Before you vote
Washington
The year since Election Day 2025
GovBrief tagged 71 stories to Washington since Election Day 2025. Here are 20 worth remembering, 10 of them from Washington.
36days until Election Day, Nov. 3In Washington
10 storiesBorder Patrol "predictive" units mine Americans' financial records and have local police pull over drivers suspected of no specific crime, 404 Media reveals.
Cover story: obstructed license plate
ICE writes state law "shall not apply" into detention contracts for four states one day after a judge ruled a contract cannot override state oversight.
3,500 detainee complaints, 10 refused inspections
ICE frees a Washington state roofer in Louisiana without his passport, 2,000 miles from home, after a judge ruled his pending trafficking visa barred his detention.
Agency gave family 4 different locations
Trump says five people were arrested for vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, offering no evidence, as a law professor says the bystanders merely witnessed damage his own botched renovation caused.
$15 million no-bid paint job so far
Justice Department sues Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington for refusing to issue undercover license plates to ICE agents.
Immigration is civil, not criminal
Secret Service shoots man who fired at agents near Washington Monument, wounding child bystander blocks from White House.
Vance motorcade passed by shortly before
HHS launches investigations into 13 states that require health insurers to cover abortion, executing a strategy the Heritage Foundation proposed in Project 2025.
Weldon Amendment used as legal basis
Federal judge vacates RFK Jr.'s declaration targeting gender-affirming care, ruling HHS exceeded its authority and calling the approach "break it and see."
21 states sued, summary judgment granted
Oregon, Washington and Native American tribes return to court after Trump killed a $1 billion Biden-era deal to recover endangered salmon runs on the Snake and Columbia Rivers.
4 populations extinct, 7 more threatened
Federal judge permanently blocks Trump order requiring citizenship proof for voter registration, ruling the Constitution "does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures."
Multiple lawsuits blocking portions of order
Across the country
6 storiesTrump family crypto venture World Liberty Financial applies for national banking charter, months after Trump pardoned Binance founder whose exchange bought $2 billion in its stablecoin.
Family stablecoin worth $3.4 billion
Commerce Department imposes export controls on Anthropic's two newest AI models, forcing the company to shut them off for all users days after launch.
Verbal evidence of narrow jailbreak
DOJ creates $1.776 billion fund to pay anyone "weaponized" by past administrations as Trump drops his $10 billion IRS suit.
Drawn from federal Judgment Fund
Trump nominates Project 2025 workforce-section coauthor Dennis Kirk as Interior's inspector general, the office fielding five congressional requests including the Reflecting Pool review.
Watchdog seat vacant 18 months
Trump took in nearly $1.2 billion from his crypto ventures last year, a federal ethics filing shows, locking in profits as ordinary investors lost most of what they paid.
Souvenir coins now $1.68, down from $74
British police arrest five men suspected of preparing a terrorist act near RAF Fairford, the base US bombers use to strike Iran, evacuating 85 homes.
Revolutionary Guard called it "legitimate target"
Fighting back
3 storiesNearly 2 dozen states sue to void 3 Trump rules weakening the Endangered Species Act, including one that stops counting habitat destruction as harm.
New threatened species lose default protections
Federal judge orders GEO Group to let Washington inspectors inside its Tacoma ICE facility after years of refusal and 3,500 uninvestigated complaints.
Detainees report worms in the food
Twenty-four states and 8 cities sue to restore the EPA's endangerment finding, the legal foundation for all U.S. climate regulation since 2009.
Courts uniformly rejected all prior challenges
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