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Browse major news stories and see what officials have said.

Aug 28, 2026

A Panel of Three Trump Appointees Rules That Kalshi’s Sports Contracts Are Gambling, Not Swaps — Handing Nevada the Power to Regulate Prediction Markets, Splitting With the Third Circuit, and Sending the Whole Fight Toward the Supreme Court

On Friday, August 28, 2026, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit — all Trump appointees, ruling without dissent — held that Kalshi's sports event contracts are not "swaps" under the Commodity Exchange Act, and that federal registration with the CFTC therefore does not preempt state gaming law. The decision upheld a Nevada federal judge's ruling dissolving the injunction that had let Kalshi keep offering sports contracts in the state without a gaming license, and it applies across the Ninth Circuit to platforms including Kalshi, Crypto.com and Robinhood. It is the largest courtroom win to date for the states and tribes that have argued the prediction-market industry built a federal back door around state gambling regulation. It also creates a direct circuit split: the Third Circuit held in April that event contracts are swaps subject to exclusive CFTC jurisdiction. That split is the classic setup for Supreme Court review, and every party to the fight said so within a day. The congressional dimension is a bipartisan Nevada bill. Rep. Steven Horsford (D) and Rep. Mark Amodei (R) introduced the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act in July 2026 to write the state-and-tribal-jurisdiction rule into statute rather than leave it to litigation; Sens. Adam Schiff, John Curtis and Catherine Cortez Masto have a Senate companion, and Rep. Dina Titus has a separate bill, the Fair Markets and Sports Integrity Act. Horsford's response to the ruling was to treat it as leverage rather than a finish line: "the fight is not over," and Congress should pass the bill before the Supreme Court takes the question away. Nevada's Republican governor, Joe Lombardo — a former Clark County sheriff who oversees the state whose gaming regulators brought the case — welcomed the ruling in the same terms, saying sports-event contracts are gambling and must comply with Nevada's licensing regime. Arizona's attorney general, whose criminal case against Kalshi a federal judge had blocked in May, said the decision was a significant win for state authority and that her office was reviewing what it means for that prosecution.

“We must continue working to protect consumers, ensure young people aren’t targets, preserve state and Tribal rights, and safeguard gaming workers across the country. This issue is far from settled and will likely make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is time to stop unelected regulators from bypassing states by passing my bipartisan Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act.”
Steven Horsford (D-NV) · Aug 28, 2026

After Losing Four Times in Court, the Administration Appeals the Order Forcing It to Keep Paying for the $16 Billion Gateway Tunnel — a Project Trump Declared "Terminated" Because It Was Money "Schumer Has Worked 20 Years to Get"

On Friday, August 28, 2026, the Trump administration filed notice that it will appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit a ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas that permanently barred the Department of Transportation from freezing federal funding for the Gateway Hudson Tunnel Project. Judge Vargas ruled on June 29, 2026 that the freeze violated federal law. It was the administration's fourth straight loss in the case, which New York and New Jersey brought in February 2026. Gateway is a $16 billion program to bore new rail tunnels under the Hudson River and rehabilitate the existing 116-year-old North River Tunnel, the single two-track bottleneck carrying roughly 200,000 Amtrak and NJ Transit passengers a day between New Jersey and Penn Station. The federal share is $6.88 billion under a Capital Investment Grants full funding grant agreement signed before Trump returned to office. The fight began on October 16, 2025, when Trump said of the money that Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer had spent two decades securing, "Tell him it's terminated." The Transportation Department publicly disputed that the program was cancelled — Secretary Sean Duffy had called the projects "important" days earlier — but the department stopped reimbursing the Gateway Development Commission for completed work. By early February 2026 the commission had gone more than four months without payment and construction stopped, idling roughly 1,000 union workers. New York and New Jersey sued on February 3, 2026; a court blocked the freeze days later, and DOT released $235 million in withheld reimbursements on February 18. Work resumed. Judge Vargas made the block permanent on June 29. The New York–New Jersey congressional delegation has been on this continuously — a January 28, 2026 letter led by Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker and Andy Kim warning the funds had to move before the February 6 stoppage, and a February 6 press conference in which nine members of the New Jersey delegation denounced the freeze as political retaliation. Rep. Rob Menendez said flatly that Trump froze the money "to target Democratic lawmakers." Reaction to the August 28 appeal was near-uniform among the region's Democrats, who noted the administration's unbroken losing record. No Republican member of the New York or New Jersey delegation is on record supporting the appeal.

“Mr. President: keep the project on track, and support the hundreds of thousands of hard-working Americans who rely on this train line each and every day to get to work, appointments, and see friends and loved ones.”
Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) · Aug 28, 2026

The Park Service Has Spent More Than a Year Working to Hand a Quarter-Mile Strip of Yosemite to a Las Vegas Developer — and California’s Two Senators Answer That the Park “Is Not for Sale”

NOTUS reported on August 28, 2026 that since the spring of 2025 the National Park Service has been working, at the direction of Trump political appointees at the Interior Department, to cede a roughly quarter-mile strip of land inside Yosemite National Park to a company controlled through a web of limited-liability companies by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a Las Vegas-based real-estate and investment firm run by Jeff Pori. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and The Hill matched the reporting the same day. In 2024 Kingsbarn bought 83 acres of undeveloped land immediately outside Yosemite's western boundary, roughly five miles from one of the park's groves of ancient sequoias. The parcel has no direct road connection to Highway 120, the park's main thoroughfare. The exchange under discussion would give Kingsbarn a strip of park land to build that connection; in return the company would buy land of equal value elsewhere in California and turn it over to the Park Service. Interior floated paying for the exchange out of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, money Congress set aside for conservation on public lands. Sen. Jeff Merkley, a member of the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, objected and kept the deal off the subcommittee's endorsed project list. Career Park Service staff told NOTUS the directive was unprecedented and that Interior leadership pushed them to move faster. Ceding park land to a private party runs against roughly 150 years of practice in which national park boundaries have expanded, not contracted. Don Neubacher, a former Yosemite superintendent, said the transfer is "basically illegal" and warned that the specific area is habitat for Pacific fishers and great gray owls. Cicely Muldoon, another former superintendent with 40 years in the Park Service, said the agency's "basic purpose in the national parks is to preserve these places unimpaired for future generations." The Interior Department denied the reporting, calling it a story built on "anonymous allegations to manufacture a political narrative." Lanny Davis, a Democratic lawyer who identified himself as counsel to Kingsbarn, confirmed after publication that the company was pursuing the exchange and said he — not Trump — had brought the proposal to Interior, framing it as "a pro-environmental decision." California's two Democratic senators and the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee all came out against the deal within hours. Padilla's office said it was working with Senate Appropriations staff to block it.

“Yosemite is one of California’s natural wonders. The courts struck this project down once, but this administration appears hell-bent on moving forward. We will fight this again.”
Adam Schiff (D-CA) · Aug 28, 2026

Nine Aircraft Were Sent to a Seven-Acre Fire Near a Trump Official’s 480-Acre Idaho Ranch — Including After He Phoned Forest Service Offices in the Middle of the Night — and Three Senators Ask the Agriculture Secretary Who Authorized It

On July 12, 2026, roughly nine aircraft — helicopters, air tankers and tactical planes — responded to the Cabin Creek Fire, a seven-acre blaze in Idaho's Sawtooth National Forest. The effort lasted a few hours and cost nearly $115,000 in federal money. Some of those aircraft were pulled off fires elsewhere in Idaho. The fire was near the 480-acre ranch of Michael Boren, the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment — the official who oversees the U.S. Forest Service. Two agency officials told The Washington Post that Boren phoned regional and national offices repeatedly that day, including once in the middle of the night, demanding to know why more aircraft were not already in the air. On August 28, 2026, Sens. Ron Wyden, Amy Klobuchar and Martin Heinrich wrote to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins demanding a full investigation and asking what safeguards exist to keep officials from steering wildfire response toward their own property. The letter landed in the middle of a record fire season: more than two million acres have burned in Oregon alone this year, and Wyden's office says fires threatening Oregon communities drew fewer resources than the seven-acre fire near Boren's ranch.

“Mr. Boren's actions constitute potentially a misuse of taxpayer funds and put American families at further risk by diverting scarce resources from high-priority wildfires threatening communities elsewhere in the region and country.”
Martin Heinrich (D-NM) · Aug 28, 2026

Israel Opens Bidding to Build 1,234 Homes in E1 — the Corridor That Would Sever the West Bank — and 29 Senate Democrats Tell It to Rescind the Tenders While the State Department Pointedly Says Nothing About E1

On Aug. 18, 2026, Israel's Construction and Housing Ministry published a tender inviting contractors to build seven residential compounds totaling 1,234 housing units in E1, the tract of occupied West Bank land east of Jerusalem that every U.S. administration since Clinton has treated as a red line. Bids are due Oct. 19. Building E1 would wall occupied East Jerusalem off from Bethlehem and Ramallah and cut the northern West Bank from the southern one — which is why successive American governments, Republican and Democratic alike, have pressed Israel not to develop it. The Trump administration's response was conspicuously narrow. Asked about the tenders, the State Department restated existing language — that the United States "does not support Israel annexing the West Bank" — without mentioning E1 at all. On Aug. 28, Sen. Ruben Gallego led a statement signed by 29 congressional Democrats calling on Israel to withdraw the tenders outright. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who has pushed hardest in the Senate on West Bank settler violence, had already gone further, calling E1 a violation of international law that would leave Israel "an apartheid, pariah state." No Republican member of Congress is on record objecting to the tenders.

“We urge the Israeli government to immediately rescind these tenders, halt settlement expansion in the West Bank, and take urgent action to rein in settler violence.”
Mark Warner (D-VA) · Aug 28, 2026

A Pentagon Memo Says the Navy Is "Raiding" Its Own Payroll Accounts to Pay for the Iran War — and the Chief of Naval Operations Says He Needs $8 Billion More Just to Stay Solvent

On August 27, 2026, the Guardian reported, based on internal documents and interviews, that Operation Epic Fury — the war with Iran — has pushed the US Navy into a severe financial crisis. One Pentagon memo on Navy funding warns of "shortfalls in payroll" accounts because the department has been "raiding" them to cover combat operations, backfilling with money not yet spent elsewhere. Equipment and facility maintenance accounts are being drained the same way, and exercises and training have been limited or canceled to bridge the gap until the 2027 fiscal year begins on October 1. A Navy spokesperson disputed that pay is at risk, saying the department "is actively managing its resources to meet current pay obligations on time." The next day, August 28, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle used his State of the Navy address in Norfolk to put a number on it: the Navy needs $6 billion to $8 billion above what was budgeted "to be whole and solvent for [Fiscal Year] 26." More than 27,000 sailors and two dozen ships supported the Iran campaign. Asked about the size of the administration's proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget, Caudle said he was not offended by it — "I need my money." Caudle had warned Congress in May that the Navy could run out of money by July: "The FY '26 budget didn't bake in Epic Fury." The White House has asked Congress for an emergency infusion of $67 billion; House Republicans floated $73 billion through reconciliation. At a July 21 Senate Appropriations hearing, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said she had been told "some military services face near-term solvency challenges." House Armed Services member Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-NC) told colleagues to "get rid of the complacency," and Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), the top Democrat on the House defense appropriations panel, said Congress needs "to know what we're purchasing and why."

“I need my money. I don’t think we should be offended by $1.5 trillion.”
Daryl Caudle (O) · Aug 28, 2026

Aug 28, 2026· Updated

The Justice Department Sues Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington Over In-State Tuition for Dreamers — Bringing Its Running Total to 21 States, and in Arizona Suing to Void a Law the Voters Passed Themselves

On Thursday, August 27, 2026, the Justice Department filed suit against Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington over state laws that let undocumented students who graduated from in-state high schools pay in-state tuition at public colleges. The four filings brought the administration's running total to 21 states sued over the same policy. The Arizona case is the most politically loaded of the four: the policy at issue, Proposition 308, was approved directly by Arizona voters in 2022. The Justice Department's complaint calls it "blatant unequal treatment favoring illegal aliens over U.S. citizens" and argues it is preempted by federal law. Arizona's attorney general answers that Prop 308 does not turn on residency at all — it turns on where a student went to high school and graduated — and that the fight is fundamentally about states' rights. Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting has estimated more than 3,600 noncitizens could qualify; at least 720 have received in-state tuition, including 432 at Arizona State University. The governors of Oregon and Washington both said they would defend their laws. Arizona's two Democratic senators issued a joint statement calling the suit an attack on people "deeply rooted in America." Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward framed the filings as enforcement of "Congress's clear prohibition on placing aliens over citizens."

“Dreamers are Americans in every way. They grew up here, went to our schools, and are contributing to communities across Arizona. Making college more expensive for young people who are deeply rooted in America does nothing to fix our broken immigration system or make our country safer.”
Mark Kelly (D-AZ) · Aug 28, 2026

Aug 28, 2026· Updated

The Government Has Paid Nearly $4 Billion to Kill Offshore Wind — and $900 Million of the Latest Settlement Goes Straight to a Private Equity Firm Run by a Trump Donor Who Lives Near Mar-a-Lago

On August 6–7, 2026, the Trump administration announced a $1.22 billion settlement with the German utility RWE. In exchange for the money — drawn from a federal fund — RWE gave up offshore wind leases off New York, California and Louisiana, roughly seven gigawatts of planned capacity, and agreed to reinvest the proceeds in oil, gas or nuclear "conventional energy." It was the latest in a series of buyouts, beginning with a roughly $1 billion deal with TotalEnergies in March 2026, that has now cost taxpayers close to $4 billion. On August 27, 2026, reporting revealed where most of the RWE money is going: $900 million of it will buy a stake in a Louisiana LNG project from Stonepeak, the private equity firm co-founded and run by Australian billionaire Michael Dorrell. Dorrell owns a mansion near Mar-a-Lago and gave a combined roughly $1 million to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee after the 2024 election. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, who had already called the settlements "an insane waste of taxpayer funds and a ridiculous charade that seems to be blatantly illegal," said the Stonepeak connection "now adds the stench of corruption," and said he would expand his existing investigation to cover it. The White House called the reporting "a brazen attempt to insinuate a conflict-of-interest that does not exist," and the Interior Department said "no one at the Department directed which company RWE was to invest in." The buyouts were already under scrutiny. In June 2026, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James led a seven-state lawsuit calling the arrangement a "pay-not-to-play scheme." In July 2026, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) led fourteen senators — including Schumer, Schatz, King and Heinrich — in an investigation of the deals. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called the buybacks "an enormous money pump, pulling billions of dollars out of consumers' pockets." Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended them, saying Americans "deserve an energy system built on common sense, not one dependent on costly subsidies."

“The Trump Administration’s backroom buyout with Golden State Wind to stop offshore wind development in favor of gas and oil drilling is, unfortunately, a classic playbook for them to line the pockets of their Big Oil donors.”
Rob Bonta (D-CA) · Aug 28, 2026

Aug 28, 2026· Updated

Eleven Senate Democrats Invoke a Cold War-Era Human Rights Law to Force a Floor Vote on Israel — Demanding the State Department Account for Nine Americans Killed in the West Bank

On August 27, 2026, Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced their intent to introduce a privileged resolution under Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act requiring the State Department to report to Congress on escalating violence in the West Bank — including the killings of at least nine American citizens there since 2022, investigations (or the absence of them) into killings by Israeli settlers and security forces, and Israel's detention of Palestinian children. Section 502B(c) lets any senator force a floor vote on a demand for a human rights report about a country receiving U.S. security assistance. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has ten days to act on the resolution; if it does not, the resolution can be brought straight to the floor. If it passes, the administration has 30 days to submit the report or certain security assistance to Israel is cut off. Eight more senators joined as original cosponsors: Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) and Peter Welch (D-VT). No Republican senator had publicly responded to the resolution as of the announcement.

“We write to reiterate our alarm about the potential for a dangerous collapse in the West Bank now that the only two Israeli banks providing vital services have indicated difficulties with banking waivers.”
Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) · Aug 28, 2026

Aug 28, 2026· Updated

Five Months Into a War Fought to Stop Iran From Enriching Uranium, Trump Sends Congress a Nuclear Agreement With Saudi Arabia — and Four Democrats Call It "the Starting Gun for a Middle East Nuclear Arms Race"

On Monday, August 24, 2026, the Trump administration transmitted the classified text of a U.S.–Saudi civil nuclear cooperation agreement to Capitol Hill, starting the review clock required by Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee now have 90 days of continuous session to review it; absent a joint resolution of disapproval, the agreement takes effect. The pact was signed in Washington last month by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart. It would open the kingdom to U.S. nuclear technology and reactors. President Trump has publicly promised there will be "no enrichment of material" and has tied the whole thing to Riyadh normalizing relations with Israel: the deal, he wrote on July 23, "is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords." The administration reaffirmed that condition when it sent the text up. Critics say the promise and the paper do not match. The agreement contains no permanent, legally binding prohibition on enrichment or reprocessing — the "gold standard" the U.S. secured from the UAE in 2009 — and does not require Saudi Arabia to adopt the IAEA's Additional Protocol, the inspection regime 146 countries have accepted. The Wall Street Journal reported the agreement includes a joint U.S.–Saudi study of possible future domestic enrichment, and U.S. officials have told reporters the door is left open. The objection that cuts across party lines is the timing. The United States has been at war with Iran since late February over Tehran's nuclear program. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), one of the few Republicans on record against the deal, put it plainly: "We're bombing a country to keep them from getting a nuclear weapon, but we're signing a deal with another country." Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Reps. John Garamendi (D-CA) and Don Beyer (D-VA) made the same argument in a joint op-ed on August 4 and called on Congress to reject the agreement outright. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the ranking Democrat on Foreign Relations, has stopped short of rejection but said Congress should approach the agreement "with great caution." The Saudis, for their part, have said normalization with Israel requires a clear path to Palestinian statehood, which Prime Minister Netanyahu has rejected — so the Abraham Accords condition Trump has attached may keep the deal from taking effect regardless of what Congress does.

“With this deal, President Trump is not only triggering a nuclear arms race in the Middle East but also weakening America's security and standing on the world stage.”
Jeff Merkley (D-OR) · Aug 28, 2026

A House Republican Proposes a Constitutional Amendment Barring Naturalized Citizens From Congress and the Federal Bench — Naming Three Democrats, and Disqualifying Four Republicans and a Republican Senator She Did Not Mention

On May 20, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) announced a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that would require members of Congress, federal judges and Senate-confirmed appointees to be natural-born U.S. citizens — extending to the whole federal government a requirement the Constitution imposes only on the president. Naturalized citizens currently serving would be disqualified. Mace singled out three foreign-born Democrats in making her case: Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), born in Somalia; Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), born in India; and Shri Thanedar (D-MI), born in India. A May 1, 2026 Congressional Research Service report counted roughly 19 foreign-born members of the current Congress. Among them are four Republican House members the amendment would also disqualify — Reps. Victoria Spartz (R-IN), born in Ukraine; Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), born in Cuba; Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), born in Mexico; and Young Kim (R-CA), born in South Korea — along with Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), a Trump ally born in Colombia who became a citizen at 18. None of them responded to reporters' requests for comment. The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus noted publicly that four sitting Republicans were not citizens at birth. Because it is a constitutional amendment, the measure would require two-thirds of both chambers and ratification by three-fourths of the states — a practical impossibility — but it has continued to shape the debate. On August 27, 2026, the Washington Post's Toluse Olorunnipa reported that the push had broadened: Republican lawmakers in several states have introduced measures to bar naturalized and dual citizens from running for state office, and at least five Republicans in Congress have called for barring them from federal judgeships, Cabinet posts, ambassadorships and congressional seats. The reporting tied the escalation to the rise of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other naturalized officials. Democratic reaction was immediate and uniform; no Republican member has publicly endorsed the amendment on the record.

“This isn’t personal. It’s about what standard we want for the people entrusted with enormous power over the American people.”
Nancy Mace (R-SC) · Aug 27, 2026

ICE Signs a $16.7 Million No-Bid Contract for 6,000 Pairs of Gloves That Deliver Electric Shocks — Sixteen Senators Ask Why Its Existing Tools Are Not Enough, and the Border Czar Answers "You Can’t Just Go From 0 to 100"

On August 10, 2026 the Department of Homeland Security published a notice that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement intended to spend up to $20 million on the CTG-5 G.L.O.V.E. — for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter — a patrol glove made by Compliant Technologies LLC of Kentucky that functions normally until an officer switches it into "electrical mode," at which point contact with exposed skin delivers a charge of up to 380 volts. ICE signed the contract on Wednesday, August 26 and posted the award on Thursday, August 27: $16.7 million, no bid, for 6,000 pairs at roughly $2,495 apiece. The agency wrote in its procurement documents that it "does not currently have an empty hand use of force device to provide to the field amidst unprecedented levels of threats and violence against ICE officers and agents." A DHS spokesperson said ICE is "constantly assessing the needs of our officers in the field." The purchase went through over two rounds of congressional objection. On August 20, Homeland Security Committee Democrats Bennie Thompson, Lou Correa and Shri Thanedar wrote to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin asking him to stop the procurement, citing what they called a pattern of DHS personnel permanently injuring and nearly killing people with weapons already labeled "less-lethal." On August 27 — the day the award posted — Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto led fifteen colleagues in a letter to Acting ICE Director David Venturella putting more than thirty questions to the agency about protocols, training, safety limits and accountability. The signers included Angus King, the letter's only non-Democrat. White House border czar Tom Homan had defended the device on Fox & Friends on August 13, framing it as a rung on the use-of-force ladder below lethal weapons. The device arrives against the record this site has already documented: fatal ICE shootings in Houston and Maine, an ICE agent charged with firing into a Minneapolis home, and a man in Arlington, Virginia tasered on his way to work who woke with a brain bleed.

“The blatant and tragic misuse of force in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Houston, Maine, and other locations around the country raises significant skepticism about the agency’s professional capability to safely deploy a new tool that could be used to harm Americans without cause.”
Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) · Aug 27, 2026

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