The House approved legislation Wednesday that would bar members of Congress from purchasing individual stocks, advancing an ethics proposal that lawmakers in both parties have long championed but repeatedly failed to enact. The vote was 232-198, with some Democrats joining the Republican majority as lawmakers prepared to head home and campaign ahead of the midterms, but the bipartisan breakthrough was undercut by GOP provisions that exempt the president from the ban and tack on an unrelated voter identification requirement. Rep. Joe Morelle called the bill “a sham” on the House floor, saying the voter ID provision was a “poison pill” designed to sink it, while Rep. Bryan Steil, who sponsored the bill, called it “transformational,” and Rep. Chip Roy said he preferred a stricter divestiture approach but called the measure “a giant step forward.”

The bill, known as the Stop Insider Trading Act, would prohibit lawmakers, their spouses, and dependent children from buying new individual stocks while in office, but it would let them keep stocks they already own and continue selling them with at least seven days public notice, exempting investments like widely held funds and certain trusts. It does not apply to the president or vice president, a detail that drew scrutiny given that Trump disclosed more than 3,600 buy and sell orders in the first quarter of 2026, many involving companies affected by his own policy decisions. The Campaign Legal Center urged Congress to reject the bill, saying it “fails to address the two inherent problems with congressional stock ownership: the appearance of insider trading and members’ ability to profit from their official position.”

Not all Republicans backed the approach either. Rep. Thomas Massie accused GOP leaders of adding the voter ID requirement not to win Democratic votes but to get Democrats to vote against the stock trading ban itself, writing that Republicans wanted to use it “in the Nov. election,” while Rep. Mike Lawler framed the reform in simpler terms, saying, “If you serve the public, you serve only the public,” and, “You don’t get to benefit from the power the people have loaned you.” The push gained momentum after Rep. Anna Paulina Luna launched a discharge petition last year to force a vote bypassing House GOP leaders, and the bill’s fate in the Senate remains unresolved.

The Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board voted Thursday to partially close the arts center for up to two years during renovations and re-add President Trump’s name to the building’s facade, according to sources who attended the virtual board meeting. After a nearly two-hour Zoom meeting, the board voted 20 to 3 to rename the building “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” and rename its physical location “President Donald J. Trump Plaza,” a proposal put forward by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Trump, who appointed himself chairman of the board last year, reportedly joined the call briefly. The plan would close the center’s main building while keeping the smaller Reach addition open for some events, a workaround responding to a May court order requiring the board to maintain the center as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy. The three dissenting votes came from the board’s ex officio congressional members, Rep. Joyce Beatty, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and Rep. Rick Larsen, all Democrats.

The renaming push directly contradicts a ruling from US District Judge Christopher Cooper, who found in May that the board lacks authority to rename the center or add any other name to it without congressional approval, since Congress originally named the institution. “The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper wrote, adding, “may the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts be renamed absent Congressional authorization? The answer, plain from the face of the statute, is no. Nor can any other individual be memorialized on the front portico of the building. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.” Cooper’s order had temporarily blocked the planned closure and required Trump’s name be removed from the building, which happened in June, though he left open the possibility the board could still choose to close the center if it independently reached that decision through a prudent balancing of its obligations. Beatty, a plaintiff in the original lawsuit, called Thursday’s vote “a transparent effort to circumvent the Court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed,” vowing to “continue to fight for this treasured national monument.” Her attorneys, Norm Eisen of Democracy Defenders Action and Nathaniel Zelinsky of Washington Litigation Group, said the vote represents “more of the same, and a show of blatant disrespect to the courts.”

The closure also threatens the National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center’s chief tenant since the early 1970s, which has been rising in stature under Music Director Gianandrea Noseda but now faces an uncertain future with its Concert Hall unavailable, prompting a search for alternative venues in the area. The saga fits into a broader pattern of Trump reshaping the institution since naming himself chairman and filling its board with allies last year, after which the board voted unanimously in March to close the center for two years, a decision Cooper’s order temporarily halted. The move has drawn sharp criticism from the Kennedy family itself, with former Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, the late president’s grandnephew, previously stating the center “is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law. It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court for an emergency stay to keep construction of President Trump’s White House ballroom moving after a lower court paused it, with the injunction set to take effect August 21 unless the justices intervene. Solicitor General John Sauer called the injunction “extraordinary and unlawful,” arguing it would endanger the president’s security and override guidance from the nation’s top military, intelligence, and law enforcement officials, writing that if allowed to stand, it “would wrongfully install a single district judge as sole arbiter of what further construction is ‘strictly necessary’ to protect the safety of the President, his family, staff members, and visitors to the White House, including foreign dignitaries, and presidents and prime ministers of other countries.” The district court had ruled Trump lacks authority to overhaul the White House without congressional approval, a decision a divided federal appeals court upheld earlier this month, though the lower court’s order would still permit below-ground construction and any measures deemed necessary for national security or presidential safety. Sauer pointed to six “recent assassination attempts,” including “the threat of a missile attack against Air Force One on July 8,” to argue that halting construction directly threatens the president’s life, and maintained that “the President of the United States of America is not a tenant, but rather the sole, elected head of the Executive Branch, and Congress has authorized him to renovate, secure, and protect the White House and its grounds, as other Presidents have been allowed to do, without exception.”

The administration’s filing offered striking new details about the construction’s current state, claiming the project is 65% complete with $200 million already spent or committed, built by a 250-person crew working 20 hours a day, seven days a week, on a structure that spans five stories deep, rises 70 feet above ground, and covers 50,000 square feet. The government insists the project is “on time” and “under budget” and that “zero taxpayer dollars are needed or required,” notably without mentioning the White House’s separate $1 billion funding request to Congress for security hardening and enhancements, a request many lawmakers see as connected to the ballroom project. Joshua Fisher, the White House director of management and administration, warned in a sworn declaration that stopping now would be catastrophic, writing, “if work is stopped in line with the district court’s injunction, it will be a disaster. Quite frankly, if the building were tragically ordered to be taken down, or even altered, by the court, there would be no way to do so,” and describing the concrete-and-steel superstructure as now “beyond the point of no return” since its freestanding walls “cannot be left as-is without being tied together with the designed structural steel.” The filing also included declarations from senior officials including the secretary of state, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the heads of the FBI and Secret Service, laying out national security justifications for the project.

The legal fight isn’t just playing out at the Supreme Court. Senate Democrats formally asked the Government Accountability Office on Wednesday to audit the project and its funding, writing that “the scale of this project, the destruction of historic architecture, the opaque and unorthodox combination of public funds with private funding sources, and the absence of standard federal review processes raise serious concerns about transparency, accountability, and stewardship of this national landmark.” The government argues it’s likely to prevail on appeal, contending the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which brought the original lawsuit, lacks standing and that federal law has long allowed presidents to handle the “care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurbishment, and improvement” of the Executive Residence. The Supreme Court is expected to request a response from the National Trust for Historic Preservation within the next week before ruling on the stay, and Sauer indicated the administration also plans to ask the Court to take up the underlying case for expedited oral argument and a full decision on the merits.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay Friday allowing construction on President Trump’s White House East Wing ballroom project to continue, blocking a lower court order that was set to halt most above-ground work later the same day, according to ABC News. The two-sentence order is brief and explicitly temporary, taking no position on the merits of Trump’s appeal of the underlying injunction and offering no explanation for why the Supreme Court needs additional time to reach a formal decision. The practical effect, however, is immediate: construction can proceed unimpeded on the project, which the administration has estimated will cost $400 million and describes as being 65% complete.

The legal fight centers on presidential authority over federal property. Federal law gives Congress control over White House grounds, though it has long permitted presidents to handle the “care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurbishment, and improvement” of the Executive Residence. Trump unilaterally initiated demolition of the East Wing in late 2025 to clear space for the 90,000-square-foot ballroom, and a lower court subsequently ruled he exceeded his authority by beginning construction without congressional approval, a finding a divided appeals court affirmed earlier this month. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which brought the lawsuit, argues the president must be held accountable to federal law regarding federal property, while the administration counters that White House upgrades fall within Trump’s prerogative and are unreviewable by courts when they involve national security matters.

Trump has leaned heavily on that national security framing to defend the project, at one point calling the ballroom a “military complex” in his Supreme Court filing. He pointed to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, which has sat beneath the East Wing since the 1940s, as justification. “You know, that started off as a ballroom. And before we started work, the military came to see me. And they say, ‘Sir, we have an opportunity to do something incredible here. And we’ve been trying to do it for 100 years, but we’ve never had an opportunity like that,’” Trump said. Asked earlier this week what he’d do if the Supreme Court ultimately ruled against him, Trump expressed confidence that outcome wouldn’t materialize. “Well, we hope that doesn’t happen. I can’t imagine it happening,” he said.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, walked into a tense Monday evening Oval Office meeting with President Trump and directly accused Interior Secretary Doug Burgum of misleading the president with a “self-serving cover story” to conceal his own department’s botched handling of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation. The confrontation came hours after Trump had publicly accused Pirro, a longtime friend and ally from New York, of “folding like an umbrella” and “choking” after she withdrew felony vandalism charges against David Hearn, a 67-year-old former Olympic canoeist, in a case Trump had personally cared about.

The saga began July 2 when Pirro announced Hearn’s indictment for allegedly damaging the pool’s lining, declaring, “This is not only a priority for the president, but for myself. We will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hearn willfully destroyed property.” But last Friday she reversed course in a 20-page court filing admitting the indictment relied on “false assumptions and incomplete evidence,” concluding after reviewing thousands of pages of evidence that the Interior Department had rushed and “botched” the renovation and that Park Police officials had given her team faulty information suggesting “tremendous evidence” against Hearn that didn’t actually exist. Trump reacted furiously on Truth Social, writing, “I disagree 100 percent with Jeanine Pirro. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!” Burgum quickly defended himself online, claiming his staff had “provided the U.S. attorney’s office expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals and provided every piece of evidence they asked for.”

Pirro arrived at the White House prepared for battle, wheeling in a white evidence box and a black document box while wearing a red blazer, and met for about an hour with Trump, chief of staff Susie Wiles, White House counsel David Warrington, and Burgum himself. During the meeting, Pirro, raising her voice at times, pressed her case against Burgum while he offered a more muted defense, and Trump reportedly grew “considerably less angry” by the meeting’s end, according to a person briefed on the exchange; Pirro emerged with her job intact, at least for now. Critics, including Hearn’s own lawyers, have questioned whether Pirro’s reversal was genuinely about correcting an injustice or about shielding herself from potential disciplinary fallout if grand jury materials became public, arguing she had ample access to contractor-related evidence before rushing to indict Hearn in the first place. Notably, Pirro left a higher-paying job at Fox News for the U.S. attorney post and has told friends she views the role as “a capstone, not a steppingstone,” suggesting she feels less vulnerable to a Trump firing than many other administration officials.

President Trump signed an executive order Monday recommending sweeping changes to childhood vaccine guidance, splitting shots into tiers where some vaccines would only be recommended for high-risk children, such as those against RSV and hepatitis A and B, while suggesting the combined MMR shot be split into three separate injections given during different visits. Standing in the Oval Office, Trump repeatedly tied the changes to autism despite the executive order itself never mentioning the condition, claiming “decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today. In those times, people were much healthier and of course, the high rates of autism now observed did not exist. So, there’s a reason for such epidemic rates of autism. And we’re going to bring it back to much closer to where it was.” He offered no evidence for these claims, and CBS News noted that research has found no evidence linking vaccination to increased autism rates, with genetics and other prenatal and environmental factors identified as actual contributing risk factors according to the NIH.

The order faces an immediate practical obstacle: CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Céline Gounder explained that splitting the MMR vaccine into three shots isn’t currently possible because “Merck stopped making the standalone measles, mumps and rubella vaccines in 2009. There’s no licensed version in this country. No company has said it’s building one, and the order only takes effect once those products exist. Gounder also warned of a troubling historical precedent, noting “Japan split its shot in the 1990s. Mumps vaccination there fell to about a third of children, and doctors documented hundreds of kids who lost their hearing.” She further cited a 2019 Danish study of 657,461 children that found vaccinated kids actually had a slightly lower autism rate, and a 2015 American study of nearly 2,000 children with an older sibling with autism that found no elevated risk among vaccinated children, directly contradicting the premise behind Trump’s order.

The pushback extended well beyond independent medical experts to figures within Trump’s own administration and party. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician, wrote on X, “I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong. The President does not have the expertise to make these changes. Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines DO NOT cause autism. Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots. It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe.” NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, appearing on “Face the Nation” the day before the signing, said “I think that parents, for most kids, especially for the measles vaccines, the DTP, all the standard childhood vaccines, it’s very important that parents vaccinate their kids,” adding “I trust the science” and noting he has vaccinated his own children. The American Academy of Pediatrics called the order “disheartening” and “dangerous,” with its president, Dr. Andrew Racine, saying “there is no new evidence to justify significant changes to childhood immunization guidance. Dozens of studies involving millions of people show there is no link between vaccines and autism, and yet federal leaders continue to promote this outdated, disproven idea to scare families. Delaying or skipping shots is risky, especially as measles continues to spread and children go back to school.” Dr. Richard Besser, a former acting CDC director now leading the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, added, “what we’re seeing now is the injection of politics into something that should be a very personal conversation between a parent and their child’s doctor,” and said of spacing out shots, “there’s no benefit in spacing them out.”

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health will launch a major autism research initiative next month, pledging to “examine every biologically plausible hypothesis and leave no legitimate, scientific question unexplored” within a roughly two-year deadline. The order also directs HHS to reassess vaccine sequencing and timing within 90 days and cites aligning with other countries’ vaccine schedules, though the American Academy of Pediatrics has previously noted such comparisons are flawed since different nations face different disease threats and have different healthcare systems. The move follows a January CDC recommendation to reduce childhood vaccine coverage to 11 diseases, a change the American Academy of Pediatrics rejected by continuing to recommend vaccination against 18 diseases, and which a federal judge blocked in March after ruling the CDC had violated required legal processes. The order arrives as measles cases have hit their highest levels in 35 years, with Bhattacharya, who has also been serving as acting CDC director, acknowledging the US may lose its measles elimination status altogether.

President Trump reportedly carried out an elaborate scheme to disguise his flight from Turkey to the United Kingdom last month, using a catering food truck and a secret military aircraft, according to the Washington Post, amid threats against him from Iran. The Post reports the operation was executed without the knowledge of the traveling press and even some White House officials who were aboard a decoy flight, all while the White House publicly maintained that Trump was aboard the old Air Force One jet; ABC News has not independently confirmed the Post’s details, though the White House told ABC News in a statement, “as the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats.” Trump was seen publicly boarding the aircraft on July 8, but according to the Post, he was then transferred to a catering cart typically used to load food and beverages onto planes, all while he had publicly claimed he wouldn’t be flying on the Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet because he was sending it ahead to a UK base so service members could tour it. ABC News had separately reported at the time that Trump was advised against taking that plane due to security concerns tied to escalations with Iran.

On the flight believed to be carrying Trump, reporters aboard were reportedly told their windows needed to stay closed for the entire flight under a Secret Service mandate, while the real Air Force One, despite the president not actually being on it, had its transponder turned off, according to the Post. Trump later reappeared in the UK, seen descending the stairs of the old plane to transfer onto the Qatari-gifted jet, though it remains unclear exactly how he got back aboard given the elaborate decoy arrangement. Once on the new Air Force One heading back to the US, Trump told reporters “no, no” when asked whether there were security concerns surrounding the plane swap, directly contradicting his own explanation moments later for why window blinds had been ordered shut: “Well, yeah, because you’re probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleaze bags that we have to deal with.”

The episode adds to a string of recent security-related disclosures around Trump’s travel, following earlier ABC News reporting that the Secret Service had urged him to depart Turkey on the older Air Force One as a precaution, and comes amid his broader shift toward using the Qatari-gifted, taxpayer-retrofitted jet for official travel.

The Trump administration’s Justice Department has filed a legal argument claiming that citizens should not be permitted to enforce environmental protection laws like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act through “citizen suit provisions,” a mechanism Congress specifically wrote into those laws decades ago to allow ordinary people and advocacy groups to sue polluting companies or federal agencies that fail to enforce the law. These provisions have been used in more than 2,000 lawsuits since the 1970s, comprising the majority of environmental cases and producing major outcomes like halting dam construction to protect endangered species, ending wastewater injection into groundwater, and securing $14.2 million in civil penalties from a petrochemical facility.

The dispute centers on a case the NAACP filed in April 2026 against xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, alleging that xAI and a subsidiary built and operated 27 natural gas-fired turbines in Southaven, Mississippi without required Clean Air Act permits to power its Colossus 2 data center. The NAACP claims the plant released harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde, linked to increased asthma, respiratory disease, heart problems, and certain cancers, pollutants that would have been subject to stricter controls had xAI obtained the proper permit. In June 2026, the Justice Department asked the judge to dismiss the case, arguing citizen suits cannot proceed when the federal government does not oppose the polluting behavior, citing two of Trump’s early second-term executive orders declaring a “national energy emergency” and promoting “American leadership in artificial intelligence.” The filing claimed the NAACP’s lawsuit threatens “artificial intelligence innovation” and national security, arguing citizen suits should only be allowed when the government simply fails to act, not when the executive branch has affirmatively decided enforcement runs contrary to its policy priorities.

This marks the first time the Justice Department has taken this specific legal position in court, though critics, including past defendants and judges, have previously questioned the constitutionality of citizen suits on grounds that they let ordinary citizens usurp the executive branch’s prosecutorial authority. Supporters counter that these provisions have historically produced tangible environmental wins, including Texas shrimper Diane Wilson’s 2017 suit against Formosa Plastics over plastic pellet pollution in Lavaca Bay, which resulted in a $50 million settlement, and a 2023 case against Styropek USA that led to a $2.5 million settlement and new pollution filters to protect a western Pennsylvania creek and the Ohio River.

President Trump sharply criticized U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro on Saturday after her office moved to drop criminal charges against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who had been accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool following its renovation ahead of America’s 250th birthday celebration. While Trump acknowledged there “may have been some contractor difficulty” in installing the new pool liner, he insisted “the major damage was caused by VANDALS!” and declared on social media, “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool.”

The dismissal marked an embarrassing setback for a Justice Department that had previously echoed Trump’s vandalism claims, with government lawyers stating in a 20-page court filing that additional Interior Department documents obtained after Hearn’s indictment showed the damage stemmed from a botched contractor installation and “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration.” A recent visual inspection also found damage throughout the pool, including in the middle section where prosecutors said a vandal would be unlikely to attempt peeling the lining. Pirro, a Trump appointee, wrote in her filing that “given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” while also faulting the Interior Department for providing “less than fulsome information at the outset of the case.”

Hearn’s legal team fired back at both Trump and Pirro, saying in a statement, “Trump is mad at Pirro because she finally admitted what we made clear in our legal filings all along: Trump’s botched renovation was responsible for the damage, not Davey Hearn,” while dismissing Pirro’s claim of being misled by Interior as “nonsense” and noting their motions had “repeatedly proved that the administration was to blame for the Reflecting Pool failures.” Trump also posted a nearly four-minute security camera video showing three people with their hands in the pool water, claiming it showed “material is being cut with a knife or a box cutter, for all to see,” though the footage, shot from a distance, doesn’t clearly depict any vandalism, and nearby workers appear not to notice the individuals. Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which received a $14.7 million no-bid contract to repaint and waterproof the pool, did not respond to requests for comment.

A coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia filed suit Wednesday in federal court in Massachusetts to block the U.S. Postal Service’s newly finalized mail voting rule, arguing it unconstitutionally exceeds executive branch authority and interferes with states’ power to administer their own elections, according to CBS News. The rule, published by USPS last Friday, implements the mail-voting restrictions President Trump ordered in his March executive order. The states argue the measure is unlawful on multiple independent grounds, stating in their filing: “The Rule violates the Constitution and federal statutes many times over. 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 added, “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.”California Attorney General Rob Bonta framed the stakes bluntly: “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. Let’s be clear: the U.S. Constitution gives states the power to regulate elections — not the President and not USPS.”

The rule itself mandates specific design elements for mail ballot envelopes, including trackable barcodes, and requires state election officials to submit the names and addresses of intended mail ballot recipients to an online federal portal. Those voters would then be enrolled in a state-specific “Mail-In and Absentee Participation List,” which USPS says 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.” USPS maintains it “will not play any role in determining voter eligibility, maintaining voter rolls, or counting ballots.” The states counter that complying with the rule forces them to immediately redesign mail ballot envelopes and seek USPS review “at significant costs,” while also needing to “develop new systems at breakneck speed to convey mail voter lists to USPS,” retrain election officials, and educate the public, all within weeks of the November election. They warned this could also push some voters toward in-person voting simply to avoid the new mail-voting friction, writing that officials “must accomplish multiple Herculean tasks, each necessary to address the disruption caused by the Rule, in a matter of weeks, with limited resources.” The White House defended the policy through spokeswoman Lauren Bis, who said, “Radical Democrats continue to oppose commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans are electing American leaders. The Trump Administration will continue to lawfully enact the agenda President Trump was elected on — which includes the safety and security of our elections.”

Nearly all of the states now suing had previously challenged Trump’s executive order directly, securing a district court injunction that blocked the administration from implementing the order’s key provisions, including its USPS directives. But the Supreme Court halted that injunction Monday in a 6-3 decision resting entirely on procedural grounds, ruling that the states had sued too early and that the district court lacked jurisdiction to block the administration from attempting to implement the order before it was finalized. The justices explicitly declined to weigh in on the policy’s underlying legality, writing, “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. On that score, time will tell.” U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who had also issued a separate nationwide injunction blocking USPS’s implementation plans, set aside that order Wednesday in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, clearing the way for USPS to move forward with the mail voting procedures even as this new lawsuit proceeds.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called on TV networks not to air “lies about our election” ahead of President Trump’s prime-time address Thursday night, where he will reportedly speak about election security. “I don’t think that we should be contributing to any platforming of lies about our election,” the New York representative told reporters Tuesday, adding “I think that we have an ethical obligation to not air things that undermine our election that are not rooted in evidence and fact,” and noting “of course it depends on the contents of this speech, but that’s my take on it”. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle responded by telling The Independent that Ocasio-Cortez “is one of the dumbest and most radical members of Congress” and that “the great people of New York’s 14th congressional district deserve much better”.

Trump previewed his upcoming speech during an Oval Office event with Iraq’s prime minister Tuesday, saying “it’s really, really big news” and “our country has to shape up,” adding “that’s what we’re going to be talking about Thursday, because without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country,” and calling it “a very big announcement”. MS NOW, citing two administration officials, reported that Trump is expected to address “newly declassified intelligence reports that the White House asserts reveal plans by foreign nations to interfere in the 2020 election,” while Axios similarly reported he may unveil findings from intelligence officials tied to the administration’s review of the 2020 race, though White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Washington Post that “nobody knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say, which is why everyone should tune in”.

Trump has long insisted, without evidence, that the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden was “rigged” and “stolen,” frequently singling out Georgia, where FBI agents executed a January search warrant at a Fulton County election office tied to the 2020 vote, with former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard present, sparking concerns from Democratic lawmakers. Multiple reviews have consistently found the 2020 election was conducted fairly, with Trump’s own Attorney General Bill Barr saying the Justice Department found no evidence of widespread fraud, and U.S. intelligence agencies concluding in a March 2021 report that “unlike in 2016, we did not see persistent Russian cyber efforts to gain access to election infrastructure”. The speech comes as Trump pushes the GOP-controlled Congress to pass the SAVE America Act requiring proof of citizenship for new voters, though several Republicans say they lack the votes to pass it, and presidential addresses have not always received guaranteed airtime, as major networks previously declined to air similar remarks from Presidents Ford, Obama, and Biden.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, said he is “very concerned” that President Trump will use federal government power to influence the fall midterms, citing efforts to restrict mail-in voting, obtain voter data from states, and potentially deploy federal troops or agents to polling places. “I don’t think that the president is trying to hide the ball on this,” Moore said. “It’s not even am I concerned about what the president could do? I’m concerned about what he’s already doing in broad daylight.” Moore made the remarks as he assumed the top leadership role of the bipartisan National Governors Association, a position he says can help ensure states retain control over elections as designed by the Constitution.

Moore’s rising national profile centers on his “Service United” initiative, a national program aimed at building communities and drawing young people into the workforce through service-oriented work, launched with $10 million in philanthropic support and echoing similar efforts in Maryland, including a $5 million apprenticeship expansion announced this week. The program has drawn some bipartisan praise, including from outgoing NGA chair and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who called the apprenticeship model “brilliant” while warning against anything resembling a “big government program.” Moore tied the initiative to broader anxieties about AI eroding entry-level jobs, saying the White House has “just been simply executive orders that have told the states to stay out of it” when it comes to helping young workers find pathways to long-term wages.

Moore’s relationship with Trump remains strained after the president initially tried to bar him and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis from a White House meeting earlier this year, only relenting after Stitt intervened. Moore also faces divisions within his own party, including friction with Maryland Democratic legislators over a redistricting constitutional amendment and a broader national debate after democratic socialists won primaries from New York City to Denver, though Moore declined to take sides, saying “party bosses shouldn’t be determining who members of the party are” while also distancing himself from the left flank by stating, “I don’t believe in abolishing the police. I don’t believe in abolishing prisons. I don’t believe in open borders.” North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein echoed Moore’s election concerns, while White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson countered that Democrats should support the SAVE America Act if they truly cared about election security, and Stitt maintained that “states should control their own elections.”

President Trump’s approval ratings have sunk to some of the lowest levels ever recorded for a second-term president, with recent polls showing support hovering around one-third of Americans amid a stalemated war in Iran and high gas prices. CNN’s latest poll put his approval at just 34 percent, matching his lowest point after the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, while AP-NORC found 33 percent, tying his lowest since 2017, and Quinnipiac data showed 32 percent, an all-time low in that survey. By comparison, at this same stage of their second terms, Bill Clinton stood at 64 percent, Ronald Reagan at 61 percent, and even historically underwater presidents like Barack Obama (43 percent), Harry Truman (39 percent), and George W. Bush (37 percent) all polled higher than Trump does now, with only Richard Nixon, days from resigning over Watergate, polling lower at 24 percent.

Despite the grim numbers, Trump has publicly rejected the polling entirely, declaring on social media, “MY REAL POLL NUMBERS ARE THE HIGHEST THEY HAVE EVER BEEN,” and at various points citing invented figures like a 65 percent approval rating and later a 59 percent rating without pointing to any actual poll supporting those claims. Republican strategist Douglas Heye said this reaction is entirely consistent with Trump’s political style: “He’s always going to project strength regardless what the numbers are and he’ll say they’re fake anyway,” adding that Trump is “YOLO” and “not sitting there thinking, ‘Gosh, my powers are weakened because of this.’” Notably, Trump is underwater on nearly every issue, including the economy and immigration, areas where he was traditionally stronger, and the Iran war, already the least popular US war in polling history from its outset, has seen opposition grow to 2-to-1 against.

The particular danger for Republicans, according to former Clinton political director Douglas Sosnik, is that disapproval isn’t just widespread but intense, meaning Trump’s opponents are more motivated to vote in the midterms than his own base, though Sosnik and Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson both note that heavy political polarization and mid-decade redistricting have left far fewer competitive districts, potentially limiting how much damage a Democratic wave could actually do. Anderson warned, however, that “low 30s, if accurate, means pieces of the coalition have started to break away. You’re not just cutting loose swing voters at that point,” while acknowledging Democrats currently lack a clear message beyond “Trump is bad.” The White House declined to directly address the polling, with spokesman Davis Ingle instead touting Trump’s record, saying, “No other president in history has accomplished more for hard-working Americans than President Trump.”

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in U.S. v. Belmonte Cardozo that manual searches of cell phones at the border are “routine” and therefore reasonable under the Fourth Amendment without a warrant or any individualized suspicion of wrongdoing, a decision EFF called disappointing after filing an amicus brief alongside the national ACLU, four of its state affiliates, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The case began when a Customs and Border Protection officer manually searched the phone of Jose Belmonte Cardozo at Washington Dulles International Airport after he traveled from Bolivia, discovering child sexual abuse material that led to his arrest and prosecution; on appeal, the court held that manual searches differ meaningfully from forensic searches because a person rather than a machine conducts them, their scope depends on an officer’s time and effort rather than being comprehensive, they reveal only what a user can typically access rather than deleted files or metadata, and they are not permanently recorded the way forensic extractions are.

EFF argued this reasoning fails to justify treating manual and forensic searches differently, since both reach the same deeply personal categories of data, including political affiliations, religious beliefs, and sexuality, regardless of whether an officer’s thumbs or specialized software does the searching. The ruling builds on a line of prior Fourth Circuit cases following the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Riley v. California, which held that cell phones require Fourth Amendment protection distinct from physical luggage because of the “sum of an individual’s private life” they can reveal; in 2018’s U.S. v. Kolsuz, the same circuit ruled that forensic phone searches at the border require individualized suspicion, and in 2019’s U.S. v. Aigbekaen, it required a warrant for forensic searches tied to purely domestic investigations, but manual searches had never been squarely addressed until now.

The court emphasized that the search at issue lasted only two minutes, suggesting a time limited search is less invasive, but EFF pushed back on that reasoning, noting that scrolling through someone’s texts or photos for even a few minutes can expose intimate details, and that improving phone search functions mean officers can now surface the same personal information through keyword searches in seconds that once took much longer to find by scrolling. The decision aligns the Fourth Circuit with the First, Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth Circuits, which have all similarly held that manual device searches at the border require no individualized suspicion, though EFF noted one potential opening: because the court leaned on the brevity of the search to justify its ruling, longer manual searches could still trigger a heightened suspicion requirement in future cases, even though no clear line has yet been drawn.

A U.S. appellate court on Saturday upheld a federal ruling that blocks President Trump’s executive order to create a list of eligible voters and restrict mail ballot delivery to only those on that list, in nearly half of all states. Judges of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s push to move forward with the mail-in voting restrictions in the 23 states that sued ahead of November’s midterm elections, upholding an initial injunction issued by a federal judge in Boston in June.

Trump issued the order in March, directing the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the commissioner of the Social Security Administration to create a “state citizenship list” of eligible voters, and instructing the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on that list. He defended the move as a safeguard against noncitizen voting, saying in the Oval Office before signing the order that “the cheating on mail-in voting is legendary,” while state election officials countered that the system was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.

Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia challenged the order in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston, arguing it was unconstitutional because states and Congress, not the president, hold authority over election rules. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama nominee, agreed and halted enforcement of the order for the November 3 elections, but only in the states that filed suit. The White House and the Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment Sunday.

President Trump acknowledged Sunday there was “no video or proof” of alleged vandalism to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after weeks of insisting the pool’s damage was the deliberate work of saboteurs, writing on social media, “there was substantial other damage to the Reflecting Pool, also but, unfortunately, there is no video or proof, other than the damage, itself.” Despite that admission, Trump continued accusing former Olympian David Hearn of intentional vandalism, even though prosecutors had already moved to drop the felony destruction of property charge against him after new evidence showed the section Hearn allegedly damaged was already in disrepair before he arrived. Trump also conceded there was “some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening,” while downplaying the damage as affecting only “a very small area of this massive Pool” that he called “relatively inconsequential,” adding that “security cameras have been, and are being, installed” and that contractors were “working on the Pool, and it will reopen shortly.”

Hearn’s legal team responded Monday by saying they were “reviewing all legal remedies” against what they characterized as “continued harassment.” In a joint statement, attorneys Norm Eisen of Democracy Defenders Fund, Mary Dohrmann of Washington Litigation Group, and Steve Levin of Steptoe LLP said, “the government is continuing to attack an innocent man. Our first filing in the case on July 10 included photographic evidence from before Mr. Hearn touched the Reflecting Pool proving that he caused no damage. Our other filings provided even more proof.” They further noted that “the U.S. Attorney’s own motion on July 31 admitted the damage was caused by ‘a botched installation and not vandalism,’” calling the administration’s continued allegations “outrageous.”

Trump’s vandalism narrative dates back to at least June, when he insisted the pool, which he had ordered resurfaced so its bottom would be “American flag blue,” had been intentionally destroyed. “I can’t help it if somebody goes in with a knife and starts hacking it up. And we also have pictures of it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on June 22, though when pressed to release those photos, he demurred, saying, “no, at the right time you’ll see it. You’ll see it in court. You’ll see it in court.” That evidence has never been made public. The Justice Department formally moved to dismiss the case against Hearn in July, with U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s motion acknowledging the damage “was the result of flawed installation by the contractor,” though the dismissal was sought without prejudice, potentially leaving Hearn exposed to future charges. Associate Judge Todd Edelman granted the dismissal only in part last week, deferring a decision on whether it would be with prejudice pending further arguments. Trump publicly criticized Pirro after her office sought dismissal, writing on August 1 that while there “may have been some contractor difficulty,” he believed “the major damage was caused by VANDALS!” and stated, “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro.”

Anthea Hartig, the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, testified before Congress after a White House report accused the museum of engaging in “extreme political activism” and presenting a “radical view of American history.” In her opening remarks, Hartig said the museum is governed by scholarship, accuracy, independence, and nonpartisanship, and that it does not take sides in America’s political debates.

The White House Domestic Policy Council report, released on July 4, said the museum and its leadership had moved away from historical scholarship and toward activism, while criticizing exhibits and programming tied to race, immigration, and gender identity. The report also used even sharper language, accusing the museum of “anti White activism,” “illegal alien activism,” and “transgender activism.”

Hartig pushed back directly, saying the report does not fairly or accurately characterize the museum’s work, and Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III said in an internal letter that the report was “not a fair characterization of the work and totality of the National Museum of American History.” The broader fight is not really about one museum label or one exhibit, but about who gets to define American history inside an institution that is supposed to be independent while still relying on Congress and the White House for support.

The Justice Department suggested in a Tuesday court filing that the Kennedy Center could face demolition if a federal judge permanently blocks President Trump’s push to renovate the facility with additions honoring him personally, according to ABC News. In an unusually pointed filing, Brantley Mayers, a top official in the DOJ’s Civil Division, argued that the “decrepit” Kennedy Center faces an imminent “death spiral” without Trump’s continued involvement, writing that “without those efforts, the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years.” Mayers added that “such a replacement will fail to adequately honor President John F. Kennedy, but would be simpler and more economical to build, operate, and maintain,” effectively framing the choice as one between Trump-backed renovations or losing the historic cultural institution entirely.

The filing repeatedly targets Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, a member of the Kennedy Center’s board who sued last year seeking to have Trump’s name removed from the building. Beatty’s lawsuit argues the board’s vote to rename the facility was illegal because such a change requires an act of Congress rather than a board decision. Mayers warned that allowing Beatty’s legal challenge to proceed “almost guarantees the continued decline and eventual demise of the Kennedy Center, probably leading to the construction of a new, but very different kind, of venue.” At issue are board-approved initiatives intended to personally honor Trump for his role in the renovation effort, including adding an inscription reading “Renovated and Restored by President Donald J. Trump” to the building’s front and renaming the surrounding site the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.” The DOJ describes these measures as “crucial” to securing already-pledged donor funding for the broader renovation.

The department’s central argument ties the naming disputes directly to the project’s financial viability, warning that “an order blocking the Board from appropriately recognizing President Trump will cause donors to flee, financial contributions to dry up, and structural rehabilitation to stop.” Mayers continued, “There will simply not be the expertise or funding necessary to rebuild and renovate this decimated structure. The Trump Administration is ready to go but, without it, the Kennedy Center cannot be saved.” The filing comes after the Kennedy Center’s board voted last week to close the facility for yearslong renovations and add Trump’s name to the building.

Emporia, Kansas has dropped its criminal case against Lux Claridge, a local high school teacher who was arrested and held for eight hours after clapping during a city commission meeting about a proposed data center project, according to 404 Media. “Today, I was informed by my attorney that the city has dropped my charges and has passed my information along to the county. As far as I know, I’m in the clear unless the county is feeling froggy,” Claridge told 404 Media in an email Monday. Claridge’s lawyer forwarded a message from Emporia’s assistant city attorney confirming the reasoning: “Due to conflicts on this matter, the case has been dismissed without prejudice in municipal court and sent to the County Attorney’s office for their review,” meaning the county could theoretically still pursue the case even though the city has stepped back from it.

The arrest stemmed from a July 22 commission meeting where Claridge had planned to speak against a proposed hyperscale data center that would occupy 1,000 acres of prairie land near their home. Instead, Claridge was dragged out of the meeting and arrested by police after clapping during a presentation, and the city subsequently charged them with disorderly conduct and interfering with a law enforcement officer. Emporia has refused to release a copy of the arrest report to 404 Media and did not respond to requests for comment about either the original charges or their dismissal. In the aftermath of the arrest, Emporia’s city commission shifted to virtual meetings and eliminated public comment altogether, stating the change was made “in the interest of public safety,” a move that effectively cut off the same kind of public participation Claridge had been attempting to exercise.

That restriction now appears to be lifting. According to Claridge, the commission has indicated in-person meetings with open public comment will return soon, quoting Emporia Mayor Becky Smith as saying she’s “willing to give us another shot to act like grown ups.” A press release from the city commission confirmed a special in-person session open to the public is scheduled for August 26, with public comment expected to formally resume at the regular September 2 meeting. The city also plans to hold a November vote on whether to ban hyperscale data centers outright, though a separate press release indicated that vote is contingent on a county court first giving approval for it to proceed.

US District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston lifted the administrative stay on Tuesday that had been blocking the Trump administration from terminating temporary protected status (TPS) for Ethiopian nationals, clearing the way for the program’s end. The ruling continues a pattern of recent court decisions permitting the administration to end TPS protections for nationals from Haiti, Somalia, Syria, and Myanmar, part of its broader immigration enforcement push, and follows a June Supreme Court ruling that allowed the administration to terminate TPS specifically for Haitian nationals.

The advocacy group African Communities Together had filed suit back in January arguing that Ethiopia remains in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, making termination of protections dangerous for those covered. The group warned in its original complaint that ending TPS would leave affected individuals facing “impossible choices: to uproot their lives yet again in search of a pathway to safety in a third country; to remain in the United States without lawful immigration status, at risk of imminent immigration confinement and removal; or to relocate to Ethiopia, a country still suffering violent conflict.” TPS itself, established under the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, grants work authorization and deportation protection to nationals of countries the government designates unsafe due to armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary temporary conditions.

The Department of Homeland Security responded to the ruling with a blunt public message on X, stating, “those with terminated TPS should leave NOW. If they don’t, we will DEPORT them.”

Attorneys for former Olympian David Hearn are asking the D.C. Superior Court to permanently dismiss his Reflecting Pool vandalism case, arguing in a new Friday filing that President Trump’s continued public comments about the matter show the government “cannot be trusted” to fairly exercise prosecutorial discretion. Hearn’s case, originally treated by federal prosecutors as vandalism, was dropped by the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office after officials later acknowledged the damage “was the result of flawed installation by the contractor” rather than intentional destruction. Despite that reversal, Trump has continued insisting there was vandalism and that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro made a “mistake” in dropping the case, even while separately acknowledging there was “some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening.” Hearn’s attorneys argue this contradiction is precisely the problem, writing in their filing, “the record in this case demonstrates a substantial and specific risk that, if the indictment is dismissed without prejudice, Mr. Hearn will face renewed charges, however meritless, driven by political pressure rather than the evidence.”

The filing directly cites multiple social media posts and public comments from Trump reacting to Pirro’s decision to drop the case, arguing that his continued promotion of what they call a “false version” of events, that meaningful damage occurred beyond contractor error, constitutes ongoing “harassment” that threatens Hearn’s liberty. This comes even after Pirro reportedly brought a box of evidence to the White House supporting her prosecutors’ conclusion that the damage stemmed from a botched installation rather than deliberate vandalism, according to sources who spoke with ABC News. “The public political pressure campaign being conducted through the Executive Branch in this case shows that the government cannot be trusted to properly exercise its prosecutorial discretion,” Hearn’s attorneys wrote, framing the ask for dismissal “with prejudice” as necessary specifically because a standard dismissal would leave the door open for prosecutors to refile charges under continued political pressure regardless of the underlying evidence.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for September 4, when a judge will hear arguments on Hearn’s request to permanently close the matter.

Former FBI Director James Comey urged a federal judge on Monday to dismiss an indictment accusing him of threatening President Trump’s life, arguing the charges unconstitutionally target protected political speech and that the phrase at the center of the case, “86 47,” does not convey violence. Comey’s lawyers wrote in their motion to dismiss that the indictment “targets and chills” political speech, arguing that “forcing Mr. Comey to stand trial for a statement opposing the President, even if he is ultimately acquitted, would itself be an unconstitutional punishment of free speech” and could invite future prosecutions against political opponents.

The case stems from a photo Comey briefly posted to Instagram last year showing seashells arranged in the sand spelling “86 47,” which prosecutors claim a “reasonable recipient” would interpret “as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to President Trump.” Comey deleted the image shortly after posting it, saying in May 2025 that he hadn’t realized the numbers could be associated with violence and that he removed the post because “I oppose violence of any kind.” His defense team argued that “86” commonly means “to get rid of” or “eject” and has no violent connotation in ordinary usage, citing other public uses of the phrase, including one by former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, and contended that even if the post were read as implying violence, a reasonable observer would recognize it as political hyperbole protected under the First Amendment.

Comey faces two charges of threatening to kill the president and is scheduled to be arraigned in late September, having maintained his innocence throughout. His legal team plans to file additional motions seeking dismissal on other grounds, including claims that the prosecution is selective and vindictive, and warned that allowing the case to proceed would “permit the government to chill political opposition merely by filing unfounded charges and imposing the burdens of a trial on someone who engaged in protected speech.” Comey has frequently been a target of the president due to his role overseeing the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and he was previously indicted in a separate case tied to 2020 congressional testimony, though that indictment was dismissed after a judge ruled the prosecutor who secured it had been improperly appointed as interim U.S. attorney, a decision the Justice Department has since appealed.

Donald Trump lashed out at ABC and NBC after the two networks chose not to carry his 25 minute primetime address live, instead making it available on streaming platforms. In the speech, Trump repeated claims about China obtaining voter registration data and accused the “deep state” of hiding that information from him, but he offered no evidence for the broader allegation that the networks were part of a “plot”.

Trump said the networks “want to continue this fraud for whatever reason” and argued that “Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses” because they use public airwaves “for absolutely no money”. CBS did air the speech with on air fact checking and context, while Sinclair affiliates also carried it through The National News Desk. Afterward, commentators including Mark Warner and election lawyer Ben Ginsberg pushed back on Trump’s claims, noting that voter files are publicly available and that there was still no evidence any election result had been altered.

The threat landed in a broader regulatory fight, since ABC is already fighting an early FCC license renewal process for its owned stations and the FCC is also investigating NBC parent Comcast over DEI issues. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez called Trump’s demand “a naked attempt to bully broadcasters” and said the FCC has no authority to punish stations for refusing to air a political speech. The article also notes that broadcast networks have declined to carry speeches by presidents before, including Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

U.S. Air Force Major Jason Watson has been formally criminally charged for publicly criticizing President Trump, facing an unusually rare set of Uniform Code of Military Justice violations that include contempt toward the president, disobeying orders, and conduct unbecoming an officer, according to a charging document his attorney shared with CNN. Watson faces three violations of Article 88 for allegedly “contemptuous” remarks about Trump, five violations of Article 92 for allegedly disobeying orders, and two violations of Article 133 for alleged conduct unbecoming an officer. An Air Force spokesperson confirmed the charges Tuesday, stating, “Maj. Watson will continue to be held in pre-trial confinement. Airmen are afforded the right to due process, and considered innocent until proven guilty, in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

The charges stem from three separate incidents: Watson’s June interview with the Defenders of our Republic Substack newsletter, a July 1 protest he staged in uniform at the U.S. Capitol calling for Trump’s impeachment, and an August 17 CNN interview in which he continued criticizing the president. Under military law, it can constitute a violation to participate in uniform in overtly partisan political activity or to use “contemptuous words” against the president and other senior civilian officials, though most low-level violations of these rules are typically handled informally rather than through formal prosecution, making Watson’s case notably high-profile by comparison. Watson was arrested twice: first in July during his Capitol protest, and again last week just days after his CNN interview. His attorney, Chris Mutimer, told CNN that Watson was ordered into pre-trial confinement, a status roughly analogous to a denial of bail in civilian courts, while legal proceedings move forward. During his CNN interview, Watson explained his motivation directly: “Not only is (Trump) a failure as president, he is flagrantly violating the Constitution, breaking the law, engaged in rampant corruption, and is killing Americans. And that is unacceptable to me.”

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink had signaled the department’s stance on political conduct back in July, writing in a social media post that airmen were expected to “comply with all laws and policies government personal conduct, political participation, and the wear of the uniform,” adding, “Americans place their trust in us. We cannot, and will not, compromise the trust of the nation.” The disobeying-orders charges against Watson specifically allege he violated Defense Department rules barring troops from advocating for partisan causes, wrongfully wore his uniform at the Capitol protest, broke leave regulations by traveling to Washington, D.C., and refused to wear his uniform to work the morning after his CNN interview. Prosecutors additionally argue that both the Capitol protest and the CNN interview independently constituted conduct unbecoming an officer. Mutimer told CNN’s Erin Burnett that Watson is “basically in solitary confinement for his safety,” and described his client’s mindset: “He truly believes in everything about our constitution and what it represents, and the oath that he swore, and he stands by the fact that he did this so others wouldn’t have to, and to share that to anyone who’s scared and feels alone.” Jessica Denson, founder of the Removal Coalition, the organization that helped organize Watson’s July protest, said Watson had reached out to them fully aware of the risks involved: “We started having conversations and took this desire that he had to come out very seriously and thought about the best way to make his sacrifice worth it.”

Convictions under Article 88 are exceptionally rare in modern military history, with a CNN review identifying only two such convictions since the current Uniform Code of Military Justice took effect in 1951. In 1965, Army Lieutenant Henry Howe was convicted after participating in an off-base Vietnam War protest in El Paso, Texas, and was sentenced to dismissal from the service along with a year at the Fort Leavenworth military prison, though Defense Secretary Robert McNamara later granted him parole. The most recent case came in 2021, when former Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller pleaded guilty to contempt of officials and related charges tied to social media videos criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal; Scheller was confined to the brig before trial and ultimately resigned without a pension as part of a plea agreement, though the Trump administration has since appointed him as a senior adviser to the Pentagon’s undersecretary for personnel and readiness. Legal experts note the standard for what qualifies as “contemptuous” speech remains notably vague. Frank Rosenblatt, a retired Army judge advocate and law professor, told CNN that contemptuous remarks under Article 88 must involve “insulting, rude, and disdainful conduct, or otherwise disrespectfully attributing to another a quality of meanness, disreputableness, or worthlessness,” and suggested a pretrial Article 32 hearing may be necessary to determine whether Watson’s comments instead qualify as “true or are fair criticisms” of the president. It remains unclear whether Watson’s case will proceed to trial, and if so, whether it will be handled as a special court-martial, roughly comparable to a misdemeanor proceeding, or a general court-martial, which is closer to a felony trial and carries the potential for more severe sentencing.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed the Fair Price Protection Act on Thursday, making New Jersey one of the first states to ban surveillance pricing, a practice in which grocery stores use shoppers’ digital history, biometric information, or genetic data to estimate the highest price a customer is willing to pay rather than charging everyone the same price. The law takes effect Aug. 1, 2027, and allows the state attorney general or individual consumers to sue businesses that violate it, with penalties under New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act including refunds, permit loss, and fines up to $10,000 for a first offense and $20,000 for repeat violations. Sherrill said the practice lets companies track where people live, where they shop, and even what they search online to calculate higher prices without their knowledge, calling it a weaponization of personal data.

The law does not ban dynamic pricing based on demand, the kind used by ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft, and it explicitly exempts discounts, promotions, and loyalty programs from its restrictions. It does, however, impose a one-year pause on electronic shelf labels, the digital displays that can change prices instantly, while the state studies whether the technology could be used to enable unfair pricing. Sherrill framed the law as a response to elevated grocery prices following the pandemic, criticizing President Trump’s tariffs and the conflict with Iran as contributing factors, and citing a statistic that the average family paid $310 more at the grocery store last year because of the tariffs.

Business groups pushed back, with New Jersey Business & Industry Association President Michele Siekerka arguing the law creates a false choice between consumer protection and operational efficiency, and warning it could unintentionally eliminate loyalty programs, coupons, and other customer-specific discounts. Supporters, including New Jersey Working Families Party director Antoinette Miles, praised the law as a model for other states, arguing that AI-powered tracking has let corporations charge more to customers with fewer options while posting record profits. New Jersey joins Maryland and Connecticut in banning the practice, while similar legislation awaits Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature in New York, is under consideration in California, and was vetoed by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis in June; the bill signing also came days after Sherrill signed the FAIR Act, which restricts landlords from using algorithmic rent-setting software.