Supreme Court rejects Trump mail ballot restrictions ahead of midterms

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump's bid to restrict mail ballots for the midterm elections, capping a flurry of last-minute legal action with voting already underway.

The decision allows states to continue sending out mail ballots under the same processes they’ve used for years and have accounted for nearly a third of votes cast.

It represented a stark defeat for Trump on an issue he consistently has emphasized as vital to ensuring election integrity even though there is virtually no evidence of fraud with mail ballots.

The Supreme Court majority wrote that the administration's push to implement the restrictions this year is likely to lose in court, though the brief emergency order didn't detail its reasoning. Two justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, publicly dissented.

The Trump administration had asked the justices, once again at the center of a roiling political controversy, to clear the way for restrictions before the pivotal November contests for control of Congress.

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Supreme Court lifts a cloud over midterms, letting mail ballots flow as normal to voters

Even with voting already underway, uncertainty about what might come next had been hovering over preparations for this year's midterm elections.

The U.S. Supreme Court lifted much of that uncertainty late Monday when it rejected President Donald Trump’s push to have the U.S. Postal Service play a central role in deciding who would be able to receive a mail ballot.

The decision is a win for the status quo. The thousands of election offices around the country can send out mail ballots as they had intended without worrying about complying with new Postal Service rules imposed at the 11th hour.

“Now, we can finally move forward and get back to what we do best: conducting our elections without a dark cloud hanging over us — fairly, openly, for the people, by the people,” California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat who oversees voting in a state where all voters receive a mail ballot, said in a statement after the decision.

The case before the court stemmed from an executive order Trump signed in March.

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Tech CEOs call for AI regulation. Trump and Congress are not rushing to act

WASHINGTON (AP) — The technology industry's increasingly urgent warnings about the potential harm of artificial intelligence are slamming into political intransigence in Washington, offering a fresh test of the federal government's willingness and ability to confront what may become a defining issue of the era.

President Donald Trump is leading the opposition to recent calls by tech leaders seeking greater government oversight, including Anthropic's Dario Amodei, OpenAI's Sam Altman and xAI's Elon Musk.

The president dismissed efforts to limit the technology on Monday as a “conspiracy.” Other leading Republicans including Vice President JD Vance have expressed caution. House Speaker Mike Johnson has largely deferred to the White House.

Democrats, meanwhile, are pressing for a more robust response, convening in private on Tuesday in the House to discuss AI. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is hosting his colleagues for a briefing with experts on Wednesday. Top candidates on the ballot this year such as Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia are pressing for sweeping action in Washington. And former President Barack Obama is encouraging those with White House aspirations to develop a “very clear plan” to address AI concerns.

The contrasting responses illustrate a yawning disconnect emerging between a tech sector warning of AI's existential threats to humanity and a federal government often struggling to accomplish basic functions under the weight of intense partisanship and election-year pressure.

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Federal Reserve is expected to raise its benchmark rate, defying Trump's demands

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is widely expected to lift its short-term interest rate Wednesday for the first time in three years to fight stubbornly high inflation, a move that would put the central bank at odds with President Donald Trump's support for a cut.

An increase in the Fed's rate, currently about 3.6%, isn't guaranteed because Fed Chair Kevin Warsh doesn't provide the signals about next moves that his predecessors did. Still, most analysts and economists expect a hike after a speech two weeks ago at the Fed’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in which Warsh argued that the Fed had not yet achieved its goal of putting inflation in check.

A rate hike would throw another sharp shift into a volatile period for the economy and financial markets. As recently as March, the Fed had forecast it would cut its rate once this year. But with the Iran war flaring up again and causing sharp increases in oil and gas prices, inflation is likely to remain higher than the Fed's 2% target for even longer.

“I don’t see any end to the war in Iran right now,” Kristin Forbes, an economist at MIT's Sloan School, said. "Given what everyone has been through in the last few years of high inflation, consumers are more sensitive, companies are more sensitive, they raise prices faster ... The risks are much more on more persistent inflation than it falling quickly.”

Surging investment in AI data centers has also been accelerating inflation and contributing to higher longer-term interest rates, though now leading companies are discussing slowing the technology's development.

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NATO jets down drone in Lithuanian airspace after bloc warns strikes will drive support for Ukraine

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — NATO fighter jets shot down a drone that entered Lithuanian airspace overnight, officials said Tuesday, less than a day after NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that strikes close to the alliance's territory would drive the trans-Atlantic organization to increase its support for Kyiv.

The drone was downed near the village of Pratkunai in the Kaišiadorys district, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of the country's capital, Vilnius, and near the Kaunas Reservoir, Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center said Tuesday.

Lithuania’s military said that the incident marked the first time that a drone had been shot down in the country’s airspace. Authorities didn’t comment on the drone’s origin or purpose, saying the incident needed further investigation.

The incursion follows a speech by Rutte on Monday at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where he said that strikes “close to NATO territory” showed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “desperation and also his desire to sow fear and terror.”

“Russia is growing increasingly reckless as it continues its terrible war against Ukraine,” Rutte said. He also pledged to bolster the 32-nation alliance's own defenses along its long eastern border with Russia.

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As the last US troops pack up in Iraq, militias signal their weapons will stay

BAGHDAD (AP) — Two deadlines are looming for Iraq at the end of the month: the end of a decades-long U.S. military presence and the disarmament of non-state armed groups.

The U.S. withdrawal is underway, and officials say the hundreds of troops remaining in northern Iraq will be out by the Sept. 30 deadline.

The Iraqi government has linked the U.S. withdrawal to an ultimatum for militias to lay down their weapons. But most have indicated they have no plans to do so.

That leaves major questions about what the day after will look like in Iraq.

Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have struck U.S.-linked targets both inside and outside of Iraq since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. They also have coordinated with Yemen’s Houthi rebels to attack Saudi Arabia.

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What the closure of Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline could mean for oil flows

CHICAGO (AP) — Saudi Arabia's closure of a major oil pipeline after a recent attack is raising fears that global energy markets in crisis because of the war with Iran could face even starker shortages, pushing prices higher for fuel and other essentials.

The largest oil producer in the Middle East closed its East-West pipeline on Friday after the attack, which it blamed on drones from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. Two regional officials told The Associated Press that repairs could take three to five weeks.

The pipeline is crucial to getting some crude out of the Middle East by shipping it to the Red Sea rather than through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passed before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have seized islands along key Red Sea shipping routes, further threatening Saudi exports. And while several limited alternatives remain, including trickles of tanker traffic in Hormuz, experts warn more supply shocks and higher prices straining households could pile up. Brent crude, the international standard, traded at more than $105 a barrel Monday.

Here's what we know:

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Carney heads to Europe for high-stakes speech and deeper EU ties as Canada clashes with Trump

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to Europe in the middle of a trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump, seeking a deeper relationship with the European Union that could give Canadians greater freedom to work and study there.

Canada will seek an arrangement that would allow Canadians to live and work in Europe without visas as part of a strategic partnership, according to a senior Canadian official familiar with the discussions.

The official said Ottawa is not seeking to replicate the arrangements Norway or Switzerland have with the EU and did not propose “associate membership,” a term used in a recent report. Canada instead wants a partnership tailored to its priorities, with investment at its core.

Roughly 70% of Canadian exports go to the United States. Europe is central to Carney’s effort to reduce that dependence.

Carney has ruled out EU membership, saying Canada instead wants “a unique alliance” with the bloc.

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McConnell returns to the Senate for the first time since his June hospitalization

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky returned to the Senate to vote on Monday for the first time in three months, looking noticeably more frail after he was hospitalized for a June fall in his home.

McConnell's lengthy absence from the Senate generated a flood of criticism and online speculation, as he initially remained quiet for weeks about his condition. The 84-year-old senator eventually disclosed a month later that he had been “briefly unconscious” due to the fall and had also been treated for mild pneumonia in the hospital.

He briefly addressed reporters Monday from a wheelchair outside the Senate chamber, smiling but speaking slowly and with some difficulty. McConnell joked that he wasn’t sure how many reporters would be there after dodging so many questions during his almost two decades as leader.

He said he was back in the Senate to work on a pending farm bill and because he has an ongoing interest in NATO and “backing up our good friends who are totally in the fight against the Russians.”

Reporters and photographers were told by Senate staff not to take video of his remarks in the second-floor hallway, even though video is often permitted in that area. Still images were allowed.

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‘Widow’s Bay’ breaks Emmys record with 14 wins including best comedy series, 'Pitt' wins best drama

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A “Widow’s Bay” wave slammed into the Emmy Awards on Monday night as the Apple TV show set a single-season record for a comedy with 14 wins, including best comedy series and best actor for star Matthew Rhys, who personally took home three trophies.

“The celebrations will be long, varied, and I hope at times wild,” Rhys said backstage while holding two of his Emmys.

“The Pitt” won best drama series for the second straight year, and star Noah Wyle repeated as best actor in a drama, but the HBO Max emergency room drama won no other Emmys and underperformed its expectations.

Rhea Seehorn won best actress in a drama for “Pluribus,” and Jean Smart won her fifth best actress in a comedy award for the fifth and final season of “Hacks." No actor had won an Emmy every year for a series that lasted more than three seasons until Smart did it Monday.

Every other comedy award went to “Widow's Bay," which unequivocally owned the night and broke the comedy series record set last year by “The Studio” when it won 13.

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