News & Current Events

The Supreme Court has not yet acted on the Postal Service's September 6 application to stay a preliminary injunction blocking mandatory enforcement of the USPS Final Rule for mail ballots in elections on or before November 3, 2026. The First Circuit denied the government's emergency stay motions on September 10, leaving the injunction in place while states including North Carolina and Alabama have already begun mailing ballots. State election officials have identified September 19 as a key federal UOCAVA deadline, and state assessments of whether the rule's portal-based barcode requirements are even feasible before November range from possible to virtually impossible.

An AP review of 102 felony assault cases against federal officers stemming from immigration protests found 41 percent dismissed and 34 percent reduced to misdemeanors, with all 12 cases that went to trial ending in acquittal, mistrial, or dismissal. In Chicago, all but one of 19 felony assault cases were dismissed, while in Los Angeles at least 18 of 97 filed cases were dismissed and two ended in acquittal. The DOJ attributed some dismissals to mitigating factors discovered after charges were filed, but the available data across multiple reviews uses different dates and denominators, preventing a single consolidated outcome calculation.

Myanmar's military-backed government has officially denounced Kyaw Moe Tun and nominated a replacement ahead of the UN General Assembly's 81st-session Credentials Committee review, but no committee decision has been made and Kyaw Moe Tun remains provisionally seated. The General Assembly has deferred the Myanmar credentials question across at least four prior sessions since the 2021 coup, leaving the disputed representation unresolved each time. The committee's composition, voting thresholds, and member positions on the current challenge remain publicly unconfirmed.