August 6, 2026
A judge ends the last January 6 prosecution under protest, calling the dismissal an epilogue that excuses what that day did to the peaceful transfer of power.
A judge dismisses the final January 6 case and rebukes the department that made him do it1
On August 4, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta granted the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the seditious-conspiracy case against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and his co-defendants, ending the last active January 6 prosecution.1 Rhodes had been sentenced to 18 years; the defendants walked free in January 2025 when President Trump commuted their sentences, and the department then moved to erase the case itself.2 Mehta wrote that he lacked the authority to refuse and dismissed under protest, calling the order an "epilogue" that "diminishes the gravity of that day" and "excuses criminal acts" that made the peaceful transfer of power "buckle."1 The prosecution that a jury had already resolved ended not on the evidence but on the government's decision to stop pressing it.3
- Stage
- Dismissed Aug. 4, 2026 on the government's motion
- Question
- Whether the court could refuse the Justice Department's own motion to dismiss
- Stakes
- The last live January 6 prosecution; the seditious-conspiracy sentences were already commuted
HHS plans to move a $150 million migrant-children legal contract to a firm with almost no immigration lawyers4
The Department of Health and Human Services filed notice that it intends to award Houston's Burke Law Group a $150 million contract to provide "attorney-of-record representation services for eligible unaccompanied alien children" in federal custody, for the year beginning August 15.4 The firm is led by Marcella Burke, a former Trump-administration EPA deputy general counsel. NOTUS found no staff attorney who lists immigration as a specialty, while NPR reports the firm has two.56 It replaces the Acacia Center for Justice, whose expired contract covered more than 20,000 children through a hundred-plus subcontractors.5 The practical result is that representation for children who cannot represent themselves now rests with a firm that has almost never done the work.6
Texas halts new data-center grid hookups until it audits a queue five times its record peak7
On August 3, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered Texas grid regulators to audit every data-center project waiting to connect and to pause new connections until that audit is done, requiring developers to disclose their tax incentives, on-site generation, water use, and ownership or be denied the grid.7 The interconnection queue now holds more than 474 gigawatts of requests, about five times the grid's record peak demand, and roughly 90 percent of it is data centers.78 A queue that large is mostly speculative, so the pause is the state admitting it cannot yet tell real load from a placeholder before it builds generation to serve either.9
El-Sayed wins Michigan's Democratic Senate primary after being outspent nearly nine to one10
Abdul El-Sayed won the August 4 Democratic primary for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat, the Associated Press projected, defeating Rep. Haley Stevens.10 He advances to face Republican Mike Rogers, who ran unopposed, for the seat Gary Peters is leaving.11 The AP count is unofficial, pending the state canvass. It had El-Sayed at 742,017 votes, Stevens at 727,091, and Mallory McMorrow at 61,344, with 86 percent of precincts reporting.10 Separately, some $65 million in outside money backed Stevens, more than $30 million of it from a group tied to AIPAC, and she and her allies outspent El-Sayed on advertising by nearly nine to one.11 That advantage did not prevent a loss of about one point.1011
About one in three veteran Appalachian miners now has black lung, the worst rate since 197812
A NIOSH research letter published August 4 screened 280 veteran underground coal miners in central Appalachia, each with 25 or more years underground. Of them, 91 tested positive for black lung on chest X-ray, a rate of 32.5 percent. That is up from 20.6 percent in 2018 and the highest since 1978.12 Lead author Scott Laney tied the trend to worker protections that never took hold, including a 2024 rule to cut miners' silica exposure that remains stalled; more than 1,700 miners died of the disease from 2020 through 2023.13 Black lung is a lagging record of dust already breathed, so the rate climbs from exposure long since absorbed no matter what any rule does now.13
Sources
- CourtListener · United States v. Rhodes III, federal criminal docket and dismissal order
- NPR · Judge reluctantly dismisses case against Oath Keepers over Jan. 6 riot
- CNN · Judge reluctantly dismisses the last January 6 case
- Federal Register · HHS/ORR notice of intent to award unaccompanied-children legal-services contract
- NOTUS · HHS taps Burke Law Group to represent unaccompanied children
- NPR · $150 million contract to represent migrant children awarded to Texas law firm
- Office of the Texas Governor · Abbott directs comprehensive data-center audit
- Houston Public Media · Abbott pauses new data centers pending ERCOT/PUCT audit
- The Texas Tribune · Abbott orders audit of Texas data-center projects
- ClickOnDetroit (WDIV) · Associated Press results — El-Sayed wins 2026 Michigan U.S. Senate Democratic primary
- NBC News · El-Sayed wins Michigan's Democratic Senate primary
- American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine · Coal Workers' Pneumoconiosis in the United States 1974–2025
- NPR · Appalachia's black lung rates highest in nearly 50 years as protections stall