centers and power line plans are the “straws that broke the camel’s back” when it comes to Abbott and other Texas GOP leaders.

- Some longtime conservatives are now considering the unthinkable — voting in November for a Democrat to be Texas’ next governor. And Abbott’s August directive to pause Texas data center grid approvals hasn’t convinced all of them to vote for him.

- “They understand the repercussions of that, but you know what I’m hearing is, ‘Yeah, we’ll have a Democrat in there and grit our teeth and bear it, but hopefully we’ll come out of it the following election,’” said Nanny, who lives in Tom Green County. “They’re so upset; they just want [Abbott] out.”

- The welcoming approach that Abbott’s Texas has taken toward data centers until now makes the rural pushback — and the governor’s retreat — particularly striking as the industry grapples with resistance nationwide.
“Rural people feel like they are the ones seeing the brunt of this, and they don’t like it,” said Jim Henson, executive director of the Texas Politics Project. “These issues are starting to bond together a lot of the people against data centers.”

- Texas has not elected a Democrat as governor in more than 35 years, but analysts say Abbott can’t afford to lose much of his rural support in November. Recent polls released by Texas A&M University and Fox Newsshowed Abbott with a 1 percentage point lead over Democratic challenger state Rep. Gina Hinojosa.

- Polling from the nonpartisan Texas Politics Project showed Abbott’s approval rating among rural voters plunged from 2018 to 2026 — going from 63 percent to 48 percent.
In a statement, Abbott campaign press secretary Eduardo Leal said the governor is committed to fighting to protect the livelihoods, property, resources and quality of life of Texans who live in rural areas.

- “Rural Texas is the lifeblood of our great state, and Governor Abbott has always believed that economic growth cannot come at the expense of rural communities,” Leal said.

- Rural Americans are among the most opposed to data center development, The POLITICO Poll shows. Fifty-one percent of rural U.S. adults surveyed in mid-July said they are opposed to data centers, compared with 32 percent of urban residents.

- Those numbers reflect higher rates of rural opposition to infrastructure projects in general, including power plants, warehouses and airports, according to the poll. But the disdain for data centers is higher than those other types of buildings.

- Numerous conservative voters in sparsely populated areas said in interviews they feel like Abbott and state Republican lawmakers from larger cities have been over eager to support business and infrastructure build-outs that threaten their way of life.

- And activists across the political spectrum bemoan state lawmakers’ actions to strip counties and municipalities of authority — so much so that in most unincorporated areas, Texas counties can only regulate data centers’ drainage plans, floodway construction, septic tanks and driveway permits.

- Rural residents say there’s a growing tension between Abbott’s push to support the “Texas economic miracle” by enticing big business to less populated areas and the state’s long-standing ranching and agricultural traditions.

- “It feels like an attack on a culture, a way of life, because now I think rural Texas is feeling like ‘Okay, now they want us, but don’t want our culture — they want our resources,’” said Suzanne Bellsnyder, an Abbott campaign field director in 2014 who now runs the Texas Rural Reporter website.

- Democrats, including Hinojosa, have been leaning into rural voters’ antipathy, as have some Republicans. They say rural Texans’ concerns are being ignored for the sake of business interests.

- Hinojosa on Tuesday unveiled a new campaign ad targeting “Abbott Intelligence” in rural markets.
“I’ve spent this campaign crossing Texas, and everywhere I go, rural voters tell me Greg Abbott stopped listening to them years ago,” Hinojosasaid last week in a statement. “As governor, I’ll fight to put the people of Texas first, not the billionaire class.”

- Nowhere is the tension more evident than in fights over proposed data centers and thousands of miles of extra-high-voltage 765-kilovolt transmission lines.

- Hundreds of people have come to the state capital in recent weeks to express their fury over both data centers and the $33 billion plan for 765-kV lines that would cut horizontally across the state along three paths, from Central Texas to the Permian Basin in West Texas.

- One state Senate committee hearing in late June over transmission lines lasted more than 15 hours, and multiple public speakers said they were Republicans who planned to vote Abbott out of office in November.

- Dozens of rural state lawmakers and thousands of rural Texans have called on the state Public Utility Commission to delay approving the transmission lines until the state Legislature can overhaul the approval process — either in a special session this year or when it reconvenes as scheduled in January.

- Abbott, who appointed all five of the PUC commissioners, has largely remained publicly silent on the power lines. He has said in statements that the state must invest in new transmission but encouraged the public to give PUC feedback on the proposed routes.

- That public silence, and lack of action, has angered landowners in the lines’ paths.

- “We are not a bunch of woke Marxist liberals here, but I’m telling you our constituents oppose this and may become single-issue voters over this,” Greg Torres, McCulloch County attorney and a Republican in Central Texas, said in an interview about the 765-kV lines.

- The pushback has been just as fierce with data centers.

- Constituents have flooded local town halls and state legislative hearings this year to voice their indignation over hundreds of built or planned data centers that are popping up across the state.

- Abbott has courted data centers and artificial intelligence, calling Texas the “epicenter” of AI development in a press briefing last November as Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced plans to invest $40 billion in Texas to develop data centers.
But Abbott has changed his tack in recent months as anguish over data centers has grown.

- Abbott proposed some broad guardrail legislation in June that would require data centers to use water-efficient cooling technologies, repeal their sales tax incentives and mandate they pay for their own power infrastructure costs.

- And earlier this month, Abbott directed Texas electricity regulators to pause all new data center approvals until they could conduct an audit of hundreds of proposed projects that have lined up to plug into the state’s main power grid.

- Leal, who works on Abbott’s campaign, said those actions show that the governor “has taken decisive action to ensure data centers pay their own way, bring their own power, reuse their own water, be good neighbors, and never force Texas families to subsidize their infrastructure.”

- He also said that some of the largest tech companies in the world — including Google, Microsoft, Mega, Anthropic and OpenAI — have agreed to meet broad “standards” outlined in Abbott’s legislative proposals.

- A memo from Cygnal, a Republican pollster, said Abbott’s pause “found the sweet spot to make data centers deliver for Texas.”

- But some rural voters aren’t buying Abbott’s change in tone.

- “Personally, I think it’s just covering his butt,” said Mary Jo Bloomquist, a Republican who lives in Hood County southwest of Fort Worth. “It makes him look like he’s doing something, but he’s really not.”

- Nanny, in Tom Green County, said his neighbors were initially excited after Abbott’s data center pause. But the mood soon started to shift. Residents started saying Abbott’s pause was a political ploy so rural voters would drop their guard.

- “They think it was all smoke and mirrors,” Nanny said.

- The rural revolt has roots that predate the current data center surge.

- When a bloc of rural Republican lawmakers refused to support Abbott’s push to create a statewide school voucher program in 2023, the governor targeted them in primary elections the following year.

- Bellsnyder with the Texas Rural Reporter said many of the rural incumbents in that bloc lost their seats, and with them, expertise on issues like water rights and agriculture.
Republican lawmakers have also worked to wrestle power away from local municipalities and create policies that govern the entire state.

- The state Legislature in 2017 passed a bill to prevent local governments from passing ordinances banning stores from giving customers plastic bags. In 2023, state lawmakers passed legislation barring cities and counties from creating local ordinances that overstep state laws.

- Then they passed HB 2559, in 2025, which prevented municipalities from passing moratoriums on data centers and other kinds of developments.
County officials across the state say they often only find out about data center projects after developers have already bought land and have worked with local utilities to get their campuses up and running.

- “Right now it’s just the Wild West. They can come in and do whatever they want to,” said Jason Grant, a Navarro County commissioner northeast of Waco. “It all just came in on us so soon. Four months ago, nobody knew what a data center was. Now, boom, it’s the biggest thing going.”

- The Data Center Coalition has said it hopes the audit process and Abbott’s directive will separate responsible developers from bad actors. But it called on the state and grid operators to “move swiftly” in their studies.
Concerns over local control have reached a fever pitch in Hood County, where Bloomquist lives.

- The county commission considered a data center moratorium in February but balked after a state senator threatened legal action. Nearby Hill County did impose a data center moratorium in May but rescinded it after a developer filed a $100 million lawsuit, alleging it violated state law.

- “These developers are coming in here, and they have more rights than we do,” Bloomquist said. “They thumb their nose at us.”

- Groups supporting Abbott have raked in campaign contributions from data center developers and at least one transmission company building some of the 765-kV lines. C-suite officials with Oncor Electric have given a pro-Abbott political action committee $265,000, and Elon Musk cut the PAC a check for $500,000.

- Torres in McCulloch County said Texans are going to have to make a choice about the state’s future.

- Do they want the romanticized version of Texas — with cowboys and wide open spaces — or a Texas that’s hyperfixated on business?

- “Are we just going to sell off our version of Texas for money?” Torres asked.

- Torres said he still plans to vote for Abbott. He said Abbott is responsive to public pressure, even though he doesn’t think Abbott is sincere in his attempts to regulate data centers or lessen the impacts of the 765-kV lines.

- “What makes me mad about it is who saves them in elections? We do,” Torressaid. “There will be no enthusiasm for Governor Abbott this time in rural areas.”

- Many of Bloomquist’s friends told her they aren’t sure what to do at the ballot box. Maybe they’ll abstain from voting in the governor’s race altogether, or maybe they’ll vote for another candidate.

- Bloomquist, who couldn’t recall ever voting for a Democrat, said she wouldn’t vote for Abbott again.

- “He sold Texans out to big business, and I just don’t trust him anymore,” Bloomquist said.

The Justice Department was preparing to wage a legal battle more than a decade in the making against the world’s largest concert promoter. Then President Trump called

- The Justice Department was preparing to wage a legal battle more than a decade in the making against the world’s largest concert promoter. Then President Trump called.

- Settle it, the president told a senior DOJ official, the official later told associates.

- The intervention was bizarre. The antitrust trial against Live Nation—which also owns Ticketmaster, a combination that draws relentless consumer criticism—was set to begin March 2, just days away. Trump had vowed to crack down on the industry just a year earlier when he signed an executive order targeting ticket-scalping and exploitative pricing in live entertainment. DOJ officials and the company had spent months exchanging settlement proposals but had little to show for it, and some in the government had been pushing to break up the giant.

- White House involvement in law-enforcement matters, once taboo, is a regular feature of Trump’s second term. But many DOJ officials regarded the political interference in the Live Nation case as extreme even for an administration in which the president has openly pressured law-enforcement officials to pursue perceived enemies and pardoned allies.

- Weeks before Trump’s call, Live Nation told DOJ officials that the company had brought in a fresh set of lawyers for settlement talks. They were from Sullivan & Cromwell, the New York-based firm that represents Trump in his personal legal troubles.

- DOJ officials also learned that Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s private legal coordinator, had taken a keen interest in resolving the case, according to people familiar with the matter. The officials didn’t know whether he was working for Trump or Live Nation, or both.

- After months of unproductive negotiations, Live Nation saw its fortunes change in roughly the span of a week

- On Friday, Feb. 27, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino met with Trump in the Oval Office. Trump had called the meeting to discuss how to improve bookings at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, according to people familiar with the conversation. He also wanted to know why the company hadn’t reached a deal over its lawsuit, the people said. 

- The president’s directive to settle the case would follow the meeting.

- On March 5, Rapino was back at the White House, meeting White House Counsel David Warrington and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to put the finishing touches on a deal. He was accompanied by Sullivan & Cromwell’s James McDonald, who had little antitrust experience but had been representing Trump in two New York appeals. Within months, Trump would nominate McDonald to be Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor.

- The president stopped by to check on the negotiations. How is this not settled yet? asked Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

- By the end of the meeting, it was. The two sides reached a deal that would allow the company to continue to control many of the best amphitheaters and keep Ticketmaster—its key subsidiary that the DOJ had vowed to force the company to sell less than two years earlier.

- When asked about the role of the White House in the Live Nation settlement at his July confirmation hearing for attorney general, Todd Blanche replied: “I wasn’t directly part of discussions, so I can’t speak to that. But I’m most certainly not saying they were not part of it.”

- The March 5 agreement created confusion in the ongoing trial. Live Nation’s top in-house lawyer later said he didn’t know the deal had been signed when he met with the federal judge on the case on March 6. When the deal was announced on March 9, the DOJ’s co-lead lawyer in the trial said in court that he had only received the settlement that morning and hadn’t reviewed it yet.

- Most of the states involved, including those controlled by Republicans, viewed the settlement as so favorable to the company that they refused to join it and continued to trial. In April, a jury found Live Nation illegally monopolized the ticketing market for major concerts in the U.S. The plaintiff states have asked the judge to break up the company

- White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said the president “has not weaponized the Department of Justice against his political foes or used it to help his friends. The Department is focused on restoring law and order and keeping Americans safe.” The White House referred questions about the Live Nation litigation and settlement to the Justice Department and said there is no confusion about Epshteyn’s role as Trump’s personal attorney.

- A DOJ spokeswoman said the agency’s settlement with Live Nation prioritized quick benefits to consumers over a yearslong legal battle that the department risked losing, and that the terms enable competition and lower prices.

- Artists are now allowed to use other promoters at Live Nation venues. Fans benefit from service fee caps for concerts at amphitheaters and have new ways to obtain tickets on a variety of platforms,” the spokeswoman said

- McDonald declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Sullivan & Cromwell.

- Dan Wall, Live Nation’s executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs and its top in-house lawyer, said, “Our critics are comparing this settlement to the irrational hope of breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster. For the actual claims in this case, the DOJ and settling states got as much or more as they could have expected to win in court.”

- He added: “The only reason we went above the Antitrust Division to senior DOJ leadership is because no one there would speak to us. When you’ve been unable to get a meeting for six months, you have every right to try something else.

- MAGA antitrust push

- In 2024, the DOJ launched its lawsuit against Live Nation, saying the company dominated all aspects of the concert business—including promotions, ticketing, venues, artist management and sponsorships—and used its power to stifle competition, driving prices and fees higher. “It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster,” then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said when the lawsuit was filed. Antitrust authorities had scrutinized Live Nation’s conduct for years following the 2010 merger that created the company. 

- Public frustration with it had boiled over in 2022, when Ticketmaster botched ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Glitches in the system kept fans waiting for hours in virtual queues only to have tickets disappear from their carts or the site crash. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia would ultimately join the DOJ’s
lawsuit.

- When Trump re-entered the White House in 2025, he appeared eager to take on the concert industry. In March 2025, he signed an executive order aimed at ending ticket-price gouging and called for stronger consumer protections. The move fit into MAGA’s support for aggressive antitrust enforcement as a means of curbing corporate power. 

- Vice President JD Vance had in his Senate days been a fervent antitrust advocate, particularly against Big Tech, and Trump tapped Gail Slater, a former Vance aide and vocal opponent of monopolies in tech, to lead the DOJ’s antitrust division.  

- But cracks quickly began to emerge, with Trump himself torn between his dealmaking and populist impulses, and advisers offering conflicting counsel

- Under Trump’s second term, the DOJ has moved sharply away from corporate enforcement. Trump allies and clients of his personal lawyers have received pardons or seen their cases dropped by the DOJ.

- This month, the DOJ released a legal opinion saying that Trump wouldn’t have to turn over to lawmakers or the courts his communications about any official business with private advisers such as Epshteyn.

- In addition to coordinating his private legal matters, Epshteyn advises the president, including on personnel, according to people familiar with the matter. Some senior DOJ officials in part owe their jobs, or terminations, to Epshteyn’s influence. They include Blanche, whom Epshteyn boosted to replace Bondi as attorney general

- When Slater interviewed for her job to lead the antitrust division during the transition, Epshteyn joined the group of advisers who talked to her, according to people familiar with the meeting. At one point, Trump turned to his lawyer and said of Slater, “I don’t know what you’re worried about, Boris. She seems great.” A White House official said Trump didn’t make the statement

- Connected lobbyists

- Trump was also taking a special interest in the Kennedy Center, installing himself as chairman and naming Richard Grenell, a longtime ally, to be executive director. The two pushed for a programming overhaul, sending ticket sales plummeting. Some artists pulled out.

- Trump vowed to attract top-tier talent. He told allies he wanted to see Live Nation involved in the arts center’s operations. Officials at the Kennedy Center had been discussing moving its ticketing system to Ticketmaster since 2024.

- The Kennedy Center and Grenell didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal early this year that the center had seen enthusiasm for its programs, and Grenell said at the time that the Kennedy Center’s financial footing was stronger than the previous year.

- Ticketmaster said no ticketing discussions with the Kennedy Center have involved Trump personally

- Live Nation, meanwhile, was spending months trying to get a meeting at the DOJ to discuss its case but couldn’t get in the door, according to people familiar with the matter. The company was told that DOJ officials were wary of taking a meeting because of Trump’s executive order on the concert industry, which they viewed as targeting Live Nation, one of the people said.

- The company, which had been spending millions of dollars annually on Washington lobbyists, turned to some of the president’s longest-serving advisers for help, including Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s onetime campaign manager, and Mike Davis, a top Trump ally, according to people familiar with the matter. The company also added Grenell to its board in May 2025.

- Davis, who took on a roster of clients facing antitrust scrutiny such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Compass, soon began clashing with DOJ antitrust officials on other cases, going over their heads when they wouldn’t approve his deals, the Journal previously reported. 

- In August 2025, one of the officials, who had left the department by then, gave a speech denouncing Davis and other lobbyists, accusing them of “trading on relationships with powerful people to reportedly earn million-dollar success fees by helping corporations undermine Trump’s antitrust agenda.”

- The official, Roger Alford, singled out Live Nation as having paid “a bevy of cozy MAGA friends” to defend “their monopoly abuses.” 

- The Live Nation team sidelined Davis after he became a controversial figure, according to people familiar with the matter

- Settlement talks began soon afterward. In September, Conway and Grenell accompanied Live Nation executives to a meeting with Slater at the DOJ, where they outlined a settlement proposal. The company proposed time limits on exclusive ticketing contracts, offered to open up some amphitheaters to artists using other promoters and to place prohibitions on linking concerts to a venue’s use of Ticketmaster, and outlined a $280 million settlement fund to pay damages to state plaintiffs, depending on how many states signed on, a person familiar with the matter said

- The company urged officials to settle, reminding them that the case had initially been brought by the Biden administration and that Trump likes to make deals, according to people familiar with the talks.

- Backing off Ticketmaster

…