As a federal judge is deciding whether to extend a ban on the USPS’s new mail-in voting restrictions, Donald Trump has asked the US supreme court to step in.
The Justice Department filed an emergency request seeking to have the court lift Judge Indira Talwani’s order that temporarily blocks the postal service from implementing the plan, which includes an online portal that would track millions of mail ballots.
The new system to regulate mail ballots, which came about following an executive order by Trump, has drawn fierce criticism. A whistleblower told Congress that the requirements could result in scores of mail ballots never being sent.
In more redistricting news, Maryland’s supreme court has decided that a Democrat-backed congressional redistricting amendment can go before voters in the state in November.
The ruling, a major victory for Democrats, comes after two lower courts first blocked it from appearing on ballots. The proposal could allow Democrats to create new congressional districts ahead of the 2028 election if voters approve it.
Missouri’s supreme court has ruled that a Donald Trump-backed US House map must go before voters to approve or reject the new districts, preventing it from being used in the upcoming November election.
The development was a blow to Republicans who were hoping the new congressional boundaries would help them keep a majority in the House in the midterms. Trump fumed over the ruling, describing it as “horrible, ridiculous, and unConstitutional” and arguing the election process was being “disturbed”.
Catherine Hanaway, the state’s Republican attorney general, planned to appeal the decision to the supreme court. She argued it “thrust our state into a full‑fledged constitutional crisis”.
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries praised the ruling, calling it a “resounding victory for the people of the Show-Me State and a clear message to MAGA extremists trying to rig the midterm elections.”
“The people are now empowered to decide what the congressional map should look like in November, not Donald Trump and corrupt Republicans,” Jeffries said.
Energy, manufacturing, agriculture and transportation groups are appealing to Congress to take action to stop California clean car rules that it argues aim to “[limit] choice in vehicle and other engine purchasing decisions”.
Dozens of groups, including the American Petroleum Institute, the US Chamber of Commerce and Agricultural Retailers Association, sent a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate asking for congressional intervention. The missive came one day after a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from overturning a set of California vehicle pollution standards.
“We strongly urge Congress to protect consumer choice by using its Congressional Review Act authority to disapprove these rule makings. Doing so will protect consumers, our economy, and our national security,” the authors wrote.
Donald Trump announced an interim replacement for army secretary, Dan Driscoll, who suddenly resigned earlier this week amid reports of tension between him and defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
The president said on Thursday that Adam Telle, who currently serves as the assistant secretary of the army office for civil works, will become the acting army secretary.
“He is a Great Patriot, who is respected by all,” Trump said.
Congressman Don Beyer, whose district includes Arlington National Cemetery, described Trump’s arch project as “illegal, gridlock-increasing [and] narcissistic” and criticized the administration for moving ahead with it.
The representative pointed to a report from the the National Park Service – which supports the project – that found it would have adverse effects on multiple landmarks.
“This project is not even close to being ready for prime time. The Administration has not won the legal battle over the proposal, which is plainly illegal without congressional authorization,” Beyer said in a statement.
“The only study they have completed and released, from the National Park Service, confirms my admonition that the arch would be a massive, unnecessary disruption to iconic and historic sites across the region.”
Excavation work on Donald Trump’s “Great Triumphal Arch” project in Washington is set to begin in the coming weeks, interior secretary Doug Burgum said on Thursday.
The 250ft tall gilded structure will be built in between Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
“This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture, honoring the history and significance of Arlington Cemetery and befitting the most powerful Capital in the World,” Burgum said.
But critics say the arch will interfere with historic sightlines and that it has not received congressional authorization. Three veterans and an architectural historian filed a lawsuit over the project.
“We believe that construction cannot and should not proceed apace, and we are prepared to inform the court that it needs to, at this juncture, needs to step in,” said Nicolas Sansone, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, who is representing the plaintiffs.
As a federal judge is deciding whether to extend a ban on the USPS’s new mail-in voting restrictions, Donald Trump has asked the US supreme court to step in.
The Justice Department filed an emergency request seeking to have the court lift Judge Indira Talwani’s order that temporarily blocks the postal service from implementing the plan, which includes an online portal that would track millions of mail ballots.
The new system to regulate mail ballots, which came about following an executive order by Trump, has drawn fierce criticism. A whistleblower told Congress that the requirements could result in scores of mail ballots never being sent.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency appears to be downplaying $168 million in winter storm damage across New York City, Long Island, and Mid-Hudson region.
In response to a query about New York Gov Kathy Hochul’s claim that federal authorities denied her request for disaster relief because of “political games,” FEMA said: “No new information was provided by New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island for FEMA to consider; they only repeated their requests for federal reimbursement of costs to plow snow.”
“Winter weather is not new to the Northeast and neither is snow removal,” FEMA also said in its statement to The Guardian. “Federal disaster aid is not a backstop for routine state and local budgeting.”
JD Vance’s comment about the US-Iran conflict that he “wouldn’t call it a war right now” has sparked criticism.
Rep Ro Khanna, referring to this comment, said it was made “as if Americans can’t see what’s going on on their own phones, with their own eyes.”
“It’s unbelievable gaslighting,” the California Democrat also said in a video posted to X.
“This is war. You know who understands it’s a war? Donald Trump. He claims that we’re winning the war.”
Former US pardon attorney Elizabeth Oyer on Thursday sued the department of justice and attorney general Todd Blanche, alleging that they “unlawfully” fired her last year after she said she rejected a recommendation to restore actor Mel Gibson’s gun rights.
The Guardian’s Anna Betts reports that Oyer’s Washington DC federal court complaint maintains that in early 2025 she was asked to “disregard her duties and facilitate a political favor” for the embattled actor because of his “relationship with President Trump”.
Oyer alleges that she was “asked to make it seem like an independent review had concluded that Mr Gibson, who was convicted of a domestic violence offense, should have his gun rights restored”. After Oyer declined, “she was fired by then deputy attorney general Todd Blanche”, her suit alleges.
Read more of Betts’ reporting on Oyer’s lawsuit here.
Moments before Vance’s presser ended, the vice president was asked an unexpected question: Did he and Trump know about Milo Yiannopoulos’s deportation?
“So on Milo, I won’t speak for the president, but I found out, I think, like so many others found out.”
“I found out about it publicly,” he also said of the rightwing provocateur’s deportation. “I’m not sure if the president knew about it beforehand, but I’m sure we can follow up with the president and get you an answer to that question.”
Yiannopoulos recently broke his silence about being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Louisiana and deported to the United Kingdom, stating “for the first time I know what it feels like to be really, really terrified”.
During an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Yiannopoulos said it was a “humiliating and disorientating” experience, as well as “physically degrading” and “frightening”.
Yiannopoulos also said he was “ashamed” of his prior support for Trump and the mass deportation agenda.
“I wouldn’t call it a war right now,” Vance said of the ongoing US-Iran conflict. “There is no active shooting.”
“I recognize there is there have been places where this is flared up [but] major combat operations again, major combat operations lasted for about six weeks and since then, we destroyed, of course, their nuclear facilities…”
JD Vance downplayed the disconnect between widespread opposition to data centers and Trump’s artificial intelligence fervor.
Asked if a Democrat-held Congress would disadvantage US AI development, Vance agreed.
He said there’s a “very good chance” that the US could be bested by China in the AI race if Democrats held Congress.
“On the data center question, you asked how do how do you split the difference, or how do you bridge the gap?” Vance said. “The simple answer is the way that you bridge the gap is by following the president of the United States.”
Vance said a lot of data center opposition – which is increasingly a bipartisan sentiment – stemmed from people worrying their neighborhood would get worse, that their power bills would go up. Vance said that Trump has pushed for ratepayer protection and insisted that data centers must return power back into the grid.
“The way to bridge that gap is for people to do what the president United States has enabled. He’s made it easier to build a nuclear power plant, or any other power plant, next to a data center. He’s made it easier for people to put power back into the grid as opposed to take it out.”
The vice president rebuffed Iran’s claims that US strikes hit a wedding party, saying that country’s state-run media has not been a “very good scribe” about covering the conflict.
“I’m extremely skeptical of this. What I can say with 100% confidence is that unlike [Iran], the United States never targets civilians in combat. We never will do that. We never have done that, and unfortunately, obviously, sometimes things happen,” Vance said in a response to a question about Iran’s claim. “But in this particular case, I don’t think that we have any information one way or the other. We’re investigating because obviously we care.”
“We want to know, and if we do make mistakes – again, this is a big difference between us and Iran – when our military makes mistakes, they learn from them to try to get better from them. “So we’re investigating it very quickly.”
Vance also described Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth – whose leadership of the military has come under immense scrutiny – as a “very good friend of mine.”
And, Vance said, “I think he’s an amazing secretary of war. And, you know, fundamentally where I look, there are a lot of issues where I agree with Pete on the issue. Where I’m in the most strident agreement with Pete is that we needed to have a culture shift at the Department of War.”
“What Pete came in wanting to do was revive the warrior spirit in the United States of America,” Vance said.
Vance was asked: Why shouldn’t the American people blame Republicans for inflation?
The vice president started to answer by saying things were worse under Joe Biden – and that higher prices during that administration set the stage for “damage” that Donald Trump is trying to reverse.
“When prices get baked in like that, it takes a little bit of time for us to undo some of the damage,” Vance said.
“My point is that because America’s inflation problem wasn’t created in a day, it was created by very bad policies in the Biden administration, trillions of dollars of new spending that was going more to fraudsters than it was to the American people,” he also claimed. “It takes a little bit of time to rebuild the foundation of America’s middle class economy.”
JD Vance claimed during his presser that agreements to develop oil in Venezuela would be used to bolster the US’s strategic petroleum reserve and lower gas prices.
“Now we’re using, of course, the successful Venezuela operation and some of the friendships and some of the relationships that developed in the wake of that operation, to create what is effectively a new 65 billion barrel of oil reserve for the United States of America,” Vance said. “The way that that’s going to work is that private companies, American companies, can go in there, generate a lot of oil revenue.”
“That’s going to mean world oil markets get only more suppl[y], that will lower costs for Americans,” Vance claimed, also saying, “It’s good for Venezuelans, it’s good for anybody who’s buying gas, and it’s good for the American taxpayer as well.”
Vance’s announcement about the oil reserve comes before a round of midterm elections where Democrats have hammered Republicans on increased cost-of-living – including gas prices.
Vice President JD Vance has just started his press conference at the White House.
The Pentagon has stepped back from its recently posted clinical guidelines for its new, mandatory testosterone deficiency testing policy for US armed service members age 30 and above, Reuters reported Thursday.
The Pentagon published a “Clinical Guidance for Health and Human Performance Optimization” Wednesday on its website. But by Thursday, Reuters said, this memorandum and a press statement were taken down.
“The draft (document) published on September 2, 2026, has been temporarily rescinded to allow for updates,” an official told Reuters, saying temporary guidance was still in effect.
The testosterone deficiency testing guidelines set forth different assessment paths for men and women that are supposed to take place during yearly health checks.
This guidance was poised to start right away. The Pentagon has claimed this testing was intended on strengthening military readiness by mitigating potential hormone problems and associated symptoms such as low energy.
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced the new testosterone deficiency screening program in July. In a video to X, Hegseth said he wanted to make sure service members had “the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best.”
“As we know, the modern battlefield is brutal and unrelenting,” Hegseth also said. “It requires and demands maximum psychological and mental readiness, and by addressing these health markers early, we’re keeping you on the leading edge of lethality, and giving you the same level of support that you give this nation – the absolute best.”
Those with low testosterone–a condition which has become a frequent topic of conversation in conservative circles–can get treatment for “restoring and optimizing”, Hegseth said. This treatment would be voluntary.
