The Trump administration moved Wednesday to end its legal fight to overhaul a popular student loan forgiveness program.

The Department of Justice appealed after federal judges ruled in June in favor of advocates who said the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program risked becoming a tool for political retribution. But it dropped two appeals Wednesday in single-sentence joint agreements, which stipulated that each side would pay its own fees.

Federal officials provided no explanation, but advocates praised the ruling.

“The Trump administration’s attempt to weaponize public service loan forgiveness against organizations it disagrees with was anti-democratic and unlawful from the start,” Dan Zibel, an attorney for the group Student Defense, said in a written statement. “This is a significant victory for millions of Americans who have dedicated their careers to public service.”

The PSLF program was designed to make jobs in government, public schools, fire and police departments, public hospitals and nonprofits more attractive by forgiving loans for qualified employees after a decade’s worth of payments.

But last fall, President Donald Trump’s administration wrote a new rule to empower Education Secretary Linda McMahon to kick employers out of the program if she decides their work has a “substantial illegal purpose.”

The vaguely phrased rule was targeted at employers who support undocumented immigrants or transgender youth, potentially affecting borrowers who worked at schools, public hospitals and legal aid groups.

The overhaul amounted to a major reworking of a program that has canceled loans for more than 1 million Americans.

But just before it was set to take effect in July, U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Massachusetts vacated the U.S. Education Department’s changes, saying they overstepped the agency’s power and threatened to violate First Amendment protections for free speech. The ruling came in response to a pair of lawsuits filed by more than 20 states along with a coalition of nonprofit groups and cities.

On the same day, District Judge Amir Ali in Washington issued a similar ruling in a case brought by nonprofit organizations.

It was early this year when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wanted to move the world. A replica of it, anyway.

Two floor globes said to be used by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower during World War II are housed in the Pentagon, where subsequent generations of Army leaders became custodians of the artifacts, according to people familiar with the globe’s lineage and an accompanying plaque dating them to the 1930s.

The historical significance was attractive to Hegseth, these people said, and his staff requested that the secretary’s office become the new home to one of the 30-inch globes.

Ordinarily, moving historical items within the building is a deliberate process overseen by trained curators. Instead, Hegseth’s staff dispatched its own team to relocate an Eisenhower globe. They lost control of the artifact and dropped it, sending the globe crashing onto its base and impaling the fragile shell near Antarctica, according to those familiar with the incident. The resulting gash appears to be several inches wide.

Pentagon officials denied The Washington Post’s request for a photo of the globe or to examine the artifact in person, but The Post separately obtained images of the damage.

The Army, in an email to The Post, acknowledged that the globe was damaged and said it occurred during an “attempted move” Feb. 3. Aside from the hole, “the spherical portion of the globe was detached from the metal mounting that allows it to rotate,” spokesman Christopher Surridge said in response to questions. Ultimately, the damaged relic was not relocated, he said.

Asked where the movers came from, Surridge referred The Post to Hegseth’s office. Spokespeople for the defense secretary did not respond to a request for comment.

The Army office in possession of the globe had expected to consult with experts at the U.S. Army Center of Military History on how to ensure its safe transport and properly document its new relocation to Hegseth’s office, according to two people familiar with the matter. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a previously undisclosed incident that is viewed as an embarrassment within the Defense Department.

The history staffers were furloughed due to a partial government shutdown stemming from a dispute in Congress over aspects of the Trump administration’s immigration policy. When the experts could not be reached, Hegseth’s staff decided to move the globe themselves, these people said.

It is unclear why Hegseth’s team did not wait for experienced help to move the artifact during the partial government shutdown, which ended the same day the globe was damaged. An “apparent lack of patience,” said one person familiar with the situation, appeared to be a factor.

The episode became instant fodder for gossip and jokes inside the Pentagon, with some decrying the apparent brashness and affinity for World War II nostalgia that they characterized as common themes throughout Hegseth’s tenure as defense secretary.

Hegseth, a former National Guard officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, uses the title “secretary of war.” He carried out Trump’s executive order last year to rebrand the Defense Department as the War Department, reverting to the name that was used from 1789 to 1947. Congress has not authorized either name change.

Eisenhower served as a five-star general during the war and is credited with coordinating the defeat of Nazi Germany through major operations, including the D-Day landings in France in 1944. After retiring, he went on to become president from 1953 to 1961, leading the United States through the early days of the Cold War.

Since the agency became the Defense Department under President Harry S. Truman, “we haven’t won a major war since,” Hegseth said last year.

Ty Seidule, a retired brigadier general who taught history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, lamented news that the globe had been damaged.

“Hegseth wants an Eisenhower totem to be like Ike, brilliant in war and peace,” Seidule said. He has criticized the defense secretary previously for overriding a policy change that removed Confederate names and symbology from several military bases located in the southern U.S., an effort Seidule helped lead.

“Hegseth is no Ike. The globe won’t give him Ike’s attributes of humility, intellect and judgment,” Seidule said.

It is unclear whether Hegseth personally ordered the globe’s relocation, or if another senior official in his office may have done so. It also is unclear whether Hegseth’s aides were prepared with the appropriate materials to move the artifact.

Another globe similar in design and linked to Eisenhower was transferred in recent years from a military history storage site in Alabama to a nearby Army installation. That globe was wrapped in protective covering and secured in a crate before it was moved.

“Since the globe is considered priceless, we knew its value was much greater than financial, and that our team was heavily relied upon for a safe delivery,” the moving company Craters and Freighters wrote in a 2022 account published online.

A sign on display with the globe that was damaged said that it is one of two “Eisenhower globes” that the Army possesses within the Pentagon, according to the photographs obtained by The Post.

“According to popular theory, the one in this room was first used by Dwight D. Eisenhower while serving on the General Staff as Chief of the War Plans Division from February to March 1942 and Operations Division from March to June 1942,” the sign states. “It is conjectured that this was retained by the successors to the Operations Division, known today as the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-35.”

The other globe is on display in the office of the chief of staff of the Army, the service’s top general, and has pen marks on it from both Eisenhower and Gen. Omar Bradley, another iconic senior officer during World War II, officials said.

Eisenhower had a well-known fondness for globes and is seen in numerous historical photographs posing with them.

Apart from the three globes known to the Army, he sent another to Truman after the war, which remained in the Oval Office through the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, according to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. That globe is on loan to the Truman library in Missouri.

President Donald Trump went ballistic on reporters from CNN and ABC News for having the audacity to ask him about lifting sanctions on Russia, with Trump saying they were “stupid” and “low IQ” to even go there.

The testy exchanges happened while Trump spoke to reporters in front of the White House on Wednesday afternoon. It came hours after Trump secured the release of Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old Michigan man who was locked away in Russia for four years on allegations he’d acted as a mercenary for Ukraine.

Trump was asked about Hubbard’s release by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. Trump told her Hubbard was “beautifully flying” back home, but that never would have happened if he kept the clamps on Vladimir Putin.

“If you would’ve put them those sanctions on, or whatever you want to call ’em, you could forget about him. He’d be back in jail for 25 years,” Trump said.

When Collins followed up a moment later, Trump ripped her.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re a dummy. You’re a low IQ person, you’re a dummy, and you work for CNN,” he shot back.

He’d told her a moment earlier he lifted the sanctions because they are “maybe close to a deal for the first time in a long time” to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

“When you’re close to a deal and you have very delicate negotiations, you don’t put sanctions on,” Trump said.

The president prowled around while he answered questions for another minute, before the topic was brought up again by an ABC News reporter. He didn’t love it.

“How is waving those sanctions on Russia to secure the release of Hubbard not giving something to Russia?” the female reporter asked.

“Are you a stupid person?” Trump asked as he glared and pointed at her. “Who do you work for?”

“ABC News,” she responded.

“You’re a stupid person. And by the way, your network is the worst of all,” Trump said.

President Donald Trump weighed in on the controversy surrounding Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s attack ad featuring his Democratic opponent Amy Acton’s estranged mother while still claiming he knew “nothing” of the situation.

The ad, which Ramaswamy’s campaign confirmed Tuesday it produced and is spending $4 million to air statewide, features Donna Arthur accusing Acton of lying about her childhood and urging voters not to support her.

The video has sparked bipartisan outrage given Acton’s history of childhood abuse. The Democrat has said she and her brother were removed from Arthur’s custody when she was 12 due to severe abuse and neglect, including sexual abuse by her stepfather, whom Arthur defended. Acton has not spoken to her mother since.

“Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton is estranged from her mother after suffering sexual abuse as a child,” a reporter noted to the president outside the White House on Wednesday.

“Where is this? Where?” Trump asked.

“In Ohio,” the reporter clarified. “The governor candidate for Democrats, Amy Acton. Her mother is featured in an ad by Vivek Ramaswamy. She’s estranged from her mother — ”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Trump interjected. “I heard that there’s something where his — her mother went against her. Uh, I don’t know what that has to do with Vivek.”

“She suffered from sexual abuse by her mother’s husband,” the reporter added.

“I just don’t know that, and as you know — ” the president continued.

“Was it appropriate to put that in a campaign ad?” the reporter wondered.

“If it was about a Republican, I can guarantee you they’d let it go, so that’s why you’re asking,” Trump fired back. “The fact is, I know nothing about it, but I hear the mother went very rogue on the daughter, doesn’t have a lot of respect for the daughter, and I think the mother is a witness to things, also. So, who knows? And you’ll have to figure that out. It’s a very unusual situation to have a mother hate a daughter that much, but I don’t think that has anything to do with Vivek.”

Vice President JD Vance, though, said Wednesday that he is “a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement” than they are about Democrats.

In late spring 2020, a source I knew to be reliable called me with a story. The Dutch government had hacked into Jared Kushner’s phone and monitored him as he accessed a Dubai-based bank account. What was odd, the source said, was that the money in the account—hundreds of millions of dollars—had come from a bank in Azerbaijan. Most importantly, Kushner appeared to have transferred significant amounts of money from the Dubai account to other individuals, including a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man. The story sounded preposterous, I told my source. And yet.

Six months later, I found myself speaking with someone else about the UAE government and their use of mercenaries in conflicts around the Middle East and Africa when I asked, on a whim, whether they knew anything about Kushner and bank transfers from a UAE account. My acquaintance grew quiet. Then they replied, “Yes.”

Over the next four years, I came to learn that, sometime in late 2017, the Netherlands Defense Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) made a startling discovery. A General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) operative, a dark web hacker specializing in stolen bank data, was traveling to the UK for an espionage mission. They reached out to the British government for permission to apprehend him when he arrived. The British agreed.

When the Russian national arrived in England, the Dutch informed him that he had two options: he could work for them against the GRU, or the British would arrest him. Once in UK government custody, the operative would be charged with espionage. If convicted, he would spend years in a British prison. The Russian chose to change his employer.

Later that year, the Russian operative gave the Dutch spies access to one of the GRU’s most sensitive assets. Located in Rostov, Russia, the GRU’s hacking and cyber team operated a remote server on which they stored some of their bounty. During their search through these secret files, the Dutch found something astonishing: screenshots of Jared Kushner’s iPhone.

In The Hague, the MIVD hacking team tried to reverse engineer the Russian penetration of Kushner’s iPhone. Kushner owned what was then the latest model, the iPhone X. Released in November 2017, it featured Face ID, a state-of-the-art security feature that Apple had promoted at its launch. The Dutch team had been trying to pick the phone’s door lock, so to speak, when it occurred to them that the Russians may have found an unlocked window to gain entry instead. Their hypothesis was correct. By early 2018, the MIVD had found a vulnerability in the iPhone that gave them access. The security exploit wasn’t perfect, however. Some malware allows a hacker to turn a victim’s phone into a microphone and video camera, turn the phone on or off, and pull and add files. The Dutch solution did not provide that level of access. Instead, when Kushner used the phone, they could see his screen. Almost as soon as they got inside, the intelligence service began capturing every image of Kushner’s screen as he used it, filing their own cache of surveillance on their internal computer servers.

As they monitored Kushner’s phone, they discovered he used it to log in to a UAE bank account. By the time the Dutch spies had visibility into the phone, the account had received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan. Their initial assessment was that the bank account was affiliated with the government there.

For the MIVD hackers, the bank account became an intelligence mystery to unravel. Nearly everything they worked on had a tinge of Russian conspiracy. A little over a year into Trump’s first presidency, the MIVD, like FBI agents and federal prosecutors in Washington working on the Robert Mueller investigation, had only part of the story.

Kushner, UAE ruler Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ) and Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) of Saudi Arabia, converged at an auspicious moment. MBS wanted to be crown prince. MBZ wanted to blow up Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, and Kushner wanted both to help him force the Palestinians into a deal that Israel would accept. Despite the perception of his wealth, Kushner was not entirely financially independent of his parents, and the family business, Kushner Companies, faced a billion-dollar loan coming due on their trophy property, the Manhattan office building at 666 Fifth Avenue.

Early in the first Trump administration, MBZ and MBS offered to pay for a slush fund dedicated to helping the new administration with foreign policy goals. The idea was to help pay for Trump’s promised wall between Mexico and the US, for example, in an effort to secure a second term in the White House. The two Arab royals initially discussed with Kushner putting more than $10 billion into the effort. Within months, though, as MBZ pushed the Trump administration to help back MBS’s effort to become his country’s crown prince—and future king—the broader foreign policy slush fund idea fizzled. Instead, MBZ and MBS initially, and then MBZ alone, put at least $2 billion into at least two bank accounts for Kushner. It is unclear how the royals organized their $2 billion in combined payments, but they effectively split the cost. For the purposes of explanation, it is best to understand where and how each bank account was controlled.

Bank account Alpha was held at First Abu Dhabi Bank, the largest in the UAE, and was overseen by MBZ’s brother, Tahnoon bin Zayed, who served as the bank’s chairman. Beginning in 2017, the Saudis and Emiratis transferred roughly $750 million into the Alpha account. Alpha would be used as a foreign policy fund. This money would be overseen and partially managed by Kushner and MBZ, who, in their effort to strike a grand bargain to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, believed the region’s map needed to be redrawn.

“Jared was looking for shortcuts in his diplomacy,” a source who knew of the UAE’s deal with Kushner said. This person held discussions with both senior UAE and Israeli officials about the secret financial arrangement between Kushner, the UAE, and, at least initially, Saudi Arabia. “Jared promised MBZ that he’d push their agenda with Trump if they participated in a fund. He wanted normalization with Israel so that business could take off.” A slush fund—a shared pool of money for off-the-books diplomatic objectives—was a common form of Gulf Arab government corruption, this person explained. “The Emiratis and the Saudis do this once a year. A billion or two is nothing for them, and if it gets them what they want, it’s money well spent.”

The Alpha account looked like the funding source of a UAE government program, by which MBZ paid his bureaucrats their salaries or funded government-run schools. But how and through whom the money flowed into the Alpha account revealed that it was intended to remain secret, more akin to a covert and illicit scheme, given that it was managed in part by a senior advisor to the president of the United States.

The Dutch spies who monitored the Alpha account noted that all of it was sent by a bank in Azerbaijan in American dollars. Azerbaijan plays a unique role in money laundering. Its central bank maintains high levels of US dollars in its reserves but does not adhere to the highest standards of bank transparency. As a result, Azerbaijani banks have well-established but unadvertised practices of serving as way stations for large transfers, in which a foreign currency is exchanged for an equal amount in dollars. For a roughly 6 to 7 percent fee on the transaction, some Azerbaijani banks will accept a transfer from a client who wishes to move Saudi riyals or Emirati dirhams totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. The Saudi or Emirati client sends the money to the Azerbaijani bank, which then uses a different internal bank account to transfer the equivalent US dollars to the client’s requested destination. For auditors, this shadow trade can’t be discerned.

A shallow audit, as the Dutch tried while monitoring Kushner’s iPhone, revealed nothing more than what appeared to be an Azerbaijani government–linked bank account that sent hundreds of millions of dollars to an account in Dubai. But there was another aspect of the Alpha account that the Dutch couldn’t see or understand, one that helped reveal the secret purpose of the money. Kushner did not own the bank account at First Abu Dhabi Bank. He was a signatory for an account managed and owned by an Emirati charity.

When MBZ and MBS first began contributing to the Alpha account in 2017, the Watani Al Emarat Foundation, a UAE government-funded charity, was run by Dherar Belhoul Al Falasi. Al Falasi was a technocrat and a member of the Federal National Council, and friends with one of MBZ’s closest friends and advisors. As a result, Al Falasi and the Watani Foundation had a second mission. The charity was used as a cover to move money in support of the country’s secret military and intelligence operations overseas. Under the Watani cover, Al Falasi helped facilitate the UAE’s secret weapons-purchasing programs, one confidential source who had direct knowledge of the charity’s proliferation program revealed. This source said that the Emiratis believed that the program’s status as a charity made its international transactions less likely to be scrutinized and therefore served as a useful cover for funding MBZ and his brother’s secret wars.

MBZ and Tahnoon made Kushner a signatory on the Alpha account with Watani. As a signatory, Jared had access to it and could, in theory, make transactions, but it technically wasn’t his account. One way to view what Kushner did with the Alpha account is to imagine him as the director of the CIA. Had he been running the government entity that managed and ran secret foreign programs, maintaining the account, again, with presidential approval and congressional disclosure, Kushner’s conduct would have been within his job’s responsibilities. But he was not the director of the CIA, whose position is approved by the Senate and whose operations are overseen and accountable to Congress. Instead, Kushner was overseen only by his father-in-law, who, according to four senior Trump administration officials—two national security advisors, a White House chief of staff, and a former CIA director—were unaware of any presidential authorization for Kushner to access a foreign government bank account. (Kushner’s counsel, however, said Kushner did not make any agreements or arrangements with leaders or officials in foreign countries that were not agreed to by the President of the United States and in the best interests of the United States.)

Regardless of whether he was a signatory or the owner, Jared was required by federal government regulations and the Internal Revenue Service to disclose his access to the account. Unless disclosed to and approved by the US government and reported on his tax returns, Kushner’s access to the Alpha account may have violated US law. (A lawyer for Mr. Kushner denied that his client had any knowledge of or connection to Al Falasi, the Watani charity, or a UAE bank account and stated that he had complied with all legal requirements when dealing with foreign governments.)

In addition to the Alpha bank account, MBZ put money into at least one other account intended for Kushner. By the spring of 2018, the crown prince had moved roughly $1 billion to Israel via Azerbaijan for Kushner. We will refer to this account as the Beta bank account. It is unclear how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first learned of MBZ’s money for Kushner, but a person briefed on the Beta account told me that the prime minister encouraged Kushner to have the money deposited in the Israeli Central Bank, in what would appear to be a government account. It is also unclear how Kushner used the money the UAE deposited into the Beta account for him, but according to the person with knowledge of the money, its allocation was for Kushner’s personal benefit. But as with the Alpha account, there were clues in the way the Beta account was managed.

Israel’s Central Bank does not operate personal accounts. The bank holds and transfers only government funds. The government accounts use a dual-key system, which requires two authorized individuals to make any transfers from the account as an oversight mechanism. Netanyahu required Kushner to inform him before making any transactions from the Beta account.

To do so, Kushner passed his messages through Ambassador David M. Friedman, who frequently met with Netanyahu. With the money in the Central Bank, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to connect MBZ’s payment to Jared. It is unclear if spies in the Netherlands had any indication of the Beta account. (Ambassador Friedman denied that he had any knowledge of, or involvement with, any UAE money made available to Kushner, or that he passed messages on Kushner’s behalf. “I know absolutely nothing about any of these allegations,” Friedman said, “and the specific allegations about me or my alleged involvement in this alleged scheme are 100% false.” Kushner’s counsel also said Kushner “has no idea” about any such account, and insisted that “there are no accounts and never were.”)

Apparently, Kushner faced the challenge of moving money from the Beta account in Israel to other accounts where he could have untraceable access to the funds. One person who worked with Kushner to move the money out of Israel said that much of it went to bank accounts in Cyprus before being moved elsewhere.

During Kushner’s secret financial arrangement with MBZ, he helped negotiate a third, altogether distinct account. As part of what was, at the time, a secret warming of diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, Kushner helped negotiate an agreement by Israel to help defend the UAE from a major Iranian military attack. The UAE needed to cover the cost of the emergency defense, however, and the government secretly made another transfer to Israel’s Central Bank. This was something like a rainy-day defense fund. Combined, the three accounts represented a secret foreign policy negotiated by Kushner with the leaders of Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Although Kushner’s position as senior advisor to the president was unpaid, he was an official government employee. Not only did his position require financial disclosures for ethics regulations, but each year he worked in the White House, he had to file both a public and confidential financial form, known as the Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report, also known as a 278e disclosure. Because he had access to classified government secrets, Kushner was required to disclose any bank account to which he had signatory—or beneficiary—access.

Kushner’s apparent betrayal of the public trust, however, went further than his failure to disclose the secret Alpha account in the UAE or the Beta account in Israel. By giving him access to roughly $2 billion, regardless of how the money was used, MBZ and MBS were paying for his influence within the US government. Any efforts he made to shape US policy that came from a foreign government that had provided him with money would make him an agent of a foreign power. US law requires citizens who lobby on behalf of a foreign power to declare themselves and the country they are working on behalf of to the Justice Department.

One former prosecutor who worked on the Mueller investigation said that if Kushner promised anything to MBZ and MBS in return for the money they offered him—even if it was just speaking to his father-in-law—he may have violated federal bribery laws, as well as the foreign agent statute. (Mr. Kushner’s lawyer denied that Kushner violated any laws while serving in the White House.)

The Treasury Department on Thursday proposed new regulations to bar large institutional investors from buying up single-family homes, the latest step in the process to implement the most controversial section of the sweeping bipartisan housing law passed this summer.

Under the law, the ban — which prohibits investors with more than 350 houses from purchasing additional single-family homes – goes into effect Jan. 7, a short runway Treasury acknowledged in the 96-page proposal.

“Given this short implementation period and the need for market participants to make decisions regarding homebuilding, acquisitions, ownership structures, investment arrangements, and compliance systems, Treasury currently intends to take a phased rulemaking approach,” the agency said.

The institutional investor restrictions were part of a populist affordability pitch by President Donald Trump, who declared, “People live in homes, not corporations.”

Critics have argued, though, that the policy could create a chilling effect for builders, and in turn, be a drag on supply.

Market participants were still reviewing the proposal Thursday morning.

“This is a very complicated provision and a very complicated rule as a result of that,” said David Dworkin, president and chief executive officer of the National Housing Conference. “The bottom line is going to be whether the market continues to build desperately needed rental housing or not. And if we see that builders continue to construct rental housing, regardless of whether it is stacked on top of each other or side by side, I think that Treasury successfully navigated the issue.”

“If on the other hand the market stops investing in rental housing, then what we’ve done is simply exacerbated the affordable housing crisis,” Dworkin added.

The bipartisan housing law aimed to alleviate a supply crunch that has contributed to voters’ frustrations over affordability. In addition to the institutional investor restriction, the law includes new rules making it easier to develop factory-built housing and encouraging localities to remove barriers to construction.

The State Department has asked some foreign service officials up for promotion who they voted for in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, raising concerns the agency is violating a federal law that bars politicized personnel decisions within the nonpartisan ranks.

Top officials in the State Department made clear that only candidates who voted for President Donald Trump would be eligible for the mid-to-upper level foreign service roles. They also told candidates that their campaign donation history would be examined and any donation to Democrats would be disqualifying.

The Washington Sun spoke to six current and former State Department officials familiar with the line of questioning around candidates’ voting histories. Three of the sources had spoken directly with individuals who had been asked the questions.

Congressional Democrats have been preparing to probe such incidents.

“The Committee has been following allegations that the Trump Administration is making political affiliation a factor in employment for some time now,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told The Washington Sun in a statement. “These are critical national security positions and individuals should be chosen for their experience and ability, not their political loyalty. We are working with the House and other relevant committees to thoroughly investigate all such claims.”

While the federal government employs thousands of political appointees who turnover with each administration, the vast majority of the government workforce are permanent, career staff intended to be shielded from political interference.

Federal law directly prohibits federal officials from making any personnel decisions on the basis of political affiliation.

A spokesperson for the State Department declined to comment on the voting history questions but emphasized the importance of “fidelity” in a statement.

“Fidelity means upholding the Constitution and the law and executing policy with loyalty to the American people and their interests,” the spokesperson said. “It emphasizes the critical importance of service, integrity, and policy alignment across the Foreign Service. It is not about partisan behavior but rather about executing the president’s vision for foreign policy.”

The spokesperson added that Secretary Marco Rubio has prioritized merit and rewarding “demonstrated performance on behalf of administration priorities” in promoting career staff into leadership positions.

In July of last year, the State Department added a “fidelity” section to the foreign service’s performance-evaluation process, requiring managers to assess employees’ commitment to “completely aligning oneself and one’s team to the most current [U.S. government] goals.”

The department also announced last year it was remaking the Foreign Service Officer Test, which all candidates must pass. One person who recently took the exam said it included questions about the impact of former President Ronald Reagan’s tax policies and the accomplishments of Trump’s Mike Pompeo, who was secretary of State during Trump’s first term.

“There was just something about the test that made it seem like they weren’t looking for the highest scores but people who answered a certain way on specific questions,” the person said.

Trump and Rubio have moved to remake the nation’s diplomatic corps. The State Department has shed nearly one-fourth of its workforce through layoffs and various separation incentives. It has awarded a $1 million, no-bid contract to a recruitment firm whose CEO has said more Christians should serve in government and hiring at the department had become too “woke.”

As The Washington Sun reported, veteran foreign service officials have also been boxed out of senior positions, asked to resign and sidelined in major foreign policy decisions. Those efforts have led to a wave of recent departures from the diplomatic corps’ top ranks.

“This is more evidence that there is conduct to get rid of folks because of perceived political affiliations,” one congressional aide not authorized to speak to the press said of the State Department asking foreign service candidates about their voting history.

The Trump administration has faced some legal action against its efforts to identify supporters among the civil service.

It previously overhauled the federal hiring process by requiring applicants to write short essays on their favorite Trump policies, but it subsequently replaced those questions under court order.

Federal workers’ unions have also sued over the administration’s plans to create a new class of workers who can be fired for any reason.

Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a good government advocacy group, said State’s latest actions mark an “appalling and flagrant disregard of federal law” designed to protect federal workers from being evaluated based on political allegiance.

“This is yet another shocking example of the Trump administration hurtling our government back in time to the spoils system of the 19th century,” Stier said. “Ultimately, it’s the safety and security of the American people that are being compromised.”

President Donald Trump faced multiple hecklers during a rally in Clemson, South Carolina, on Wednesday, at one point commending a supporter who appeared to punch a protester, declaring, “He got whacked!”

To the first hecklers, Trump repeated a line he’s used in similar situations at recent rallies, calling them “paid protesters,” and adding that they “go home and mom slaps them around.”

At the second interruption, after a protester yelled out, the president said, “What was that noise I just heard? You know, you like just to power through that stuff, but that was a loud, horrible, disgusting sound. I didn’t know what was wrong with that person.”

The third interjected during Trump’s comments about the late Sen. Lindsey Graham and his sister, Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC), whose campaign the president is in South Carolina to support.

“It’s always right at my punchline!” Trump complained. “They time ’em beautifully. These people are serious losers.” He joked about another interruption as he tried to continue, which he spoke into existence — twice.

More protesters were then physically removed from the venue, with the president emphasizing, “Most of them are from different parts of the country, by the way. They’re not from here. It’s all paid for. They’re a bunch of fakers. They’re terrible people.”

The punch, though, came as Trump was talking about immigration.

“Wow, thank you!” the president said as police rushed in to restrain a Trump supporter who had apparently hit a protester. “That was great.”

Police escorted the protester out, while the man who threw the punch appeared to remain inside.

“Wow. Man, I love — I watched that,” Trump continued. “That was unbelievable. Is everybody okay? Who’s the guy that threw that punch? Who threw that punch?”

The president added, referencing former professional boxer Evander Holyfield, who attended the South Carolina rally:

Who was the guy that threw the punch? You reminded me of Evander “The Real Deal” Holyfield. No, the guy stood up, and he just let that little — and he got whacked! Man! They don’t realize it’s really dangerous to do that. You gotta give ’em credit. It takes courage to do that at a Trump rally. He got whacked! He started that, you know, screech. Whatever the hell they do, and as he’s in the process of the screech, he got whacked! Evander, he wants your autograph, that man.

With numerous reputable polls showing Democrats poised to make big gains in the midterm elections, the Republican chair of the FCC is advising local broadcasters to beware of “fake polls,” without specifying which ones he thinks are bogus.

Brendan Carr, a close ally of President Donald Trump, warned FCC-licensed stations on Wednesday, the same day two new, highly respected national polls showed Trump registering another record-low approval rating.

His warning also came one day after a self-professed polling firm admitted to being a “fictional entity” that fabricated data and fooled news outlets.

That’s a real — and infuriating — problem, but it shouldn’t besmirch the high-quality polls that are helping inform the electorate.

So which polls was Carr warning about? His X post didn’t say, and he didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment on Wednesday afternoon, leaving the matter nebulous. And perhaps that was partly the point.

A group of former FCC officials called Carr’s message “part of an accelerating White House strategy to tilt the electoral playing field in the President’s favor and deny election results that don’t go his way.”

The former officials also noted that “the FCC has zero authority to dictate editorial decisions.”

Indeed, Congress has prohibited the FCC from trying to prevent the broadcast of any point of view. But the agency is responsible for licensing local radio and TV stations across the US and upholding basic standards, and Carr has repeatedly used that limited power to pressure broadcasters.

Press advocacy groups argued that Carr’s latest post flew in the face of the First Amendment.

“Literally every time he attacks the press, it’s because of reporting that was unfavorable to his boss, Donald Trump, whose gilded face he’s been known to wear as a lapel pin,” said Seth Stern, the chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Right now there’s a lot of unfavorable reporting about the Republican Party’s electoral prospects, given widespread voter dissatisfaction with the economy and the state of the country.

Trump has defaulted to calling the polls “fake” and has occasionally threatened to match his words with actions. “I’ve been fighting pollsters,” Trump said at a rally on Tuesday.

But if Trump has intended to chill reporting on public opinion, he hasn’t succeeded.

Last month, an Iowa judge dismissed the president’s lawsuit against pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register and Gannett. A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team vowed to appeal.

On Wednesday, Carr claimed that this election season has brought “a significant surge in entirely Fake Polls and Suppression Polls designed to do nothing more than interfere with the regular functioning of the electoral process and alter the normal patterns of voter turnout and enthusiasm.”

He said “many journalists and broadcasters have been amplifying or airing” the polls, though he didn’t name any polls or names.

Carr then invoked the FCC’s power to penalize stations that violate the agency’s policies against “news distortion” and “hoaxes,” though those policies are narrowly tailored and rarely enforced.

“Broadcasters are advised to avoid engaging in News Distortions or running Broadcast Hoaxes by airing Polls that would violate their regulatory obligations,” he wrote.

Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, immediately spoke out against Carr’s message.

“Pollsters who intentionally mislead the public should answer for it, but broadcasters who report publicly available polling data should never be punished when a poll is wrong,” Gomez wrote on X. “FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith.”

Stern made a similar point in a statement on Wednesday. “News broadcasters have a First Amendment right to report polling data, even if it proves to be inaccurate, just like they have a First Amendment right to report on Carr and Trump’s own countless lies and distortions, even when they turn out to be inaccurate,” he said.

By inveighing against “fake polls,” Carr is once again embracing the rhetoric of the president who appointed him in 2017 and promoted him to chairman last year.

The timing is striking, since the midterm elections are less than two weeks away and polls show Democrats with an edge in many key races.

Many viewers and readers wonder about the reliability of polls, and the reality is that some are more trustworthy than others.

Earlier this week, the poll-tracking site FiftyPlusOne prepared an investigation into a group called “Wedgewood Polls,” which had released more than a dozen election-season polls.

FiftyPlusOne included the group’s data in its polling averages, but found evidence of fabrications. After the poll tracker asked for comment, Wedgewood issued a statement claiming it was an experiment “to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry.”

FiftyPlusOne co-founder G. Elliott Morris charged that “they are trying to cover up their fraud with the ‘we were doing a social experiment’ excuse.”

The American Association for Public Opinion Research condemned the fabrication on Wednesday.

“Professional polling organizations are transparent, ethical, and work hard to provide critical information to the public and other stakeholders. It is important that we don’t conflate fraudulent activity like this with legitimate election polling,” the association’s president Mary Losch said.

Even if it was just an experiment, it did real damage, playing right into the hands of public figures who want to sow distrust in even the most authoritative polling sources.

“Fake news, fake polls, they’re all fake,” Trump said Tuesday. He then added in the next breath, “I have some great polls.”

The Trump administration wants to reconsider an approval for a wind farm proposed off the Massachusetts coast by Avangrid Inc., threatening to stoke more uncertainty for a deal to reform the US system of permitting big energy projects.

The Justice Department asked a federal judge Tuesday to allow the Interior Department to re-evaluate the approval of the project’s construction and operation plan granted under President Joe Biden to ensure it complies with a US law governing energy development in the ocean.

It’s the second time this month that the Trump administration has asked a court to allow the government to reopen a permit for a wind farm that’s facing a legal challenge from community groups claiming it was wrongly approved.

The administration stopped short of asking the court to fully void authorization for the wind farm. Courts routinely remand projects back to federal agencies for additional work to remedy shortcomings in environmental reviews or the scope of approvals.

Nonetheless, the Justice Department’s filing drew sharp criticism from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, one of the top Democrats who struck a deal with Republicans last month over proposed legislation to speed up approving projects ranging from wind farms to oil wells.

“This is how you blow up a permitting deal,” Whitehouse said in a statement.

A White House official said the filings were in response to a briefing schedule and that the administration has been transparent about its requests to the court with Democrats.

The project off Massachusetts, named New England Wind, would supply enough power for more than 900,000 homes. It’s valued at $14.6 billion, according to BloombergNEF.

Avangrid declined to comment.

The Justice Department’s filing is part of a case filed in 2025 by local groups from Nantucket and elsewhere who are opposed to the wind farm and say federal agencies failed to adequately study how it could harm an endangered whale species.

US President Donald Trump has made sweeping moves against the wind industry in the past few years, part of his broader campaign against renewable energy as he seeks to bolster fossil fuels. The renewables sector has been hopeful for a breakthrough with the administration as Democrats and Republicans agreed to reform the US system of approving infrastructure projects, including some assurances for support of wind and solar.

“It’s long past time for the Trump administration to realize its war on clean energy is backfiring,” said Pasha Feinberg, an offshore wind strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Customers’ electricity bills keep rising, and our nation can’t meet its growing electricity demands because of these actions.”

The Trump administration apparently still hasn’t learned its lesson about double-checking sources.

A federal labor agency flagged so many problems in a recent arbitration filing that it suggested the Department of Health and Human Services used artificial intelligence to draft its brief.

In a section where HHS was arguing that an arbitrator got key facts wrong, one of the government’s “supporting legal authorities has a fictitious citation,” a Federal Labor Relations Authority decision says.

“The Agency cites ‘U.S. Dep’t of the Air Force, 913th Air Wing, 57 FLRA 469, 472 (2001),’ which does not exist,” the decision says in a footnote.

It was one of 10 “entirely fictitious” citations the agency says it found. And overall, 22 of the HHS filing’s 29 footnotes — and 35 of the 42 total legal or record citations — “are fictitious, erroneous, or irrelevant.”

This is not the first time HHS has had trouble with citations in the second Trump administration. Last year, The Washington Sun found the department inaccurately cited more than 500 scientific sources to back up its “Make American Healthy Again” commission report — in some cases even making up studies.

In this latest incident, multiple times the decision points out where HHS attorneys cited a case that refers to an irrelevant part of the law. There are also incorrect page numbers, case numbers and other details.

“Based on the nature and scope of these errors, it appears that the Agency may have used a generative artificial-intelligence (AI) tool in drafting its brief,” the decision says.

HHS was asking the FLRA to reverse a decision from a third-party arbitrator who sided with a labor union in a challenge to a presidential memorandum sending federal workers back to in-person work.

HHS not only didn’t get what they wanted, but it also got a lecture from FLRA about using AI.

“While nothing prohibits parties from using AI tools when preparing filings for submission to the Authority, we caution those who do so to be aware that AI continues to present significant risks of error,” the FLRA wrote.

“Therefore, parties should take steps to verify the accuracy of any AI-generated material and ensure that their filings satisfy all regulatory requirements.”

The FLRA used its own footnote there, pointing to a 2024 guidance on the use of AI-based tools in court “on how to follow filing rules when drafting documents using AI, including reviewing and correcting AI-generated text.”

The HHS Office of the General Counsel did not respond to a request for comment about whether it used AI to write its filing.

And the issue has popped up elsewhere as AI use has become more widespread. In July, a federal judge cautioned an attorney with the Justice Department about AI use that led to inaccurate citations in an immigration case.

President Donald Trump has embraced artificial intelligence, and multiple agencies across the federal government have confirmed they are using the technology.

President Trump isn’t done trying to rename things.

The president told a rally audience in South Carolina Wednesday evening that he tried to rename the Atlantic Ocean to “Trump Ocean,” but ultimately decided against it.

“I only like two oceans, the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, I’m not going to put either Trump or America on any other ocean but these two. So, we seriously looked at the Atlantic Ocean and I called Google Maps who were really great with the lake and really great with …” Trump said, trailing off but referring to the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump said he called Google CEO Sundar Pichai and asked him, “I’m thinking of the Atlantic Ocean, can you handle it? ‘No no no, this time I’m not doing it,’ he said.”

The audience and Trump laughed.

“He said, he said, he said, ‘Oceans are different, sir. You know, they cover, they cover a lot of, they cover really a lot of countries. Please, don’t ask us to do that.’ So I’ll probably pass. Should I pass it? I think let’s keep it the Atlantic Ocean,” Trump said.

Trump’s ego knows no bounds if he was seriously considering having Google change the name of the Atlantic Ocean. He has signed executive orders changing the names of the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario to the Gulf of America and Lake America, respectively. He’s proposed renaming the Strait of Hormuz to “Trump Strait,” and earlier this week again mused about renaming New Mexico to “New America.” Meanwhile, the economy is suffering as a result of his failed policies and ill-advised war with Iran, and the Republican Party is facing heavy losses in November’s midterm elections.

The Department of Justice this week began notifying the counties it wants to monitor on Election Day, NPR has learned.

Counties in Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Texas and Washington have received notifications from the Justice Department so far, but the list seems to be growing in real time.

The department has long deployed monitors to ensure compliance with voting laws, but the Trump administration's unprecedented steps to try to wrestle control over elections from local and state governments have led to new concerns about DOJ monitoring this year. And already this week, at least one county official is raising questions about why his locality is on the DOJ's list.

Last month, Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said the department planned to send 1,000 observers nationwide, in what she termed "the largest monitoring effort" in DOJ history.

And even as counties are being notified, it's unclear which jurisdictions or how many the department plans to monitor this November. A DOJ spokesperson, Kiersten Pels, told NPR those details will be shared "closer to the election."

The Justice Department routinely observes elections. The department under President Biden monitored 64 jurisdictions in 24 states on Election Day in the last midterm year, 2022.

But to many local officials and experts, this year is different.

President Trump continues to falsely maintain that he won the 2020 election and that election fraud is more widespread than it has ever been proven to be. Experts worry federal law enforcement could potentially use those false claims — or others generated this year — as pretext to try to seize ballots during the counting period, or interfere in the process in some other way.

Most states reported no incidents with Justice Department monitors during primary elections earlier this year, but in Wyoming, the state's Republican governor expressed concern about "aggressive" and "irregular" behavior by monitors for the state's August primary. And the Republican county clerk of Laramie County told NBC News that the conduct of the monitors "showed complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections."

The Department of Justice disputes that characterization.

"We disagree with the public framing that the two monitors we sent were 'aggressive' or did anything improper," Pels said, adding that Dhillon had a meeting with the Wyoming officials after the fact.

In previous election cycles, state officials in the states where monitors were assigned were notified at the same time as the counties. This year, that did not happen initially, according to officials in three states who spoke to NPR anonymously because they weren't authorized to speak to the press. So states have been scrambling since the notifications began going out Tuesday to figure out where the DOJ plans to be.

After NPR asked the DOJ why states had not been notified, multiple state officials told NPR they then received notification from the department.

One of the counties that received a notification is Adams County, Colo.

The clerk there, Democrat Josh Zygielbaum, told NPR he wasn't shocked the DOJ selected his county to observe, as Adams County includes part of the state's 8th Congressional District, a toss-up district that could determine party control of the House of Representatives next year.

Zygielbaum was surprised however that the DOJ reached out only to him, and not the Republican clerk in neighboring Weld County, which also houses a sizable portion of that same congressional district.

"My initial thought is that it's politically motivated, and that this is potentially an intimidation technique," Zygielbaum said. "Although I like to assume the best in people, the administration really has shown its disdain for elections, particularly in states and counties where mail ballots exist."

Pels, of the DOJ, said the department prioritizes places with competitive elections, and would monitor Adams County because it is covered by Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires voters be given access to election materials in the language they speak. Weld County is not covered under that provision.

That explanation didn't fully comfort Zygielbaum.

"The fact that we're covered by Section 203 means we have a higher portion of Spanish-speaking voters who have a right to vote," Zygielbaum said. "It still doesn't put me at ease that it's not a targeted visit."

NPR reported in September that Trump administration officials assigned to noncitizen voting issues last year circulated a list of counties covered by Section 203, along with a DOJ criminal checklist outlining requirements for prosecution of voter-related charges.

Colorado state officials say they are considering how to respond to the DOJ's request, considering Colorado election rules say observers need to have permission from the secretary of state's office, unless they are ordered to observe by a court.

"We are considering these requests in collaboration with the Attorney General's Office," said Jack Todd, a spokesperson for the Colorado secretary of state's office.

Zygielbaum says his election processes won't change either way. He has, however, already requested a staffer from the state come to Adams County on Election Day just to keep an eye on the federal monitors if they do come.

"I have lots of questions about why they're there and what their ultimate intent is," he said.

NPR has confirmed the DOJ has also sent monitor notifications to seven counties in Texas, King County, Wash., Miami-Dade County, Fla., and Hennepin and Ramsey counties in Minnesota.

The DOJ requested to send monitors to the same Minnesota counties during the state's primary in August, but monitors were denied close access to polling locations. A spokesperson for the Minnesota secretary of state's office said it was too soon to know whether a different decision would be made for this fall's general election.

In 2024, Texas similarly blocked the Biden-era DOJ from election monitoring. Ken Paxton, the state attorney general and current Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, went to court then to block monitors from getting inside polling and counting locations.

"The DOJ knows it has no authority to monitor Texas elections and backed down when Texas stood up for the rule of law," Paxton said in a statement on Nov. 5, 2024.

Health officials in California and Washington, facing outbreaks of measles this past spring, asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May to validate a test that can diagnose 500 cases in eight hours.

They did not hear back for two months. Officials from the West Coast Health Alliance — California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii — recounted the experience this week in a letter to Dr. Erica Schwartz, the C.D.C.’s new director, who assumed the position in August, shortly after they got the agency’s reply. According to the letter, obtained by The New York Times, the C.D.C. had told them that it had “other competing priorities” and could not dedicate time to making a high-volume test available to state labs.

The officials urged the C.D.C. to develop and distribute the protocols for such tests for measles and other dangerous pathogens, saying they would enable public health labs across the country to be ready for large outbreaks.

“The availability and speed of diagnostic testing can dramatically mitigate the early stages of an outbreak of infectious disease,” they wrote.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the C.D.C., did not address questions about the agency’s plans for a high-throughput test for measles that can rapidly diagnose large numbers of cases.

Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, said in an emailed statement that the “C.D.C. is ensuring state and local health departments have the support needed to strengthen measles detection and outbreak response. Under Dr. Schwartz’s leadership, the agency is prioritizing emerging technologies to best assist our partners in responding more quickly and effectively.”

Until recently, measles cases were generally rare in the United States and the disease was considered eliminated in the year 2000. As a result, commercial rapid tests for measles — which could provide a quick answer in a doctor’s office or an emergency room — are not currently available in the country.

But the disease has surged drastically in the past two years. Already this year, the C.D.C. has recorded more than 4,400 cases, and Pennsylvania has reported six deaths related to measles.

Given the swelling caseloads, medical experts believe the country needs to step up its ability to diagnose measles rapidly.

“It seems to me that it’s a fairly urgent need,” said Jill Taylor, a former director of the Wadsworth Center, New York State’s public health laboratory.

Measles is typically diagnosed after a clinic sends a sample to a public health laboratory, which relies on experienced staff to run the test. The entire process can take two business days, or up to five in states where labs are particularly short on staff.

During the coronavirus pandemic, most public health labs acquired high-throughput machines, which can significantly cut down the testing and staff time required. Now all they need is a test that has been developed and endorsed by the C.D.C.

But the C.D.C. may not currently have the capacity to evaluate and confirm the reliability of a new test, Dr. Taylor and others noted. The agency has about 30 percent fewer employees now than it did at the start of President Trump’s second term, and its work is tightly controlled by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other political appointees.

The staff are “beaten down” and “don’t have leadership at the moment to help them decide what’s important,” said Dr. Taylor, who was part of a committee convened to assess the C.D.C.’s lab operations.

“I feel so bad for them, but given what’s happening, this ought to be a priority,” she added.

Last year, public health labs in Texas and Utah developed and validated their own tests to cope with measles outbreaks in their states. “All states can design and implement a laboratory-developed test, but having a C.D.C. protocol is always helpful,” said Scott Becker, the chief executive of the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

But some experts disagreed that all public health labs have the capacity to develop their own tests.

“There are many public health labs that could not develop their own but are dependent on getting a kit and getting a fully verified test,” Dr. Taylor said.

The C.D.C. typically takes the lead in developing tests for new pathogens but has not traditionally validated high-throughput ones. But that clearly needs to change, two of the agency’s own officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Top Trump administration officials are starting to point fingers squarely at SpaceX founder Elon Musk for the decision to slow down his company’s Starlink satellite internet services and its military counterpart Starshield for Ukraine, which has been muddled in uncertainty over the culprit.

Looking to deflect the controversial move — which was swiftly admonished by powerful Congressional Republicans and Democrats — Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Ukraine’s access to Starlink was up to Musk and not the White House.

“The bottom line is that that is governed by a private commercial contract as to how their stuff can be used and what speeds they’ll allow it to be used at,” Rubio told reporters while traveling to India.

And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking to reporters a day prior on Tuesday, suggested Starlink’s slowdown was a commercial matter and not a result of any orders from the White House.

“There are terms of service that ultimately need to be complied to, and that’s where Starlink has the option to make those decisions,” Hegseth said.

Taken together, the comments are a change of tune to President Trump’s original assertions last week that neither he nor Musk were responsible for the disruption. Rubio also on Saturday had insisted that no one ordered the slowdown.

The about-face comes after The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Musk had ordered the slowdown of the satellite services, a vital tool Ukraine uses to defend itself from Russian missile and drone attacks.

Trump’s role is unclear. The Journal reported that at least one person claimed Musk and Trump spoke prior to the slowdown. Reuters reported last week that the order to throttle Starlink came from inside the White House, in a directive to the Pentagon. Sources speaking to Reuters did not specify who at the White House made the decision or who was responsible for implementing the order.

“I don’t know who did it but I was not involved,” Trump told reporters Wednesday when asked.

Trump and Musk have experienced periods of fall-out in their relationship but appear on the upswing today. The nadir of their relationship occurred during a major public spat in June 2025, where Musk alleged that files on the disgraced financier and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were kept secret to protect Trump.

But the relationship has rebounded since then. Trump awarded Musk the National Medal of Science earlier this month. And Musk has provided more than $276 million for Republicans in the midterm elections, the New York Times reported.

Outgoing Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) on Wednesday said he doubted Trump had no hand in the slowdown, as he doesn’t believe that Musk “would do this without at least the acquiescence of the White House.”

“I think it’s frankly shameful,” Cornyn said on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “I think we should be supporting the victim, not the aggressor.”

Starlink’s slowdown in Ukraine came after Ukrainian President Voldoymyr Zelensky lashed out at Trump for waiving sanctions on Russia and making a deal to purchase diesel from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelensky called Trump “weak” for making the deal.

Part of Trump’s response to Zelensky was to blame him as the obstacle to peace with Putin.

Republicans holding back blame on Trump for Starlink’s throttling are demanding an investigation and accountability. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and outgoing congressman Don Bacon (R-Neb.) have threatened to block Trump’s agenda during the lame-duck session if answers are not provided.

“This is a very, very serious matter. It cannot be glossed over,” Fitzpatrick told CNN on Tuesday, following the Journal report.

Fitzpatrick said if Musk ordered Starshield’s slowdown, “that is likely a violation of the law.”

“He has decision-making authority over Starlink, the civilian commercial product, but not Starshield, which is a military grade national security tool. No individual civilian should have any decision-making authority over how that’s deployed,” he said.

Adding to the confusion, Rubio, who also serves as national security advisor, has said Ukraine does not have access to Starshield.

“Starshield is a defense product… the United States military uses,” Rubio told reporters last week.

“It’s not at this moment available to Ukraine, and that’s under conversation. It’s under discussion right now of how they would want to use it.”

Zelensky on Tuesday said he discussed with Rubio “the situation with Starlink/Starshield, which needs to be restored,” and called the conversation “constructive,” in a post on the social platform X.

Part of that conversation is whether the U.S. could give Ukraine the ability to hit targets deep inside Russia, in particular missile launchers, in exchange for halting Ukrainian strikes against Russian oil refineries.

Trump has demanded Ukraine halt strikes against Russian energy infrastructure, claiming that they are related to high diesel prices in the U.S. that largely stem from the U.S. war against Iran.

Russia has refused to halt strikes against Ukrainian energy sites, in particular civilian electricity and heating infrastructure. Zelensky’s allies in Congress have backed a proposal for the U.S. to give Ukraine the ability to hit Russian missile launchers in exchange for halting Ukrainian strikes against Russian energy facilities.

“President Trump can lower prices at the pump today by simply agreeing to this deal!” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) wrote in a post on X Sunday. Wicker’s pushback came after Trump announced he would buy Russian diesel to lower prices in the U.S.

Ukraine’s ability to hit Russian launchers would rely on accessing Starlink inside Russia, where it’s currently blocked. A bipartisan group of lawmakers — seven Republicans and 16 Democrats — wrote to Trump on Wednesday urging him to call Musk and give Ukrainians that access.

“With one phone call, you could both save lives and give Vladimir Putin greater incentives to negotiate,” the lawmakers wrote.

“If Ukraine cannot reliably intercept Russian ‘arrows,’ it must be able to shoot the ‘archer.’ The Starlink system run by Mr. Musk’s company SpaceX could help with that.”

Delays resulting from the U.S. Postal Service’s cost-cutting measures have endangered the validity of ballots cast in rural areas, a ProPublica analysis found.

The rates of ballots rejected for arriving late this year doubled or tripled in areas affected by the cuts compared to the 2022 primary. That wasn’t the case elsewhere.

Postal Service leaders say special procedures in place for the Nov. 3 election should prevent similar delays, but experts warn that mistakes are likely.

Attorney General Todd Blanche joined the New York Post’s Miranda Devine on her podcast Wednesday and, in a rant against the Biden administration, made an astonishing concession, arguing that he’s not under the “misperception” of independence.

While the attorney general does serve at the pleasure of the president and is a member of the executive branch, the Justice Department has long operated under guidance distancing itself from the White House and partisan politics.

Blanche made the comments while criticizing Biden-era Attorney General Merrick Garland for his DOJ’s sweeping investigation and prosecution of January 6th rioters.

“The largest investigation in FBI history for really a riot,” Devine added at one point during the discussion.

“And charging misdemeanors, multiple misdemeanors against folks that were just in the area. By the way, it’s one thing to do that. But by choosing to do that and spend all your money, effort, manpower on that incident, you’re not focusing on the violent crime, the fraud, the illegal immigration, the criminals roaming the streets of our cities,” Blanche insisted.

“So it is a resource choice that was made that we’re not making.

“So do you have any handle now being in the job, sitting in, I guess, the office that once was Merrick Garland?” Devine asked.

“Yes,” Blanche added.

“Do you have any insight into why he did it, or was it his deputies, Lisa Monaco, for instance?” Devine asked.

“I think it was both, but I also think it was the White House. So there was this misperception that there’s this separation and independence between the Department of Justice and the White House, and everybody likes to champion that, and they accuse me of not suffering from independence. I don’t. I work for President Trump,” Blanche said, adding:

But they did too. They did too. So this idea that Garland was just on his own, making decisions independent of what the Biden administration wanted him to do is not true.

And by the way, I’m not being critical of that. What I’m being critical of is the lie that he was independent. He wasn’t.

And so the White House wanted him to do exactly what he was doing and he did it. And we have a lot of power. The Department of Justice, the Attorney General, the FBI, DEA, Marshals, ATF, DHS, we have a lot of power.

And so power should be used to, when it comes to my job, to making every community safer than it was the week before. And that’s what I tell every prosecutor I meet with, every agent I meet with. And I’m not sure that that was said during the last administration very often.

The U.S. military has quietly been scaling back its troop presence at bases across the Middle East in recent days, and the State Department is ordering a further reduction in staff at multiple diplomatic posts in the region, according to two U.S. officials and two people familiar with the matter.

The reduction of American forces and diplomatic personnel is similar to drawdowns at bases and embassies that the Defense Department and the State Department initiated around the start of the war with Iran in February, the sources said. They said the moves are in response to ongoing threats in the region, including threats from Iran and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Senior U.S. military officials have been presenting President Donald Trump with options for strikes in Iran. U.S. troops stationed at bases in Jordan have been among those moved, according to one of the U.S. officials and the two people familiar with the matter. The U.S. official said American forces on bases in Qatar and Kuwait also have been included.

On Wednesday, the chiefs of mission at multiple U.S. diplomatic posts in the Middle East were notified that their posts would begin operating with reduced staff, the two U.S. officials said. The State Department also announced Wednesday that the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia is under “ordered departure,” meaning it will operate only with emergency staff.

“Iranian-supported Houthis have increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in civilian casualties and severe travel disruptions,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott wrote on X.

U.S. Central Command spokesperson Timothy Hawkins said in a statement, “We regularly move U.S. service members and assets to optimize mission readiness.”

“We do not discuss related movements for operational security reasons,” Hawkins said. “U.S. forces remain vigilant and ready to protect American personnel and interests across the region.”

A spokesperson for the Pentagon referred to the CENTCOM statement when asked for comment.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the Pentagon’s moving U.S. troops. A spokesperson pointed to the State Department’s statement about the reduction of staff at the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia when asked about changes to diplomatic posts.

Moving American forces further out of harm’s way is part of U.S. military officials’ planning as Trump considers restarting major combat operations in Iran, potentially before or after next month’s midterm elections, one of the U.S. officials and one of the people familiar with the matter said.

The number of U.S. troops at bases in the region for months has been lower than before the start of the war in February, when the Pentagon removed most of them to protect them from Iran’s retaliatory attacks. Some of those displaced troops had since returned to bases in the region, and they could be moved out again as part of the latest withdrawal, said the U.S. official and one of the people familiar with the matter. They said the U.S. plans to leave a small footprint at its bases, including for air defenses and security, as was the case after troops were moved before the war started.

U.S. diplomatic posts in the region have similarly already been operating with limited staff since the war began. As the war dragged on and U.S. diplomatic posts continued to operate with limited staffing, the State Department created a “restricted operations” status for diplomatic posts that is slightly less restrictive on staffing and has slowly become the new normal for many posts in the region.

“The safety and security of Department personnel and their families remain our highest priority, and we will continue to take all necessary steps to protect and support them,” Pigott, the State Department spokesperson, said in his X post.

Trump has been trying to find a way to end the war with Iran, now in its eighth month. He has said the war could be over after the midterm elections on Nov. 3, through either additional force or a negotiated agreement with Iran. The Pentagon has said there are more than 50,000 U.S. troops in the region.

One of the U.S. officials and one of the people familiar with the matter said no final decisions have been made, though Trump has said the U.S. would not launch a new operation in Iran before the midterm elections.

He wrote on Truth Social on Oct. 8 that “we will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd.” Trump said that while Iran is in “very bad condition, both Economically and Militarily,” the U.S. has been having “productive discussions” with it.

Among the military options presented to Trump in recent days and weeks are major strikes against the tunnels or entrances of Iran’s nuclear facilities, such as at Pickaxe Mountain, or against its strategic islands, according to one of the U.S. officials and a former U.S. official with knowledge of the options.

They said some of the options include targeting Kharg Island — which is home to the vast majority of Iran’s oil production, making it an economic lifeline for the country — and Qeshm in the Strait of Hormuz.

Some of Trump’s advisers, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have been privately advocating for a resumption of military operations against Iran, another U.S. official and the former U.S. official said. They said other Trump advisers have raised concerns about restarting major combat operations in Iran without a clearly defined end. Hegseth met Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a proponent of new strikes in Iran, during a visit to the Middle East.

A senior Defense Department official said in a statement, “The department does not comment on the secretary’s private discussions with the president.”

Discussions within the administration have focused on the idea that if the U.S. could push Iran to the brink economically, new military strikes now could push it to negotiate an end to the war and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the U.S. officials said. Adm. Bradley Cooper, the commander of CENTCOM, said in a video released Friday that the U.S. naval blockade has cost Iran $25 billion in crude oil exports.

“The Islamic regime is clearly feeling the economic pain,” Cooper said.

A new operation in Iran could be shorter-term, like the one the U.S. launched in June 2025, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, according to the U.S. official.

Trump has left open the possibility of escalating the war if he were to decide to resume combat operations.

In an interview with Newsmax last week, Trump did not rule out using the so-called Mother of All Bombs, known as the MOAB, against Iranian infrastructure. The MOAB is a massive 21,000-pound explosive that is 30 feet long and generates a mushroom cloud that can stretch 20 miles. It was used during the first Trump administration in an attack against the Islamic State militant group.

“This is just an extremely large bomb. It’s like a tiny nuclear bomb, and — but the mother of all bombs is one big bomb,” Trump said in the interview. “But it’s not nuclear. No, I wouldn’t use nuclear. We don’t have to. We’re the greatest nuclear power in the world.”

Vice President JD Vance told Republicans to “stop whining” about Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s controversial ad featuring his Democratic opponent Amy Acton’s estranged mother.

“Politics is a tough business, and my message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days,” Vance told reporters on Wednesday in Cincinnati.

The Ohio Republican’s ad targeting his Acton exploded across the political landscape on Tuesday, sparking criticism from both sides of the aisle in the final stretch of the battleground gubernatorial race.

Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, who is running for a full term in the Senate after he was appointed to fill Vance’s former seat, said that he “would not have run that ad.”

Ramaswamy’s ad features Acton’s estranged mother calling her daughter a “liar” and urging Ohioans not to vote for her. Acton previously recounted being sexually abused by her mother’s husband as a child, and Acton’s brother said on Tuesday that their “birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died.”

Acton previously said in a 2019 interview with The Youngstown Vindicator that she had not seen her mother since a hearing in the 1978 court case against Acton’s stepfather.

Conservative commentator Meghan McCain said on X that the ad was “dastardly” and “never should have been created.” An aide for Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, deleted his post that shared the video. The aide, Dan Hauser, apologized and said he deleted his post “after researching it, and the disturbing allegations.”

Vance brushed off concerns about the ad, instead criticizing Republicans who condemned it. Speaking to reporters in Ohio on Wednesday, Vance said that “whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern,” adding that he was focused on who would win the elections.

“I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” he said.

He also urged Republicans to “remember some of the ads that have been run against me” and other Republicans.

Vance brought up the ad in an Ohio rally Wednesday afternoon, though he said he “wasn’t even supposed to talk about” the controversy, “but I cannot help myself.”

“Now the media and the Democrats of the state of Ohio are obsessed, because guess what, Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar.”

“My message, ladies and gentlemen, is very simple: Whatever you think about any of the TV advertisements, focus on the substance and focus on the facts,” he said, going on to criticize Acton.

Vance’s and Ramaswamy’s political circles have notable overlaps. NBC News previously reported that several members of Ramaswamy’s campaign previously worked on Vance’s political team.

Ramaswamy’s team is planning a $4 million statewide advertising push around the ad.

Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, responded to the ad on Tuesday, slamming Ramaswamy.

“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Stearns said.

Stearns said that he and his sister were removed from their mother and stepfather’s custody after their stepfather was arrested.

Attempts to reach Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, by phone and email on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

The State Department is aggressively trying to force out its most senior foreign service officers, according to nine current and former staff, who suggested that Trump administration officials are seeking to cast aside veteran personnel who they view as standing in the way of their agenda.

At the same time, the current and former employees said, State is recruiting and promoting new staff who they view as more politically loyal.

“The State Department is trying to get people to quit,” said one current foreign service officer, who was granted anonymity out of fear of retribution.

This effort comes more than a year after the State Department carried out massive layoffs, hollowing out the United States’ international foreign service footprint. Those who have spent decades in the State Department have said the administration’s approach has weakened relationships abroad, and led to deficient leadership internally and less informed foreign policy decisions.

The department has shrunk the number of roles available to senior foreign servants by freezing positions or downgrading them to lower levels, the State Department personnel said.

Many top-ranked career staff have voluntarily headed to the exits as their careers are stalled. Top political staff at the department have directly asked some long-tenured personnel to retire, former employees said. They have reassigned other top career staff into the Administration Bureau, what employees consider to be a “purgatory” where employees’ careers “go to die.”

“A whole lot of senior foreign service have left because there are no jobs for them,” a second current foreign service officer said.

The State Department, like the military, operates an “up-or-out” system, meaning staff could be forced out if they do not get promoted quickly enough.

The State Department laid off more than 1,300 employees last year. Senior foreign service officers were disproportionately targeted in those cuts.

Around 3,500 foreign service employees have left the State Department since President Donald Trump retook office, according to the American Foreign Service Association, and a majority of those were in the senior ranks or one level below. Departing employees who have gone through the mandatory retirement classes this year said their size had grown by orders of magnitude and the department has been forced to hold sessions more often.

Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesperson, said The Washington Sun’s reporting validated the agency’s efforts.

“Those bureaucrats who are complaining to the press prove the point that they shouldn’t have, and can’t be, trusted with sensitive information,” Pigott said.

The department is seeking out politically aligned staff through other means. It has increasingly leaned on the Ben Franklin Fellowship — which a Trump-aligned group of current and former State officials founded in 2024 — to identify individuals to hire and promote, current and former staff said. Individuals aligned with the group are disproportionately in senior roles. Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau is one of the Ben Franklin Fellows.

“There are people who are supportive of what is happening,” said Kelly Adams-Smith, who ended her 28-year foreign service career after the Trump administration withdrew her nomination to serve as ambassador to Moldova. “They are finding, much to their surprise, very senior positions in the department.”

One person said they participated in an interview panel for a senior-level position and were told by someone close to political leadership that the process was just for show and it had been predetermined the job was going to a Ben Franklin Fellow.

Earlier this year, State awarded a $1 million, no-bid contract to a recruitment firm whose CEO has said more Christians should serve in government and hiring at the department had become too “woke.” State also added a “fidelity” section to the performance evaluation process, requiring managers to assess employees’ commitment to “completely aligning oneself and one’s team to the most current [U.S. government] goals.”

Outside the favored circles, the administration has made it more difficult for foreign service officers to climb the ranks. This fall’s bidding cycles — the process through which a large swath of the diplomatic corps find new assignments each year — have left staff with fewer senior positions available than ever before.

Roles that were typically set aside for senior foreign service officers, such as an embassy’s deputy chief of mission, have been downgraded to a lower rank. For the second year in a row, embassies have also received directives to freeze a certain number of positions. Additionally, Trump is setting aside an unusually small number of ambassadorships for career staff — and nearly half of those roles remain vacant.

“It’s like musical chairs but taking chairs away faster so people wind up with nowhere to go,” said a State employee who recently left the department.

Even senior employees willing to serve in lower positions have been told they would not be selected for those roles, employees said.

The State Department confirmed that it was not prioritizing years of service for senior jobs.

The policy changes, political pressure and a wave of resignations are having a significant impact on U.S. diplomacy, the current and former staff said.

Employees now feel reluctant to offer their views on key matters, something staff described as historically fundamental to the nation’s diplomatic success. Doing so could endanger their chances of promotion or risk other efforts to sideline their careers, they said.

“People are afraid to speak out, to voice their opinions even if they believe their opinions need to be heard,” said one foreign service officer who recently left the department.

Newer employees with less experience and fewer relationships abroad are in critical positions, both because of who the Trump administration is selecting and more junior workers are less likely to feel financially secure enough to step down.

“Someone who can retire or is more economically secure is more likely to tell the emperor that the emperor has no clothes,” one of the recently departed foreign service officers said. “Junior people are more likely to just say yes.”

That will lead to less informed foreign policy decisions, the person said.

“Good policy depends on good information,” the former employee said. “If you’re not getting the good information because people are afraid to share, then you are likely to have bad policy.”

Adams-Smith noted that when experienced diplomats leave the department, the agency also loses their “networks of contacts” abroad.

She had planned to continue serving at State, but reversed course after she realized the administration was “not interested in expert advice.”

“There was no place for me and it was clear my expertise was not going to be valued or welcome,” Adams-Smith said. “With the way they were handling things, it was clear it was time to go.”

Pigott, the department spokesperson, said State is willing to hear advice from “patriotic Americans.”

“Secretary [Marco] Rubio values candid insights from patriotic Americans who have chosen to serve their country,” he said. “What we will not tolerate is people using their positions to actively undermine the duly elected president’s objectives.”

Another recently retired foreign service officer said that replacing long-tenured staff with greener employees will lead to a “10-year gap where you don’t have seasoned expertise in bilateral, multilateral and interagency contexts. That will be detrimental to American interests.”

A diplomat who recently left the department said the administration’s approach could soon lead to a crisis.

“Honest advice is not being rendered,” the former employee said. “At some point, god forbid, something is going to come back and bite them, and maybe all of us, in the behind.”

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to clear the way for work to continue on a more than 500-mile stretch of the border security project in and around a major national park in Texas.

The appeal came after a federal judge in Texas halted work this month following a challenge by an environmental group, preservationists, a river guide and landowner, who said it would harm wildlife, deprive people of property, upset livelihoods and block access to the Rio Grande.

The $1.7 billion project, which has generated considerable backlash, includes a road, as well as cameras, sensors and vehicle barriers. U.S. Customs and Border Protection does not plan to erect a 30-foot high fence like those that have been built along other parts of the border.

The Trump administration wrote in its filing with the high court the injunction caused a “disruption of the government’s ability to secure a quarter of the southern border against cartel incursions, drug trafficking, and illegal entry ... and irreversible delays, costs, and operational harms from halting already-begun construction.”

Big Bend National Park consists of more than 800,000 acres of protected lands along the border with Mexico that is home to threatened animal species and features archaeological sites and iconic scenery.

The plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in April, claiming the Trump administration had violated the Constitution by waiving dozens of laws to fast-track construction through the rugged, sparsely populated land that cuts across seven counties.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone ruled the administration must comply with all applicable laws before construction can resume.

“As Plaintiffs have demonstrated, without an injunction, they and the public at large stand to permanently lose protected wilderness that benefits tourism, recreation, farming, ranching, spirituality, aesthetic sensibilities and education,” Cardone wrote in her opinion issued Oct. 14.

Earlier this year, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem found the administration did not have to comply with dozens of mostly environmental laws because there was “an acute and immediate need” to expedite the project to combat the illegal entry of migrants and drug trafficking.

Congress granted the Department of Homeland Security authority to waive any laws necessary “to ensure expeditious construction” of the border wall and associated roads in the 2005 Real ID Act.

The administration said more than 89,000 people were apprehended trying to enter the United States in the area known as the Big Bend sector between 2021 and 2025. Roughly 15 percent of drugs seized along the border in recent years were recovered in the sector.

“Plaintiffs’ environmental, recreational, and aesthetic interests do not outweigh the harm to the public,” the government wrote in court filings.

But the plaintiffs questioned whether it was necessary to speed construction.

They pointed out the stretch had by far the least number of apprehensions of any of the six sectors along the southern border — adding up to about 2 percent of total apprehensions or fewer each year. The drug seizures in the area account for less than 1 percent of all non-marijuana drugs.

The Trump administration began work on the Big Bend section in mid-August, clearing the way for the road that will eventually run the length of the park.

It announced a temporary pause of that work after the suit was filed.

The section of the border project in and near Big Bend National Park has been one of the most controversial in the president’s plan to install a nearly complete barrier along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico. It has drawn opposition from a bipartisan group of lawmakers, environmental groups and others.

The plaintiffs said it will cause irreparable harm to sensitive wildlife habitats, block livestock access to the Rio Grande and prevent river guides from leading tours, as well as disturb historic sites.

“If allowed to continue, additional vegetation will be removed, habitat will be fragmented, cultural and historic resources may be disturbed, and the character of the Big Bend landscape will be permanently altered,” the plaintiffs wrote in their motion for a preliminary injunction.

President Trump called Elon Musk and asked him to lift restrictions on a military-grade version of Starlink in Ukraine that the SpaceX chief had throttled, U.S. officials said.

The system was working more normally Thursday, shortly after their conversation, U.S. and Ukrainian officials said. Some Ukrainian officials said the system wasn’t restored to full functionality but was working at higher speeds than under the cap.

Trump told Musk said he was frustrated the system’s speeds remained capped at around 100 miles per hour, officials said. The speed limit rendered some of Ukraine’s offensive drones and interceptors powerless against Russian attacks. Their conversation followed a Wall Street Journal report revealing that Musk ordered the slowdown, though SpaceX and the White House have differing accounts about whether the world’s richest man acted alone or at the administration’s behest.

Trump has told aides and allies this week that he wanted to reverse the slowdown of Starlink, which Ukraine’s forces use to defend themselves along the frontline, the officials said.

“Removal of the throttle limit will do much to enable Ukraine’s strike capabilities at operational depths and its current effort to scale up deployment of jet powered interceptors,” said Michael Kofman, an expert on the war at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kofman added that he had heard from Ukrainian military units that early tests suggest the system is now working more regularly.

The White House referred the Journal to Trump’s recent denials that he had asked Musk to throttle Starlink’s speeds or knew who issued the order. Trump and Musk spoke about Ukraine and Starlink on the day the slowdown became public, the Journal previously reported.

Federal agents have been spotted outside polling locations in two Florida counties this week during early voting, a presence that local election officials say is intimidating and illegal.

Mark Earley, the supervisor of elections in Leon County, said Monday that two Customs and Border Protection vehicles were parked outside the county’s busiest early voting site in Tallahassee for about 10 minutes.

“I have lodged a formal complaint with the FBI, and to their credit, they are taking this seriously,” Earley said in a statement. “Voters should never experience intimidation from anyone when they are voting, and that includes being intimidated by law enforcement or any other governmental officials.”

In Monroe County, masked federal agents were seen conducting an arrest at an intersection near a polling place. Florida’s Local 10 news reported that the location was clearly near an early voting site in Key Largo, with signs that read “Go Vote” and “Vote Here” around the area.

The county’s supervisor of elections, Sherri Hodies, says it violates the law.

“I’m not happy about it. Frankly, I was stunned about it,” Hodie told Local 10 News. “It’s hard to take these phone calls from voters who are frightened. Their voices are shaking.”

Hodie added that she reached out to Customs and Border Protection after the arrest and informed them of all the early voting sites in the county, urging them to conduct business a distance away from those places.

Federal law prohibits federal agents from being present at polling places. But the lead-up to this year’s midterm elections has been rife with concerns from lawmakers and election officials about whether the Trump administration will follow that law or find ways around it.

At Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation hearing in March, Mullin refused to rule out that agents would stay away from the sites entirely.

“The only reason why my officers would be there is if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation,” he said.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to sit for a deposition in his defamation lawsuit against the BBC by Dec. 11.

The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett came as BBC’s lawyers complained that Trump had delayed his appearance. Attorney Charles Tobin said that with two months left in the discovery period, “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff.”

He noted there was an agreed-upon date of Oct. 16, but that the Republican president canceled it for a “matter of national importance.” Tobin he said Trump was in fact campaigning in Georgia.

“He was participating in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition,” Tobin said.

Lett said Trump must sit for a deposition by Dec. 11, or face sanctions up to dismissal of his lawsuit -– unless the discovery period was extended past Dec. 18.

The Trump administration has approved wind projects in Maine and South Dakota in an attempt to ease resistance among Senate Democrats to advancing a bipartisan permitting reform bill that could prove essential to President Donald Trump’s ambitions for energy and artificial intelligence.

A White House official confirmed to the Washington Examiner on Thursday morning that the Department of War had cleared its “first tranche of wind projects” that were still under review. The administration’s efforts to stall wind projects had led key Democratic negotiators to withhold support for the infrastructure bill.

“The Trump administration is removing all barriers clearing the way for the Senate’s permitting reform bill to pass,” the official said.

The projects in Maine and South Dakota were advanced earlier Thursday after officials determined that they pose no national security concerns.

“More are expected in the coming days/weeks after all the proper reviews have been completed,” the White House official continued, adding that the Pentagon will be evaluating each wind project on a “case-by-case basis.”

The Pentagon has come under fire over the last few months for stalling military reviews of proposed onshore wind farms since April. These reviews have long been considered routine and are conducted to determine that new turbines do not interfere with military operations, local radar, or flight paths.

In August, a federal judge ruled in favor of a group of renewable energy groups that claimed the department was unlawfully delaying dozens of wind projects, costing states $47 billion by freezing its review of onshore wind projects.

While still court-ordered, advancing the Maine and South Dakota projects could be viewed as a sign of good faith for Democrats worried about whether the administration will fairly implement permitting reform not just for fossil fuel projects favored by the president but also for renewable energy projects.

Earlier in the week, key negotiator Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-NY) indicated that the administration could be threatening the legislative deal struck last month, as the Department of Justice sought to remand permits of several offshore wind farms.

“This is how you blow up a permitting deal,” he told Politico.

Despite concerns from Democrats, the Trump administration has continued to support the bipartisan permitting deal publicly, with a White House official saying there is “NOTHING left to do but vote.”

“The Administration has done EVERTHING it has promised to do,” the official added. “If this deal does not pass, it is ENTIRELY on the Democrats own internal fights and finger-pointing.”