“The Supreme Court lifted a judge’s block on President Trump’s executive order adding to mail voting requirements, removing a key roadblock that prevented the policy from going into effect for the midterms. Over the public dissents of the three liberal justices, the high court said Monday that the judge had no authority to block Trump’s directive ahead of the U.S. Postal Service implementing the new ballot standards. ‘Federal courts review final rules, not proposed rules—and certainly not antecedent internal directives to propose a rule. If the Postal Service’s final rule harms the States, they may challenge that rule,’ the court wrote. It allows Trump to move closer to implementing his mail ballot restrictions for November’s contests. But now that the Postal Service announced its final regulation late last week, the states had already begun their new push to block it.” (08/24/26)
“The US trial of a former Libyan intelligence operative accused over the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing has been delayed after fresh evidence came to light, a federal judge ruled on Monday. Defence attorneys requested time to review the material in the case, which spans nearly four decades. Jury selection was due to start on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., for Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, in what will be the first trial held in the US regarding the attack on 21 December 1988. An order issued by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich did not elaborate on the nature of the newly revealed details. … Al-Marimi is charged in the US with building the bomb that destroyed the aircraft, killing 270 people, mostly Americans.” (08/25/26)
“Iran-linked hackers are suspected of forcing a small British power generator offline for four days last month, the latest sign that Tehran-linked cyber activity may be moving from probing vulnerable systems to causing disruptions U.S. officials have long warned about. Iran-linked hackers were behind the outage, according to British security officials who spoke with multiple news outlets. … The British shutdown came weeks after hackers struck more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota, accessing technology used to remotely monitor and control pumps and other equipment. Minnesota officials have not publicly attributed the attacks. Several news outlets, citing U.S. officials and a leaked industry threat-sharing memo, reported that Iran was the likely culprit.” (08/24/26)
“Lindsay Clancy trial testimony ended abruptly Monday in Plymouth Superior Court when a witness began speaking about Catholic religion and the defense called for a mistrial. Judge William Sullivan denied the mistrial request, but reprimanded the prosecution and sent jurors home for the day. Dr. Kirk Heilbrun was the second witness of the day, and in the afternoon he spoke about a conversation he had with Clancy in April. ‘That was part of her expectation was that she and her children would be together in heaven with God.’ … Sullivan then sent jurors out of the room, and there was a brief recess. When Sullivan and the attorneys returned, the defense called for a mistrial. … When the jury was called back in, the judge told jurors the remarks were ‘immaterial, irrelevant and to be disregarded.'” [editor’s note: If Clancy’s “state of mind” was relevant to the testimony, why would reference to religious conversation be “immaterial?” – TLK] (08/24/26)
“US forces have struck another vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, [murdering] two people accused of trafficking drugs, the US military said on Monday, in the first attack announced in about two months. The death toll in the nearly year-long US campaign of bombing boats allegedly trafficking drugs now exceeds 210 after more than 60 strikes off Latin America’s Caribbean coast and in the eastern Pacific Ocean. … US President Donald Trump has said the US is in ‘armed conflict’ with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of [murdering] ‘narcoterrorists.'” (08/24/26)
“The bitcoin price continued its recent surge on Monday, touching a two-month high on news that the Treasury Department might conduct its own version of quantitative easing using its nearly $1 trillion general account. The rally got cooking with a burst of short-covering last Wednesday, when Treasury announced that it would at least double buybacks of long-term government bonds to stem a big rise in 10- and 30-year Treasury yields. … Strategy (MSTR) took advantage of last week’s favorable conditions for bitcoin and the cryptosphere to issue 18.26 million shares of MSTR stock, raising just over $2 billion in cash.” (08/24/26)
“The Trump administration plans to charge employers seeking skilled foreign workers through the H-1B visa program a $103,265 fee, a proposed regulation posted on Monday said. Revenue from the fee would be used to run the legal immigration system, the document said, including funding for federal immigration courts and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. President Donald Trump’s administration argues that the H-1B program has been used to take jobs away from Americans and that the current system fails to prioritize the most exceptional foreign workers. Trump tried to implement a similar $100,000 fee last year through a presidential proclamation, but it was invalidated by a federal judge in June.” (08/24/26)
“Iran’s currency hit a record low Monday as Washington prepared to announce new sanctions it said would put more pressure on an economy already battered by previous sanctions and a U.S. naval blockade. The rial dropped to 2.02 million to the U.S. dollar as trading opened on currency markets. Iran’s official Central Bank rate stood at around 1.5 million rial to the dollar, but the market rate is what most Iranians pay. The currency had already been under pressure before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, as Iran faced double-digit inflation and negative growth. The rial has repeatedly hit new lows as nearly six months of war have taken an even greater toll. Iranians find daily staples increasingly unaffordable. Since the war began, rice is up some 60% and beef prices are more than 150% higher. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that gross domestic product will contract more than 5%.” (08/24/26)
“Mexico resumed live cattle exports to the United States on Monday after a suspension of more than a year because of the New World screwworm outbreak. President Claudia Sheinbaum said during her morning news conference that exports have resumed gradually through the Agua Prieta border crossing in the northern state of Sonora. The border reopening will proceed under controlled conditions, with 700 cattle crossing daily from Agua Prieta to Douglas, Ariz. The plan calls for export volumes to increase gradually as sanitary inspections stabilize.” (08/24/26)
“A mission to verify a fragile ceasefire between the Congolese army and Rwanda-backed AFC/M23 armed group was deployed Monday to the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as the two sides traded accusations of abuses. The eastern DRC has been riven by decades of conflict with multiple armed groups fighting over its mineral-rich territory, including the M23, which seized further swaths of the region last year. … The mechanism for verfiying ceasefire violations comprises Congolese government and AFC/M23 representatives as well as observers from member countries of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR). The mission, the first of its kind, was deployed on Monday by UN helicopters to Minembwe in South Kivu province, which has seen intense clashes in recent months, according to UN and government sources.” (08/24/26)
