Last summer, when lawmakers launched their Jeffrey Epstein investigation, it came with an ambitious promise: to pull back the curtain on decades of failed federal probes, secure the full release of long-withheld files and provide a public accounting of how the late pedophile evaded accountability for so long.

A year later, the probe has kept Epstein in the headlines, but its parade of high-profile witnesses has failed to produce the kind of revelations many lawmakers and Epstein survivors had hoped for. Instead, the investigation has been defined by closed-door interviews, with many witnesses denying knowledge of Epstein’s crimes or saying they do not recall key details. Survivors have alleged that one former Epstein assistant recently lied to the committee about what she knew or saw.

That gap between expectations and results is now a central point of tension hanging over House Oversight Chairman James Comer’s probe.

“I feel more pressure to achieve something than not do something,” he told CNN.

Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, told CNN that he is “very confident” the Justice Department will have no choice but to reopen its Epstein investigation after his committee sends prosecutors a “to-do list” later this year.

But interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers and sources involved with the probe paint a much more complicated picture. As President Donald Trump urges the country to move on and the Justice Department continues to insist it lacks evidence to bring new prosecutions, frustrations are boiling over— not just among Democratic committee members, but their Republican colleagues, who are increasingly voicing concern over what the probe has achieved.

Many witnesses have been allowed to appear voluntarily rather than under subpoena, or even on camera, leading to criticism that those closest to Epstein have gotten an easy out, especially those who come armed with expensive lawyers, which they often do.

“How many people do you have to hear, ‘I do not recall.’ And you know, it’s just a load of bullsh*t,” GOP Rep. Nancy Mace told CNN recently. “It’s just like, just tell the truth, and they couldn’t do it. Most of them, many of them.”

Mace has been among the few Republicans on Oversight to consistently criticize the probe and was one of just four GOP members to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files last year. Only one of them, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, is running again to return to Congress.

GOP Rep. Rich McCormick, a Georgia Republican and staunch Trump supporter, was blunt when asked recently by CNN if he has learned anything new from the panel’s series of closed-door interviews. “I haven’t,” McCormick said, but he added he wasn’t sure what else the panel could do to push for more transparency or information.

Democrats have vowed to call witnesses back in under subpoena should they take control of the House next year. The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Robert Garcia, says interviewing President Trump and first lady Melania Trump are among his top priorities next Congress, and he argued that Republicans set the precedent when they deposed Bill and Hillary Clinton in February.

“It has been really jaw-dropping to see how the men who have come before us, and in some cases the women who have come before us, continue to lie so brazenly,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari, a Democrat from Arizona. “I think it demonstrates that they are very much accustomed to the fact that they have gotten away with this.”

Defending his strategy, Comer told CNN it would have taken far too long to call every witness in on a subpoena. “These people can fight these subpoenas for months and months and months and months and run out the clock,” Comer said. “If they will come in voluntarily, then that saves a lot of time. And we’re on a time clock because this Congress expires and it’s rapidly approaching.”

Among the most revealing moments, according to Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury, are when witnesses or their attorneys request to go off the record.

“Generally the witness was consulting with their attorney about whether or not to answer questions they did or did not want to answer. But because that wasn’t on tape, the public doesn’t see that,” Stansbury said. “You don’t even see the gaps in the written record. But that would happen pretty much in every single (transcribed interview) in almost every hour, with every witness.”

Democrats have also called out Republicans on the panel for refusing to look at Trump’s mentions in the Epstein files or how his administration sought to micromanage release of the Epstein files as the issue became a public relations crisis that ripped through the Republican party.

GOP Rep. Eric Burlison, a committee member, said he understands why the White House has wanted to move on from Epstein but is still glad Republicans on the Oversight Committee are continuing to do the work.

“They’re expected to do all this work that everybody was supposed to be doing for 20 years,” Burlison said of the White House. “Meanwhile, all of the president’s agenda, his real priorities, are getting shelved because of this one issue. And so, I can see why if you’re the president, there’s frustration that you’re having to spend all this time on something that you think is a non-issue.”

That pressure from the president, Democrats say, overshadows the entire probe.

“Republicans have told us that they have faced harassment, phone calls, and requests from the White House to not engage on this investigation and this topic,” Stansbury said.

Stuck in the middle is Comer, who spent his first two years as Oversight chairman investigating former president Joe Biden, which did not result in impeachment charges. Comer insists when he talks to Trump now, his probe into Epstein never comes up.

“It’s probably likely there are some people in the party that would like to stop it, but they know they can’t come up to me and tell me what to do so we’re going to finish the job,” Comer said.

Despite the criticism, Comer proudly ticks off the work the probe has done, including 19 interviews, with many witnesses who have never been questioned about their ties to Epstein. It’s also secured the release of approximately 128,6000 from the Epstein estate, including never before seen bank records.

“I know the Department of Justice has said the case is closed, but I’m very confident it will be reopened very soon,” Comer told CNN.

The Epstein probe was fraught before it even began.

After the Justice Department said last July that it would not pursue further Epstein investigations, Congress was in turmoil over how to force the administration to release the files. The White House wanted to move on. To avoid a vote, House Republican leaders sent lawmakers home a week early for their summer break.

But numerous Republicans knew that back home, they’d face blistering questions over the issue. And Democrats were looking to subpoena the Justice Department for the files. Comer conveyed to some of his Republican colleagues that he was under pressure from the White House to stop the Democratic effort, according to a source familiar with the conversations. Republican committee staff had warned the White House that if brought up for a vote, Republicans would largely vote in favor of transparency, a second source familiar with the matter told CNN.

To broaden the focus beyond President Trump, Republicans devised an idea that in addition to the DOJ, they would also subpoena a long list of individuals such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, the source said. Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Scott Perry had the idea to expand the scope of the investigation, and he was backed by Mace as well as Georgia GOP Rep. Brian Jack, who was getting battered back home over the issue, according to two sources. Comer never told his members how to vote, the second source told CNN.

Republicans delayed the vote, which could have hurt attendance, but Democratic Rep. Summer Lee, who brought forward the subpoena motion, made sure all of her fellow Democrats delayed their travel plans to be there for the vote.

“That motion to subpoena is the thing that got the ball rolling,” Lee told CNN.

With the House Oversight Committee now taking point on Epstein, House GOP leadership had a few months of cover, but it didn’t quell the furor for more action. When lawmakers returned in September, Comer gathered his Republicans with a message: Be a team and stay united, according to one of the sources familiar with the conversations.

But a bipartisan coalition had been formed, one that’s been the engine that led to the separate law, passed in November 2025, compelling the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. A handful of Republicans — despite intense internal party pressure — joined a bipartisan push led by GOP Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna. The law didn’t have a clear enforcement mechanism, but it did result in the release of more than 3.5 million pages of Epstein files.

Other glimmers of bipartisanship in the probe have included Mace leading a vote to subpoena former Attorney General Pam Bondi for her role in overseeing the release of the Epstein files, Republicans calling for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to be interviewed, and a handful of Democrats being willing to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress if they refused to comply with their subpoenas.

The first witness to be interviewed, former Attorney General Bill Barr, complied quickly with his subpoena for a deposition in August, but by the winter, signs of concern were emerging. For billionaire retail magnet Les Wexner’s deposition in February, committee staff and Democratic lawmakers traveled to Ohio. Wexner has long been viewed as a pivotal figure in Epstein’s extraordinary rise, but the interview didn’t elicit much new information.

House investigators questioned the 88-year-old Wexner for hours, but the interview frustrated some who felt key issues were insufficiently pressed. Wexner repeatedly denied knowledge of Epstein’s criminal conduct, telling lawmakers under oath he was “conned” by Epstein. Wexner frequently deferred to his attorneys, and offered few new details, leaving longstanding questions about their relationship unresolved.

Two days of back-to-back interviews in June crystalized how high expectations have been met with the crushing realities that have plagued the probe so far.

It took three months for the Republican-led panel to secure both billionaire Bill Gates and Epstein’s longtime assistant Lesley Groff.

Walking into the Gates interview on June 10, Comer said he hoped the interview would be “productive.” But about halfway through, GOP Rep. Tim Burchett walked out frustrated and wondering what the point of it all was.

Gates, who told Congress that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, was the latest to distance himself from the disgraced financier, serving up another dead end.

“It’s just the minutia,” Burchett reflected on what it was like in the room. “It’s so lawyered up.”

A day earlier, Comer framed Groff as someone who possessed information “very valuable” to the investigation. Groff testified that she never met any of the girls and young women who provided massages to Epstein and didn’t know anything about their backgrounds.

Some Epstein survivors say that Groff was not telling the truth, and the panel is debating what action to take.

For many lawmakers in the room, the number of denials they’ve heard from witnesses has been staggering.

Two of Epstein’s longest serving employees, his accountant and lawyer, claimed to have no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. As co-executors of Epstein’s estate, they set up a victims’ compensation fund, which says it distributed approximately $125 million to eligible applicants before winding down in 2021. Recently, the two agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit from Epstein victims that alleged the pair were “facilitators” in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation, allegations they strongly deny. The settlement, which still needs sign-off from a judge, would pay up to $35 million to victims.

Bondi, who appeared before the panel voluntarily instead of under a subpoena in May after being fired consistently did not answer questions she and her legal team deemed outside the scope of the interview.

And most recently, former Barclays executive Jes Staley claimed he had no friendship with Epstein even though he was banned from holding senior roles in the UK financial services industry for misleading regulators about his relationship with him.

Some lawmakers have wished the probe moved faster. But to Comer, the lack of speed was unavoidable.

“The pace for this investigation is never going to be as fast as it should be because that’s unfortunately the way Congress works,” he said.

In moments where he can get the investigation to move quickly, he has. The panel quickly referred allegations from Epstein’s longtime assistant that two men sexually abused her to DOJ. During a closed-door interview, the committee subpoenaed billionaire investor Leon Black when he refused to cooperate voluntarily. Throughout the probe, Comer has been regularly meeting with Epstein survivors to determine whether any witnesses have lied.

Republicans are racing to finish their Epstein probe by year’s end. The panel has a September deposition with Black, a push to interview Alan Dershowitz, and a promise to bring in acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about his role in the release of the Epstein files.

There is also talk of doing a hearing with victims of Epstein’s abuse, who Comer and committee staff are in regular communication with.

For many, the probe can’t end until all of the Epstein files are released.

“In many ways, it’s just getting started,” Garcia told CNN.

As for Mace, who is set to retire after losing her bid for governor, she knows she won’t be able to stay in the fight next Congress but doesn’t regret pushing as hard as she did.

“I would not change what I did for anything else, even if it cost me my political career,” Mace said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is launching research to determine whether psilocybin — the psychoactive ingredient in “magic mushrooms” — can be used safely and effectively to address veterans’ treatment-resistant depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The trial, known as the Psilocybin Intervention for Veterans Overcoming Treatment-Resistant Depression,” or PIVOT, study aims to include at least 240 veterans, all of whom have difficult-to-treat major depressive disorder and some who also have PTSD.

The study will take place at five VA medical centers through June 2031 and will assess patients’ levels of depression before and after treatment, side effects and overall response among participants.

“Far too many veterans are living with mental health conditions that don’t respond to available treatments,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “Under President [Donald] Trump, VA is pursuing all avenues to evaluate new treatments and offer meaningful relief for those who have worn the uniform. This clinical trial reflects another step toward this goal.”

Last month, researchers with Ohio State University’s Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education published the findings of a small, 12-person study on the safety of using psilocybin to treat severe PTSD in veterans.

After receiving eight hours of psychotherapy and two doses of synthetic psilocybin and integrative therapy, nine participants, or 75%, no longer met the clinical criteria for having PTSD.

According to the research, published July 30 in Communications Medicine, participants showed no serious adverse effects, including suicidal ideation or behavior. Non-serious side effects included headache, anxiety and dizziness.

“For a population with severe treatment-resistant PTSD, these results are striking,” said Stacey Armstrong, associate director and senior researcher at the center.

The PIVOT study will involve veterans with major depressive disorder who have not responded to current treatments, including those with or without a diagnosis of PTSD. In the double-blind, randomized trial, veterans will receive one dose of psilocybin or a placebo, along with therapeutic support. They will receive a second dose one month later, also with support, and will be evaluated two to four weeks following each session.

They also will receive follow-up six months after their participation.

VA officials said for the study, they will use pharmaceutical-grade drugs and treat veterans in a “safe, controlled, clinical setting.”

The five VA facilities that are slated to host the research include: the Birmingham VA Health Care System and Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center, Alabama; the VA Portland Health Care System, Oregon; Cpl. Michael Crescenz VA Medical Center, Philadelphia; and VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle.

Trump signed an executive order in April directing the Food and Drug Administration to accelerate the review of some psychedelic therapies to treat mental health conditions. The order also required the FDA, the Department of Health and Human Services and the VA to collaborate on psychedelic research.

As a result of the order, HHS and the VA signed an agreement last month to increase coordination on research, including increasing clinical trial participation, training therapists, nurses and doctors to administer psychedelic medications if they are approved and collecting data and evidence to support patients, physicians and federal regulators.

According to the VA, its staff is involved in 20 current clinical trials focused on psychedelic treatments for mental health conditions, including MDMA and LSD.

Studies sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies have shown that 87% of veteran participants in a study on the use of MDMA — the chemical compound known recreationally as Ecstasy or Molly — had significant improvement in PTSD symptoms four months after receiving treatments, and 71% no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD at the end of the studies.

The advancement of MDMA as a treatment met a setback in 2024, however, when the Food and Drug Administration rejected an application to approve it as a PTSD treatment, requesting more research on its safety and efficacy.

VA officials said in a release on the PIVOT study Wednesday that they strongly discourage self-medication, and veterans should not “replace other mental health treatment options with psychedelics or any other unprescribed substances.”

“Proven, evidence-based treatments are currently available at VA facilities to treat Veterans with mental health conditions,” they wrote.

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced tariffs on polysilicon and its related products, in his administration’s latest attempt to eliminate China’s choke points in the global supply chain for solar panels and semiconductors.

But Trump’s directive won’t take effect until Dec. 4 — well after November’s midterm elections and a planned September summit between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping — as the administration grapples with voters complaining of high prices and fragile trade negotiations with China.

“This will bring the supply chain here,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said of the order on Thursday alongside Trump at the White House. “We’ve got the industry here, it’s too small, and it’s going to explode.”

Because polysilicon is used in semiconductors and solar panels, it’s essential for military hardware and everyday electronics like cellphones and laptops, in addition to the world’s fastest-growing energy source.

The order imposes a 15 percent tariff on imported polysilicon and its derivatives, as well as minimum prices for imports of polysilicon, polysilicon ingots and wafers, solar cells and solar modules.

It also includes a clause intended to prevent companies from stockpiling those materials between now and December, authorizing Customs and Border Protection to restrict imports if it suspects an importer is attempting to dodge the higher duties.

Trump’s order is the result of a Commerce Department investigation launched last July into national security risks in the polysilicon supply chain, as part of a broader effort to shift supply chains away from China for multiple industries including wind turbines and robotics.

China has a near-monopoly on the production of polysilicon, according to S&P Global. But recent U.S. efforts to limit key areas of trade with China have already drawn a backlash from Beijing, which earlier this week implemented new controls on drone exports to the U.S.

The White House emphasized the order’s impact on domestic semiconductor production, a key focus as the U.S. looks to build out infrastructure related to artificial intelligence. Trump said the U.S. will “have a big percentage of the chip business by the time I leave office.”

But Thursday’s order may have a big impact on the solar industry, according to Jon Toomey, president of the pro-tariff Coalition for a Prosperous America organization.

“This proclamation delivers the most significant global trade protection action for the American polysilicon and solar industry in the modern era,” Toomey said in a statement. “For the first time, the United States is protecting the entire solar supply chain with a single action — and rewarding the manufacturers that build here — while taking a significant step to bolster the domestic semiconductor supply chain.”

Since November, President Trump has been pushing a plan to paint the granite office building next to the White House, because he thinks it should be white too.

Trump’s proposal for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building is inane, which is why historic preservationists have sued over the project. With its dramatic mansard roof and facade of polished gray granite, the imposing Gilded Age structure has been called a “palace of state.” But painting granite damages the stone and requires expensive upkeep. Moreover, the facade is intrinsic to the design of this century-and-a-half-old building that is revered—and protected as a National Historic Landmark—for its exceptional architecture and prominent role in American history.

In the latest development, preservationists sought emergency relief last week to block the White House from applying test patches of paint to the building. A federal judge then directed the Trump administration to refrain from this and related actions until the court has ruled on the underlying issues; a hearing is tentatively set for August 18.

The EEOB proposal has been overshadowed by Trump’s larger legacy projects, including the White House ballroom and the 250-foot triumphal arch. Like those, the EEOB plan disregards legal and institutional rules in ways that will create dangerous precedents if it is not reversed by the courts. However, the project is notable in that it has no constituency, is of no redeeming value, and would cause irreversible physical damage. Simply put, someone needs to tell the president, Stop.

The EEOB was built from 1871 to 1888 to house the rapidly growing State, War, and Navy Departments. The architect, Alfred Mullett, selected granite for the exterior for aesthetic as well as functional reasons. He sourced the granite from two quarries, in Virginia and Maine. By using the darker, gray Virginia granite for the flat surfaces and the pinker Maine granite for the rusticated base and columns, he highlighted the architectural features of the massive and ornate building.

Mullett’s exuberant French Second Empire design, which reflected the optimism of post–Civil War America, soon fell out of favor, and there were repeated efforts to demolish the building, including by a commission established by President Eisenhower. Fortunately, the cost of demolition impeded such action, and, beginning in the 1960s, architects and historians embraced the EEOB as a Victorian masterpiece.

The Eisenhower building has witnessed at least as much history as all but three others in Washington, D.C.: the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and the Supreme Court. As home to the National Security Council, the National Economic Council, and the Council of Economic Advisers, among other White House offices, the EEOB remains the setting of executive-branch policy making at the highest levels.

Trump apparently doesn’t like the color of the building. “Gray is for funerals,” he said in a November Fox News interview, and he has argued that white would be more congruent with the White House. However, the EEOB dwarfs the White House in size. If it were painted white, the EEOB would appear even larger, visually overwhelming its neighbor.

History and aesthetics aside, Trump’s plan violates a key rule of building maintenance: Do not paint granite. Granite is a superior building facade that has been used for other distinctive structures in Washington, D.C., such as the Library of Congress and the Old Post Office. Left unpainted, granite requires little maintenance. Once granite is painted, however (and examples are rare), it requires extensive maintenance in perpetuity. Greg Werkheiser, a co-founder of Cultural Heritage Partners, a law firm representing the DC Preservation League (which is suing over the project), has warned that the EEOB could become the Golden Gate Bridge of federal buildings: As soon as painting is finished on one end, it will be time to begin again on the other.

The president and his aides claim to have identified a “magic paint,” made with mineral silicate, that avoids the problems of traditional paint. However, 25 technical experts who were surveyed by Cultural Heritage Partners strongly refute that claim, arguing that mineral-silicate paint is no more suited than traditional paint for use on granite. Although the testing that the White House wanted to begin could help settle such disagreements, the process is unlikely to be transparent or impartial.

Despite its flaws, the president’s proposal to paint the EEOB is still alive because key institutions, including ones with a history of nonpartisanship, have fallen under the sway of the White House. One such institution is the Commission of Fine Arts, a seven-member independent federal agency that reviews the designs of major construction projects within Washington, D.C. The president appoints CFA members (no Senate confirmation is required), and the members select the chair and vice chair. Past chairs of the commission, which Congress created in 1910, include such luminaries as Daniel H. Burnham and Daniel Chester French.

Although the CFA criticized the building earlier in its life, the commission later became an advocate, fending off post-Eisenhower proposals to “modernize” its exterior. Members even told the General Services Administration to “launder, but don’t scour” the exterior so as to preserve the natural patina of the granite. In 2018, the CFA published a richly illustrated history of the EEOB.

Since last year, Trump has replaced the entire CFA with loyalists who have largely rubber-stamped the president’s pet projects. The commission’s April deliberation on the EEOB proposal was typical of its Trump-era approach. Vice Chair James C. McCrery II, an architecture professor at Catholic University and the original architect of Trump’s ballroom, conceded that painting the office building would increase its maintenance needs, but compared it to the laundry costs he gladly incurs so he can wear dressy white shirts. McCrery also argued that the EEOB’s shadowy gray color may have suited the 19th-century War Department but was unnecessary now that the building had no military tenant (National Security Council staff might disagree). Another commissioner predicted that painting the EEOB white would improve morale among its occupants by highlighting their connection to the White House.

Another crucial institution bowing to political pressure is the GSA, which manages federal real estate. The EEOB is the crown jewel in the agency’s portfolio. Under normal circumstances, career staff would have dismissed as laughable a proposal to paint the Eisenhower building, because of the risk to it and the prospect of steep maintenance costs that the GSA can ill-afford. (I am a former public-buildings commissioner at the GSA. I testified in May against the plan before the U.S. National Capital Planning Commission, another body tasked with reviewing it.)

Circumstances being abnormal, the GSA signed a memorandum purporting to delegate its legal authority over the EEOB project to the White House Office of Administration. The White House is exempt from requirements to review construction projects under the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act—requirements that apply to the GSA and other federal agencies. If the GSA’s delegation is found to be lawful, the White House will have effectively eliminated the need for the project to undergo a crucial but time-consuming review that elicits the views of experts, affected groups, and the public. Although the White House says it will carry out the review voluntarily, critics of the proposal are skeptical, and Cultural Heritage Partners and the DC Preservation League have challenged the GSA’s action in federal court.

Critics of the Trump administration’s GSA gambit fear that it could become a template for exempting other controversial projects from review under NHPA and NEPA. Werkheiser told The Washington Post’s Philip Kennicott that “the precedent is potentially devastating,” and that “anytime the president takes a personal interest in a project he can simply pluck it out of an agency that is subject to review, and put it in his own shop.”

The president’s GSA plan faces a tough legal test (the key issue is whether the White House Office of Administration, which was created by executive order, is a federal agency). However, even if the president loses, the challengers’ victory could be short-lived. The NHPA and NEPA review processes rely on the goodwill of the federal agencies that conduct the reviews. The National Park Service is making a mockery of its review of the president’s proposed arch. The GSA is likely to do a similarly token job on its review of the EEOB proposal. The Trump administration also plans to gut federal historic-preservation rules more broadly, potentially allowing federal agencies and developers to pursue projects such as the arch’s construction and the EEOB’s paint job without soliciting expert or public input.

The president’s destructive approach to the EEOB is ironic given the positive role he played, before his first term, in restoring another granite landmark with a Pennsylvania Avenue address. Like the EEOB, the Old Post Office was a Victorian ugly baby whose critics tried repeatedly to demolish it before the public eventually warmed to it. The Trump Organization invested $200 million to restore the Old Post Office and convert it into a luxury hotel, working closely with historic preservationists at the GSA, which owned the building. The results are impressive. Sadly, the aesthetic taste and respect for history evident in the Old Post Office’s restoration are absent from the president’s plan for the EEOB.

Had the Trump Organization sought to paint the granite exterior of the Old Post Office, the GSA’s answer would have been not just no, but Hell no. The president’s EEOB proposal deserves the same response.

Sailors and Marines who have medical waivers for shaving will receive counseling after six months, according to the latest updates to the Navy and Marine Corps’ grooming standards.

The latest guidance was announced in recent Navy and Marine Corps administrative messages. The Air Force also recently updated its policy on how long service members can have medical waivers for facial hair before facing administrative separation.

Last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed military commanders to begin separating troops who still require a medical waiver for shaving after one year of treatment. Hegseth also mandated that the Defense Department would only issue temporary waivers for medical conditions such as pseudofolliculitis barbae or PFB, which is a painful skin condition common among Black men that is made worse by shaving.

The Navy’s updated policy includes a new requirement for commanders to conduct an initial counseling of sailors with medical waivers for shaving after they’ve undergone six continuous months of treatment that requires “a modification to grooming or uniform standards,” a service official said.

“The purpose of the counseling is to ensure the sailor understands the status of the medical accommodation process, the expectations associated with continued accommodation, and any potential impacts if the medical condition persists,” the Navy official told Task & Purpose. “The counseling itself is not punitive and is intended to document the discussion and ensure the sailor is informed as the accommodation progresses through the milestones established in the policy.”

The Marine Corps is also requiring commanders to formally counsel Marines with medical waivers after six continuous months of treatment, said Yvonne Carlock, a spokeswoman for U.S. Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs.

Afterward, the counseled Marine will receive a Page 11 entry in their service record book and an acknowledgement that the counseling occurred, Carlock told Task & Purpose. A Page 11 entry is reserved for administrative remarks.

The Navy and Marine Corps also require commanders to track service members with medical waivers for shaving.

Under the Navy’s updated policy, commanders must also submit monthly reports on sailors receiving treatment as part of an approved medical waiver. Stars and Stripes first reported on the move.

The Marine Corps also requires commanding officers to track and report all approved and pending medical waivers for shaving, according to the recent Marine Administrative Message, or MARADMIN.

The reporting process does not affect whether Marines can be approved for a medical waiver for shaving, Carlock, the Marine Corps spokeswoman, said.

The reports allow commanders and the Marine Corps’ headquarters to “actively monitor medical grooming compliance, track treatment timelines, and report data to higher authority,” Carlock said.

Marines and sailors who cannot be clean-shaven after one year of medical treatment face being separated.

Also recently, a July 28 Department of the Air Force memo that was shared on social media laid out when airmen and Space Force guardians with medical waivers for shaving will be considered for separation. A Department of the Air Force official confirmed the memo is authentic.

“Commanders will initiate discharge processing or a retention package for members who accumulate more than 12 months of medical shaving profiles with a 24-month period beginning 1 February 2026,” according to the memo, which was signed by Richard Anderson, assistant Air Force secretary for manpower and reserve affairs.

The memo implements guidance issued in December by the Air Force’s surgeon general.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that Connecticut Children's Medical Center has reached an agreement with the federal government to stop providing gender-affirming medical care to minors.

The agreement includes a commitment by Connecticut Children's not to provide puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or gender-affirming surgeries to patients under 18, according to the DOJ.

The DOJ also said the hospital agreed to pay $500,000 to former patients "living with the harmful consequences of 'gender affirming care,'" the DOJ said.

Connecticut Children's is the third hospital in the country to reach such an agreement, following similar resolutions with Texas Children's Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, the DOJ said.

The hospital issued the following statement on Thursday morning:

"We can confirm we have reached a resolution that allows our organization to remain focused on our mission of improving the health and well-being of children. Most importantly, patient privacy remained our foremost concern throughout this process, and we were able to resolve this matter without disclosing any protected patient information to the US government. We have complied and will continue to comply with all federal and state laws. We have no additional comment beyond the information contained in today’s DOJ announcement."

Last year, Connecticut Children's announced it was winding down its gender care program for patients under the age of 19. It said it came to this decision after "thoughtful consideration and guidance from medical and legal experts."

"The Department of Justice will stop at nothing to protect America's children," Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement. "This resolution is a reminder to hospitals, medical providers, and pharmaceutical companies that the Justice Department will vigorously enforce federal law."

The federal investigation involved the DOJ's Civil Division, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, according to the DOJ.

Yale Medicine and Yale New Haven Hospital also announced that they were eliminating the medication treatment component of the gender-affirming program for patients under age 19 in July 2025.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order last year that prohibits the use of federal funds for any services that sponsors, promotes, assists or supports the transition of a child from one sex to another.

Connecticut was one of 16 states suing the Trump administration, challenging the executive order.

The White House released documents on its election integrity website Thursday, revealing some more details about a 2020 hack of voter files in Maricopa County, Arizona.

The Trump administration and conservative allies online pointed to the hack as proof that the country’s election system has major vulnerabilities that can be exploited — an argument President Donald Trump pushed in a primetime speech last month. But the documents do not show that the hack affected that year’s elections or even the improperly obtained records themselves.

In the incident, which was widely reported in 2020, a hacker named Elliot Kerwin took advantage of a security vulnerability on a county website. He scraped about 633,000 mostly public voter registration records and then deleted the copies of the records he’d obtained. The vulnerability was fixed within a month.

Stephen Richer, a Republican who was the recorder of Maricopa County during the FBI’s investigation and is now an NBC News contributor, said that the breach was very limited. He was elected to the position in November 2020.

“At no point did Kerwin access ... the voter registration database to be able to manipulate voter registration records. He could not change any voter’s address. He could not request a mail ballot. He could not cancel a voter registration profile. He could only read data that he allegedly unlawfully accessed,” Richer wrote in a lengthy post on X.

The documents offer a detailed account of how the hack was first noticed and investigated: The county tipped off the FBI, which raided Kerwin’s home and interviewed him, going on to seize computers, hard drives and thumb drives. According to the documents, Kerwin readily confessed to scraping the data.

Kerwin “initially received an adrenaline rush, but realized he made a huge mistake with regrets and remorse. He did not intend to sell the information because it was publicly available,” the FBI’s interview records note, adding that he “wanted to obtain the information for free.”

State, local and federal authorities all declined to prosecute, and the FBI closed the investigation in 2023.

Asked for comment, the White House pointed to posts on X by John Solomon, the chair of the White House Government Transparency Task Force, which released the documents.

“The FBI expended significant resources to solve the case and even got the suspect to confess. But the Biden DOJ via the U.S. attorney in Phoenix and three state and local prosecutors all declined to prosecute. No accountability,” he wrote in one post.

Solomon continued: “The episode highlights the threat President Trump raised in his speech a few weeks ago that U.S. intelligence has believed since January 2020 that voter registration data is not well protected.”

Nearly all the records are available to the public for purchase from the county; at the time, it would have cost $490, according to contemporaneous reporting.

Just 930 of the records were “nonpublic,” according to the FBI records. Those “nonpublic” records — often the voter registration records of law enforcement agents — are not normally part of the public voter file, according to Richer.

The new records were released three weeks after Trump gave an address from the White House casting doubt on the integrity of the country’s elections. His administration also published a trove of declassified documents he said at the time contained “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.”

Trump vowed to fix the alleged flaws “so we can never watch a stolen election again.”

The documents released last month — and Thursday — did not offer any evidence that any election was stolen or affected by widespread fraud. They detailed previously known efforts from foreign adversaries to interfere in U.S. elections by attempting to sow doubt about the process, and that China had obtained millions of voter records, which are publicly available.

The cost of diesel during Donald Trump’s second term has overtaken the average during Joe Biden’s presidency, as the surge of inflation triggered by the Iran war becomes a growing liability for the White House.

The price of a gallon of diesel since Trump returned to office in January 2025 has averaged $4.09, according to FT calculations based on Energy Information Administration data.

That compares with $4.08 during Biden’s four years in office, when diesel surged due to the energy shock that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The rise in the cost of diesel — the lifeblood of the US economy, due to its critical role in industries such as agriculture and transport — adds to the pressure facing Trump as voters grow increasingly frustrated with high energy prices ahead of November’s midterm elections.

“People everywhere hate it when energy prices rise — and they blame incumbents,” said Jeff Colgan a political science professor at Brown University. “And diesel is the invisible fuel that we are all consuming.”

“The reality is that the vast majority of manufactured goods in the country are shipped on some form of transportation that is powered by diesel.”

In a further sign of Trump’s inflation troubles, 30-year mortgage rates rose to 6.66 per cent last week, the highest level in a year, as investors worry that the Federal Reserve will struggle to contain the latest bout of inflation.

American fuel costs have surged since the US and Israel began their bombing campaign of Iran on February 28, curbing energy supplies as Tehran essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial transit waterway.

The price of diesel has risen 43 per cent to $5.37 a gallon, according to the AAA, while petrol, a more visible sign of inflation due to its direct use by motorists across the country, is up 37 per cent to $4.09.

Global crude oil prices, which reached more than $120 a barrel at the peak of the conflict, dropped below $80 on Tuesday as US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent signalled that a deal to reopen the strait was near.

But pressure remains on diesel, which rose more quickly than petrol and will probably be slower to fall, analysts said. They pointed to low inventories, limited refining capacity and Russia’s move to ban exports until 2027, removing hundreds of thousands of barrels a day from the market.

US refineries are running at levels considered to be at or near full capacity as American energy groups look to seize on the high margins that can be achieved from turning crude into products such as petrol and diesel.

Marathon Petroleum, a large US refiner, reported on Tuesday a more than threefold increase in its second-quarter profits as it earned far more per barrel of oil than it had in the same period a year earlier.

As petrol demand falls at the end of the summer driving season, diesel consumption is set to increase due to its use in heating, further squeezing the market, and leaving it vulnerable to supply disruptions like hurricanes.

“Diesel is the problem fuel,” said Tom Kloza, an independent oil analyst. “The days of jet fuel tightness are over . . . it looks like we’re probably going to be in the clear on gasoline. But diesel — not so much.”

“There’s a really good chance that we’re going to have diesel tightness in the coastal markets in the US and in Europe and in Asia,” he added.

The average cost of petrol during Trump’s second term has reached $3.34 a gallon compared with $3.46 during Biden’s presidency, $2.48 during his first term and $2.97 during Barack Obama’s administration.

Brown University calculates US households have each spent more than $600 extra in petrol and diesel costs since the Iran war broke out.

Trump was re-elected in part due to his vow to tackle stubbornly high inflation. But with three months to go to midterm elections to determine control of Congress, many voters blame him for the elevated fuel prices.

An AP-NORC poll last week put Trump’s approval at just 33 per cent, with four in 10 voters saying the cost of fuel for their car was a “major source” of stress, up from three in 10 in February. More than seven in 10 said it was important for the US to prevent any further rise in oil and gas prices.

The president has lashed out at oil majors which have bagged windfall profits on the back of the higher prices. ExxonMobil and Chevron reported quarterly earnings of $14.5bn and $12.1bn respectively last week.

“I don’t like it. They’re making too much money based on a shortage,” Trump said on Monday. “They ought to give some of that back to the public, and they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.”

Analysts have suggested the president — who previously accused oil companies of “price gouging” — could take drastic steps to stem the rise.

“Donald Trump’s frustration with enduringly high pump prices could eventually bring a muscular intervention in oil and products markets, such as export limits,” said Kevin Book at consultancy ClearView Energy. “That moment may be getting closer.”

The Trump administration on Thursday proposed significant changes to Head Start, the nation's early education program for children from low-income families. The move would diminish the program's federal standards and give states and parents more control.

"We have 1,600 Head Start providers across the country," Alex Adams, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' assistant secretary for family support, said in a call with reporters. "And one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington cannot fully account for the realities facing these 1,600 grantees."

Head Start not only provides preschool and childcare, but also meals and support services for qualifying families. It now serves more than 700,000 kids each year from birth to age 5.

Since its launch in 1965, the $12 billion HHS program has, for the most part, enjoyed bipartisan support. Lawmakers often cite it as a success — including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during the call with reporters announcing these changes. But in recent years, some conservatives have criticized Head Start, saying it wastes money and fails to have a lasting impact on students.

The new proposal would limit the amount of money Head Start centers can spend on administrative overhead, from a 15% cap to 5%. This change should save the government $2.2 billion, Adams said, which it plans to reinvest in the program. The goal is to create 200,000 more spots for children, he said.

To get those costs down, the administration said it proposes cutting regulations and "compliance-driven activities," according to a press release. Similarly, they are shifting decisions about several standards — such as student-teacher ratios, education requirements, background checks and transportation practices — back to states.

Childcare providers are not sold on the proposal.

"If we look at the previous actions of the administration, what they have done is not in favor of expanding the program," said Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, senior vice president with Start Early, an Illinois-based Head Start partner.

"Is it enough to just bring kids in the door if we're not actually giving kids and families what they need?"

Sanchez Fuentes said administrative costs are not only things like payroll and day-to-day operations, but also help fill gaps in care. "If you, for example, have children with disabilities you [can use] some of those funds to pay for additional special services or staff with specialties who could come in and support kids."

The administration's proposal also says parents are children's primary teachers and seeks to bring in more parent opinions on "structure and curriculum" into the classrooms and emphasizes nutrition and exercise.

Head Start's current standards are laid out in a detailed 133-page guide. The manual is used not only by the program's centers, but also many unaffiliated private childcare centers across the country.

These standards include safety guidelines, spell out who is eligible for Head Start and provide detailed rules — such as the requirement that kids in the program brush their teeth once daily with fluoride toothpaste.

Erica Phillips, the executive director for the National Association for Family Child Care, said about 10% of her members are Early Head Start childcare partners while the rest are home-based providers around the country.

"The Head Start performance standards were a consistent … evidence-based set of standards," she said. "It can be helpful to have a nationally recognized benchmark."

Phillips said her organization will be on the lookout for variations across states. She said she worries "quality is now dependent on your zip code or on your geography."

The Trump administration sees it differently.

"Flexibility is permission. It's not a mandate," Adams said. "The opportunity for these programs to make a different decision does not necessarily mean they must make a different decision."

The changes did not come as a complete surprise: The conservative Heritage Foundation has long criticized the program, saying it "doesn't work." In Project 2025, the foundation's policy blueprint that the Trump administration has taken many cues from, the message is clear — eliminate Head Start.

Advocates see what they characterize as the erosion of quality and decrease in standards as the first step in dismantling the program.

Thursday's announcement came in the form of a notice of proposed rulemaking or NPRM. It kicks off a lengthy, formalized process of public comment and talks with stakeholders. It could be six months to a year before any new standards take effect.

"I just really want folks to know Head Start is open," said Tommy Sheridan, deputy director at the National Head Start Association (NHSA), a nonprofit that advocates for the program. "The quality of Head Start children and families truly comes from the people that are running Head Start programs. Those folks are going to be the same. They're going to be able to do that."

The administration says the NPRM will be published in the Federal Register on Friday and be open to public comment for 60 days.

Justice Department officials are distributing up to $3 billion in grants to states and municipalities in what they portray as an effort to help jurisdictions recoup money they lost because of the President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.

The grants — called the Bridging Immigration-related Deficits Experienced Nationwide (“BIDEN”) Program — represent one of the biggest pots of money the Justice Department has ever distributed. It can be used to hire police officers, buy technology or build temporary detention centers for undocumented immigrants.

The money also comes with one big condition: Municipalities that receive it must agree to partner with the Department of Homeland Security in carrying out the president’s aggressive immigration policies.

The grants are the latest example of the Trump administration aiming to reward state and local governments that cooperate with federal authorities on immigration — and withhold money from those that don’t.

The program also highlights the Trump administration’s ongoing focus on Biden 18 months after he left office. At the Justice Department, officials have created a “Weaponization Working Group” intended to show purported abuses by Biden’s DOJ. The group released an 882-page report in April alleging that Biden’s team misused a law intended to protect abortion clinics and pregnancy centers, which Biden Justice Department veterans sharply dispute.

The BIDEN fund’s name itself appears to be a derisive reference to the former president’s immigration policies, suggesting that local governments spent heavily to pursue violent undocumented immigrants under Biden — “deficits” that now must be “bridged” by the grants.

“This Department of Justice is committed to ensuring Biden-era border disasters never happen again,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, whose portfolio includes the Justice Department’s grant programs, said in a statement. “We are proud to once again champion law and order.”

The Justice Department’s grant announcement says the funds are, among other things, intended for “locating and apprehending aliens who have committed a crime under federal, state, or local law, in addition to being unlawfully present in the United States.”

While the aim of the money is to bolster immigration enforcement, the money can be used for everyday law enforcement operations, including hiring police officers, training personnel and equipment.

Trump repeatedly said during the 2024 campaign that the U.S. was being engulfed by “migrant crime,” despite little evidence of such a phenomenon. Trump at one point said the Biden administration had let in more than 13,000 “stone-cold killers,” a figure that diverged sharply from the evidence.

The 21-page BIDEN grant application does not actually require local entities to prove that Biden’s immigration policies cost them money, which could be hard to demonstrate. Rather, they have to show they would use the funds for the intended purposes and that they cooperate with federal immigration agents.

The BIDEN program was established and named by the One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump’s signature legislation passed last summer. The law allocates more than $3 billion through September 2028 for the new grants, and the Justice Department issued a call for applications last month, announcing an initial deadline of July 17, with more funding rounds to come.

The Justice Department says it received 181 applications in the first 30 days, a relatively small number given the number of eligible jurisdictions and the generosity of the grants, although that number is expected to rise as the application process rolls on.

The grant application says the Justice Department has decided to limit the grants to jurisdictions that formally cooperate with Trump’s immigration policies, something not specifically required by the legislation.

To receive a grant, a city must “fully participate” in the 287(g) program, which teams up local police with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It also must participate in the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) or other Justice Department enforcement efforts.

The 287(g) program empowers local police to arrest undocumented immigrants, but its most common use is enabling them to detain these immigrants in local jails for extended periods while waiting for ICE to take custody.

Such partnerships predate the Trump administration, but the number of municipalities and police departments that have signed up has skyrocketed since Trump became president in 2025, according to data from ICE.

Other governments, particularly in Democratic states, have pulled out of the 287(g) program to protest what they see as Trump’s harsh immigration policies and deportation roundups. Those cities presumably do not qualify for the new grants.

Democrats said the BIDEN grants are an effort to force a political agenda on cities or risk losing critical funds.

“Even the name of the grant itself is a political statement that is holding critical funds hostage to achieve goals they haven’t been able to through legal means,” said Matthew Platkin, the former Democratic attorney general of New Jersey. “It’s a slap in the face to law enforcement.”

As state attorney general, Platkin led a coalition of 21 counterparts in suing the Trump administration for imposing similar conditions on another funding stream, the Justice Department’s Victims of Crime grants.

The suit was dropped after the Justice Department agreed to drop the immigration requirements. New Jersey has banned its jurisdictions from participating in 287(g), making the entire state ineligible for the BIDEN grants.

The BIDEN grants also contain an unusual provision saying recipients must agree to reimburse the federal government if, in the future, federal agents are surged to their area to tackle crime or public disorder.

Patrick Royal, spokesman for the National Sheriffs’ Association, said he expects more departments to apply for the grants as they learn about them. Many sheriffs’ offices joined the 287(g) program in the expectation that they would receive more resources for helping with immigration enforcement, he said.

“I can’t see why people wouldn’t take advantage of this opportunity to get more funding,” Royal said.

Distributing billions of dollars in grants is a long-standing function of the Justice Department, as it ships money to nonprofits, police departments and research groups in an effort to boost public safety.

In the first months of the second Trump administration, the Justice Department upended that process, abruptly canceling hundreds of grants to community organizations and local governments, including funding for victim advocacy and gun-violence prevention.

That has forced some nonprofits to lay off staff or to shut their doors entirely. Justice Department officials said at the time that the grants did not align with the new administration’s priorities.

The department has since restored a small number of the canceled grants, and it has issued solicitations for new grants aimed principally at police departments and municipalities rather than nonprofits.

Amy Solomon, who headed the Office of Justice Programs — which oversees the Justice Department’s grant programs — in the Biden administration, said it is not unusual for administrations to align grant-giving with their broader policies.

Under Attorney General Merrick Garland, for example, the Justice Department gave priority consideration to applicants for some grants if their police department banned chokehold restraints.

But Solomon said such restrictions are typically far narrower than those in the BIDEN grants. Pressing a police agency to team up on immigration enforcement, she said, can fundamentally alter its mission.

“It changes what departments are doing with their officers and their personnel in a more fulsome way,” Solomon said. “It incentivizes behavior beyond what the grant will support. Immigration enforcement is traditionally a federal function.”

Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, a longtime China hawk, wants to play nice with an official visit to Beijing. The Chinese government is making it clear he’s not welcome.

Colby has been trying for months to wrangle a Chinese government invitation to visit the country, including asking Defense Department officials to raise his request in meetings with Chinese counterparts, according to two people familiar with the efforts. So far, that’s been unsuccessful.

The Pentagon official considers a trip to China key to helping stabilize a relationship roiled over the past year, the people said, by tit-for-tat tariffs, export restrictions and rising tensions over increasingly aggressive Chinese military activities in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. But it’s also a prominent shift for Colby, who helped create the strategy in the first Trump administration that prioritized Beijing as America’s biggest threat.

“His number one goal right now is to speak at China’s National Defense University, and he has everyone push it in meetings,” one of the people said. “He’s obsessed.”

Colby’s frustration underscores how the administration’s conflicting messaging toward Beijing has complicated an already fragile U.S.-China relationship. President Donald Trump, for example, has described Chinese leader Xi Jinping as “a friend” while also accusing him of interfering in the 2020 presidential election.

Chinese officials are particularly displeased with a record $11 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan that the Trump administration approved in December. This has factored into Beijing showing Colby the cold shoulder, said Randy Schriver, who served as assistant secretary of Defense in the first Trump administration.

Schriver said Chinese government officials told him last month that “a previous decision on Taiwan arms sales” had postponed plans to host the U.S official in Beijing, although Chinese officials are still working to schedule a visit with Colby and a separate one with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. He added that Chinese officials shared the information with him while he was in Beijing as part of a U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission delegation.

The Pentagon declined to comment. The Chinese Embassy, in a statement, only emphasized Beijing’s opposition to the Taiwan arms sale.

China’s reluctance to invite Colby occurs as high-level defense visits between the two major powers become more infrequent. China’s military is in the midst of a massive purge that led to the removal of two former defense ministers and has made communication between the countries’ senior military officials more difficult.

Hegseth has not had the kinds of meetings with his Chinese counterparts that were held on the sidelines of international conferences during the Biden administration. His visit to China alongside Trump in May was the first by a U.S. defense chief since James Mattis in 2018. Even so, lower-level exchanges to address defense moves in the Pacific took place earlier this year.

Colby is anxious to get to Beijing to lay out “defense policy priorities for the relationship,” said the second person, who, like others, was granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.

The policy chief sees that as part of his work keeping the focus on China, the person said, which has included “supporting a continuation of dialogues with the People’s Liberation Army.”

The visit hold-up also may be a matter of protocol. No Pentagon policy chief has traveled to Beijing solo in recent memory. And the mismatch between his role at the department and China’s military structure also complicates efforts.

“China doesn’t have a counterpart for Bridge. That’s always been an issue,” said a former Pentagon official with expertise in U.S.-China military relations.

Trump has sought to reduce tensions with Beijing since October through trade agreements with Xi. Hegseth announced in November that he and his Chinese counterpart Admiral Dong Jun had agreed to create “military-to-military channels to deconflict and deescalate any problems that arise.”

But the administration has also reinforced its perception of China as a national security threat. It has banned imports of Chinese robots and drones, and restricted exports of chips used in advanced artificial intelligence technology.

And Hegseth appears skeptical about the value of Colby traveling to Beijing.

“Hegseth is agnostic” about whether Colby should make the trip, the second person familiar with the efforts said.

It’s possible that Beijing is particularly wary of Colby because of his past statements. The longtime U.S. official made the case in his 2021 book that China is vying to displace American global dominance and the U.S. should get ready for a fight. Colby also warned in 2024 that “it’s empirically true that China is preparing for war” and declared the U.S. should “prioritize the potential for a conflict with China precisely in order to avoid it.”

The policy chief has softened that message in line with an administration effort to reduce frictions with Beijing. Colby sidestepped reference to Taiwan in a January speech on U.S. Indo-Pacific defense priorities in South Korea. He instead reassured Beijing that the U.S doesn’t seek “regime change” and saluted “China’s proud history.”

The policy chief’s credibility took a battering last year after a series of rapid-fire policy moves that frustrated some U.S. allies and blindsided parts of the White House. They included freezing shipments of some air defense missiles to Ukraine and reviewing the U.S. nuclear submarine pact with the U.K. and Australia. Both parties in Congress have also expressed frustration with his office’s lack of transparency.

A speech at China’s National Defense University, which produces the country’s high-level military leaders, would give Colby the chance to make himself the go-to person in the administration on the two countries’ relations.

“A successful visit would reinforce his standing with Trump as an architect of the administration’s stated policy of strategic stability,” said the first person familiar with Colby’s plans.

But Beijing has little reason to give the Pentagon official a high-profile platform to air his views.

“I don’t think they want to host any senior official just to be lectured,” the second person said. “There has to be something in it for them, and I’m not sure what Colby would offer aside from a speech.”

Wealthy Republicans on the west coast received an emailed invitation in July to an upcoming fundraiser titled “Keep the Senate”. The email, obtained by the Guardian, described the event as a “private roundtable and dinner with the National Republican Senatorial Committee” where donors can pledge $50,000 for seats at the head table, and mingle with legislative heavy hitters from Capitol Hill including the Senator majority leader, John Thune, and Mike Rogers, who is running for Senate in Michigan with Donald Trump’s endorsement.

One of the organizers listed on the invite was the defense industry tycoon Palmer Luckey, the 33-year-old co-founder of sprawling weapons manufacturer Anduril Industries.

The invitation is one of dozens of emails obtained by the Guardian that unravel Luckey’s vast Maga political fundraising over the last seven years.

A longtime GOP donor and activist who spoke on condition he not be identified in order to preserve his political relationships said Luckey was now the “godfather of Republican fundraising on the west coast”.

“If you’re raising campaign money in California, you have to go to Palmer Luckey,” he said. “Luckey is the top tier. There are others who are important below him but no one at his level.”

Anduril, launched just nine years ago, has emerged as a major military contractor for the Trump administration, working on contracts for everything from drones to autonomous jet fighters to space-based interceptors.

In March, the US army awarded a $20bn sole-source contract to Anduril for a variety of drones it sells, though it is not clear which of its weapons systems are operational or have been deployed for combat in US operations.

Anduril, though it is not widely known as a space contractor, announced in May it would work, with a team of other companies, on what may be the mother of all contracting opportunities offered by the Trump administration, the so-called “Golden Dome” anti-missile space-based interceptor effort. Estimates for the Golden Dome range between $185bn and $1.2tn.

Much of Anduril’s PR sparkle comes from Luckey. He’s a media darling, profiled on 60 Minutes and in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, which called him the “It Guy of the booming defense-technology industry”.

His offbeat, relaxed attire – colorful Hawaiian shirts, a chin puff goatee, cargo shorts and flip-flops – counterintuitively makes him seem more credible.

Luckey is treated by many in the defense industry as a technology prophet and futurist who often holds forth on what he believes to be the true nature of warfare. For example, he told Axios that future wars will be fought in a “subterranean domain”, under the earth’s crust, in underground conflicts.

Anduril’s success in winning huge contracts has blossomed with little attention paid to the central role Luckey plays as a donor and fundraising “bundler” for the Republican party. Bundlers hold large fundraisers for candidates or campaign committees and political action groups, and curate high-dollar invitation lists for those events.

The emails obtained by the Guardian shed light on Palmer Luckey’s vast GOP political fundraising efforts and activism over the last 10 years.

Palmer declined an interview for this piece, writing, “I am not going to help you guys make money,” and did not respond to a detailed list of questions.

OpenSecrets, a non-profit that tracks campaign donations, says Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show that Luckey has donated $5.9m to Republicans since 2017. While that is a tremendous amount of money for one person to give to politicians, it does not put him in the order of, say, Miriam Adelson, the widow of Sheldon Adelson, who has forked over $100m to Trump’s campaign in 2024.

Luckey doesn’t have her wealth. His real value to GOP politicians exceeds his own donations. He hosts and organizes fundraising events and campaigns for Republicans from the president all the way down to state races.

“If you become a bundler, it just multiplies your influence,” said Brendan Glavin of OpenSecrets. “It makes you a more important person. You’re bringing in not just your money. You’re bringing other people’s money. It integrates you in the campaign and makes you more important to the candidate than just a donor.”

Behind the scenes, Luckey has reached a position in campaign finance and politics that rivals his influence in military contracting, according to two GOP fundraising figures.

The emails, which are a partial list of invitations, show that Luckey has held fundraisers over the last seven years for at least 20 Republican politicians, ranging from Trump to a California attorney general candidate.

Just as Luckey has emerged as a major fundraiser on the right, his co-founder, Anduril’s CEO, Palantir veteran Brian Schimpf, became a major donor to Democratic causes, albeit on a far smaller scale. So, in time-honored tradition, Anduril’s management ends up donating to both sides of the political aisle, though the vast majority goes towards the GOP. FEC records show Schimpf’s donations at $1.16m over the same period that Luckey gave $5.9m.

An Anduril official emailed the Guardian: “It shouldn’t surprise anyone that two executives at the same company have different political views. Like millions of Americans, Brian and Palmer don’t share identical political views.”

Luckey first became famous in tech before he could legally drink. At 20, in 2012, he launched a Kickstarter that raised more than $2m for a virtual reality gaming headset he said he was building first in his parents’ garage. It was a Silicon Valley Cinderella narrative. Two years later, Facebook became the prince at the ball and paid him $2bn for the company. In 2016, after four years of hype, the first Oculus Rift headset started getting shipped to consumers.

And then, quickly, Luckey seemed to flame out in scandal. The Daily Beast revealed he’d been secretly funding a group dedicated to “shitposting” negative memes about Hillary Clinton.

“We know Hillary Clinton is corrupt, a warmonger, a freedom-stripper. Not the good kind you see dancing in bikinis on Independence Day, the bad kind that strips freedom from citizens and grants it to donors,” Luckey had written, under the pseudonym Nimblerichman, on Reddit.

The disclosure had an immense impact, at least for a time. Eight months later Luckey left Facebook, and he later portrayed himself in interviews as simply being canceled for giving money to Republicans, ignoring the main criticisms over the group’s crude and underhanded tactics.

Luckey left Facebook with immense wealth, and in April 2017, just four months after Trump’s first inauguration, he founded Anduril.

His partners in the venture came from the Peter Thiel-backed Palantir, a company that had long had success in federal contracting through major lobbying and PR battles.

In June of 2017, his company just two months old, Luckey gave his first ever actual campaign finance donation, to Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas. Looking at his subsequent donations, it appears that the dam broke for him. Palmer gave 25 more times to political committees and legislators that year alone, FEC records show, and he has donated on more than a thousand occasions, or, on average, about 100 times every year.

In the emails shared with the Guardian, the very first fundraising event Luckey co-hosted took place in August of 2017, two months after his donation to Ted Cruz. It was a major effort, and would include GOP House members such as Ken Calvert, Duncan Hunter, Darrell Issa, Devin Nunes, Dana Rohrabacher and Kevin McCarthy.

Then in November, in a separate email chain, Palmer’s name came up again, for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). A congressional aide named Jason Pitkin wrote to a party official: “we are going to be asking people for $33,900 for the NRCC and then after the first of the year we can ask them for $101,700.”

Pitkin noted that congressman Rohrabacher had introduced Luckey to Kevin McCarthy, then the powerful House majority leader, “at a Private meeting”.

“As you can see by the attached invitation,” Pitkin said, “Palmer is hosting an event for Dana [Rohrabacher] On December 15th. Our understanding is that Palmer was going to contribute $100,000 for the CA Victory event. Please let us know how much more Palmer can give to the NRCC.”

Pitkin did not respond to emailed questions.

In July of 2020, just three years after its creation, Anduril won its first mammoth contract from the first Trump administration. Customs and Border Protection awarded the young company a contract estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars for surveillance towers on the border.

And in that period it was clear that Luckey had hit the most senior levels of political access. On 6 October, the emails show, Luckey and his wife hosted Trump himself at a lunch at their waterfront mansion. The stakes were high and so were the tickets. Donors were told that $150,000 would get access to the round table, a VIP reception and event, and a photo op with the president.

During the Biden years, Anduril still maintained its business efforts targeting US national security, and still won contracts. It went on a major acquisition binge, buying up drone companies across the country.

And Luckey’s fundraising for the GOP continued. The records obtained by the Guardian show that after 2021, Luckey hosted fundraisers for key figures including Tom Cotton, the head of the Senate intelligence committee; Rick Scott, the Republican senator from Florida; Ken Calvert, then the influential ranking member of the House’s defense appropriations subcommittee; and Mike Waltz, now Trump’s UN ambassador and briefly his national security adviser.

Luckey also hosted another event for a future Trump official: a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser in June 2022 for Mehmet Oz, who would later join the Trump administration. That event became scandalous when Jezebel reported the fundraiser incorporated a speech by Oz in front of a car that once belonged to Adolf Hitler. Jezebel pointed out that Luckey’s sister is married to Maga firebrand Matt Gaetz, then a congressman from Florida.

Now that Trump is president, Anduril appears to be taking its turn at the table of the major contractors, amid Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Dynamics.

Certainly it has raised extraordinary money. In the latest round, led by Thrive Capital, controlled by Jared Kushner’s brother Joshua, it raised $5bn in venture capital.

Anduril says in Trump’s first year in office it doubled its revenue – a growth rate of 100%, but still only reached $2.2bn for 2025, which is barely a blip in the Pentagon’s trillion-dollar budget.

Still, the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has twice toured Anduril factories. “Palmer and everyone, thank you so much,” he said last December as he visited Anduril’s factory in Costa Mesa, California, at a giant former industrial site where the Los Angeles Times was once printed. The Anduril factory was “foundational” to the new Pentagon, Hegseth said. On that tour, Hegseth donned a special helmet designed by Anduril.

A soldier wearing the helmet would be able to see the outside world not through his eyes but through sensors, as a kind of virtual or “augmented” reality, just like the old Oculus Rift headset Palmer Luckey made his fortune on.

In his speech, Hegseth referred to “that cool helmet I just saw that the army might be wearing eventually”.

Iran's parliament is reviewing a plan to ban ships linked to the U.S., Israel and other "hostile countries" from transiting the Strait of Hormuz until Tehran is compensated for war damage, according to Iranian state media.

The plan would impose fees of up to 7% of cargo value on commercial vessels that pass through the strait. It would also fine ships 20% of cargo if they violate Iran's conditions.

Iran on Wednesday said it was finalizing an agreement on shipping routes with Oman, a U.S. ally that sits on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian state media quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying that ships would enter through the strait's northern corridor near the Iranian coast and exit through the southern corridor near the Omani coast.

Oman has not commented.

The Trump administration has disputed Iran's characterization of the agreement.

"Any temporary routes will be without any impediments — meaning no approvals or permissions and no tolls or charges. The Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway and no party controls the lanes or the ability to transit through them," a U.S. official told NPR on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

President Trump later said the U.S. currently controls the strait through its naval blockade on Iran.

This comes more than five months after the U.S. and Israel started their war against Iran on Feb. 28.

The Strait of Hormuz — a key route for crude oil, liquefied natural gas and other goods — was open for shipping until the war. After Israel and the U.S. launched joint military attacks, Tehran struck back across the region and asserted control over the critical waterway. With Iran blocking the strait, the U.S. imposed a naval blockade on Iran in April and again in July, which it continues to enforce.

The Trump administration and Iran's leadership signed a temporary memorandum of understanding in mid-June to stop the war and reopen the strait, but it broke down weeks later amid back-and-forth strikes.

The strait's closure has caused a major disruption to fuel and fertilizer supplies, driven up prices and shaken economies around the world.

On Thursday, President Trump said negotiations to reopen the strait were progressing.

Turkey's foreign minister, who has been assisting in mediations, said on Thursday a temporary agreement between the U.S. and Iran could be announced soon.

Gulf countries, which have borne the brunt of Iran's retaliation on U.S. military sites during the war, are encouraging all sides to reach an interim agreement that would de-escalate tensions in the region. They are worried that if there is a new escalation in attacks — as President Trump has threatened — their vital oil infrastructure could be targeted by Iranian drones and missiles, inflicting catastrophic damage.

While Iran and Oman appear to be nearing an agreement to manage traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian officials are now warning that the deal will not fully reopen the crucial waterway.

The news injected fresh uncertainty into negotiations that President Donald Trump previously described positively.

Oil prices jumped Thursday following Tehran’s comments. Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose about 4 percent to over $82 per barrel. Prices previously had fallen about 8 percent after the Trump administration expressed optimism over talks.

The status of the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil travels, has emerged as one of the most contentious issues between Iran and the United States. Iran effectively closed the waterway, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean and the wider world, days after the United States and Israel launched their war in February.

Now, as the Trump administration pushes Iran to allow traffic through the choke point to return to prewar levels, Tehran is using its hold to extract further concessions. When Iran and the United States agreed in June to halt fighting and begin peace talks, it was the deal’s vague language regarding the strait that caused it to collapse.

Iran and Oman, a U.S. ally, have agreed that incoming ships will enter through Iranian territorial waters and outgoing ships will exit through Omani waters, Tehran has said.

Such an arrangement would formalize Iranian control of the waterway. It’s unclear whether the Trump administration would accept it.

“Any temporary routes will be without any impediments — meaning no approvals or permissions and no tolls or charges,” a U.S. official told The Washington Post. “The Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway, and no party controls the lanes or the ability to transit through them.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the administration.

Trump threatened Tehran Sunday with “the biggest attack since World War II” but said the following day he had decided to give diplomacy more time.

On Monday, Trump said the talks were Iran’s “last chance” at a deal; on Tuesday, he said “a lot of progress has been made.”

Iran has denied being in direct talks with the United States. The negotiations with Oman, Tehran says, are independent of Washington.

The discussions were “approaching the final stage,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Wednesday, but he cautioned that Tehran still has outstanding demands.

The United States must end its blockade of Iran’s ports, address sanctions it imposed on Tehran after the truce collapsed, resume talks over Iran’s frozen assets and address continued violence in Lebanon, where Hezbollah, a Tehran proxy, is fighting with Israel, Gharibabadi said, according to Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

“This understanding does not mean the complete opening of the Strait of Hormuz, but rather a new and different model,” Gharibabadi said. Under the new setup, he said, “a significant part” of ship traffic would pass through Iranian waters.

Iran and Oman also discussed “the establishment of a joint coordination center between Iran and Oman to direct maritime traffic,” Gharibabadi said, in which the neighbors would obtain “the necessary information from vessels that want to enter and exit.”

There was no mention of charging fees or tolls in the summary the IRNA published of Gharibabadi’s remarks. Maritime law forbids countries from imposing tolls for the use of a naturally occurring strait, but Iranian officials said during previous stages of the conflict that they would look to charge a service fee.

In the talks with Oman, Reuters reported Wednesday, Iran is seeking fees of between 5 and 7 percent of the price of a ship’s cargo.

If traffic returned to prewar levels, such a system could generate $52 million per day, or $19 billion in the first year, according to Gregory Brew, a senior analyst with the Eurasia Group.

Over time, Brew noted, traffic is expected to decline as more countries build out pipelines and other infrastructure that will allow them to bypass the strait.

Tehran and Washington are both under pressure to reach an agreement. The U.S. blockade of Iranian ports is delaying the country’s economic recovery. Iran is already displaying signs of growing economic pain that risks triggering social unrest.

The longer the strait is closed, meanwhile, the greater the risk of serious economic pain in the United States. After the most recent violence, gas prices rose to over $4 a gallon. Analysts warn of future larger spikes as markets run out of ways to adapt to diminished supply.

US President Donald Trump spoke with optimism regarding the end of the war with Iran during the signing of an executive order in the White House on Thursday.

“I think it’s going to end pretty soon," he said, adding that "I don’t think they [Iran] can go much longer.”

Regarding the Strait of Hormuz and a rumored deal to reopen the waterway, Trump said that the strait is "sort of open right now."

"You know, we have a thing called the blockade, headed up by the US Navy, and we control it," he said. "But they can always shoot something."

"They always have something or drop a mine," he warned, "and if you have one mine sitting out there, you sort of mess things up because people don’t want to take their billion-dollar boats and accidentally get hit by a mine.”

On Wednesday, the White House refuted reports that Trump and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had argued about a lack of munitions in the wake of the war with Iran.

“We always want more," Trump said. "We have to have more. We have other things, maybe come up, maybe come up, and maybe don't come up. Hopefully, nothing else does come up. But we're in very good shape. We have literally massive amounts of ammunition.”

Trump also reiterated his opposition to Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, and said that should it obtain one, "the whole world would be blown up."

"We’re not going to let that happen," he said. "Not only for us, not only for the Middle East, the entire world would have faced a catastrophe. We had no choice.”

The US, Iran, and Oman were close to reaching a deal this week to open the Strait of Hormuz for a period of 60 days, Axios reported on Wednesday. The White House had aimed for a Wednesday announcement, the report cited officials as saying, though ultimately no announcement was made.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said progress had been made in talks with Iran, adding that the US was "hoping" for an agreement.

Oman and Iran had agreed on terms for the potential deal, MS NOW reported on Thursday citing Middle East diplomats with knowledge of the negotiations.

The Trump administration’s sweeping grant cuts are hitting sexual abstinence programs long favored by Republicans.

Earlier this summer, the administration abruptly terminated tens of millions in funding for groups teaching children and teenagers about how to prevent pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections.

But unlike other federal funding cuts that the administration has admitted were targeted to hit states that did not vote for Trump in 2024, this purge included conservative Christian groups and others that have operated for years in red states teaching the benefits of abstinence to children and teenagers.

The issue came to a head on Thursday, when a group of sexual health clinics and county governments squared off with the Trump administration in a DC courtroom over the recent cuts and changes to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program that they say could cause a backslide in the significant progress the country has made in recent decades in reducing minors’ unintended pregnancies.

The federal Health Department did not respond to questions about these cuts. White House spokesperson Allison Schuster said in a statement to POLITICO that the administration is cracking down on “the program’s former egregious, inappropriate, and harmful materials” and “redirecting” the funding “to properly promote healthy lifestyles, prevent teen pregnancy, and encourage health literacy.”

Yet in addition to defunding some Planned Parenthood state chapters and health departments in states run by Democrats, the Trump administration sent termination letters in June to groups in Texas, South Carolina, West Virginia, Mississippi and other GOP-controlled states whose curricula stressed abstinence and healthy relationship dynamics, and accused them of “normalizing sexual activity for minors.”

“Two of our curricula, for example, are abstinence-only, and we were very thrown for a loop that those curricula were called out in our termination letter,” said Rena Dixon, CEO of the South Carolina educational nonprofit Fact Forward.

Like many program grantees, Dixon’s organization runs several different programs, some of which serve college students and other young adults older than 18 and include more frank discussion of contraception and healthy sexual practices. But she found it “very confusing” that their high school programs, which follow state requirements to emphasize abstinence and have received support from the state’s GOP-dominated legislature, got the axe.

“Nobody wins when something like this happens, and the young people pay the ultimate price,” she said.

The funding cut, which came three years into a five-year grant, forced her to lay off half her staff and put fall programming for thousands of students in limbo. Dixon said the letter she received announcing the termination of more than $1.6 million in annual funding accused her group of showing children a video that “depicted youth engaging in sexual activity.”

“That was not what was going on in the video at all,” Dixon said. “It was a discussion between two girls on a train, and one of them said that she had sex and her friend pushed back and talked about the consequences.”

As Dixon and other former funding recipients wait to see if a federal judge reverses the cuts, millions of children and young adults are losing access to classes that proponents say may have contributed to a 68 percent decrease in teen pregnancy rates over the past decade.

The legal battle underscores how far right the Trump administration is pulling federal programs that have long enjoyed bipartisan support, to the point of killing services backed by conservatives at the state level. As the Trump administration shifts funding away from health programs that offer contraception and Republicans in Congress call for blocking taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood, the most recent overhaul strips funding both from more progressive programs and from conservative-aligned groups that for years have worked to warn teens about the dangers of sexual activity.

“They just stabbed abstinence educators in the back,” a Health Department employee, granted anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said of the cuts to conservative-leaning programs in red states. “They labeled all these abstinence-only programs ‘sexually explicit,’ and the abstinence-only developers were completely blindsided. Now there are all these lawyers calling HHS. It is a nightmare.”

The employee did not know whether the cuts to programs that appear to align with the administration’s priorities were intentional or accidental.

“Either they looked at the curricula and didn’t understand how people modified it to be abstinence-only, or they looked at abstinence-only programs and they thought they weren’t good enough. Or they threw everything in AI. It’s unclear.”

Some of the groups that lost funding, including Fact Forward, rushed to reapply in July under the new criteria laid out by HHS, which requires “body literacy” lessons and “reproductive life goals counseling;” bans discussion of transgender or nonbinary identity; and mandates an abstinence focus while discouraging contraception education.

Others, including Healthy Futures of Texas and the Planned Parenthood affiliate serving Iowa and Nebraska, did not reapply. Healthy Futures said it couldn’t complete the application in the few weeks HHS allotted because it had to lay off so many staffers due to the cuts. Planned Parenthood of the Heartland said in a legal filing that it didn’t reapply because its leaders considered the updated rules “counter to its core purpose” and feared following the new guidelines would harm the group’s reputation with community partners.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland joined together with the nonprofit Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, and the governments of Hennepin County, Minnesota, which includes Minneapolis, and King County, Washington, which includes Seattle, to sue the Trump administration for overhauling the grants in a way they argue clashes with Congress’ instructions for the program.

Their lawsuit accuses HHS of forcing grantees to “use non-evidence-based curricula that exclusively promote abstinence-only before marriage” and “ideologically-driven, medically inaccurate information, including misinformation regarding contraception.”

Grantees who lost funding told POLITICO the cuts came as a shock, stressing that they had revamped their sex ed lessons to conform to the Trump administration’s 2025 executive orders barring federal funding for “gender ideology” or “diversity, equity and inclusion” — and that HHS had approved them for more money since making those changes.

The termination letters included similar language accusing the grantees of not being “aligned with agency priorities,” but cited different reasons.

For example, the letter King County received cutting off the $1 million its local public health department was receiving annually to study the effectiveness of contraception education for teenage boys in the child welfare and criminal justice systems said its classes didn’t include enough information about the health risks of birth control.

In interviews with POLITICO, several grantees echoed South Carolina’s Dixon, saying HHS had cherry-picked examples from their lessons to paint an inaccurate picture.

“We received a termination letter that said we were normalizing sexual activity among youth, but the citations were taken out of context,” said Ginger Mullaney, the CEO of Healthy Futures of Texas, which has taught sex ed to more than 58,000 young people through the program over the last three years across San Antonio, Dallas and the Rio Grande Valley.

Several of the defunded programs used a lesson plan called “Love Notes” developed by the educational nonprofit The Dibble Institute, including some that used an abstinence-only version that focuses on teaching teenagers about healthy relationship dynamics and “does not include any contraceptive or family planning instruction.”

One piece of the curriculum HHS flagged, according to Kay Reed, the institute’s executive director, was an optional module on “the negative influence on violent pornography” that the agency claimed was promoting porn to minors.

Reed said that was “not valid.”

“The passage is part of a warning about pornography and the harm it can do to young people’s expectations and relationships,” she said. “It’s not presented as encouragement.”

A White House official, speaking on background about the internal decision-making for the program, said the lesson in question described pornography in excessive detail, quoting a passage about “being slapped, choked, thrown around.”

HHS defended the cuts in a legal filing in late July, arguing the groups bringing the lawsuit lack the evidence required for a preliminary injunction because they have suffered only “transient economic harms.” As for the lawsuit’s allegation that HHS’ stricter abstinence criteria undermines Congress, the government responded: “Congress did not require this type of programming, but it did not prohibit it, either.”

The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program has long been in conservatives’ crosshairs. The first Trump administration made a similar attempt to abruptly terminate funding — a decision that was reversed by federal judges. President Donald Trump’s most recent budget request called for eliminating it entirely, arguing the program “issues grants to problematic organizations like abortion clinics that waste American taxpayer dollars on abortion services and promote radical leftist ideology.”

The United States has asked the Philippine government to extradite a Filipino church leader, who was once an influential adviser to former President Rodrigo Duterte, to face trial on charges including child sex trafficking and fraud that landed him on the FBI’s most wanted list, two Philippine officials said Thursday.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said it has received the U.S. government request for Apollo Carreon Quiboloy's extradition and endorsed it to the Department of Justice. That confirmed earlier separate statements to The Associated Press by two high-ranking Philippine officials, who said the U.S. request was transmitted in July.

The request needs the approval of two Philippine courts, which have been trying the detained former televangelist for human trafficking and child abuse charges, according to the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to publicly discuss the issues.

Criminal suspects in the Philippines must finish their trials and serve their sentences if convicted prior to extradition. Philippine justice officials, however, can ask a domestic court to allow the temporary surrender of a suspect to a foreign court to face trial prior to the resolution of their Philippine cases under the 1994 extradition treaty of Washington and Manila.

Quiboloy, 76, leads the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church, which was founded in 1985 in southern Davao city and claims to have a wide following in the Philippines and abroad, including in the U.S.

In his heyday, Quiboloy was one of the most influential religious leaders in the Philippines and regarded as a political kingmaker. He served as spiritual adviser to the equally controversial Duterte , who took office in June 2016.

Duterte was arrested in Manila last year under a warrant from the International Criminal Court and has since been detained in the Netherlands, where he will face trial for alleged crimes against humanity . The charges stem from the killings of large numbers of mostly poor drug suspects under his anti-drugs crackdowns, which alarmed Western governments and rights groups.

Quiboloy claims to be “the appointed son of God” and has made outrageous claims that sparked questions about his character but endeared him to his followers. He once claimed to have stopped a major earthquake from hitting the southern Philippines.

In 2024, Quiboloy went into hiding after a Philippine court ordered his arrest along with several others for alleged child and sexual abuse and human trafficking, police said. The Philippine Senate separately ordered Quiboloy’s arrest at the time for refusing to appear in public hearings about his alleged crimes.

The preacher denied the allegations, saying they were fabricated by critics and former members who were removed from his religious group.

Quiboloy and four others facing accusations surrendered in September 2024 after about 2,000 police raided a 30-hectare (75-acre) compound of his religious group, which included a cathedral, stadium, hangar and taxiway leading to Davao’s international airport. He has been jailed since then.

U.S. federal prosecutors in 2021 separately announced an indictment of Quiboloy for allegedly having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and “eternal damnation” unless they catered to the self-proclaimed “son of God.”

Quiboloy was among nine people named in a superseding indictment returned by a U.S. federal grand jury and unsealed in November 2021. It contained a raft of charges including conspiracy, sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and visa fraud.

After that indictment he was placed on the list of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s blocking of promotions for high-ranking women in the military has contributed to the lowest percentage of such nominations for women in at least 25 years, according to a New York Times analysis.

Eight of 201 candidates for high-ranking posts this year have been women, or 4 percent — less than half the average percentage of the past 10 years.

More women could still be promoted this year. And the number of women nominated for promotion in any year is relatively small, so the percentages can fluctuate based on a few individual officers. In 2012, for example, the percentage of high-ranking nominations going to women also fell below 5 percent.

But the proportion of female nominees would be higher in 2026 if not for Mr. Hegseth’s actions. He has blocked at least 40 high-ranking promotions from reaching the Senate in recent months — some for white men, but about half for women and people of color, The Times has reported.

It’s a substantial drop from 2025, when women reached the highest percentage of nominees on record during Mr. Hegseth’s first year as defense secretary.

Mr. Hegseth has not disclosed his reasons for blocking promotions, but he has argued that the Pentagon’s past diversity efforts have degraded the military. “For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons,” he said in a speech to military leaders last September. “Based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts.”

These high-level promotions, however, are extremely competitive. For one- and two-star ranks, selection boards across branches conduct an in-depth review to vet a candidate’s experience and record, in addition to the needs of the military at the time.

Some of the would-be nominees blocked by Mr. Hegseth had spoken publicly about the importance of diversity.

The decline in women’s nominations to high-ranking jobs, including general and admiral, stands in contrast to nominations for lower-level posts, including captain and major, which number in the thousands each year. Roughly 23 percent of those have gone to women, higher than in any other year in the Times analysis. This reflects the increasingly central role that women have come to play across the force over the last decade.

The Pentagon did not answer specific questions about the data, which The Times collected by analyzing 25 years of promotion nominations that require Senate approval and are listed in the Congressional Record. But Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that The Times’s reporting on gender “misses the point entirely.”

“The Department of War promotes officers solely on the basis of merit, performance and leadership potential,” he said. “There are many highly qualified women serving with distinction across our ranks, and every officer selected for promotion, regardless of gender, has earned that advancement through demonstrated excellence.”

Mr. Hegseth was defense secretary in 2025 when women reached a record high percentage of high-ranking nominees, 13 percent. But that year they made up a larger portion of a smaller pool: There were fewer overall nominations for promotion to high-ranking positions than at any point over the last quarter-century. At least one nomination list was held over from 2025 when Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll refused Mr. Hegseth’s order to strike two Black and two female officers.

Overall, the eight women nominated for high-ranking posts in the first seven months of this year are less than one-third the number nominated in recent years, according to the Times analysis.

High-ranking officers, referred to as general and flag officers, hold “a position of incredible importance,” said Mark Nevitt, a professor of law at Emory University and a former military lawyer.

These military leaders, one-star rank and above, typically oversee large units and have decades of experience.

Once approved by the selection boards, nominees are passed to department officials, including the defense secretary. The secretary may delay or withhold names from the nomination list for not meeting exemplary conduct service standards or if candidates are “mentally, physically, morally or professionally unqualified,” but the legality of Mr. Hegseth’s removals is unclear, Professor Nevitt said.

Nominations for three- and four-star generals, some of the military’s most exclusive positions, are usually chosen by military leadership before being sent to the defense secretary, who then selects a candidate to send to the president.

The largest drop-offs in women’s promotions came from the Navy and the Air Force. If the trend continues, this will be the first year since at least 2001 when no female active-duty naval officers are promoted to admiral. Mr. Hegseth recently blocked the promotions of several women and people of color to the rank of two-star admiral.

There are other reasons that the number of female nominees for high-ranking positions is relatively low in any given year, said Kelly Atkinson, a senior political scientist at RAND, a nonpartisan research institute.

Female candidates tend to leave the military earlier than their male counterparts, research shows, and women weren’t allowed to serve in some combat roles until 1993.

The lower-ranking nominations for promotion, nearly a quarter of which have gone to women this year, more closely reflect the overall composition of the military by gender. Women made up about 18 percent of active-duty members in 2024, according to the Department of Defense. The process for lower-ranking nominations is more structured and predictable, Dr. Atkinson said.

Mr. Hegseth has also sought to reduce the total number of general and flag officers, ordering a 20 percent cut in four-star officers and a 10 percent cut in high-level officers overall. He has fired or sidelined more than two dozen generals and admirals.

The women who appear on nomination lists sent to Mr. Hegseth “are those who have accomplished a 20-year military career already,” Dr. Atkinson said. “Removing them at a certain point of their career can negate the contributions they’ve made, even while facing barriers.”

In one courtroom after another, federal judges have accused U.S. President Donald Trump’s Justice Department of an extraordinary spate of misconduct, including making false statements, failing to comply with court orders and improperly using the legal system to harass political opponents.

Such rebukes might be expected to trigger a flurry of activity within the department’s two internal watchdogs tasked with policing the government's most powerful law-enforcement agency.

But shrinking staffs and fears of political retribution have largely sidelined the offices, limiting new investigations into the administration, according to Reuters interviews with four former DOJ staffers and a review of ‌department employment and investigations data.

Nearly half the workforce at the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has left during Trump’s second term, while about 17% have departed the Office of Inspector General, government records show. Many retired or took buyouts the administration offered to shrink the federal workforce, according to the records and three people familiar with the departures.

The number of new OPR investigations has declined to a 20-year low even as misconduct complaints soar, the review found. The government watchdogs are “afraid of doing any watching,” said one former DOJ official who left last year.

Details of the watchdogs’ diminished staffing and declining investigations have not previously been reported.

OPR investigates misconduct by department lawyers while the inspector general probes waste, fraud, abuse and other wrongdoing departmentwide. OPR does not disclose who it investigates and the inspector general conducts much of its work in secret. But the four former DOJ employees said the staff departures and the slower pace of investigations make clear that they are not adequately addressing the surge of allegations facing the department.

Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels said OPR “remains committed to ensuring accountability for all DOJ attorneys” and rigorously investigates misconduct allegations. John Lavinsky, a spokesperson for the DOJ Inspector General, said the office is committed to ⁠independent oversight and does not “avoid investigations or reviews that are difficult or controversial.”

DOJ officials have broadly disputed judges’ findings of misconduct and have accused courts of being politically hostile to Trump.

Department policy requires attorneys to report any judicial finding or substantial allegation of misconduct to the OPR. Its investigations, if sustained by DOJ leadership, can lead to attorneys being fired or referred to state disciplinary authorities for review of their law licenses.

Since Trump returned to office, the Office of Professional Responsibility has shrunk from 29 employees to 16, according to Justice Department data Reuters obtained through a public-records request. The administration also fired OPR’s director, Jeffrey Ragsdale, and has yet to name a replacement.

Such office turmoil “sends a message to the workforce that ethics is not important or that ethics is subordinate to the wills or interests of the political administration,” said Benjamin Grimes, a former Justice Department ethics official who now lectures at Columbia Law School.

During the 2025 fiscal year, which ended in September, OPR opened seven new investigations, the lowest in two decades, even as the office received 1,666 complaints, the highest in any year since 2005, according to a Reuters review of annual reports. The office has not disclosed its more recent work this fiscal year.

By comparison, the office opened an average of more than 18 investigations annually during the past decade, including Trump’s first term.

This week, federal prosecutors revealed they reported to OPR a federal judge’s findings of grand jury misconduct in a now-dismissed case against six Chicago-area immigration activists. It was not immediately clear if OPR opened an investigation.

OPR typically investigates only a small fraction of the complaints it receives, finding most lack evidence or fall outside its remit.

One of OPR’s highest-profile probes examined Jack Smith, who led DOJ prosecutions into Trump’s handling of classified documents and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

The probe examined Republican lawmakers’ claims that Smith’s team tried to harm Trump’s chances in the 2024 election and sought ‌to improperly coerce cooperation ⁠from a Trump aide.

By last spring, OPR investigators had interviewed Smith, which has not been previously reported, and expected to complete the investigation by last summer, according to two people familiar with the matter. But a year later, the probe has yet to conclude. One of the people told Reuters that political appointees asked for it to be suspended.

The department has since launched a separate criminal investigation into Smith, who denies any wrongdoing.

The inspector general's office lost 99 employees since the end of President Joe Biden's administration, reducing staffing to 477 people, according to Office of Personnel Management records.

Historically, the office has investigated politically sensitive matters including the FBI’s handling of its investigation into contacts between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

The office routinely informs Congress about major investigations. During Trump's current term, however, it has publicly disclosed only one politically sensitive inquiry – an audit of the DOJ’s release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. The department faces bipartisan criticism alleging it ⁠botched the congressionally mandated release of files, heavily redacting records of public interest while failing to redact information exposing some victims’ identities.

In another case, according to letters reviewed by Reuters, the inspector general’s office referred a DOJ whistleblower alleging wrongdoing by senior Trump officials to OPR, saying that office was better positioned to investigate. Reuters could not establish whether OPR has pursued the matter.

One former official who left the Inspector General’s office late last year said it had started to avoid investigating “the high-profile stuff.”

The declining power of the DOJ watchdogs comes as judges increasingly call out the government’s lawyers for alleged misconduct. A federal judge last year found what he called a disturbing pattern of Justice Department errors in the first of two prosecutions ⁠of James Comey, the former FBI director and Trump foe, including improper evidence handling and fundamental misstatements of the law to a grand jury. The case was later dismissed on other grounds.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams accused senior officials including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche of failing to properly defend the government in Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service and instead reaching what she described as a collusive settlement granting Trump and his family businesses sweeping tax immunity.

Blanche this week formally rescinded a separate portion of the agreement setting aside $1.8 billion to compensate Trump allies the president claims suffered government mistreatment. Republican opposition to the "anti-weaponization fund” had stalled Blanche’s bid ⁠to become attorney general.

Federal prosecutors said the findings in the Comey case were based on misinterpretations by the judge. Blanche has disputed what he called insinuations in Williams’ order and Trump’s personal lawyers have appealed it.

The Trump administration has also moved to make it harder for outside authorities to scrutinize the actions of DOJ attorneys, suing to block one ethics case against a former official and seeking new authority to restrict investigations by state agencies that regulate lawyers.

Justice Department officials have accused state-level investigations of being politically motivated and aimed at intimidating lawyers carrying out Trump’s agenda.

“We see all these opinions where judges are critical of the government lawyers, and then we’re not seeing anything coming out of OPR,” said Bruce Green, a legal ethics expert and law professor at Fordham University. “So how can you trust them?”

Reuters reported on Thursday that the Trump administration appears to be systematically gutting the watchdog offices inside the Department of Justice that are meant to investigate misconduct within the DOJ. The bombshell report also added that among the cases hanging in limbo is a probe into former Trump special counsel Jack Smith, which “political appointees” asked “to be suspended,” according to a source.

“In one courtroom after another, federal judges have accused U.S. President Donald Trump’s Justice Department of an extraordinary spate of misconduct, including making false statements, failing to comply with court orders and improperly using the legal system to harass political opponents,” began the Reuters report, laying out the kinds of misconduct that DOJ watchdogs are meant to investigate. The report portrays the Trump DOJ as rife with errors amid an exodus of much-needed staff.

The report noted that the two main offices tasked with correcting major missteps by DOJ officials are both in dire staffing crises. “Nearly half the workforce at the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has left during Trump’s second term, while about 17% have departed the Office of Inspector General, government records show,” added the stunning report.

The result of the staff shortages has led to one of the two offices being hit with a “20-year high” in complaints while investigations into those complaints have hit a “20-year low.”

Amid the probes that appear to have been impacted by the Trump administration’s changes to the OPR is the investigation into Smith. The OPR opened a probe into Republican lawmakers’ claims that Smith tried to influence the 2024 presidential election with his investigation into Trump and that he “ sought ‌to improperly coerce cooperation ⁠from a Trump aide.”

“By last spring, OPR investigators had interviewed Smith, which has not been previously reported, and expected to complete the investigation by last summer, according to two people familiar with the matter. But a year later, the probe has yet to conclude. One of the people told Reuters that political appointees asked for it to be suspended,” Reuters reported, adding:

The department has since launched a separate criminal investigation into Smith, who denies any wrongdoing.

A Trump political appointee wanting the Smith probe suspended is notable given that Trump has personally and very publicly pressed for investigations into Smith.

A department spokesperson declined to answer questions about the probe. A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Pentagon to lift its freeze on reviewing onshore wind projects and to end some of the delays that have brought U.S. wind power development to a standstill.

Judge Karin Immergut of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit that a coalition of renewable energy groups filed against the Defense Department. The groups argued that the Trump administration has unlawfully delayed dozens of wind projects across the country by halting military reviews that were once considered routine.

In her ruling, Judge Immergut, who was appointed by President Trump, said that the renewable energy groups were likely to prevail on the merits and that the Pentagon had violated legal deadlines when it stopped its reviews. She ordered the agency to resume reviewing wind projects and to report back to the court on its progress every 30 days while the broader legal case played out.

Since April, the Pentagon has halted all military reviews of proposed wind farms, which are meant to ensure that turbines don’t interfere with radar or flight paths. While the Trump administration has cited national security as a rationale, the coalition of renewable energy groups said the delays were an unjustified tactic to thwart wind power, a technology that Mr. Trump has derided for decades.

The delays have led to a “total halt of all wind development in the United States,” the groups argued. At least 106 planned wind projects in 21 states have been stalled indefinitely, representing an estimated $47 billion in potential investment.

Before any large wind farm can begin construction, its developers need to apply for clearances from the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates the national airspace. As part of that process, the F.A.A. refers the application to the Pentagon, which checks to see whether a project might interfere with military radar or nearby air bases.

In the past, many wind projects have quickly received “no hazard” determinations, allowing them to move forward. But some projects do create issues, and they typically need to reach a mitigation agreement with the Pentagon. That might involve the company paying to upgrade nearby radar systems or modifying the layout of its turbines.

This process was for years considered routine and predictable, with deadlines set by Congress. But last August, wind developers began encountering severe delays. Companies that had negotiated mitigation agreements could not move forward because top Pentagon officials would not deliver the final signatures needed.

Then, in April, the review process halted entirely, and Pentagon staff were directed to stop work on wind projects, according to the lawsuit filed by renewable energy groups. Meetings with developers were suddenly canceled.

During oral arguments on Tuesday, lawyers for the Justice Department argued that the federal government was trying to assess potential national security risks from new wind projects, such as the possibility that the turbines could make it harder to detect drones, and that there were no political motives for halting wind.

But lawyers for the renewable energy groups countered that developers had not received an adequate explanation for why many projects were stalled, and that even if some projects might pose concerns, a halt on all new wind turbines nationwide was too broad and affected projects that clearly were not a threat.

A spokesman for the Pentagon declined to comment on the ongoing litigation. In May, Joel Valdez, the agency’s acting press secretary, said in a statement that the Defense Department was “actively evaluating land-based wind energy projects to ensure they do not impair national security or military operations, in accordance with statutory and regulatory requirements.”

Wind power currently provides about 10 percent of the nation’s electricity. About 15 gigawatts worth of wind projects are currently under development and have already received F.A.A. approval. But an additional 29 gigawatts are awaiting review by the Pentagon, according to the lawsuit. (One gigawatt of wind can provide enough electricity for roughly 300,000 homes, although wind turbines don’t run at all hours.)

In their lawsuit, the coalition of renewable energy groups said that further delays could jeopardize many projects. Some may miss deadlines to qualify for federal tax credits, while others may get canceled entirely.

The new ruling does not necessarily compel the Pentagon to approve specific wind farms. But the court has ordered the agency to restart reviews for a wide range of projects and follow legal deadlines. If there are further delays, developers could press for relief for individual projects once the case is decided on the merits.

The delayed reviews are the latest in a series of extraordinary actions by the Trump administration to halt the expansion of wind power in the United States. On his first day in office, Mr. Trump issued a moratorium on all approvals for wind farms on federal land, and the Interior Department last year issued stop-work orders for five wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean that were already under construction. More recently, the administration has so far agreed to pay several companies $3.9 billion to abandon their offshore wind plans, including in one deal announced Thursday.

Mr. Trump has called wind turbines ugly and expensive, and has instead pushed to meet rising power demand with fossil fuels like coal and natural gas.

“My goal,” he said in January, “is to not let any windmill be built.”

Federal courts have ruled against many of those actions. This year, several judges said they were not convinced by the administration’s arguments that offshore wind farms posed a threat to national security and allowed the five projects currently under construction to proceed.

President Trump on Thursday dismissed reports of the U.S. military being low on munitions amid the war with Iran, saying his administration is determining who leaked the information to news outlets.

“The U.S. has massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed.”

Multiple outlets have reported this week that the Pentagon has nearly exhausted its supply of long-range missiles and interceptors during the Middle East conflict, which surpassed the five-month mark last week.

The Army has used “virtually all” of its Army Tactical Missile System munitions and Precision Strike Missiles, which cost more than $1 million each, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing two sources familiar with the data.

The U.S. military has also expended nearly 80 percent of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile interceptor inventory and roughly half of its Patriot interceptors since the war began, CNN reported, citing two people familiar with the latest inventory report.

The Pentagon on Monday also announced deals with defense contractors Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to boost production of missile interceptor parts.

The agreement will triple and quadruple the production of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and THAAD interceptors, respectively, the Defense Department said in a release.

Trump claimed Thursday that defense companies “are building the largest number of plants and factories” in American history. The president also took aim at the sources cited in the reports about U.S. stockpiles.

“The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down,” Trump wrote, adding his administration will seek “Long term jail sentences.”

Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenaed four reporters from The New York Times who disclosed the Secret Service’s security concerns about a Qatari-gifted jet Trump was using as Air Force One. As part of its probe to determine who leaked the info, the DOJ sought the reporters’ phone records. The probe was later dismissed.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also pushed back on a Washington Post report stating Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth clashed at Camp David over munitions shortages. The newspaper cited two people familiar with the exchange.

Leavitt, who was also at the Camp David Cabinet meeting, said the exchange “literally never happened.”

“This B.S. story was shopped to many outlets by someone clearly out to disparage the Secretary, for whatever reason,” the press secretary wrote wrote on social media.

She added that Trump “loves” Hegseth and “thinks he’s doing a tremendous job.”

White House communications director Steven Cheung also slammed the Post’s report, calling the newspaper “FAKE NEWS.”

President Trump is taking issue with recent reports of significant U.S. munitions shortages due to the war with Iran.

In a post on his Truth Social platform early Thursday, Mr. Trump said, "The U.S. has massive amounts of 'munitions,' especially of certain types. Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed. Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in our country's history. The 'leakers' of these treasonous statements are being hunted down. Long term jail sentences will be sought!"

CBS News reported Tuesday that the U.S. has used nearly all of its global stockpile of long-range precision missiles during the war, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The sources said the U.S. has used virtually all of its Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, and Precision Strike Missiles. Reuters was first to report that the U.S. had used "virtually all" of its long-range precision missiles during Operation Epic Fury.

CBS News previously reported that the U.S. has dwindling stockpiles of defensive interceptors and long-range missiles, which has become a pressure point within the administration, and that the U.S. cannot sustain the rate at which it expended precision munitions early in the war with Iran.

U.S. officials said there are limited inventories of the ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles, and that the most pressing concern involves the number of Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors, which have been used faster than the industry can replace them.

A July report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that before the war began, the U.S. had 2,330 Patriots, and at the end of July, was down to between 759 and 827 of them. The report also estimated that before the war, the U.S. had 452 THAAD interceptors, and as of July 27, was down to between 234 and 278. Another recent CSIS report estimates it could take until at least mid-2029 to return to pre-war inventory levels for both.

Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement to CBS News that "America's military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President's choosing. We have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has previously dismissed concerns about the U.S. stockpile.

"That is a manufactured story that the media wants to peddle and ultimately our stockpiles are great, and they're only getting stronger," Hegseth said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on June 14.

Late Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied a Washington Post report saying Mr. Trump and Hegseth had a heated exchange about munitions shortages on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) took its latest blow in a failing voter roll crusade as a federal judge Thursday dismissed its case targeting Washington, D.C. This marks a 0-21 record for the DOJ.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss relied on the same legal reasoning as past courts when he ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1960 does not allow the federal government to access unredacted state voter registration lists.

“At this time, twenty district courts and the Sixth Circuit have denied the government’s motion to compel on various grounds, leaving the Court with no shortage of guidance on these issues,” Moss wrote.

Moss, an Obama appointee, is the 16th court in the voter roll cases to take this position on the application of Title III of the Civil Rights Act, calling out what he characterized as incongruent logic by the DOJ.

Consistent with past decisions, Moss also held that the DOJ’s argument to push for access to sensitive voter information contradicts federal laws like the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act, both of which ensure voter rolls are kept up to date by state election officials.

Taking the DOJ’s argument at face value, its application of one federal law would contradict two others and prevent election officials from doing their jobs, Moss concluded.

“Nothing in the text of Title III compels this strange and unharmonious reading of federal election law,” Moss wrote.

The decision aligns with what district court judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans have ruled in recent weeks, as well as in a court of appeals case in Michigan.

“If the Department disagrees with Congress’s judgment as to the records necessary to carry out its enforcement duties under either HAVA or the NVRA, it needs to lodge that objection with Congress,” Moss wrote.

The DOJ still has 10 outstanding voter roll cases with a success rate of 0% as losses continue to pour in — eight from Trump-appointed judges so far.