Current Events · 2026-08-14

Voting rights

The Solicitor General asks the Court to stay both mail-voting injunctions at once¹

Solicitor General D. John Sauer has asked the Supreme Court since July 27 to stay a permanent injunction against President Trump's mail-voting executive order.¹ He told the Court on August 12 that a new, nationwide ruling issued the day before “confirms the urgent need” for that stay.¹ The order, Executive Order 14399, directs the Postal Service to build a voter list and refuse mail ballots to anyone not on it.¹ A June 25 ruling, which Sauer's filing calls “the permanent injunction in this case,” already blocks that directive, but only in the 23 states and D.C. that sued.¹ On August 11, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani granted a second, preliminary injunction extending the bar to all 50 states through the November 3 election.² NPR reported that Talwani found the federal government had, in every court where the order was challenged, “declined to defend the constitutionality of the EO's directives.”² Sauer's supplemental brief argues both rulings share the same flaw: a challenge to an order that “merely instructs agencies to pursue a proposed policy.”¹ It asks the Court to make clear that a stay of the permanent injunction should also require the district court or the First Circuit to stay the new one.¹ Absent that, Sauer warned, “the district court's erroneous orders will effectively run out the clock” on using Section 3 in November.¹ Twelve states joined the stay request; 23 states and D.C. are defending the injunctions.³

Prisons

DOJ finds two California women's prisons violate the Constitution⁴

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced on August 13 that it has “reasonable cause to believe” the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments at two women's prisons.⁴ The facilities are the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla and the California Institution for Women in Chino.⁴ Investigators found “a longstanding pattern of sustained staff sexual misconduct, inadequate safeguards, failures in confidential reporting, improper investigative practices, and insufficient accountability measures,” and found both facilities fail to meet the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.⁴ The finding is the Department's own conclusion, not a court's.⁴ It gives California 49 days to expand camera coverage, strengthen reporting and investigations, and retrain staff before the Attorney General can sue under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act.⁴ The investigation ran nearly two years, since September 2024, and the state corrections department had not responded to the finding as of Thursday.⁵ “This deliberate indifference to the suffering of female prisoners at the hands of prison staff is illegal,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Civil Rights Division.⁴

Higher education

Harvard wins dismissal of the government's antisemitism lawsuit⁶

U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns dismissed the federal government's Title VI lawsuit against Harvard on August 13, ruling that the antisemitism incidents the Justice Department cited were “too isolated and episodic” to show the university remains out of compliance.⁶ The government sued in March 2026, accusing Harvard of deliberate indifference to harassment of Jewish and Israeli students after October 7, 2023.⁷ It sought to cut off future federal funding and claw back nearly $1 billion already issued, according to NPR.⁷ Stearns found the government's complaint rested almost entirely on the 2023-24 school year, with only three incidents alleged from March 2025, nearly a year after the rest and still more than a year before the suit was filed.⁶ He also rejected the government's fallback argument that it could recover funds tied to the earlier incidents regardless of whether the violations continue.⁶ Title VI's enforcement statute only allows a suit once the government has determined “that compliance cannot be secured by voluntary means,” and its own June 2025 notice to Harvard made no such determination.⁶ The dismissal is on the pleadings; it does not rule on whether antisemitism occurred at Harvard.⁶ “We disagree with the ruling and are assessing next steps,” said Dhillon.⁷

Yemen strikes

The Pentagon's own Yemen count contradicts itself on one strike⁸

The Pentagon's own tally puts 2025's civilian toll from U.S. military operations worldwide at 153 killed and 243 injured, all of them from three airstrikes in Yemen.⁸ The report was submitted under a law requiring annual disclosure to Congress.⁸ It found each of the three strikes “more likely than not” caused civilian harm, relying on intelligence and open-source review rather than the site visits or witness interviews the Pentagon said the area's “contested nature” ruled out.⁸ Airwars, an independent monitor, put the same campaign's toll at “at least 258,” more than 100 higher than the Pentagon's count.⁹ The report acknowledges the gap only in general terms, attributing it to unspecified “different types of information and methodologies.”⁸ The report's own account of one strike does not agree with itself: its table for the April 28 attack on Saada lists 68 killed and 47 injured, but the prose describing the same strike states the reverse.⁸ The table is the version that adds up: 5 in Sanaa, 80 at the Ras Isa port, and 68 in Saada sum to the report's own stated total of 153.⁸ That also matches the toll Stars and Stripes reported independently, so it is the number to use.¹⁰ Fifteen more Yemen incidents remained under review when the report was submitted, and the Pentagon deemed ex gratia payments “not appropriate” for all three confirmed strikes.⁸

The Pentagon's own table for its three assessed Yemen strikes, which sums to its stated 2025 total.⁸
Strike	Killed	Injured
Sanaa, Apr. 6	5	25
Ras Isa port, Apr. 17	80	171
Saada, Apr. 28	68	47
Total	153	243

Inflation

Consumer prices turn back up in July after June's drop¹¹

Consumer prices rose 0.1 percent in July after falling 0.4 percent in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said August 12, putting annual inflation at 3.4 percent, down a tenth of a point from June.¹¹ Core prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 0.2 percent on the month and 2.5 percent over the year.¹¹ Shelter rose 0.1 percent monthly and 3.2 percent annually, accounting for roughly two-thirds of July's increase.¹¹ Energy fell 1.5 percent on the month but is up 14.7 percent over the year.¹¹ NBC News tied the annual jump to the war with Iran, which has pushed Brent crude toward $90 a barrel.¹² Real average hourly earnings (wages adjusted for inflation) fell 0.2 percent over the same 12 months even though nominal wages grew 3.2 percent.¹² Navy Federal Credit Union chief economist Heather Long said that has “erased wage gains for four months.”¹² Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack said “now is the time to act” on rates; Truist economist Mike Skordeles expects the Fed to “remain on hold in the near term” until the August jobs and inflation reports arrive ahead of its mid-September meeting.¹²

+0.1%July prices, month over month

+3.4%July prices, over 12 months

+2.5%Core prices, over 12 months

Navy

Blumenthal presses the Navy on the Lincoln's 250-day deployment¹³

Sen. Richard Blumenthal wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao on August 12, demanding an accounting of conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which by then had been at sea more than 250 days and gone over 200 days without a port call.¹³ Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, cited “widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns, and disruptions in the mail system.”¹³ He compared the deployment to the USS Gerald R. Ford's 326 days at sea, which ended in May, and called it “the longest modern U.S. carrier deployment since the Vietnam era.”¹³ He asked the Department six questions, including what metrics track crew fatigue, who authorized each extension of the deployment, and whether carrier demand near Iran now exceeds what the Navy can sustainably generate, with answers due by August 27.¹³ The next day, in a Newsmax interview, Hegseth called the conditions reporting “completely misrepresented.”¹⁴ He said “my commanders know that, our service secretaries know that, [President Trump] expects that,” and that he has “more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody.”¹⁴ He did not address the specific reports of supply shortages, water contamination, or mental-health conditions Blumenthal's letter cites, and gave no date for the Lincoln's return.¹⁴

The Justice Department tells the Supreme Court both mail-voting rulings must fall together

The Solicitor General asks the Court to stay both mail-voting injunctions at once¹

DOJ finds two California women's prisons violate the Constitution⁴

Harvard wins dismissal of the government's antisemitism lawsuit⁶

The Pentagon's own Yemen count contradicts itself on one strike⁸

Consumer prices turn back up in July after June's drop¹¹

Blumenthal presses the Navy on the Lincoln's 250-day deployment¹³

Sources

The Solicitor General asks the Court to stay both mail-voting injunctions at once1

DOJ finds two California women's prisons violate the Constitution4

Harvard wins dismissal of the government's antisemitism lawsuit6

The Pentagon's own Yemen count contradicts itself on one strike8

Consumer prices turn back up in July after June's drop11

Blumenthal presses the Navy on the Lincoln's 250-day deployment13

Sources

The Solicitor General asks the Court to stay both mail-voting injunctions at once¹

DOJ finds two California women's prisons violate the Constitution⁴

Harvard wins dismissal of the government's antisemitism lawsuit⁶

The Pentagon's own Yemen count contradicts itself on one strike⁸

Consumer prices turn back up in July after June's drop¹¹

Blumenthal presses the Navy on the Lincoln's 250-day deployment¹³