Six justices gave Donald Trump a head start on the midterms.
The Supreme Court will let his election order take effect before any court rules on whether it’s legal. The federal government now tells your state who counts as a citizen, and your state tells DC the name and address of everyone who votes by mail. The order directs the Attorney General to prioritize prosecuting local election officials who send ballots to anyone the administration says is ineligible. Trump’s personal criminal defense lawyer was confirmed as Attorney General seventeen days ago.
Federal judges already ruled the citizenship list illegal and ordered it dismantled. One wrote that the president has no power over elections at all. The Supreme Court overruled none of them but let Trump keep building while states begin mailing ballots in weeks. On whether any of this is legal, the majority wrote, “time will tell.”
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Iranian hackers shut a UK power plant for 4 days in an unprecedented strike timed to US water cyberattacks.
Today’s GovBrief News
Vance calls Canada a "state" at a Maine event, claiming a Freudian slip, as Trump says Canada "couldn't survive" without US money.
Source: Time
August 24, 2026
Treasury Department launches Operation Economic Outcast, threatening to cut any entity trading with Iran from the dollar system, as the rial hits a record low.
Source: CBS News
August 24, 2026
FDA clears a Roche and Eli Lilly blood test detecting Alzheimer's markers in patients 55 and older, replacing costly PET scans and spinal taps.
Source: Reuters
August 24, 2026
Nevada sues Interior over Colorado River cuts, saying the plan announced as 17% actually authorizes taking up to 70% of Las Vegas's water supply.
Source: KLAS Las Vegas
August 24, 2026
Supreme Court lets Trump's mail-ballot executive order proceed 6-3, lifting the block on a federal voter list and USPS delivery restrictions before the midterms.
Source: NBC News
August 24, 2026
US strike on an alleged drug boat in the eastern Pacific kills 2, pushing the campaign's death toll past 200 with no trafficking evidence provided.
Source: Euronews
August 24, 2026
USS Abraham Lincoln heads home with a Thailand port call after 250 straight days at sea, a carrier record, days after Trump said the deployment wasn't long enough.
Source: USA Today
August 24, 2026
Judge blocks Florida International University from punishing students who silently protested campus police working as ICE agents, citing 60 years of precedent.
Source: The Florida Phoenix
August 24, 2026
DHS proposes a $103,265 employer fee per H-1B visa, built by dividing $8.8 billion in immigration system costs across the 85,000-visa cap.
Source: Newsweek
August 24, 2026
ICE arrests 1,328 people across DC's Virginia and Maryland suburbs in a two-week sweep where 70% had no criminal record, matching a 1,200-arrest Atlanta operation.
Source: WUSA Washington
August 24, 2026
ICE deports the wife of an active-duty Army sergeant to Honduras, at least the seventh military spouse or parent removed under Trump.
Source: Reuters
August 24, 2026
Judge orders the US to retrieve a cartel witness it deported to Mexico despite torture protections, after ICE and Rubio revoked them without a hearing.
Source: The New York Times [gift link]
August 24, 2026
State Department prepares to revoke up to 200,000 tourist and business visas from people who sought asylum, the largest mass revocation in US history.
Source: The Associated Press
August 24, 2026
Arbitrator orders the Washington Post to rehire columnist Karen Attiah, ruling the paper failed to prove her posts refusing to mourn Charlie Kirk were misconduct.
Source: UPI
August 24, 2026
State Department moves to sell a Kehinde Wiley painting of Dominicans it commissioned in 2013, after officials called the Obama portraitist's work "woke."
Source: The New York Times [gift link]
August 24, 2026
Dare County, North Carolina, brings urgent care into schools, letting sick students in grades 6-12 see a doctor by telehealth in the building.
Source: Dare County NC
August 24, 2026
400 volunteers put 29,000 shielded immigration court records online, exposing arrest patterns a 2007 rule kept locked in courthouse kiosks.
Source: 404 Media
August 24, 2026