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>For example, the way the system is designed, if even one barcode on one ballot in a bulk mailing of 10,000 ballots failed to properly scan during the verification process, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state, effectively stopping the ballots from being mailed to voters and depriving them of their vote.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/whistleblower-usps-systems-mail-ballots-flawed-rcna595361

An anonymous federal official warned in a whistleblower complaint this week that the technical system the U.S. Postal Service built for mail voting is flawed, untested and likely to cause major disruptions in this fall’s midterm elections if it is implemented.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March that directed his administration to create federal lists of citizens and asked the Postal Service to transmit mail ballots to only those people. A federal judge has blocked the order from going into effect amid ongoing litigation over its constitutionality; the whistleblower complaint highlights potential issues that could arise if the courts ultimately declare it lawful.

The USPS typically is responsible only for transporting mail ballots between election officials and voters, and the federal government has never kept a central list of all American citizens. Trump ordered the agency to take on an unprecedented and complex role in the process this year amid a broader attempt to exert greater control over the country’s elections and his continued unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.

The technical system the USPS assembled to vet voters was developed in a “rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process,” according to a whistleblower complaint sent to the office of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Blumenthal sent the complaint to Postmaster General David Steiner on Monday asking for more information.

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A federal judge lit into the Department of Health and Human Services, headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for using either AI or fake studies to defend the Trump administration’s decision to fund only abstinence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs.

“While abstinence-only education may well be appropriate for some age groups or communities, the agency has offered no explanation or evidence to support its across-the-board mandate that only abstinence strategies be pursued,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote in his opinion. “On the topic of body literacy, the notices (remarkably) reference public health studies that appear either not to exist or not to support the propositions for which they are cited—a hallmark of AI-generated citations.”

Cooper issued a preliminary injunction, pausing an order that has already led to millions of dollars in grant cuts.

“The Court concludes that the Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on their arbitrary and capricious claim, combined with the severity and irremediable harm to their programming and the balance of equities in their favor, justify the issuance of a preliminary injunction in this case,” he wrote.

>https://newrepublic.com/post/215001/judge-rfk-jr-hhs-fake-ai-studies-teen-pregnancy

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/donkey-shot-killed-polk-county-cedartown-police-officer-leave

POLK COUNTY, Ga. - A Cedartown police officer has been placed on administrative leave after a donkey was fatally shot in Polk County on Sunday.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/general-motors-plans-c1-1-billion-canada-auto-investment-amid-us-tariff-pressure/articleshow/133622239.cms

General Motors plans to assemble a heavy-duty pickup at an Ontario plant as part of a tentative deal with a key union that would pump C$1.1 billion ($791.31 million) into Canada's auto sector as it reels from U.S. tariffs, a union bargaining report said on Saturday.

The investment comes as Canada's auto sector grapples with 25% U.S. tariffs on vehicles, with President Donald Trump pledging to double them to 50% on January 1, 2027. The fate of Canadian auto plants has emerged as a central issue in stalled U.S.-Canada trade negotiations.

The deal is contingent on approval from workers who are voting on Saturday and Sunday. Both Unifor and GM's Canadian division declined comment during the vote.

The C$1.1 billion investment includes a C$691 million commitment to support production of new V8 engines in Ontario that was previously announced in April, the report said.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has clashed with Ontario Premier Doug Ford in recent days, has also said he will increase tariffs on all Canadian cars and trucks, automotive parts and steel to 50% starting January 1, 2027.

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Pentagon secretly installs military influencers in civilian roles
Conservative veterans with large social media followings have been hired by the Defense Department and are amplifying Pete Hegseth’s culture-war fights.
6 minutes ago.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/08/30/pentagon-secretly-installs-military-influencers-civilian-roles/

By Dan Lamothe and Tara Copp
The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and corroborating material.
At least some of the influencers have been assigned to civilian roles that could lead to changes in policy, the people familiar with the matter said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Neither the Pentagon nor those involved have disclosed the government roles despite the Trump administration’s claims that they are running the most transparent Defense Department ever.
Those involved include Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel, and Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel, people familiar with the matter said. Pentagon records reviewed by The Washington Post show that both have active official government email addresses as of this past week and are assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. The email addresses include a “.civ” suffix, meaning they are labeled as civilian employees, rather than as military personnel or contractors.
Both served for decades in uniform and, since retiring, have turned from the military to conservative commentary. Maness has more than 135,000 followers on X, while Schlicter has nearly 620,000.

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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/far-right-british-provocateur-milo-yiannopoulos-has-been-deported-after-ice-arrest_n_6a931256e4b0b47f3d0c5751

Yiannopoulos is a well-known champion of conservative causes and has frequently taken provocative public positions criticizing feminism, Islam and immigrants. He has been especially supportive of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“Zero immigration for the next 20 years. No ifs, no buts,” Yiannopoulos wrote on X last year.

Yiannopoulos rose to fame in the early 2010s as an incendiary writer for the conservative website Breitbart News. He resigned from the company in 2017 after a video of him endorsing pedophilia resurfaced online.

>The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of a possession charge against a Wisconsin man with hundreds of AI-generated images
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/appeals-court-delivers-unsettling-ruling-supreme-court-left-no-choice

>A federal appeals court says decades-old Supreme Court precedent forced it to protect the in-home possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse material, as judges warned that rapidly advancing technology has complicated legal lines drawn nearly 25 years ago.

>The ruling exposes a widening gap between Supreme Court precedent and rapidly advancing artificial intelligence. The Seventh Circuit said it was bound by a 2002 Supreme Court decision that rejected restrictions on sexually explicit depictions of fictional children when no actual child was involved in their creation. But two judges warned that modern AI can now generate images virtually indistinguishable from material depicting the abuse of real children.

>"Indeed, in Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court addressed the scope of First Amendment protections for virtual CSAM, but that was nearly twenty-five years ago, and the image-generation technology available today was likely unimaginable back then," Judge John Lee wrote. "Given the relentless advancement in artificial intelligence models, we have some concerns about the lines these cases draw, but we are not free to redraw them ourselves."

>The Seventh Circuit affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of one of four charges against Steven Anderegg, who investigators said had hundreds of AI-generated sexually explicit images depicting children on devices seized from his Wisconsin home.

>Anderegg was charged with producing and distributing the AI-generated material, transferring it to a minor under 16, and possessing it. A federal district court dismissed only the possession charge on First Amendment grounds, leaving the other three charges intact.

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/milo-yiannopoulos-ice-custody-agency-records/

Washington — Far-right political commentator and deportation advocate Milo Yiannopoulos is currently in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody facing a final order of removal, according to U.S. officials and agency records.

Yiannopoulos, who is British, was apprehended in the New Orleans area and is being held in a Louisiana ICE holding facility, the U.S. officials said.

Reports indicate Yiannopoulos was in New Orleans ahead of a concert where the artist formerly known as Kanye West was scheduled to perform Friday night. TMZ first reported Yiannopoulos' status.

CBS News has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE for additional details and the basis for his apprehension.

Yiannopoulos has done work for the political and corporate ambitions of West, who's now known as Ye.

Yiannopoulos, a poster of racist rhetoric, has been a supporter of ICE's immigration enforcement in the past.

"California needs ICE checkpoints at supermarket entrances, gas stations, strip malls, intersections and government buildings, with on the spot deportation for anyone who can't prove they are in the US legally," he posted on social media in June 2025.

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https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/6057732-trump-criminal-conviction-removal-federal-court-denied/

A federal judge on Friday rejected President Trump’s latest bid to fight his criminal conviction outside of New York’s state courts, a strategy aimed at citing presidential immunity, under which Trump could potentially toss charges that stem from a 2016 hush money payment in the trash can.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein has denied Trump’s attempts to move to federal court three times. An appeals panel had directed Hellerstein to take another look, saying he brushed aside the president’s arguments too easily.

Hellerstein on Friday reaffirmed that Trump was too late and that the verdict withstands presidential immunity anyway.

“The grounds for a second removal cited by Defendant, Donald J. Trump, are neither new nor legally sufficient. He has failed to show good cause and diligence,” the judge wrote.

Trump quickly asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Friday’s decision.

Hellerstein is an appointee of former President Clinton who serves on the federal bench in Manhattan.

Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged affair.

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https://www.wmtw.com/article/dolly-stella-parton-sister-remembers-country-legend/73553442

PORTLAND, Maine —

A man was shot and killed by Portland police Thursday night after authorities said he threatened workers with a gun, stole vehicles at gunpoint and led officers on a pursuit that ended at the Casco Bay Lines terminal.

Portland police identified the man as 37-year-old Jacob Hastings.

Maine's Total Coverage and 8 Investigates have confirmed that Hastings had a long criminal history and, at least at one time, was a member of the white supremacy group Aryan Nations.

Hastings' criminal history shows a record dating back to 2006 in numerous jurisdictions, with convictions for robbery, probation violation, aggravated assault, reckless conduct, burglary, theft by unauthorized use, aggravated criminal mischief, unlawful sexual contact, assault, escape, theft by deception with priors, refusal to submit to arrest or detention and failure to comply to the sex offender registry.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-space-academy-nasa-military-rcna594870
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-signs-order-creating-new-space-academy-akin-west-point-location-determined

President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order to create a new military academy — the U.S. Space Academy — to train people for the U.S. Space Force, NASA and the civilian space industry.

Speaking at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Trump said “the rapid growth of the Space Force and the commercial space industry and the expansion of our ambitions to the moon and far beyond the moon” inspired the new academy.

“It’s clear that we need to educate and train an entire generation of skilled service members, engineers, civil operators and everything else to do what we have to do,” he added.

Later in the day, Trump made history by becoming the first president to call U.S. astronauts on the International Space Station from the NASA facility’s Mission Control Center. He also awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the crewmembers of NASA’s Artemis II mission, who flew around the moon earlier this year.

“I just congratulate everybody. And be careful. Be safe. And we love you all,” the president told the astronauts aboard the space station, telling them about the new service academy.

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A lawsuit filed this month alleges that there’s a simple reason some stations in the Freedom Fuel Network — the chain of discount gas stations promoted by the White House — have been able to sell gas so cheaply: Some $4 million worth of the gas is stolen.

KRSM, the business named in the suit, denies this accusation.

Freedom Fuel stations located around Philadelphia and New Jersey burst into public view in the run-up to the July Fourth holiday, when President Donald Trump posted praise for their discounted pump prices, writing “They are doing this because they love the U.S.A.” The White House later posted a video of drivers filling up at one of the stations and thanking Trump for the low prices — at the time, $3.47 a gallon in honor of the 47th president, though they’ve since crept up.

Neither the White House nor the network’s owners would explain exactly how the stations were able to sell fuel far cheaper than their competitors. The White House told reporters that Freedom Fuel was simply a private company lowering its margins for patriotic reasons and declined to disclose the people behind it — who turned out to be a former New Jersey mayor and NFL special teams coach for the Baltimore Ravens, a GOP donor.

>https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/28/lawsuit-freedom-fuel-gas-stations-trump-01055248

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Thread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK-PEGCkT6Y

https://apnews.com/article/lake-ontario-canada-america-trump-trade-war-3ac58dca0ca83c15605d4dbff146b28a

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he is renaming Lake Ontario to be known as “Lake America” in the United States as he escalates his trade war with Canada.

The Republican president signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service. Trump cannot force Canada to follow his preferred naming convention, however.

Trump has been floating the idea of the name change in recent days as the U.S. announced it was imposing 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down. Trump has been needling America’s northern neighbor since he returned to the White House last year, suggesting the ally with whom the U.S. once had warm relations should instead be absorbed as the 51st state.

Canada responded to Trump’s import taxes this week by imposing retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.

Trump, who signed the order as he was sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, had a large sign behind him propped on a stand with a map of the Great Lakes. Over Lake Ontario, in big red letters, the map read “Lake America.”

On the other side of the president was another map with the words, “MAKING THE GREAT LAKES EVEN GREATER.”

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Buc-ee’s forbids staff from sporting ‘visible tattoos’ in a nationwide ban
https://nypost.com/2026/08/26/lifestyle/buc-ees-forbids-staff-from-showing-visible-tattoos/

Buc-ee’s just inked a controversial new rule.

Famous for the “cleanest restrooms in America” and its red-capped, beaver mascot, the mega-sized convenience hub has taken issue with body art.

The cult-favorite convenience chain shared via its website that employees nationwide are forbidden from sporting “visible tattoos” at work.

In addition to the tat ban, Buc-ee’s will not abide body piercings, tongue posts, “unnatural colored hair,” open-toe shoes, or torn or faded clothing.

Uniform requirements include “tan/khaki/black pants and a clean, professional, solid red shirt with a collar.”

In cooler weather, the chain graciously permits employees to wear a red sweater or coat.


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https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/27/judge-blocks-trumps-mail-in-voting-plan-again-01053826

The Trump administration’s bid to overhaul mail-in voting ahead of the midterms is on hold once again.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled late Thursday that the administration’s plan to use the Postal Service to limit mail-in voting would impose onerous new requirements on states without enough time to implement them — potentially disenfranchising large numbers of voters.

The Massachusetts-based Obama appointee barred the Postal Service from continuing to implement its plan for at least the next two weeks, calling it “a likely unconstitutional regulation for which compliance is practically impossible as to the 2026 midterm elections, now little more than two months away.”

The Trump administration is certain to appeal Talwani’s decision. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court swept aside an earlier lawsuit aimed at blocking the Postal Service plan, concluding that it had been filed prematurely — in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump — and didn’t give the administration a chance to attempt to implement it.