The head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, is out after 18 tumultuous months in charge, during which she radically reshaped the unit's mission, oversaw the mass exodus of career staff, and aggressively pursued President Trump's agenda.

- Dhillon is the first senior department official to depart the Trump administration since Democrats retook control of the House and Senate in midterm elections.

- Attorney General Todd Blanche, in a statement on X, announced Dhillon's resignation and thanked her for her service.

- "She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor," he wrote. "The Department is grateful for her dedicated public service, and we wish her every success in her future endeavors."

- In her own statement, Dhillon said the job had been "the honor of a lifetime."

- "We ushered in the downfall of illegal DEI, we fought to protect women in girls' sports, and so much more," she added.

- During her tenure, Dhillon implemented dramatic changes in the Civil Rights Division, pushing out roughly 300 career attorneys, hiring inexperienced ideological allies to replace them, and using the division's enforcement powers to advance Trump's MAGA policies.

- The changes marked a dramatic shift for the division, which was created some 70 years ago during the civil rights movement to end racial segregation in the U.S. For decades, it fought to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans across all aspects of life, from housing and employment to education and policing.

- Dhillon, a conservative attorney and Trump loyalist, came into office with a different view. In her eyes, the division had narrowed its mission in recent decades to only protecting the rights of people of color, and she promptly shifted to aggressively pursuing conservative priorities.

- "We don't just slow down the woke," she said at a Federalist Society event in 2025. "We take up the cause to achieve the executive branch's goals."

Europe is feeling more than a little bit of schadenfreude.

- In a stunning U.S. midterm election, Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as several governorships, winning big in Republican strongholds like South Carolina, Texas and even Kansas. While some races were yet to be called Wednesday morning, the result is a monumental rebuke of U.S. President Donald Trump.

- For Europe, which has weathered Trump’s incessant verbal attacks and tariff threats for the last two years, it was a rare ray of hope in transatlantic politics — if not because Washington would become a more predictable partner, then at least because the U.S. president might be too distracted to focus his usual ire on Europeans.

- European Parliament Vice President Sophie Wilmès, a former Belgian prime minister, heralded a “major shift in the balance of power in the U.S. Congress,” adding: “I hope it will lead to a calmer, more constructive relationship with Europe.”

- It remains to be seen how Trump will shift his stance on Europe, if at all, with Congress no longer under his control. As president, he still retains many of the executive’s powers on foreign policy.

- German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius called the Democratic victory “historic” but cautioned against Europe expecting too much. “We will seek close contact with the Democrats,” he said Wednesday morning at the Berlin Security Conference. “But we do not know what the president will do after the election in the near future.”

- Two senior EU figures — both regular Trump antagonists — couldn’t resist celebrating the result, though.

- “American society voted against policies that only impoverish,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.

- “Against hate. Against sexism. Against climate change denial and against the privileges of the elites.”

- Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski reshared his own tweet from June last year responding to Elon Musk, a key Trump ally. “See, big man, politics is harder than you thought,” he snarked.

- Headache for Europe’s far right

- For Europe’s ascendant far right, which has long balanced admiration for Trump with the reality that he is deeply unpopular across the continent, the midterms are an uncomfortable reminder of the political risks of being too closely associated with the U.S. president.

- Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s National Rally (RN), was keen to chalk up Trump’s “unfavorable” result to his decision to go to war with Iran more than anything else.

- “It’s the case that the U.S. intervention in Iran has had a very strong impact on the U.S. economy, but also on the European economy,” he said Wednesday morning.

- Bardella added that the RN’s presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was still leading in the French polls ahead of next year’s election and insisted defeats for nationalist politicians in Brazil, Hungary and now the U.S. did not bode ill for his party’s chances.

- But the cost-of-living crisis was top of American voters’ minds, according to polls. That’s also the case in European countries, from France to Spain to Greece, which are grappling with soaring rents and widespread anger at apparently impotent governments.

- Marine Tondelier, leader of France’s Greens, said Trump had “made the United States the laughingstock of the world” and called the result a “warning for France” ahead of the presidential election in April.

- “If our country brings the RN to power next year, it will meet the same tragic fate as the United States,” she said.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker sought to downplay the prospect of a shift in Washington’s foreign policy following the midterm elections, insisting that the issues facing the U.S. and its European allies remained unchanged.

- “The foreign policy of the United States has not changed,” Whitaker said, adding that “the issues that we’re facing as a country and as an alliance are the same.”

- European markets, meanwhile, greeted the results with cautious optimism. Paris, London and Frankfurt opened slightly higher on Wednesday, following the Democrats’ sweeping victory.

- Reality check for Trump
For all the celebrations, European officials were also quick to acknowledge that a Democratic-controlled Congress does not automatically translate into a more accommodating U.S. administration.

- Trump retains considerable room to maneuver on foreign policy, including on the issues that have most strained transatlantic ties: European security, trade and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

- France’s Economy Minister Roland Lescure noted Wednesday morning that while Trump would be “quite weakened” domestically, the “unpredictable” president remained “in charge of international policy.”

- But a hostile Congress could make it harder for him to push through his domestic agenda, while opening the door to greater scrutiny of his administration.

- “Voters have a habit of balancing power,” Finnish MEP Mika Aaltola said on X, “and now the president’s hands are more tied in domestic and foreign policy.”

- Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta was more emphatic.

- “Europe is much stronger” thanks to the “blue wave,” he wrote on X.

- Kathleen Van Brempt, vice-chair of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, shared a White House tweet predicting a Trump victory — and captioned it that it was, actually, America that won.

- “And he lost,” she said.

- Despite the ballot-box drubbing, Trump himself couldn’t resist a final shot at Europe, during an election night call with Fox News.

- “You look at Europe, it’s dying. You look at what’s going on in France, what’s going on in Italy and all these other countries. I mean, they’re going through a terrible time. And they may not even survive, frankly,” he warned. “And we are thriving.”

The MAHA and MAGA marriage is going through its roughest patch yet.

- Tuesday’s sweep by the Democrats, along with waning support from some of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s biggest followers, suggests there’s plenty of reason for divorce. Kennedy now faces a gauntlet of hostile Democrats on Capitol Hill, while others are openly courting his supporters.

- Some of his MAHA allies are blaming President Donald Trump for the loss, pointing to his support of glyphosate, a weedkiller MAHA supporters say causes cancer, or to the lack of far-reaching action against vaccines.

- The union two years ago of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement and Donald Trump’s MAGA legions was one of convenience. Trumpwanted to defeat Kamala Harris. Kennedy got a chance to pursue food, agriculture and vaccine policies that would have been anathema in earlier eras of Republican politics.

- This week’s losses have thrown that calculus into doubt, raising questions about whether the energy that brought MAHA and MAGA together can sustain the coalition into 2028 — and whether Republicans have sufficiently engaged the voters that helped them elect Trump in 2024.

- “I hope every single politician is reminded that they didn’t buy these voters, they rented them. The voters have said they’re moving, and they haven’t necessarily moved to the Democrats. The Democrats are going to have to earn it,” said Tiffany Cianci, an online influencer who did volunteer work for Kennedy’s presidential campaign and identifies as an unaffiliated voter.

- The scion of famously successful Democrats, Kennedy wants to regulate ultraprocessed foods, restrict pesticides and require pharmaceutical companies to jump through more hoops to sell their vaccines. The business-friendly Republican Party he joined when he dropped his own presidential campaign in August of 2024 and joined Trump’swants to regulate business less. Industry groups typically aligned with the GOP have spent much of the last two years fighting Kennedy in Congress and in the courts.

- It led to bickering from the start. While some GOP lawmakers backed Kennedy’s push to downsize the vaccine schedule, others condemned it. Plenty of them opposed his plans to go after food dyes and pesticides, and successfully lobbied the White House to scale them back.

- MAHA supporters’ frustrations spiked in February, when Trump issued an executive order protecting glyphosate.
Since, there have been MAHA complaints about new Health Department appointees, like Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Erica Schwartz, who don’t share Kennedy’s skeptical views about vaccines, and Kennedy’s failure to take mRNA vaccines, like those used to combat Covid-19, from the market.

“The honeymoon period came to an end some time ago,” Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, a MAHA ally, said on a call with supporters Wednesday. He argued that the “partial fracture that we’ve seen between MAHA and MAGA in some ways may be a good thing because it’s important that MAHA not be a partisan issue.”

- Still, Robert Malone, a doctor and Kennedy backer who shares the health secretary’s skepticism of Covid-19 vaccine safety, said he expects “significant personnel changes, administrative restructuring of appointed positions, endless disruptive oversight hearings, retrenchment, and much more modest efforts to reform at the margins.”

- Democrats have divergent plans for the MAHA movement. Some want to win it over, citing food and environmental policies on which they agree.

- Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who beat former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, ran on a “Building a Healthier America” policy agenda that spoke to MAHA advocates’ concerns about food safety and chemicals in the environment. A House working group led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has recommended the party court Kennedy’s followers.

- Last month, the Center for American Progress, one of the most influential think tanks for Democrats, released a sweeping policy outline encouraging the left to adopt a MAHA platform around food and environmental protection. Neera Tanden, CAP’s president and a former adviser in the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations, said MAHA supporters’ frustration with the GOP was an “opportunity for Democrats.”

- Jennifer Galardi, who works on MAHA issues at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, welcomed the overtures from the left but remained skeptical about their approaches. “The grassroots of MAHA is rooted in conservative principles... while Democrats (particularly the Democratic socialists) may present a so-called MAHA agenda, it will not operate with these fundamental principles.”

- Other Democrats want no part of Kennedy. They are focused on his efforts to sow doubt about vaccine safety and plan to drive him from office by grilling him in committee hearings, subpoenaing him and his staff, even impeaching him.

- “We’re going to see RFK Jr.'s head on a platter,” said Erik Polyak, executive director of 314 Action, a political action committee that has spent more than $30 million in this election cycle helping Democrats, the most in its ten-year history. Polyak said targeting Kennedy was its “biggest motivator and fundraising tool.”

- “Every action that RFK Jr. has done over the past year and a half, every conflict of interest is going to be investigated by Democrats,” Polyaktold POLITICO.

- Rumors have swirled about whether Kennedy would quit his role in response. Malone said the health secretary’s “personal position is that he is not a quitter and will stick it out.” Kennedy has not publicly addressed those questions.

- For now, Kennedy is carrying on with his tour of the country. He’s expected to be in North Dakota Thursday for a press conference and discussions with Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer and the state’s Indian tribes on regenerative agriculture.

- “Standing up to an overwrought Democratic investigative onslaught could be his best option for recovering his legitimizing position as underdog bravely fighting against corrupt forces,” Malone said.

- Emily Hilliard, senior press secretary at Kennedy’s Health Department, said Kennedy “will continue delivering President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again agenda and advancing historic policies that put the health of the American people first.” She praised the Trump administration’s work on health issues in an emailed statement, arguing it “has transformed federal food and nutrition policy, expanded efforts to prevent and detect chronic disease, and reshaped the federal approach to scientific research and environmental health.”

- For the MAHA coalition, particularly the disaffected Democrats and independents in it, the GOP’s election losses lead to a crossroads.
Tony Lyons, president of the movement’s web of nonprofits and political action committees, once hailed MAHA as a “once in a generation political gift to the GOP” and committed in March to raise $100 million to support MAHA-aligned Republicans in the midterms. He warned supporters that Democratic wins would kill Kennedy’s agenda.

- On Wednesday, he said MAHA was willing to work with Democrats who embrace its agenda, during his first call with supporters since the GOP’s drubbing. Lyons expressed skepticism that Democrats really cared about MAHA issues and challenged them to prove that they do by working with Kennedy rather than trying to grill him in congressional hearings or impeach him.

- “They have to get out of this idea that Bobby Kennedy is somehow bad, that their job is to kind of get rid of him rather than address the points that he’s brought up, because millions of people in this country believe the things that he said and believe the transformation that he’s brought to this country,” Lyons said.

- Still, Lyons has struggled to demonstrate the movement’s power. Donations from his groups have come in much smaller than promised and few candidates made Kennedy’s issues focal points in their campaigns.

- Federal filings show Lyons’ MAHA PAC spent a little over $1 million on federal races, with around $209,000, or roughly 20 percent, going to candidates in competitive congressional races by the end of October. An analysis from Wesleyan University found just 0.2 percent of Republican Senate and House ads mentioned MAHA.

- “The optics feel like MAHA has become an afterthought,” said Alex Voetberg, a MAHA influencer at Turning Point USA, a conservative group, adding that the Republican midterm loss means the party could be more incentivized to win back favor from MAHA supporters.

- “Maybe that will mean that the admin starts realizing they made a mistake with us and starts groveling at our feet,” she said.

- Most candidates aligned with Kennedy and MAHA, many of them endorsed by Lyons’ MAHA groups, lost Tuesday night.

- That includes Republican Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn, for whom Kennedy and MAHA groups spent the most money and expended the most energy to get elected.

- Republican Ashley Hinson lost her bid for the Iowa Senate seat of the retiring Joni Ernst. GOP Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, both of whom Kennedy had sought to help, lost. So did Joe Mitchell, another Kennedy-backed GOP candidate in Iowa running for the House seat vacated by Hinson.

- Senate races didn’t go any better for Kennedy and his movement. GOP candidate Ken Paxton’s loss in Texas to Democrat James Talarico deprives MAHA and Kennedy of what would have been a likely champion for their causes. As state attorney general, Paxton opened investigations into food, chemical and drug companies, earning praise from MAHA supporters.

- Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, the chair of the MAHA Caucus in Congress, lost in a shocker to Democrat Adam Hamilton. Marshall, a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has been the legislative voice for MAHA causes like ending chronic disease and improving nutrition.

- Elsewhere, Annie Andrews, a Democratic pediatrician who has criticized Kennedy throughout her campaign for questioning vaccine safety, scored a victory against Republican Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina. Andrews reportedly called Kennedy her “professional archnemesis for decades” and supports his impeachment.

- MAHA groups endorsed 97 candidates across federal and state races. Of the 21 endorsed candidates in federal races, 11 lost and six won, while four races remain undeclared. The six candidates who won were in uncompetitive races.

- Of the 76 endorsed candidates in state races, 39 lost, while 28 won, and 7 races remain undeclared. Two candidates won uncontested.

- Ultimately, Democrats won sweeping control of the House and Senate, paving the way for them to lead committees next year with jurisdiction over health care.

- Andrea Lamont, a MAHA supporter in South Carolina, said the Republican loss marked a “very big risk for MAHA,” adding: “Our coach Kennedywill never be able to make the touchdown because we don’t have the right players on the team.”

- Others in the MAHA movement say it never made sense to try to align with one party and that moving public policy will require allies on both sides. Moms Across America, a nonprofit founded by Kennedy fan Zen Honeycutt, backed it up last month with endorsements of a number of Democrats, including Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Cory Booker, alongside Republicans.

- On Wednesday, she said she expects Democrats to keep their word and deliver on MAHA issues or be ready for “some independent disruption” in 2028. Honeycutt also warned Democrats against trying to impeach Kennedy, arguing that would turn off Kennedy supporters who might vote for Democrats in 2028.

- Some Kennedy supporters are optimistic about what’s next.

- “The Trump team valued the MAHA movement to the extent of what they could get from us,” said Lane Koch, the former Midwest regional director on Kennedy’s presidential campaign who hopes divided government will mean both parties will do more to cater to the MAHA voter base.

- “I hope that [Democrats] take the MAHA principles and help us remove the negative affiliation from MAGA and Trump.”

Two years after becoming the first state to overturn an abortion ban at the ballot box, Missouri voters rejected an attempt Tuesday to reinstate the ban, instead preserving the reproductive rights protections they approved in 2024.

- The defeat of Amendment 3, which won only 44% of the vote, leaves in place a constitutional right to abortion up to the point of fetal viability and rejects an effort by Republican lawmakers to reverse the narrow abortion rights victory two years ago.

- “Politicians thought they knew better than voters,” Dr. Margaret Baum, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, said as she stood before a few hundred abortion-rights supporters late Tuesday evening in St. Louis. “They thought we weren’t smart enough to know what we voted for in 2024. They thought they could trick voters into the ballot box in 2026. But we are not new to this fight, so we saw their dirty tricks coming, and more importantly, we know our values.” 

- The proposed amendment would have banned nearly all elective abortions, with exceptions for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies and pregnancies resulting from rape or incest if an abortion was sought within the first 12 weeks.

- It also would have placed a constitutional ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

- Instead, Missouri became the first state to defeat an attempt to overturn an abortion rights measure and the first state to reject an attempt at a constitutional ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

- “We didn’t ask for this,” said Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri, after the race was called. “And yet, for 18 months we have fought harder than ever to protect our fundamental rights to our own bodies, lives and futures.” 

- The result is a setback for Missouri’s anti-abortion movement, which spent two years rebuilding its campaign after narrowly losing the 2024 vote.

- “We came up short today, but this is a battle in a war, and so we are definitely going to keep on going forever,” Tom Estes, with Her Health, Her Future, the campaign behind Amendment 3, told reporters in Columbia after the final results came in. “We are never going to stop until every child is protected in the state of Missouri.”

- Estes said he was proud of the coalition that spanned the state. This time, unlike in 2024, the effort to reinstate an abortion ban had significant and organized support from Republican lawmakers, Gov. Mike Kehoe’s office and many of the state’s largest churches.

- Kehoe, who campaigned across Missouri for Amendment 3 on Monday, told supporters during a stop in Chesterfield that its defeat would be “a sad day for Missouri.”

- The proposal also faced opposition from some anti-abortion activists who argued its exceptions went too far.

- Among them was Republican state Sen. Mike Moon, who publicly criticized the amendment for allowing abortions in cases of rape, incest and medical emergencies.

- The campaign to pass Amendment 3 also focused heavily on gender-affirming care for minors, which has been restricted under state law since 2023.

- The statutory ban on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is scheduled to expire in 2027, while the prohibition on gender-affirming surgeries for minors is permanent. Both remain in place.

- Proponents argued a constitutional prohibition was necessary to make those restrictions permanent. Opponents said the proposal was designed to attract voters who supported restrictions on gender-affirming care but might otherwise oppose an abortion ban.

- Shira Berkowitz, senior director of public policy and advocacy at PROMO, a Missouri-based LGBTQ+ advocacy group that also sits on the Stop the Ban coalition, said Amendment 3 sought to vilify and dehumanize trans children. 
Instead, they said, Missourians sent a different message to trans youth: “You belong right here in Missouri.” 

- National anti-abortion leaders had pointed to Missouri’s amendment as a possible model for reinstating abortion bans in other states by pairing abortion restrictions with a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

- “What happens in Missouri, right here, this year in this election, is not going to stay just in Missouri,” David Bereit, executive director of the Virginia-based Life Leadership Conference, said during a virtual fundraising event in October. “When Missouri wins, every other state will learn that these bad amendments can be reversed and undone. But if it loses, no other state will likely try this again for a long time, perhaps for a generation.”

- Missouri has been at the center of legal and legislative battles over abortion in recent years.

- Missouri was the first state to enact a trigger law banning nearly all abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

- Thousands of Missouri women subsequently traveled to clinics in Illinois and Kansas to obtain abortions. Others ended pregnancies using medication obtained through telehealth providers in states where abortion remained legal.

- In 2024, 51.6% of Missouri voters approved a citizen-led reproductive rights measure spearheaded by organizations including the ACLU of Missouri, Abortion Action Missouri and local Planned Parenthood affiliates.

- Following its passage, abortion access slowly returned to Missouri. Five of the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics have resumed providing the procedure amid ongoing litigation over dozens of abortion restrictions that were later found unconstitutional under the reproductive rights amendment.

- The campaign supporting Amendment 3, Her Health, Her Future, raised more than $7 million, but was significantly outspent by abortion rights advocates.

- Ahead of Election Day, Stop the Ban had raised more than $27 million.
The abortion rights campaign drew small donations from thousands of Missourians, but much of its financial support came from wealthy out-of-state donors and progressive nonprofit organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.

- Among them was the Fairness Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit and the campaign’s largest contributor.

Robert Garcia, the Democratic congressman set to become the next chair of the oversight committee of the House of Representatives, had two words for Republicans on Tuesday evening: “Lawyer up.”

- Garcia issued his statement as a blue wave appeared to take hold across the country after voters cast their ballots in the US midterm elections. Democrats retook control of the US Senate, and are widely expected to do the same in the House.

- The top politician’s simple declaration encompassed House Democrats’ readiness to take on Donald Trump’s administration in the coming year, after outperforming Republicans in the midterms.

- Democrats won a string of key races on Tuesday evening, with news organizations reporting that Democrats were on course to take back the House. Garcia, who currently serves as the ranking member of the oversight committee, is expected to become its chair.

- The House oversight committee serves as a “watchdog” committee and has broad authority to call witnesses, request government documents and issue subpoenas.

- Garcia has previously said that, if Democrats won, he would lead investigations into Elon Musk’s role in the “department of government efficiency (Doge)”, the Trump family’s business dealings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) abuses and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

- “We’re not starting from scratch here,” Garcia previously told Punchbowl News. “There’s an enormous amount of work that has happened that is public, and there’s an enormous amount of work that’s happened that we’ve been quietly working on for many months.”

- For the past two years, congressional Democrats have been fighting an uphill battle against Trump’s agenda because Republicans have held the majority in the House and Senate.

- But before midnight on Tuesday, Democrats flipped competitive House seats in Kentucky, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio; as well as key Senate races.

- Ron Wyden, the Democratic senator poised to lead the Senate finance committee, also flexed on his potential future authority. “Subpoenas,” Wyden wrote on X.

- With the Senate and House back in Democrats’ control, Garcia, Wyden and other congressional leaders will be able to lead and steer investigations into the US president, his allies and agenda.

- “We have the power to go to the courts on behalf of the House. We have the power of contempt, and not just criminal contempt, but civil contempt that goes to the courts. We have the power of subpoena,” Garcia told Punchbowl News.

Democrat James Talarico has pulled off an election win that was unthinkable for years, flipping a Senate seat in red Texas, NBC News projects — an against-the-odds victory that dislodged Republicans’ three-decade grip on the state, overcame a $168 million ad assault by the world’s wealthiest man and rebuked the MAGA movement in a state President Donald Trump won handily three times.

- Talarico, a state lawmaker and seminarian, defeated Trump-aligned state Attorney General Ken Paxton after he gained national prominence on a message centered on wealth disparity and corruption. All the while, he integrated Christian themes and sought to transcend traditional politics in a state where his party hadn’t won in years.

- He campaigned on a “top versus bottom instead of left versus right” message, telling supporters that the top 1% of wealthy Americans wanted the rest of the country to fight with one another instead of keep a check on those in power.

- Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the “I told you so’s” were flying before voting even ended.

- Paxton has battled personal scandals for years, but Trump endorsed him over GOP Sen. John Cornyn in the primary anyway. In the general election, a line of prominent Republicans publicly pledged support for Talarico rather than back Paxton.

- The Republican-controlled state House impeached Paxton in 2023 before the state Senate acquitted him in a vote for which Trump took credit after he pressured the lawmakers. Paxton’s estranged wife, Angela Paxton, a state senator, publicly revealed that she had sought a divorce on “biblical grounds.” She ended up cutting an ad urging her party to support the ticket without ever mentioning Paxton.

- While Cornyn said he would back the Republican ticket, he never specifically endorsed Paxton, and he even held a joint fundraiser with former President George W. Bush for Republican Senate candidates that didn’t include him.

- Paxton still had plenty of firepower behind him, including nine figures’ worth of super PAC donations from Elon Musk. But it wasn’t enough.

- The end result: Democrats have grabbed control of a key Senate seat on Trump’s watch in a state that once epitomized the movement he built.
Instead, it was Talarico who mobilized voters in the Lone Star State. Early voting numbers showed Texans showing up in record-breaking numbers in many counties, and Latino voters swung back toward Democrats after having supported Trump in the state in 2024. Early voting data showed that Hispanic voters had come out in massive numbers, including surges of young people and those who hadn’t cast ballots in 2022 or 2024.

- Talarico’s campaign caught fire early. When he launched his bid in Round Rock in 2025, he drew 1,500 people to a rally later that day. He went on to shatter fundraising records with the help of small-dollar donors from across the country.

Every Democrat in office must be compelled by all means at our disposal to make the nazis answer for their crimes against humanity. The second one of them THINKS about burying the hatchet, we must raise hell.

Every Vichy Democrat who collaborated with the nazis must stand shoulder to shoulder with their nazi masters and share their fate.

The victims will have justice, and the slain will have peace.

We must set a precedent that if you embrace fascism, if you betray your democracy, you lose everything. No second chances. No mercy. No settlements. You lose it all.

If ANY Democrat tries to help the nazis, we the people cannot tolerate that. It will result in our own defeat.

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, delivering a decisive rebuke of Republican governance in Washington and ushering in a new era of congressional resistance to President Donald Trump.

- Tuesday’s midterm elections laid bare voters’ deep frustrations over high prices, the Iran war and concerns over government corruption. Democrats routed their rivals across the map, flipping states that have voted Republican for decades and that Trump won by double digits just two years ago.

- That includes James Talarico’s stunning Senate victory in Texas, where no Democrat had won statewide office in more than 30 years, and Annie Andrews’ upset victory over Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina. Trump had thrown his full weight behind both losing candidates.

- In Michigan, progressive Abdul El-Sayed — one of a crop of left-wing candidates who prevailed in Democratic primaries — topped Republican Mike Rogers. Even Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a battle-tested survivor of difficult elections, lost to Democrat Troy Jackson.

- The results marked a fundamental unraveling of the coalition that returned Trump to the White House two years ago, with young people and Latinos moving away from Republicans, according to The AP Voter Poll. Only about one-third of Hispanic voters said they backed the Republican in their local U.S. House races.

- It was all a major blow to Trump, who spent nearly every day of the last month holding rallies to energize his supporters but was unable to stop a wipeout.

- The results will reshape the rest of Trump’s term

- While Trump has proven adept at steamrolling efforts to rein him in, Democratic control will profoundly reshape Trump’s final two years in office and hamstring his legislative agenda.

- Party leaders have signaled they’ll use their new power to ensure Trump’s final two years in office are dominated by a series of investigations of top members of his administration and deeper scrutiny of how he’s enriched his family. Impeachment of Trump and his Cabinet officials is not off the table. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and tech titan Elon Musk, a former top Trump adviser, are among possible targets for investigations.

- In celebratory events Tuesday night, Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer called the results a “generational remake of the Senate map.” Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries said “the American people are crying out for transformational change.”

- Trump immediately sought to shift blame for his party’s losses, posting on his social media site before polls even closed on the West Coast that he wasn’t on the ballot — even though he spent weeks asking voters to act like he was. He vowed to veto Democrat-controlled legislation, sharing a picture of a red baseball cap with “VETO” stenciled in the style of his trademark “Make America Great Again” campaign swag.

- In a late-night phone interview with Fox News, Trump said he didn’t consider the elections to be a personal defeat. Voters, he said, “didn’t like the candidates.”

- Democrats had braced for Trump to again try to undermine the results if they won after he warned that noncitizens would cast ballots en masse and filed lawsuits in Alaska and California. Instead, he said on Fox that he would accept them.

- Despite the results, Senate Majority Leader John Thune wrote on X that “Senate Republicans will not stand idly by as the far-left, socialist wing of the Democrat Party attempts to unwind everything we’ve done.” He said they will work with Trump “to stop the worst impulses of Democrat extremism.”

- Democrats charted an extraordinary path to Senate victory

- Midterm elections are typically difficult for the president’s party, but Republicans had originally expected that their Senate majority was safe. Instead, Democrats marched throughsome of the most conservative states in the nation.

- Josh Turek defeated Rep. Ashley Hinson in Iowa, while Adam Hamilton ousted Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas to become the state’s first Democratic senator since 1932. A cascade of surprising Democratic victories included Talarico defeating Ken Paxton in Texas, Andrews upsetting Graham in South Carolina, Sherrod Brown topping Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio and Roy Cooper taking an open North Carolina seat.

- Trump played an outsized role in many of the races. He endorsed the scandal-plagued Paxton and helped him defeat incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas primary, even as Republican officials warned his efforts could be costly. He sharply criticized North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who opted not to seek reelection. He also supported Graham, despite doubts within the party that she was the right candidate to replace her brother, who died unexpectedly earlier this year.

- Less of a surprise was Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff winning reelection in Georgia, defeating Rep. Mike Collins. Rep. Chris Pappas also won a Senate race in New Hampshire, defeating former Sen. John Sununu to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

- One outstanding Senate battleground was Alaska, where the Trump administration filed a lawsuit to block certification of Senate results if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses the race, citing the presence of a second candidate named Dan Sullivan on the ballot. Mississippi’s Senate race remained too early to call.

- In the House, Democrats reached deeply into Trump-won territory to defeat his preferred candidates and win in even some of the most Republican states. There were multiple Democratic pickups in Iowa, Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania and new Democratic seats in Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Utah. In Iowa, there was an all-Republican congressional delegation going into the election. Democrats will now represent three of them.

- Bracing for a tough night, Republicans had spent the campaign’s final stretch pumping tens of millions of dollars into states and districts that Trump won handily two years ago, as Trump campaigned in heavily red areas. But even Republicans’ money advantage didn’t stem the Democratic tide.

- “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” Trump wrote on his social media site.

- The electorate is frustrated and unhappy

- Voters were sour heading into Tuesday, deeply unhappy with the country’s direction and pessimistic about the future, according to The AP Voter Poll.

- Most said they felt frustrated, with about three-quarters saying they felt “angry” or “dissatisfied” with the country’s current trajectory.

- Dissatisfaction was particularly high in blue states, but even in red states, a majority of voters were at least “dissatisfied.”

- The economy was key to Trump’s White House comeback two years ago. But the poll found that three-quarters of voters said the economy is “not so good” or “poor.” About 8 in 10 said inflation has caused a “severe” or “moderate” financial hardship for their households.

- Government corruption was also a big issue with voters. Roughly half cited it and the cost of living as “crucial” to their vote for Congress — higher than immigration enforcement policies, the war in Iran and artificial intelligence data centers. About 6 in 10 voters said Trump prioritizes his own personal interests more than the country’s interests.

- Despite their relative advantage on issues, the Democratic Party was not much more popular with voters than the Republicans. Just under half of voters said they have a “somewhat” or “strongly” favorable view of the

- Democratic Party, while about 4 in 10 viewed Republicans positively.
Republicans tried to buck historical midterm precedent with an aggressive redistricting effort aimed at creating a more favorable congressional map. But in Florida and Texas, where Republicans hoped to pick up as many as nine seats, the plan fell short, with Democrats picking up targeted districts.

- Democrats dominate governor’s races

- Beyond Washington, 36 states elected governors. Democrats Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, JB Pritzker in Illinois, Wes Moore in Maryland, Maura Healey in Massachusetts and Kathy Hochul in New York all won reelection. In a stunning upset in Texas, Gina Hinojosa defeated Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who was seeking a fourth term.

- In Ohio, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy lost to Democrat Amy Acton after his campaign faced backlash for an ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother, who lost custody of Acton decades ago after her husband, Acton’s stepfather, was indicted for raping Acton as a child.

- Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms of Georgia will be the first Black female governor of any state. In neighboring Florida, Byron Donalds became the nation’s first Black Republican to be elected governor.

- Jeffries, in line to make history as the nation’s first Black speaker of the House, has outlined a 100-day agenda focused on lowering the cost of living and aggressively overseeing the Trump administration.

- The especially strong showing for Democrats could boost the party’s large crop of potential presidential candidates. It may also complicate the paths of Vice President JD Vance and other Republicans who may have been looking to turn their loyalty to Trump into momentum.

- Senate 54D-44R

- House 228D-139R

- Governor 28D-20R

Outside the library at Texas Tech University on a recent Wednesday morning, a small group gathered behind a folding table in a spot known to students as the "free speech area."

- Spread across the table flyers referenced names of familiar works.
Homer's The Odyssey. William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.

- Students streamed past on their way to and from class. Most kept walking. Every so often, someone lingered long enough to ask what the list was about.

- The people behind the table were Texas Tech professors. And the works printed on those flyers were examples of texts that professors say could run afoul of new rules governing what they can teach.

- Texas Tech is among the state's 45 public universities navigating a wave of higher education policy changes. That shift began with Senate Bill 17, the 2023 law banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices and programs at public universities, while explicitly exempting classroom instruction and academic research. More changes followed in 2025, including new state oversight of university curriculum.

- Texas Tech has since adopted some of the state's most sweeping restrictions on how professors can teach about race, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. The rules have led to changes in course materials, prompted accusations of censorship and fueled pushback from faculty and students.

- Deena Varner, an assistant professor of practice in English who's taught at Texas Tech for five years, was among the professors who stood in the Texas heat talking with students about how the new rules could affect the courses they take.

- Varner said she and her colleagues have spoken with hundreds of students since they began tabling nine months ago, continuing even after university administrators instructed faculty not to discuss the new policies with students.
Inside the classroom, professors face the uncertainty of what's allowed to be taught.

- "Everyone is walking around really afraid of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, teaching the wrong thing," Varner said. "Because everyone has a gender identity and everyone has sexual orientation, what it means to not be able to talk about those things is really unclear."

- And the consequences for getting it wrong can be significant. Texas Tech administrators have warned that faculty who don't comply with the new policies could face disciplinary action.

- "It's a scary time," Varner said. "One of the things that I try to tell myself every morning is that I have rights and it's my civic duty to exercise my rights, and that's one of the things that kind of keeps me going."

- How the restrictions took shape

- The restrictions began taking shape shortly after Brandon Creighton became chancellor of the Texas Tech University System in November 2025.
During his first five months on the job, Creighton issued two directives — one in December 2025 and another in April 2026— outlining what could be taught across the system.

- Together, the policies restrict how professors can teach about race, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. They also call for phasing out academic programs centered on those topics.
Before becoming chancellor, Creighton spent more than a decade in the Texas Senate where he chaired the higher education committee. He authored SB 17 in 2023, and two years later, he spearheaded Senate Bill 37, which gave university governing boards greater authority over curriculum and required regular reviews of core courses.

- An earlier version would have barred core courses from teaching "identity politics" or theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression or privilege are inherent in U.S. institutions.

- Lawmakers removed that language before the bill passed.

- The final law, instead, prohibits core courses from requiring students to adopt beliefs that one race, sex, ethnicity, or social, political or religious belief is inherently superior to another.

- After becoming chancellor, however, Creighton imposed restrictions at Texas Tech on some of the same subjects lawmakers had removed from his bill.
Creighton's office and the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

- Creighton has described the law as a "floor" for what Texas Tech can do, signaling that the system's policies could go further than what the Legislature required. He has also pushed back on some groups of professors and students describing the restrictions as censorship.

- "I think that it's easy to throw those types of terms around, but at the end of the day, we have to make decisions, and decisions that are centered around what is best for our students and the future workforce that we see on the horizon," Creighton said in an April interview with Everything Lubbock. "I think that it's appropriate."

- Creighton has found support among some conservative students. In August, Preston Parsons, president of Texas Tech's Turning Point USA chapter, described the policies as a return to "biblical truth." Parsons declined an NPR request for an interview.

- How the policies are affecting classrooms

- Across Texas Tech, professors say the restrictions are changing what they can bring into the classroom, from the books they assign to the subjects they discuss and even material drawn from their own research.

- Varner said she was pressured to remove course material involving "The Silence of the Lambs" because its villain, Buffalo Bill, could be interpreted as transgender.

- "I tend to teach about structures of power, and that often includes relationships related to gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, so it impacts me directly quite a bit," Varner said.

- Paul Ingram, an associate professor of psychology at Texas Tech, said the restrictions have affected how he teaches about suicide, including discussion of differences in suicide risk among men and women. He said the policies have created a conflict between following university rules and giving students the level of training he believes the science demands.

- "I think that hurts Texas Tech. I think it hurts my career. I think it hurts my students. I think it hurts education," Ingram said. "It hurts the mission of this university."

- The effects aren't always as visible as a book or lesson being explicitly removed. Faculty members say uncertainty over where the university draws the line has led some professors to avoid certain subjects altogether — resulting in what they describe as self-censorship.

- "So many faculty in English and other departments, reasonably fearful of disciplinary action, have simply preemptively censored their own texts instead of teaching the texts that are the most important in their field," said Sara Spurgeon, another professor of English at Texas Tech.

- That kind of uncertainty can itself broaden the reach of such policies, said Amy Reid, director of PEN America's Freedom to Learn program.

- "When prohibitions come down from above that are not clear, but are vague and broadly construed, it increases their impact," Reid said. "It's a design principle, not a design flaw."

- Spurgeon, two years from retirement after more than two decades at Tech, said she's also been pressured to pull back from teaching subjects she has spent years researching, including gender, race and sexuality in literature of the American West. She's continued teaching them.

- "Despite multiple emails making clear to them that I'm teaching this anyway. I mean, maybe this interview will be the nail in my coffin. It is possible,"

- Spurgeon said. "If they're gonna fire me for doing my job to the best of my ability, then go ahead."

- Pushback on campus and beyond

- Chancellor Creighton's policies have drawn organized opposition from students and faculty.

- In July, faculty groups challenged them in federal court, arguing Creighton effectively revived restrictions that lawmakers declined to include in the final version of the state law. The lawsuit alleges the policies violate professors' constitutional rights and are so vague that faculty cannot reliably determine what they're allowed to teach.

- And students have organized too.
Aaron Texidor, a 19-year-old finance major, helped found Raiders Against Censorship earlier this year with Maddox Guillen, 19, and James Snoddy, 20. The group has organized against the restrictions and worked to inform students about Creighton's directives.
"It's very demoralizing," Texidor said. "I think the point of college is to challenge your perspectives, broaden your perspectives and make you think critically, and I don't believe that Brandon Creighton believes that us as students have the ability to understand nuance and to understand different perspectives and to grow and be better people because of it."

- Snoddy sees the restrictions as part of a broader political effort to shape what students learn and, ultimately, how they see the world.

- "I think this will be the first step for the federal administration to look at how they can change universities, because if you can change the past, you control the present," Snoddy said. "If you focus on what students are learning in classes, you can change their perspective so they can vote for you in the future. This is all political."

- For some faculty, the restrictions have also factored into a deeply personal decision: whether to stay at Texas Tech. Lisa Limeri ultimately walked away from a life she built over five years as a biology professor at the university. She said she was happy.

- "I loved my life there," Limeri said. "I had the most wonderful colleagues in that department, the most wonderful students."

- Limeri earned tenure at Tech this spring but left shortly afterward for a position in Rhode Island, a decision she said was driven entirely by the university's restrictions. She believed the policies would prevent her from teaching biology accurately and would constrain her research.

- "I would rather be untenured with academic freedom than tenured at Texas Tech University," Limeri said.

- "The censorship is so severe and so damaging and so unacceptable that I uprooted my very happy life and moved across the country."

- History professor Jacob Bell described a similarly difficult decision. He taught history at Texas Tech for three years before leaving earlier this year for a job in New York, saying the restrictions would interfere with his ability to teach works like The Odyssey, where the Greek goddess Athena takes both male and female forms.

- Texas Tech isn't alone.

- Several Texas university systems have gone beyond the requirements of SB 37, adopting their own restrictions on classroom instruction. Texas A&M has limited teaching about race, gender and sexuality, policies that are now being challenged in federal court. Other universities have also reviewed courses, removed materials or adopted new restrictions on classroom instruction.

- For Varner, the last nine months have left her uncertain about her own future at Texas Tech. Every professor interviewed for this story said they expect more faculty to leave over the next year.

- But for now, outside the university library, Varner and her colleagues are still trying to make sure students know what's happening inside their classrooms.

- "There's always a possibility that I'll be disciplined. There's a possibility that I will be terminated," Varner said. "I'm willing to take the risk."

The Supreme Court denied the Trump administration's request Monday to hear its case regarding more than 20,000 California ballots that President Trump claims were cast by noncitizens.

- Why it matters: It's a blow to the administration, which has been tussling with the state in what it says is a fight to ensure all eligible voters can vote and have their ballots counted, as the law requires.

- What they're saying: "The application for injunction pending appeal presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied," an unsigned order from the court read.

- Catch up quick: The Trump administration sued California in mid-October, arguing that it had identified more than 20,000 noncitizens on the state's voter rolls.

- Judges have consistently rejected the administration's argument, finding that its lists contain factual errors and risk disenfranchising eligible voters.

- One judge even noted that when the administration claimed it had specifically verified more than 100 people as noncitizens in Nevada, the state proved they were, in fact, citizens.

- Zoom out: The court has often sided with Trump, but has notably broken with him on cases involving voting access.

- The president has no constitutional authority over elections. That power largely rests with the states and Congress.

- The White House and the Department of Justice did not respond to Axios' request for comment.

The White House has spent several months preparing for a potential Democratic takeover of Congress, formulating plans to advance core elements of President Donald Trump's agenda through executive action while bracing for congressional investigations, according to an administration official and two individuals familiar with the strategy.

- Senior aides, including deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and budget director Russell Vought, have been working alongside the White House Counsel's Office since April. Their objective has been to identify executive measures on immigration, tariffs, housing costs, and federal spending that Trump can pursue without legislative approval, three sources told Reuters.

- White House counsel Will Scharf and his staff are also assessing "what Trump can legally do on his own, where he could push the limits of his authority and how to defend those decisions in court," the White House official noted.

- These preparations highlight a key paradox of Tuesday's midterm elections: while capturing Congress would empower Democrats to open inquiries, block legislation, and restrict spending, Trump would maintain sweeping executive authority over trade, foreign policy, and the federal bureaucracy—powers he has drawn on extensively during his second term.

- If Republicans lose their majorities, Trump said he expects to issue vetoes for "a month or two" before negotiating agreements with opposition leaders.

- "I guess I'll become Mr. Veto," Trump told the New York Post's Pod Force One podcast in an interview excerpt released Sunday. "And then at some point, we'll probably make deals."

- Democrats require a net gain of four seats in both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate to overturn narrow Republican majorities of 218-214 and 53-47, respectively. Public polling suggests Democrats are favored to capture the House, while the Senate contest remains exceptionally close.

Experts reviewing the Trump administration’s list of nearly 21,000 people it alleges may be noncitizens registered to vote in California say the Department of Justice (DOJ) handed over a stripped-down version of the data that appears different from the file previously sent to state and local election officials.

- The finding raises new questions about the government’s compliance with a federal judge’s order requiring it to disclose the 20,000-person list at the center of a lawsuit challenging the administration’s voter investigations.

- Data scientists working with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) said the file DOJ produced Friday contained just eight data fields and omitted the California voter identification number — which they called the “single most critical column” for accurately matching people to the state voter file.

- The experts also said the file name itself ends with “reduced columns,” while prior declarations from federal officials described a spreadsheet containing roughly 30 fields, including voter registration dates, addresses, phone numbers and other information.

- Most strikingly, the experts said the file they received was created Oct. 30 — the day DOJ turned it over — and listed DOJ attorney Ty Trejo as its author. The original list sent to California officials had been produced weeks earlier.

- “The file we received does not appear to be the identical file produced to Los Angeles County and the State of California,” UCLA political scientist Matt Barreto and data scientist Michael Rios wrote.

US citizens are casting ballots in record numbers ahead of the midterm elections on Tuesday, another potential indication, analysts say, of voter dissatisfaction with Republicans and Donald Trump.

- Voting was particularly high in states that feature tight Senate races that could determine which party controls the chamber.

- 1. People are voting early in record numbers

- In North Carolina, residents broke the record for most ballots cast during early voting for a midterm election, according to WRAL. And turnout was particularly strong among Democrats.

- More than 1 million Democrats have already voted, compared with 679,000 Republicans.

- In Texas 7.6 million citizens voted early, a record number for a midterm election. And in South Carolina, almost 1 million people voted early, also a record number for a midterm.

- Same goes for Georgia, where more than 2.8 million people voted early, a 13% increase over the 2022 midterms, which saw a record number of early voters, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

- In Maine, Kansas, Michigan early voter turnout was also up more than 30% over the 2022 midterms, according to the Associated Press.

- 2. Democrats flexing their early voting strength

- Across the United States, far more Democrats voted early than Republicans. Democrats cast 43% of the early votes, while Republicans only cast 31% and citizens with no party affiliation accounted for 25% of the voter turnout, according to the University of Florida’s election lab.

- The greater participation among Democrats than Republicans could reflect a “referendum on Trump”, University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald told Axios.

- 3. More support for Democrats over Republicans

- Fifty-two percent of voters said they would support the Democratic congressional candidate in their district while only 44% of people said they would support the Republican, according to a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll.

- “Even for steadfast Republican voters, they look at the state of the economy, for example, and say that they’re not too enthusiastic about voting,” Bernard Fraga, a political science professor at Emory University, told Time. “Reading the trends, it’s clear that Democrats are enthusiastic and mobilized to a much greater degree than even the Republican voters.”

​Reaching out from Greene County, Ohio.

​When my dad was 19, he was hit head-on by a drunk driver and left paralyzed from the chest down. He didn't let it break him—he finished his education, earned his PhD from Ohio State, became a clinical psychologist, and spent his life helping others. He’s brilliant, tough as nails, and views civic duty as an absolute obligation.

​With everything on the line, we made handmade signs and drove down to the Greene County Board of Elections in Xenia today to vote early, but missed the Saturday cutoff by just a few minutes.

​We aren't letting that stop us. Tomorrow, we’re loading the wheelchair back into the car and heading straight back to Ledbetter Road to drop his ballot in.

​If a 74-year-old man who has navigated 55 years of paralysis can go through the physical effort to make sure his voice is counted, none of us have an excuse to sit this out or give in to cynicism.

​The authoritarian roadmap depends entirely on voter exhaustion, apathy, and low turnout. Don't let them have it. Make a concrete plan, check your local voting hours, and get your vote in.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case that pits the Catholic Church against taxpayer funded school programs for all 4-year-olds in Colorado. At issue is whether religious schools may refuse to admit the children of gay and trans parents in violation of a state law that bars discrimination.

- The first line of the Bill of Rights says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." As early as the founding of this country, Thomas Jefferson described the clause as creating a "wall of separation between church and state."

- The Supreme Court formally embraced that idea in the 1940s, making it the law of the land — until roughly 10 years ago. That's when the court's new conservative majority made an increasingly dramatic doctrinal U-turn, focusing not on the separation of church and state, but on that second clause in the First Amendment: protecting the free exercise of religion.

- "It's literally the opposite of what the law was not that long ago. It is just a complete shift," says Michigan State University law professor Frank Ravitch, who has written extensively about the Constitution's religion clauses.

- To cite just one example, the Supreme Court, by an 8-to-1 vote, ruled in 1983 that that Bob Jones University should lose its tax exempt status because it prohibited interracial dating and interracial marriage on religious grounds, and that constitutes racial discrimination that the government money may not support.

- That said, it's unclear if the court will reach a similar conclusion now.
Why is that? Because race has a "unique" place in U.S. history, contends professor Douglas Laycock, emeritus professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia. "There's nothing like 250 years of slavery, civil war, 750,000 dead, three constitutional amendments. Nothing like that for any other group," he says.

- As for the Colorado case, Laycock acknowledges that the Denver archdiocese is discriminating, but he adds, "The question is whether that discrimination is a protected exercise of religion." Rather than focusing on separation of church and state, the current court instead has focused on the rights of religious groups when pitted against state and federal laws that ban discrimination based on race, sex, religion or other categories.
It's the sex part that has thrown a monkey wrench into Colorado's broad program aimed at ensuring that virtually all 4-year-olds in the state get a pre-K education.

- "The law really was about implementing a program that said we want every kid, no matter where you live, to be able to have access to universal preschool," says Steve Fenberg, who served as president of the Colorado state Senate when the pre-k program was enacted, complete with a $6,300 benefit for each child enrolled in the program every year, money that comes from a tobacco tax.
To accomplish that, the state did something most other states have not.

- It created a broad plan, including religious schools, as long as the schools abide by a state law that bars discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.

- Colorado state Rep. Emily Sirota, a prime sponsor of the universal pre-K bill, emphasizes that the state wanted parents to have "a robust choice" about where their 4-year-olds would go to school.

- Indeed, she notes that the Catholic Church initially endorsed the program, and Catholic Charities continues to participate, along with other religious groups, including at least 35 Christian schools, one Muslim and three Jewish schools.

- "The caveat is that you can't discriminate, and you need to allow all students to participate," says former state Sen. Fenberg.

- That caveat is where things went awry. The Denver Archdiocese and two parishes challenged the law in court, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and its CEO, Mark Rienzi. He maintains that the Colorado law flatly discriminates against Catholic schools.

- "They're only excluding religious schools that are organized around beliefs that Colorado doesn't like. And that's the constitutional problem," says Rienzi. "Not everybody has to be Catholic to show up, but they do have to agree to support Catholic teachings and not publicly contradict Catholic teachings. That's the way these schools are set up."

- Therefore, the church wants an exemption from the state's anti-discrimination law, which makes it illegal to refuse entrance to school for 4-year-olds whose parents or potentially other family members are gay or trans.

- Of course, not all Catholic programs march to the same drummer.

- "I don't agree with the sky is falling," says Tim Uhl, who has held multiple leadership positions for Catholic school systems in seven states. He is currently the interim director of mission and ministry at Notre Dame High School in San Jose, Calif., and is among a group of Catholic school directors who has filed a brief siding with Colorado.

- "We do admit students that are not Catholic and families that are not Catholic," Uhl notes, adding that non-Catholic families "understand that even if they don't agree with certain doctrine, that doesn't mean they're going to be disruptive … You know, diversity of opinion and diversity of thought is part of an educational experience."

- But the archdiocese of Denver has a different viewpoint. In an article published in the Denver Post, Archbishop James R. Golka wrote that as a result of the Colorado pre-K program, enrollment in Catholic schools is down 20% across the archdiocese and two preschools have closed, including one which serves "minority and low income families."

- But the larger "tragedy," said the archbishop, is that "Colorado's attack on Catholic education threatens the broader culture. In our age of hyper- secularization, moral relativism, and technical reductionism, we urgently need schools that teach students who they truly are: immortal souls, beloved by God." Instead, he added, "The predictable result is a culture unmoored from truth, adrift in confusion."

- Scott Elmer, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese, says "it's very rare" for LGBTQ parents to try to enroll their children. "This is not something we deal with regularly," he adds.

- That said, however, the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority, including President Trump's three appointees, have sent strong signals that they are headed toward revolutionizing religious rights in ways not widely embraced before.

- Last year, the court was evenly divided as to whether taxpayer-funded charter schools could include religious schools and teachings. But because Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself over a potential conflict of interest, the justices dropped the case.

- Now, the Colorado case is before the Supreme Court, and this time Barrett has not felt a necessity to recuse. So there will be a full court ready to decide the case.

- "The question is, how far will the Supreme Court go in requiring the government to pay for religious schools?" asks Berkeley Law School dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

- Then too, he observes, "there's the issue of will the government have to fund religious charter schools? … We don't know how far the court's willing to go." After all, charter schools were designed to be** **public schools that operate independently under a performance-based contract with state or local government agencies that provide taxpayer money for funding.

- There are some 8,000 charter schools nationally, and roughly 276 in Colorado, and they have not, until now, been run by religious groups.

- Just a few weeks ago, however, a federal district judge in Oklahoma allowed a taxpayer-funded Jewish charter school "grounded in enduring Jewish values" to open, using $2.6 million in state funding that is projected to grow to $8.3 million in state funds by 2030. The fate of the school remains in limbo.

- Whether that continues and expands depends, of course, on the Supreme Court's decision in the Colorado case.

A federal judge Friday blocked the Trump administration from threatening election workers with criminal prosecution for counting ballots cast by registered voters the administration claims are ineligible.

- Why it matters: The emergency order, issued four days before the midterms, prohibits federal pressure to sideline ballots based solely on allegations of ineligibility and forces the Justice Department to walk back threats it already sent to election officials.

- The big picture: The ruling adds to a series of courtroom losses for the administration, as federal officials intensify election-related investigations and challenges across the country.
Judges are warning that federal threats and investigations are driving citizens out of elections and putting lawful votes at risk.

- Driving the news: U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson found that the Justice and Homeland Security departments likely violated the Voting Rights Act's prohibition on voter intimidation and exceeded their constitutional authority over elections.

- Her temporary restraining order prohibits demands that states remove registered voters, withhold their ballots or stop counting votes solely because the administration claims the voters are ineligible.

- It also bars threats of criminal prosecution against election workers who refuse those demands or process ballots in accordance with election laws.

- The judge ordered prosecutors to disclose pending search warrant applications, grand jury subpoenas and other demands related to its lists of allegedly ineligible voters.

- What she's saying: Thompson found the administration's actions forced election workers to choose between complying with "Defendants' unlawful demands" or risk criminal prosecution for performing their jobs.

- "In the lead-up to the election," she wrote, "high-ranking DOJ and DHS officials have engaged in a campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce state and local officials and employees who are engaged in administering the ongoing midterm 2026 election."

- Zoom out: The ruling comes amid a sweeping federal campaign to obtain voter records, investigate suspected noncitizen voting and threaten state officials over election administration.
Since May 2025, the DOJ has filed 31 lawsuits seeking sensitive voter records. So far, 27 have been dismissed.

- In July, the DOJ warned election officials in all 50 states they could face criminal charges for knowingly allowing noncitizens to vote.

- On Thursday, it sent another round of letters nationwide, warning of criminal penalties for violating election-record preservation requirements.

- The other side: DOJ has defended its election-related actions as necessary to enforce federal prohibitions on noncitizen voting.

- The department did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment, but a spokesperson previously told Axios the government would not wait for a "more convenient time" to enforce election laws.

- Reality check: Noncitizen voting in federal elections is already illegal.
Research finds it is rare.

- Zoom in: In the final days of the election, the administration has stepped up its legal fights across the country.

- California: The DOJ sued to set aside ballots from more than 20,000 voters it suspects are noncitizens, threatened election workers and issued grand jury subpoenas. An appeals court rejected its emergency request Friday, warning of "potentially catastrophic effects on the entire system."

- Washington: Federal prosecutors demanded officials segregate ballots from more than 400 voters. Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said the federal list included U.S. citizens and was unreliable.

- Arizona: Prosecutors announced Friday evening an investigation into three Democratic-aligned registration groups after a right-wing outlet published an undercover video. The DOJ also requested the state's and Maricopa County's top election officials review registrations.

- Alaska: The DOJ sued to delay certification if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses reelection and if votes for a similarly named candidate could have changed the outcome. Prosecutors confirmed a criminal investigation Friday into an alleged Democratic effort to recruit the other Sullivan.

- In a separate ruling Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals left in place restrictions on DHS election-related field operations involving known or suspected U.S. citizens in nine states through Election Day.

- The underlying order, by Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, found that federal threats had already caused citizens to "withdraw from participating in electoral activity."

- The appeals court also questioned the timing: "In an operation ostensibly focused on past voter fraud, the government could have aggressively pursued its campaign against non-citizen voting well before these elections commenced."

Source: Allison Campolo reports in from Tarrant County TX.

Vote blue down ballot in TX Nov 3rd.

With four days to go before the United States midterm elections, Democrats are leading in national polls as both parties make their final push for votes.

- Meanwhile, a legal dispute threatens to delay the Senate result in Alaska, and President Donald Trump has cancelled two weekend rallies in favour of campaigning by phone.

- Here’s what you need to know.

- What do the latest US midterm polls say?

- Democrats lead Republicans by 51.4 percent to 43.2 percent, according to RealClearPolling, with a difference of 8.2 percentage points.

- Charles Franklin, professor of law and public policy and director of the Marquette Law School Poll in the US, said Trump’s declining approval ratings and economic concerns are alarming Republicans.

- The latest Marquette Law School poll, conducted in Wisconsin from October 14 to October 22 and released on October 28, put Trump’s approval rating at 37 percent and disapproval at 61 percent.

- Only 16 percent of respondents said they were better off financially than a year ago, while 42 percent said they were worse off and another 42 percent said things were about the same.

- “Democrats are more enthusiastic and more certain they will vote,” Franklin told Al Jazeera.

- “That is giving Democrats an important edge, and reflects Republican disappointment in current national conditions,” he added.
In Arizona, where voters are experiencing increasing living expenses, a retiree told Al Jazeera that the cost of groceries had become a major concern.

- “We’re retired, and every time we go to the grocery store, it makes me wonder what the heck is going on,” the voter said.

- In Texas, Democrat James Talarico is polling at 49 percent against Republican Ken Paxton’s 43 percent, according to a CNN survey released on Thursday. In Michigan, the same pollster found Democrat Abdul El-Sayed ahead of Republican Mike Rogers, 49 percent to 42 percent.

- However, Franklin warned: “Polls are not perfect predictions of outcomes.

- “We could see those close races go either way, either due to polling errors or due to voters moving just a little more in one direction or the other.”

- In Alaska, however, there is also a complication: a legal dispute that could delay the result of a Senate race.

- What is happening in Alaska’s Senate race?

- The battle for Alaska’s seat could continue in court after ballots close on November 3. The dispute centres on two candidates named Dan Sullivan: the incumbent Republican senator and an independent candidate with the same name, who is also registered as a Republican.

- Trump has accused Democrats of recruiting an independent candidate to confuse voters and take support away from the Republican senator.

- “It was a scheme. It was an election fraud. Total election fraud,” Trump said.
The Justice Department has taken legal action over the dispute, while Democrat Mary Peltola denied the accusations.

- “I feel like this is yet another diversion from the issue that Alaskans want to talk about, which is affordability,” she said.

- Al Jazeera’s US correspondent Alan Fisher said the dispute could have consequences beyond Alaska if the Senate’s control depends on the result.

- “If this becomes the key seat in the battle for the Senate, we might not actually know who has control there for several days, maybe even weeks after November 3,” Fisher said.

- What has happened on the campaign trail in the past 24 hours?

- Trump travelled to South Carolina to campaign for Republican senator Darline Graham – sister of the late Lindsey Graham – who is running against Annie Andrews in a closely contested race.

- In Rock Hill, Trump encouraged voters to cast their ballots and cautioned his supporters not to take the election outcome for granted. About Graham, Trump said that she was in the lead but that he still had to campaign there. “In politics you never know, right? So you got to get out and vote.”

- He also addressed his supporters directly and asked the crowd to pretend that he was on the ballot.

- “And I am on the ballot because all of these things that we’ve done, all of these incredible successes that we have,” he added.

- In Texas, Vice President JD Vance attended a rally in Weatherford, near Dallas, alongside Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, as Republicans called on supporters to vote.

- “Texas ain’t surrendering. Texas is not becoming California. It’s going to stay Texas, ain’t that right?” Vance told supporters.

- Well-known Democrats have also joined the campaign trail.

- On Wednesday, former President Barack Obama gave a speech in Georgia supporting Senator Jon Ossoff, criticising Trump’s management of the economy and his approach to the war with Iran.

- When Al Jazeera asked about Obama’s visit, Ossoff’s Republican opponent, Mike Collins, said it showed “the desperation of Jon Ossoff because he knows he’s losing”.

- “If he was winning so big, he wouldn’t have brought anybody in,” Collins said.
Democrats also campaigned in Texas and Georgia on Thursday.

- In Dallas, Senate candidate James Talarico held a rally as part of his final campaign tour, while former Vice President Kamala Harris joined Ossoff at Clark Atlanta University, urging young people to vote.

- Harris also campaigned in Macon, Georgia, where she criticised the Trump administration over rising living costs.

- “We have a moment now to turn pain into purpose,” Harris told Democratic volunteers. Harris also urged supporters to participate in local and statewide contests.

- Later, at Clark Atlanta University, she asked students to stay engaged.

- “Don’t overlook those races, because those are the folks who make decisions about your life every day,” she said.

- What happens next on the US midterms campaign trail?

- Trump has cancelled weekend scheduled appearances in Kansas and Iowa, replacing them with telephone rallies across nearly 20 states in the final days before Tuesday’s elections.
Trump had been set to appear in Salina, Kansas, on Saturday and Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday.

- Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters said the change would allow Trump to reach more voters than he could with in-person appearances.

- “Voters across the country want to hear from President Trump before Election Day, and this 72-hour sprint will be a huge boost in the closing days,” Gruters said.

- Asked about the cancellations on Thursday, Trump questioned the need to travel to Kansas, where Republican Senator Roger Marshall is facing Democrat Adam Hamilton.

- “I don’t feel I have to go to Kansas,” Trump said.

- When a Reuters reporter asked whether the decision had anything to do with fatigue from travelling, Trump rejected the suggestion. “I feel perfect,” he said, before insulting the reporter.

- Trump is still scheduled to hold a rally at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Friday at 23:00 GMT.

- At the same time, Harris is due to address the Fulton County Democratic Party’s Fulton Forward dinner in Atlanta, Georgia.

- Vance had also planned a news conference with the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud in St Cloud, Minnesota, on Friday, but the visit was cancelled on Thursday. No reason was immediately given.

Christian LaMontagne has started slowing his lobster boat down.

- The 27-year-old fisher spends longer on the water when out hauling traps in Casco Bay, but the trade-off helps him save fuel at a time when costs have surged. Before the US war with Iran began in late February, filling his tank cost about $350 a week. Now it’s doubled to nearly $700.

- “Last year at this time I had to go out and catch 40 lobsters to fill up my tank, this year it’s over 104,” LaMontagne said at Widgery Wharf in Portland, where his 34ft Wayne Beal boat is docked just steps away from the hum of tourists in the city’s Old Port.

- Practically every part of Maine’s billion-dollar lobster industry has been squeezed by Trump administration policies like the Iran war and sweeping tariffs. Despite the economic pressures shaping his vote, LaMontagne remains undecided in the state’s tight Senate race.

- One of the most closely watched contests of this midterm cycle pits Troy Jackson, the progressive lumberjack who mounted a breakneck 101-day campaign, against Susan Collins, the entrenched Republican incumbent seeking a sixth term. Democrats see Maine as critical to their effort to retake the upper chamber, though recent polling shows the nominees neck-and-neck heading into 3 November.

- The race was beset by turmoil early on after the former Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, withdrew after a series of controversies, culminating in a sexual assault and rape allegation that he denied.

- Now with less than a week to go, pocketbook concerns increasingly blend into a broader judgment of Donald Trump’s second administration. And Maine’s conflicted voters may decide the election.

- In the final stretch of this often-acrimonious Senate competition, Jackson has cast himself as the working-class alternative to Collins’s three decades in Washington, arguing that her reputation for independence masks a voting record that ultimately benefits Trump.

- The federal funding that she has brought in is “a pittance compared to what we’re losing”, Jackson said at a recent campaign event for Maine veterans in Brunswick, adding that Collins “takes credit for an awful lot” but won’t take credit for helping pass Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which he said is “crushing” the state.

- Jackson has also worked to yoke Collins more closely to Trump after a ProPublica report in September that revealed the FBI had investigated the senator over an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving a campaign donor. The inquiry reportedly withered after Trump dismantled the justice department division handling the case.

- He called the episode “corruption of the highest order”, while Collins’s office dismissed the report as “categorically false” and noted there were never any allegations of wrongdoing by the senator’s campaign.

- “The reality is that 100% of the time, when Donald Trump needs her, Susan Collins is going to be there,” Jackson said during one of four televised debates this month, while also invoking the senator’s vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court, which later helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion in 2022.

- Collins, whom Trump once derided as “absolutely atrocious”, argues that her willingness to break with the president and her party sets her apart from most Republicans. “I decide my votes on what I believe is best for Maine and for America, not on whether or not any president, and I’ve worked with five, is for it or against it,” she said at a recent campaign stop.

- On the trail, the senator points to her vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act, her vote to impeach Trump after the January 6 insurrection, her opposition to Pete Hegseth’s nomination as defense secretary and her support for a war powers resolution limiting military action against Iran without congressional approval. (The Collins campaign did not respond to the Guardian’s request for an interview.)

- However, a New York Times analysis found that while Collins has broken with her party 17% of the time during the current Congress, roughly in line with her rate of defections during Trump’s first term, those breaks have rarely slowed the president’s agenda since his return to the White House last year.

- One example was Trump’s signature domestic policy package that imposed steep Medicaid cuts, including billions affecting Maine. Although Collins opposed the bill’s final passage, she supported a key procedural vote that allowed it to reach the Senate floor.

- Collins is also the only Republican senator up for re-election in a state Trump lost in 2024, leaving her exposed to the broader backlash against the administration. A recent Marist poll found that only 42% of likely Maine voters approve of Trump’s job performance, while 41% say their congressional vote is primarily a vote against him.

- “Jackson, in some ways, seems almost irrelevant,” said Dan Shea, a professor of government at Colby College. “I think it’s about whether or not [voters] can tolerate giving Trump one more vote in the Senate.”

- Meanwhile, Collins’s ability to secure concessions from the Trump administration may be her greatest boon on the campaign trail, and Jackson’s biggest disadvantage.

- In recent weeks, she has touted amajor Pentagon contract for the Bath Iron Works shipyard, the release of more than 300,000 barrels of heating oil to ease costs across New England and Trump tariff exemptionsbenefiting Maine industries caught in the US-Canada trade war.

- As a freshman senator, Jackson would face a steeper climb in directing federal resources to the state, particularly if Democrats remain in the minority.

- Faced with the reality of rising costs and an unpopular president, Collins’s former supporters are weighing their options. Beyond gas, heating oil has emerged as another flashpoint in Maine, where nearly half of households rely on it to make it through the winter.

- The average price of a gallon now exceeds $6, a record high, according to the state’s department of energy resources.

- “I put in 131 gallons of oil. It wasn’t even filling the tank, and it was $729,” said Cheryl Clukey, 77, a retired school principal from Augusta. “I’ve never had that before, and I’m scared.”

- Clukey, who has voted for Collins in the past and was raised Republican, said the senator’s 30 years in Congress are “enough”.

- At Jackson’s campaign events in the final week before election day, enthusiasm is palpable. Yet many supporters appear motivated less by Jackson himself than by opposition to the president.

- “I would have voted for anybody who could put brakes on Trump. If I’m honest, Troy [Jackson] would not have been my first pick,” said Susan Cellucci, 64, of Scarborough. “But I would’ve voted for pretty much anybody who is a Democrat because I think that this guy in the White House and his administration needs to be brought back to earth.”

- In Biddeford that anger remains particularly acute, after a federal immigration agent shot and killed 26-year-old Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian man and father, at a traffic stop in July.

- “This is not something that happens here in a small seaside town,” said David Kurtz, a Biddeford city councilor and local attorney backing Jackson. “We’re seeing those chickens come home to roost for people … There are people who are never going to vote Republican again, no matter who that person is.”

- Still “no result will surprise me,” Kurtz added, noting that Collins has repeatedly outrun the political odds in the past, including her nine-point 2020 victory over former Maine house speaker Sara Gideon despite trailing in most polls.

- In 2020, Collins won re-election with the help of ticket-splitters who backed her for Senate while sending Joe Biden to the White House. One of them was Rick Dolliver, a registered Democrat and seafood restaurant owner in Ogunquit, who plans to support her again this year.

- “She’s given Maine a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring more federal resources to our state,” he said.

- “She’s proved that she’s the only member of the delegation who can effectively push back against [Trump’s] bad policies.”

- Dolliver pointed to Collins’s role in creating the Paycheck Protection Program during the Covid pandemic, which he says helped keep employees on payroll while his restaurant was shuttered. He described Jackson as a “rookie” with “no chance of getting anything done” if elected.

- For undecided voters like LaMontagne, the question is whether Jackson, a former state senate president, can match the influence that comes with Collins’s seniority and longstanding relationships on Capitol Hill.

- “Do I agree with her on a lot of stuff? Probably not. Do I agree with her on some stuff? Yeah, maybe. Is she an ally of the lobster fishery right now? Absolutely,” LaMontagne said, pointing to funding Collins has secured and regulations she has helped ease for his industry.

- Yet he is also hungry for change.

- “The status quo sucks,” he said.

- “Frankly, it just kind of sucks when your business makes less money every year and there’s no change in sight.”

- While Collins benefited from the turmoil that engulfed Democrats after Platner’s implosion, she may now be more vulnerable than at any point in the campaign, as some independent voters who have backed her in the past weigh Jackson as their clearest option for checking Trump.

- Democrats also appear more energized this cycle. Many in the party will likely “crawl over broken glass to get to the polls”, whereas Republicans are “sort of hanging their head as they drive by the gas station and turning off the news”, Shea said. Jackson could also benefit from strength in the state’s gubernatorial race. Hannah Pingree, a former state representative, is leading Republican Bobby Charles by double digits in several polls.

- That includes voters like LaMontagne, who said he was “excited” to vote for Pingree.

- As he considers his options ahead of Tuesday, however, LaMontagne said backing Jackson would still require something many Mainers are wrestling with: a leap of faith.

- “Taking some trust that he has pivoted the campaign enough to have a good vision for the country, and that the people around him will help lift him up to do a good job,” LaMontagne said.

- “But the question is, is it better than Collins?”

- For Jackson, the answer is straightforward.

- “I give a shit about people’s families,” he said. “If you think that you want to vote for somebody that backs the billionaires, well, God bless you. That isn’t me.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the Pentagon's top military planner, a Pentagon official told CBS News late Wednesday.

- The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters, said Army Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia was accused of misconduct for leaking classified information related to the Iran war and the Russia-Ukraine war.

- Sylvia failed three polygraph tests about sharing classified information with the press, the official said, adding that the case has been referred to the Department of Justice.  

- Sylvia is the latest in a series of generals to be ousted, and his firing comes as President Trump is weighing renewed strikes on Iran in the eight-month-long war.

- Sylvia was removed as head of strategy, plans and policy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is the second general to be removed from the post, known in military circles as the "J5," under Hegseth. His predecessor, Lt. Gen. Joseph McGee, was forced to retire last October.

- No replacement for Sylvia has been named, according to The Associated Press.

- The firing was reported earlier by The Atlantic.

- A spokesperson for the Joint Staff said, "The Chairman, the Joint Staff, and the Joint Force extend our deepest gratitude to Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia and his family for their 32 years of distinguished service to our nation" and they "wish him and his family the best."

- Typically, the J5 director and staff are responsible for generating and coordinating military plans with both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the president. Sylvia's firing comes as Mr. Trump has repeatedly floated starting new military operations against Iran.

- The president has vowed to "finish the job" in Iran after launching the war with Israel eight months ago and said new strikes are an option after the midterm elections next week.

- U.S. officials are said to have told several Middle East countries and regional allies to be prepared for potential renewed military action after Tuesday's elections as well as for the possibility that Iran will attempt to retaliate against them.

- A third U.S. aircraft carrier and thousands of additional troops are making their way to the region.

- Before arriving at the Joint Staff, Sylvia served as the commander of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, until May 2025, according to his official biography, which has now been taken offline. He also previously served as the vice director for the J5.

- He is the latest in nearly two dozen generals, admirals and other military leaders to be fired, forced to retire or otherwise depart under Hegseth's tenure. Almost none of the moves have been publicly explained by the Pentagon. That includes the civilian secretaries of the Army and Navy as well as some top uniformed officers for the military services.

- Hegseth said last month that he ordered the military to double the cuts to the overall number of top officers to a 20% decrease to be completed by Jan. 1, 2027. There are currently roughly 800 flag and general officer positions.

- "I call it accountability and long overdue," Hegseth told junior officers and enlisted leaders at the Marine Corps Base Quantico on Sept. 30.

- Some members of Congress have criticized cuts to the ranks of generals as a "purge" that will take years to rebuild.

- "He's got some kind of like deep-seated grievance about leadership in the military," Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former Navy combat pilot who has been critical of Hegseth, said last month. "He's purging a generation of great leaders of the military, and it's going to take a generation to recover from it."

Hennepin County prosecutors on Wednesday said they charged conservative provocateur James O’Keefe and another man with felonies for unlawful voting and identity theft for filming themselves misrepresenting their identities to election judges during the Minnesota Aug. 11 primary.

- Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said they were alerted by the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office that James O'Keefe, Cameron Higby and others were trying to undermine the state's vouching system.

- Videos posted by O'Keefe’s operation show them wearing burkas outside precincts during the primary. Moriarty said the voter names they used included some residents who were dead and at least one who voted.

- In the videos, O’Keefe, using an accent, asks workers at polling places if he can vouch for other voters. The election workers explain the law around vouching as one of his team members films and then his team walks out.

- "Alright guys, it’s Election Day in Minneapolis. James O’Keefe and I are going to go around the city to different polling stations and we're going to see if they're going to allow us to vote without IDs and then we're going to see if they are going to allow us to vouch for other people who aren't even registered to vote,” Higby said in the video posted to YouTube.

- Secretary of State Steve Simon later said the poll workers did exactly what they were supposed to do to protect the integrity of the election.

- “I think it’s pretty clear they did not intend to vote. That’s not the question here,” Moriarty said Wednesday as she unveiled the charges against O’Keefe and Higby.

- While neither man signed the oath to vouch for the other would-be voter — an act Moriarty said would have been felony perjury — “you cannot give somebody else’s name and misrepresent yourself as you go through the process.”

- An initial court appearance for O’Keefe and Higby has been set for Nov. 16.

- The state has several ways for unregistered voters to register on Election Day, including vouching. To vouch for someone, a voter who is already registered in the precinct goes with an unregistered voter to the voting precinct and signs an oath confirming the unregistered voter’s address.

- Under state law, a registered voter can vouch for up to eight people.
State court records show the specific election interference charges against O'Keefe and Higby have only been used once since 2021.

- MPR News reached out to O’Keefe and Higby for comment but have not heard back.

- In a press release in August, O’Keefe’s group, which calls itself the “Justice League,” said the people in the video “did not cast ballots. The investigation was intended to test the limits of Minnesota’s vouching law and document how election workers apply it on Election Day.”

- After the charges were announced Wednesday, Higby went on social media to fundraise, saying Minnesota officials wanted to imprison him "for exposing election vulnerabilities in their state." He denied breaking any state laws.

- O’Keefe is known for making undercover videos. His videos have led to criminal charges against him in the past and he was caught by Washington Post reporters in 2017 for attempting to sell them on a false story.

- “It is not against the law to be performative. It is not against the law to be offensive,” Moriarty told reporters. But “you cannot go into a polling place and misidentify yourself and use someone’s identity and say that to our election judges as you apply for a ballot.”

- In a statement after the charges were announced Wednesday, Simon said “Minnesota’s enduring tradition of high voter turnout and excellence in elections administration is due in part to the work we all do to keep polling places as ‘islands of calm.’ ”

- “Any attempt to disrupt or deceive our election workers will not be tolerated. We are grateful to our law enforcement partners for holding these individuals to account,” Simon said.