Category: US

First Midterm Ballots Hit Mailboxes as Trump’s Postal Service Rule Fights for Its Life North Carolina became the first state in the country to begin mailing absentee ballots for the 2026 midterm election on Friday, with all 100 county boards of elections sending ballots to voters who had already requested them. The mailing proceeded even…

Blowout Jobs Report Triples Forecasts, But Your Paycheck Isn’t Feeling It The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in August, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday, more than tripling economists’ forecast of roughly 53,000 to 65,000 jobs and marking the strongest monthly gain since March. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, and…

ICE Agent Who Shot Migrant Pleads Not Guilty to Lying About It Christian Castro, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officer, pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court in McAllen, Texas, to six counts of making false statements to the FBI. The charges stem from a January 14 incident in Minneapolis in which Castro and…

Trump’s Wolf-Killing Executive Order Splits Ranchers From Everyone Else President Trump signed a pair of executive orders Friday billed by the White House and USDA as making his administration the “most pro-rancher” in history. One order directs the Interior Secretary to begin the process of delisting or downlisting gray wolves and Mexican wolves under the…

Missouri’s Highest Court Blows Up Trump’s Congressional Map Weeks Before Ballots Print The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously blocked a Republican-drawn congressional map backed by President Trump, ruling that the mid-decade redistricting plan cannot take effect for the November election unless voters approve it in a statewide referendum. The map would have redrawn Kansas…

House Passes Bill Stripping Federal Aid From Colleges That Boycott Israel The House of Representatives voted 237-169 on Thursday to pass the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, which would bar colleges and universities from receiving federal student aid if they engage in commercial or academic boycotts tied to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement…

Maryland’s Top Court Clears Democrats’ Redistricting Measure for the Ballot The Maryland Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Democratic-backed constitutional amendment on congressional redistricting must be placed on the November ballot, reversing two lower court decisions that had blocked it [1, 2]. The amendment would let state lawmakers draw legislative and congressional districts without meeting…

Judge Halts Trump’s Mail-Ballot Barcode Rule Weeks Before Midterm Voting Begins U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts issued a 14-day temporary restraining order on Wednesday blocking key parts of a new U.S. Postal Service policy that would require mail-in ballots to carry official Election Mail markings and unique Intelligent Mail barcodes, with election officials…

Federal Judge Slaps Down Trump’s Second Attempt to End Birthright Citizenship U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, a Biden appointee sitting in Maryland, issued a preliminary injunction on Thursday blocking the Trump administration from enforcing an August executive order that would deny automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. to alleged members of terrorist organizations,…

Trump Taps Combat Vet Hung Cao for Navy Secretary as Pentagon Infighting Boils Over President Trump on Tuesday formally nominated acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, a retired Navy combat veteran, to hold the post permanently. Cao has run the Navy in an acting capacity since April, when Trump fired then-Secretary John Phelan amid friction with…