Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to sue Alaska so it can’t certify its Senate race if Republican Dan Sullivan loses.
“I’m the one that said, ‘do it,’” he told reporters Friday. The suit claims Alaskans can’t tell their senator apart from a retired schoolteacher with the same name, though the ballot labels one of them the incumbent and the state’s Supreme Court already ruled both could run. No president before him has asked a court to throw out an election’s results before there were any.
This week, Attorney General Todd Blanche wouldn’t rule out the department blocking a state’s certification in what he called a “doomsday scenario.” The last time a certification stood in Trump’s way, a mob broke into the Capitol and sent senators and representatives fleeing. This time the Justice Department filed the paperwork.
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Trump says Google CEO Pichai refused his request to rename the Atlantic Ocean “Trump Ocean,” after Google adopted Gulf of America and Lake America.
Today’s GovBrief News
Trump tells a Florida rally a warship returning from Iran will stop 50 yards off Cuba, then Rubio will “finish up the deal.”
Source: Florida Politics
October 23, 2026Details
US Embassy in Canada accuses three Canadian politicians, including Ontario Premier Ford, of meddling in the midterms, and Prime Minister Carney says they lack merit.
Source: CTV News
October 23, 2026Details
National Intelligence Director Clayton warns Rubio that Iran’s lethal plots against Americans abroad have reached advanced stages, as the State Department weighs embassy staffing changes.
Source: ABC News
October 23, 2026Details
Florida’s locally acquired cases of mosquito-borne dengue pass 400 this year, most in Hillsborough County, as new cases reach Citrus, Manatee and Brevard counties.
Source: WFLA Tampa
October 23, 2026Details
Attorney General Blanche won’t rule out the Justice Department blocking election certification in a “doomsday scenario,” 12 days before the midterms.
Source: The Hill
October 23, 2026Details
Colorado tells the Justice Department its Election Day monitors need state approval to enter Adams County’s nonpublic election spaces, in a swing House district.
Source: Colorado Newsline
October 23, 2026Details
Justice Department charges nine Pennsylvania residents with voting as noncitizens in the 2022 and 2024 elections, 11 days before the midterms.
Source: WHP Harrisburg
October 23, 2026Details
Justice Department gives 57 California counties 48 hours to agree to help screen suspected noncitizen voters, warning officials who count their ballots of legal jeopardy.
Source: NBC News
October 23, 2026Details
Justice Department sues to stop Alaska certifying its Senate race if Republican Sen. Sullivan loses, at Trump’s order, over a same-named challenger.
Source: The Anchorage Daily News
October 23, 2026Details
Trump replaces Canadian tariffs Maine Sen. Collins says she got lifted with new ones, the White House reveals less than an hour after her announcement.
Source: CNBC
October 23, 2026Details
Defense Secretary Hegseth’s office tried to cancel troops’ role in the NFL’s first Paris game after protests Trump attacked, partly relenting at State Department urging.
Source: The Washington Post
October 23, 2026Details
Justice Department charges two ex-FBI officials with lying to Congress about their role in the bureau’s 2020 Hunter Biden laptop response, 11 days before midterms.
Source: Roll Call
October 23, 2026Details
Federal appeals court lifts the block on Mississippi’s school DEI ban and takes the case from the judge whose clerk’s AI use put fabricated names in an order.
Source: Reuters
October 23, 2026Details
Senatobia, Mississippi, officer who fired into a car, killing 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, resigns after his bodycam video’s release, days after the attorney general ruled it justified.
Source: Mississippi Free Press
October 23, 2026Details
Appeals court over Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi rules 10-7 that ICE can jail undocumented immigrants without bond hearings, even longtime residents with no criminal record.
Source: The Texas Tribune
October 23, 2026Details
Former Homeland Security Secretary Noem created fake State Department letterhead to announce her own new job on X, Politico reports.
Source: Mediaite
October 23, 2026Details
Federal labor board upholds an award restoring HHS workers’ telework, finding over half the agency’s brief citations fictitious, erroneous or irrelevant, possibly from AI.
Source: Federal News Network
October 23, 2026Details
Los Angeles stops shutting off water and power for unpaid home bills through 2026 at Mayor Bass’s request, after record summer and fall heat waves.
Source: LAist
October 23, 2026Details
Maricopa County Recorder Heap restores 25 citizens a federal database wrongly flagged as noncitizens, after Arizona’s attorney general and secretary of state sued.
Source: News from the States
October 23, 2026Details