The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas is trying to turn a key talking point of his Republican opponent against him — alleging Attorney General Ken Paxton is guilty of the same type of voter fraud he has spent years trying to eliminate.

“As our state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton has gone on a voter fraud witch hunt,” state Rep. James Talarico, who is challenging Paxton in the race to replace U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, said during a campaign event in Houston. “Turns out, he was committing voter fraud the whole time, voting illegally in six elections in a row from the wrong address.”

Talarico’s comments come after ProPublica and The Texas Tribune revealed that Paxton moved out of the home he shared with his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, in 2024 but continued to vote using that address, including during the March Republican primary in which he beat Cornyn. Three election experts told the news organizations that Paxton may have broken state law.

While Trump touted the proposed changes as safeguards to keep non-U.S. citizens from voting, state election officials argued they were ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.

Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia challenged Trump’s order in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston. They argued that Trump’s order was unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the authority to set election rules.

U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, agreed and halted Trump’s order from being implemented for the Nov. 3 elections — but only in the states that have sued.

A recent Army memo speeds up the process of firing underperforming civilians while giving them less time to defend their work.

The policy, issued July 7, lays out a monthlong process for reporting, investigating and opting to remove an employee. The changes follow Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s September 2025 directive to fire unsuccessful employees “with speed and conviction,” aiming to rid the department of those it feels are hindering its progress. And it puts the Army’s 188,000 or so civilian workers on unsteady footing as the service plans to continue cutting those jobs in 2027.

The guidance provides paths to firing for two sets of Army civil servants: one for general schedule employees and others who comprise the vast majority of the workforce; and a truncated one for those who staff exchanges, bowling alleys and other facilities that generate revenue, known as “nonappropriated fund” employees.

The defense industry and other manufacturers are now just over five months away from a January 1, 2027, deadline under federal regulations to ‌stop purchasing rare earths, magnets, tungsten, molybdenum and tantalum from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea.

Washington has been trying to limit such imports for years but has routinely granted companies waivers because the U.S. supply can't meet the demand.

Trump railed against such waivers in a May 10 post on his Truth Social platform, saying: "ALL FEDERAL AGENCIES MUST BUY AMERICAN — NO EXCUSES!" Last Monday, he signed an executive order making it even harder for defense contractors to obtain waivers.

But the reality is that U.S. minerals companies are nowhere close to meeting domestic needs, according to interviews with 16 industry executives, investors, analysts and policymakers.

As Donald Trump’s former defense lawyer Todd Blanche appears poised for confirmation as attorney general, numerous Jeffrey Epstein survivors have sounded the alarm that a US justice department helmed by him would derail their pursuit of justice.

In a letter urging Republican senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn to reject his nomination, these survivors said that Blanche’s handling of the Epstein case as acting attorney general was characterized by misstep after misstep.

Blanche, who reportedly led the disclosure of documents as required by the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, allowed the disclosure of survivors’ names, photos and identifying information – but omitted the names of accused abusers and enablers, they said.

While more than 1,000 teenage girls and women were abused, not a single person other than Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell faced charges, they noted. And in a recent sit-down with survivors at Tillis’s urging, survivors “received an hour of deflection, interruption and gaslighting”, they said.

In new legal filings, lawyers for the Trump administration say that decisions to end nearly 300 renewable energy development grants last year were made based "solely" on whether recipients supported President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

In a filing dated July 15, lawyers representing the U.S. Department of Energy wrote that the decision to deny grant money hinged on whether the recipient was in a state that either did not vote for Trump in the 2024 election, or was represented by Democratic senators in Congress.

"With one exception, the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing Senators," the filing read.

"DOE accepts that the inclusion of grants in the October notice tranche was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state, i.e., whether the recipient’s location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State."

When President Trump announced an anti-crime task force for Memphis last fall, federal and local officials never mentioned immigration enforcement as a goal.

But the influx of federal agents into the city has led to widespread immigration arrests — a majority without criminal convictions, according to an Institute for Public Service Reporting data analysis.

NPR reviewed arrest data and spoke with lawyers, immigrants, activists and community members to piece together the task force's impact on Memphis over the past 10 months.

It found paralyzed immigrant neighborhoods, where scenes played out reminiscent of Chicago and Minneapolis at the height of targeted federal immigration enforcement actions. Aid networks ramped up their work to help immigrants too fearful to leave their homes. Hotlines rang out with calls from panicked immigrants. And routine traffic stops led to immigration arrests.

The “leaked texts” in question are messages obtained and reviewed by The New York Times regarding their 2022 arrest in Romania.

“I had word from The Trump admin that theyre [sic] on top of things,” Andrew Tate wrote in a message to “someone close to him,” according to the Times. “Ive been told ill be free soon but Trump needs to see me in Miami.”

Mockler also noted Paul Ingrassia, who serves in the Trump administration as the general counsel of the General Services Administration, has represented the Tate brothers as their attorney.

“You may remember Paul Ingrassia from his leaked texts last year in which he said he has a ‘Nazi streak’ and uses old slurs,” Mockler wrote.

“[Vice President] JD Vance still follows the Tate brothers on Twitter. Barron is friends [with] them. All of this happened after Andrew admitted to being a pimp on camera. This is the Republican Party now. I’m a young dude who loves America, and hates seeing it hijacked by these hateful, abusive, degenerates.”

1. Why Can't Anyone Verify McConnell's Condition?

"If he can't give us an update, he should resign," Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Thursday. "It's been very clear to people across Kentucky that his 'update' was not sufficient...We need to know if you're capable of doing the job for the foreseeable future."

2. Can Andy Beshear Force the Issue?

But Kentucky law prevents Beshear from calling a special election and ousting McConnell from his Senate seat by declaring it vacant, even if he believes he is no longer fit to serve.

3. Is There an August 3 Deadline?

The new law requires the governor to provide 63 days' notice before a special election can occur, with prospective candidates having to file their paperwork at least 56 days ahead of the vote. As a result, Kentucky media outlets have reported that the process becomes difficult to implement if a Senate vacancy occurs within 56 days of the November election, as there may not be sufficient time to organize a separate special election.

The Food and Drug Administration announced on Wednesday that it’s investigating yet another outbreak of Cyclospora, the unicellular foodborne parasite behind a nationwide surge in explosive watery diarrhea illnesses. The FDA said 72 cases have been identified in this outbreak, but the agency provided no details on the situation.

This announcement marks the sixth Cyclospora outbreak investigation the FDA has opened this year. Overall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has gotten reports of more than 11,500 cases (including 4,173 confirmed and over 7,400 probable) from 41 states. Among the cases, there have been 308 hospitalizations and no deaths.

This year’s tally so far—just in July—greatly exceeds the normal number of cases the US sees in a whole year. In recent years, the US has reported between 2,000 and 5,000 cases in a year, according to CDC data. With a new outbreak announced, the tally of cases is likely to continue climbing. Nevertheless, when asked about the national surge in cases earlier this week, anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the situation was “under control.”

The Justice Department is dropping the subpoenas it filed demanding grand jury testimony and phone records from New York Times journalists after sharp questioning Thursday from a federal judge who challenged almost every facet of the government's approach.

The government had insisted that it was acting solely in the interest of national security. It filed subpoenas on July 10, just two days after the Times published the first of two stories about concerns that led to the U.S. Secret Service interceding to prevent President Trump from flying home from Turkey on the new Air Force One jet.

But at the hearing, the presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge Arun Subramanian, made clear he believed the Trump administration had violated protections given to journalists in black and white to uphold First Amendment principles. He also pointed to several instances of what he considered slipshod legal work and threatened to levy sanctions against federal attorneys for failing to follow the law and misleading the court in signed filings.

The U.S. recorded 2,318 confirmed cases of measles on ​Friday, surpassing last year's tally ‌and marking the highest level since 1991, according to the Centers for Disease ​Control and Prevention.

Of the total, 2,302 ​cases were reported by 45 jurisdictions ⁠and 16 were identified among ​international visitors to the U.S. as ​of Thursday, the CDC said. The country had reported 2,289 confirmed cases in 2025.

A Canadian federal opposition party leader is calling on the Mark Carney government to block the latest data-sharing deal between US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Canadian media giant Thomson Reuters.

Avi Lewis, the federal leader of the New Democratic party (NDP), demanded on Tuesday that Ottawa address the contract and further restrict Canadian corporations from doing business with ICE, after Canada’s National Observer reported on the deal.

“My blood ran cold when I read about this development,” he added in a statement to the Guardian. “Complicity between Canadian corporations and ICE should absolutely be illegal.”

Under the US$125m deal, ICE will pay the technology and content conglomerate to access its Clear database – which includes property records, social media and geolocation information – in order to identify “voter fraud” and “immigration fraud”, according to reports.

An Epstein sex trafficking survivor spoke to Democratic senators on Capitol Hill, urging them to vote no on the confirmation of Todd Blanche as U.S. attorney general Wednesday. Liz Stein told the forum, organized by New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, that her opposition to Blanche's nomination was based on the Department of Justice's "failure to faithfully implement the Epstein Files Transparency Act."

Space datacenters proposed by SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and others would release staggering levels of pollution that would probably alter the Earth’s atmosphere and be “catastrophic” for the planet, space industry experts and environmental groups warn in a new petition demanding a review of their impacts.

Tech companies have collectively proposed millions of “orbital datacenters” and are pressing forward with plans, which require Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval. Among other issues, pollution from satellites and rockets burning up upon re-entry appears to be accumulating in the stratosphere at alarming levels. The spacecraft release black soot, rare metals, aluminum oxides and other pollutants with unknown effects.

Some scientists fear the pollution could destroy the ozone layer, potentially expose some people to higher levels of ultraviolet radiation, or help further destabilize the planet during the climate crisis. The pollution could also end up back on Earth, and millions of satellites would create a major source of light pollution.

Two passengers in a van when an immigration agent fatally shot 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo earlier this month said that two unmarked vehicles struck them from behind and the side before they stopped, according to their written statements filed in a Houston federal court.

“At no moment were the agents in front of the vehicle,” Daniel Tirado Pantoja, a rear passenger in the van, said in his hand-written statement in Spanish. “Lorenzo (Salgado Araujo) had come to a full stop while the agents fired.”

Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, who was also in the back seat, wrote in his statement that a patrol vehicle chased them, but Salgado Araujo believed he had lost the unmarked vehicles.

“Out of nowhere, they suddenly cornered us and we told Lorenzo (Salgado Araujo) to stop the van,” Rojas Pliego wrote. “When Lorenzo stopped the van, the officer shot him anyway.”

Under the Section 106 review process, the federal agency overseeing a project must invite interested parties — like preservation groups and local and tribal governments — to weigh in. Currently, agencies are required to consider whether the project would cause "adverse effects" to a historic property and, if so, explore ways to "avoid, minimize, or mitigate" those harms.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the federal agency responsible for overseeing the Section 106 review process, is packed with Trump appointees. And now, 60 years after the law took effect, the council wants to water it down drastically.

"Because President Trump controls 21 of the 24 members of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, it's very likely that they will proceed with doing what the administration wants for them to do," said Sara Bronin, who served as the Senate-confirmed chair of the advisory council under President Biden.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, referred Smith to the Justice Department on allegations he made false statements during closed-door testimony about whether he had obtained records of lawmakers while investigating Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss.

The referral, sent Wednesday, centers on a December 2025 exchange in which Smith was asked about subpoenas that prosecutors had issued for the toll records of some Republican lawmakers as part of the investigation. Toll records show the time, date, length of call and phone numbers involved but do not reveal the content of the communication.

It has been nearly six weeks since McConnell cast a vote in the Senate, just days before he was rushed to the hospital on June 14 by emergency responders.

The Daily Beast made multiple requests for information with the offices of all seven other members of the Kentucky delegation about whether the members of Congress had been in contact with McConnell or even bothered to reach out to the former Senate Majority Leader. Our questions were largely met with silence.

Only Rep. Andy Barr’s office responded and simply pointed to the congressman and GOP Senate nominee’s comments in Lexington one month ago, where he told reporters after an event in Lexington that he had exchanged text messages with McConnell. That was on June 21.

The offices of Paul along with Reps. James Comer, Brett Guthrie, Morgan McGarvey, Thomas Massie and Hal Rogers did not say whether they’d been in contact with the senator or his staff.

Beshear’s office confirmed with the Daily Beast on Tuesday that the governor has still not received “any communication whatsoever” from McConnell.

The Democratic governor and rising star in the party is now facing backlash for not going further by appointing a replacement or calling a special election amid McConnell’s radio silence.

Despite the unanimous appointment by the judges, he was fired via email from the White House less than an hour after it was announced.

The office is now being run by the first assistant US attorney, Charles Neil Floyd.

In his lawsuit, Rogoff wrote that Floyd was “the president’s chosen pick”.

But in spite of this, Floyd has not been nominated for the US attorney position and thus, not confirmed by the Senate.

In the narrowly divided Senate, nominees can be forced to answer awkward or difficult questions.

A federal judge in Florida ruled that Donald Trump must provide detailed information about his companies’ finances in response to a motion filed by the BBC in the president’s $10 billion lawsuit against the U.K. broadcaster.

The judge’s Tuesday ruling could mean that the president’s lawsuit against the BBC ends up backfiring as a major media organization may be set to obtain new, previously nonpublic information about the Trump Organization or the president’s associated ventures, including his cryptocurrency empire.

Trump filed his lawsuit in late 2025, claiming that BBC journalists deceptively edited together portions of his speech to protesters on January 6, 2021, to make it look like he encouraged them to storm the Capitol. The president claimed that the 2024 Panorama documentary at the heart of the suit cost his various businesses reputational damage.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said Thursday that former JPMorgan Chase investment banking chief Jes Staley encouraged the bank to retain Jeffrey Epstein as a client despite internal red flags about the convicted sex offender.

“It appears that within JPMorgan there were flags — red flags — about Epstein, but Mr. Staley is on record defending Epstein and encouraging JPMorgan to keep him as a client,” Comer, R-Ky., told CNBC outside Staley’s closed-door interview with the committee. “So we have a lot of questions about that.”

Staley served as Epstein’s private banker during his more than three decades at JPMorgan and maintained a close personal relationship with him for years.

In the tweet, Trump said his vice president at the time, Mike Pence, “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

Previously, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta largely denied Trump’s immunity claims. The president is appealing that loss. In the meantime, plaintiffs asked the Obama-appointed judge in Washington to reconsider the partial ruling against them regarding that tweet.

In their reconsideration motion, they said the record showed that Trump wasn’t acting in an official capacity when he sent the tweet at 2:24 p.m. that day, a message they said “targeted Pence and egged on rioters.” They said that the president presented “zero facts indicating he was acting in his official capacity at 2:24 p.m.,” and that the tweet wasn’t a presidential action but rather “the activity of an office seeker.”

And multiple state election officials have said they are not receiving any briefings on possible foreign threats to election security from the federal government. Such briefings were once a regular occurrence, they said.

During the first Trump administration, “we were collaborative — carrots rather than sticks,” said one of the former officials, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. The second Trump administration is “very much focused on sticks.”

One election official in a swing state said the difference from 2024 is stark, saying that “it’s every state for themselves.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity over concerns about retaliation from federal officials. During the last cycle, the state official said they had a regional federal cybersecurity expert “on speed dial” who could “see the whole puzzle.”