标签： North America

In a fresh round of public disclosures focused on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), more commonly known to the public as UFOs, the U.S. Department of Defense has dropped a new collection of previously unreleased material into the public domain. The tranche of materials, published on August 7, marks the fifth sequential batch of UAP-related records the Pentagon has released as part of its ongoing transparency initiative around unexplained aerial and celestial sightings.

This latest document dump adds 41 new entries to the public archive, encompassing a full range of content types: official documents, captured still images, and raw video footage of encounters with objects that do not match known aircraft, drone, or natural atmospheric phenomena. The release comes as U.S. government agencies have gradually stepped up efforts to declassify and share records related to UAP after decades of limited official acknowledgment of military encounters with unexplained objects.

For years, public and congressional interest in UAP has grown, driven in part by earlier releases of declassified Pentagon footage that showed unexplained craft maneuvering in restricted military airspace. This latest batch of materials is part of a congressionally mandated push to increase transparency around the government’s investigation of unexplained phenomena, giving researchers, journalists, and curious members of the public direct access to primary source materials collected by Defense Department personnel.

A high-stakes political battle over the permanent leadership of the U.S. Department of Justice has taken a sharp turn, as centrist Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska became the second member of her party to publicly reject former President Donald Trump’s nominee Todd Blanche for attorney general, deepening uncertainty over whether the nomination will survive a Senate vote.

Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal defense lawyer and currently fills the role of acting attorney general, has faced sustained cross-party criticism since Trump tapped him to lead the Justice Department permanently. The nomination has already drawn opposition from a small but impactful bloc of Senate Republicans, and Murkowski’s opposition leaves confirmation hanging by a thread amid the narrow Republican majority in the chamber.

In a formal statement announcing her decision, Murkowski highlighted deep-seated concerns that the Trump administration is seeking to politicize the nation’s top law enforcement agency, a red line for the moderate Alaska senator. She pointed to multiple controversial actions taken during Blanche’s short tenure as acting attorney general, including the administration’s controversial handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case files and the creation of a contentious $2 billion “anti-weaponization fund” carved out of a legal settlement between Trump and the federal government.

Murkowski emphasized that the nation requires an attorney general willing to push back against the most extreme actions of the sitting administration. While she left open the possibility that Blanche could shift course if confirmed, she made clear she lacks confidence in his willingness to uphold the independence of the Justice Department. “The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration,” Murkowski wrote. “I hope Mr Blanche is able to achieve that, if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case.”

The contentious fund at the center of the controversy was established as part of an IRS settlement between Trump and the federal government, which also granted Trump limited immunity from future personal tax audits. The fund was initially designed to pay out compensation to people who claim they were wrongfully persecuted by the federal government, but critics—including Murkowski—have warned it could ultimately payout to people convicted of participating in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Both Trump and Blanche have pushed back against these claims, asserting that neither the president nor his family are eligible to access any money from the fund. Facing backlash from fellow Republicans even before Murkowski’s announcement, Blanche already pledged to roll back the controversial fund.

Murkowski’s announcement comes just days after another moderate Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who is facing a competitive re-election campaign this cycle, confirmed she would also vote against Blanche’s confirmation. Currently, Republicans hold a slim 53-seat majority in the 100-member U.S. Senate, but that majority has been effectively cut to 52 because Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has been absent from all floor votes and proceedings due to an ongoing illness.

The path to confirmation now also hinges on the undecided vote of Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who lost his 2026 Republican primary after Trump endorsed his primary challenger. Cassidy has not yet publicly stated whether he will support Blanche’s nomination, leaving the outcome entirely uncertain.

Political analysts note that if just one more Republican joins Murkowski and Collins in opposing the nomination, Democrats can unified block Blanche’s confirmation, leaving Trump without his pick to lead the Justice Department. The nomination’s fragile standing underscores the lingering divisions within the Republican Party over Trump’s efforts to reshape the federal government and place loyalists in key law enforcement roles.

In a surprising upset that underscores shifting dynamics within the U.S. Republican Party, two-term incumbent Congressman Andy Ogles has been ousted in Tennessee’s 5th District Republican primary, becoming the second candidate backed by former President Donald Trump to lose a nomination contest this week.

Former state agricultural commissioner Charlie Hatcher secured victory over Ogles in Thursday’s intra-party contest, a result that came just hours after Trump issued a last-minute full endorsement of the incumbent on his Truth Social platform. “Congressman Andy Ogles is doing a fantastic job,” Trump wrote in the post, adding “Andy is a Conservative Warrior who has strong support from his Community.” The defeat follows a similar upset a day earlier in Michigan, where another Trump-endorsed Republican candidate fell short of nomination.

Ogles, who has represented the safely Republican district since he took office in 2023, leaves the primary race after a tenure marked by repeated high-profile controversies. He was investigated over claims of campaign finance violations, though no criminal charges were ultimately filed, and he has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. More significantly, he drew widespread backlash from across the political spectrum for virulent anti-Muslim public comments, including posts on X that claimed “Muslims don’t belong in American society” and “America and Islam are incompatible.”

Hatcher will now advance to the general election this November, where he will face Democratic nominee Chaz Molder, the current mayor of Columbia, who ran unopposed for his party’s nomination. This cycle’s 2026 midterm elections will see all 435 U.S. House seats and 35 of the 100 U.S. Senate seats up for grabs, making control of both chambers of Congress on the line for voters.

While two high-profile Trump picks have fallen this primary week, the former president’s influence within the GOP remains substantial, with a string of primary victories for his endorsed candidates to offset the losses. In a separate Tennessee primary contest, Trump-backed candidate Amir Hassan underperformed badly against Tom Smith, who had suspended his own campaign in July and endorsed a different contender. But in Michigan, John James secured the Republican gubernatorial nomination despite being dramatically outspent by a wealthy rival, with a last-minute campaign appearance and endorsement from Trump boosting his odds of victory. Trump-endorsed candidates also won gubernatorial nominations in Kansas, and picked up a House primary victory in Washington state, where Amanda McKinney, the former president’s pick, finished first.

This primary season has already broken modern records for the number of sitting congressional incumbents failing to secure their party’s renomination. According to data from *Vital Statistics on Congress*, six Democratic incumbents and three Republican incumbents have lost their primaries so far — the highest number of incumbent losses in a non-redistricting election cycle since 1970.

A long-awaited audit from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has delivered a damning assessment of the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), concluding that most of the body’s claimed taxpayer savings lack verification and contain multiple false or overstated figures.

Launched at the opening of former President Donald Trump’s second term in January 2025 and led in its early months by Tesla and SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk, DOGE was framed as a bipartisan-style initiative to root out waste, fraud and mismanagement in federal spending. But the initiative shuttered unexpectedly last month, just 18 months after it began operations. Its centerpiece public-facing tool, the so-called Wall of Receipts, publicly claimed $110 billion in total savings across federal contracts, grant agreements and property leases, with DOGE’s final self-assessment inflating that figure to an estimated $214 billion — far short of Musk’s opening pledge of $2 trillion in annual cuts to federal spending via mass layoffs of federal workers and elimination of entire government programs.

The GAO’s Thursday report, requested by Senate Democratic leaders Gary Peters and Richard Blumenthal, reviewed all DOGE savings claims reported between its launch and July 7, 2026. Auditors identified widespread transparency failures and methodological flaws that undermine nearly all of DOGE’s cost-saving assertions. “While DOGE provided some information about estimated savings, several issues limit the transparency and reliability of these reported savings,” the report noted, adding that DOGE failed to share sufficient verification details for 96% of its claimed savings.

Among the most high-profile inaccuracies unearthed by auditors: 108 of the 264 property leases DOGE claimed to have terminated to generate savings were already scheduled for cancellation before DOGE was even established, accounting for roughly $15.3 million of the $53.5 million in claimed lease savings. The GAO also found the Wall of Receipts provided no clear explanation for how savings from terminated leases were calculated, and flagged a $1.7 billion claimed savings from canceling a Defense Department IT services contract that was never actually terminated, meaning no savings were realized at all. Overall, the audit concluded the public-facing tool failed to disclose critical limitations that erode data quality and accuracy.

Musk, who stepped down from his leadership role at the unofficial advisory body in May 2025, did not immediately issue a response to the GAO’s findings. In a statement following the report’s release, a White House spokesperson noted that the administration had informed the GAO that all DOGE personnel were required to complete standard ethics training and adhere to all federal financial disclosure rules.

Senator Gary Peters, one of the requesters of the audit, called the initiative a slapdash and deceptive effort that misled the American public. “Everyone supports rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, but DOGE was a slapdash and deceptive effort that misled the American people while doing real damage to the government’s ability to serve them,” Peters said Thursday.

Under Musk’s direction, DOGE pushed for extreme cuts to the federal workforce and pushed for the elimination of entire federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development. Many of the group’s most controversial cuts were met with immediate legal challenges or reversed by the administration itself. In one high-profile example, dozens of U.S. Department of Agriculture officials tasked with monitoring and responding to avian influenza (bird flu) were laid off as part of DOGE’s cost-cutting push, forcing the Trump administration to rehire the workers just days later amid rising public health concerns.

In its public announcement of the body’s closure last month, DOGE struck a defiant tone, framing its formal end as a stepping stone for long-term reform. “While the formal mission of DOGE has come to an end, the mission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse will continue,” the group said in a social media post. “Good stewardship of taxpayer dollars and accountable government are not temporary initiatives.”

Weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked his first sweeping effort to eliminate longstanding birthright citizenship protections, former and current President Donald Trump has launched a new push to roll back the 150-year-old policy, signing two new executive actions focused on narrowing eligibility and cracking down on the controversial practice of birth tourism. The Thursday signing, held in the Oval Office, comes as the Trump administration continues its aggressive campaign to restrict immigration and rewrite the rules of citizenship for people born on U.S. soil.

The first of the two orders expands existing legal carve-outs that deny birthright citizenship to children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents. Under the new framework, any child born in the U.S. to two non-citizen parents will not receive automatic citizenship if one parent falls into specific high-risk categories: members of foreign terrorist organizations, employees of foreign governments, individuals who have previously attempted to obtain U.S. citizenship through fraudulent means, or people residing in U.S. territories where citizenship is not already mandated by federal statute. Currently, birthright citizenship for people born in U.S. territories including Puerto Rico is explicitly codified in federal law.

The second executive order targets birth tourism, the practice where pregnant foreign nationals travel to the U.S. specifically to give birth, granting their children automatic U.S. citizenship under the longstanding interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Speaking at the signing, Trump defended the new restrictions, arguing that reform of birthright citizenship should have been enacted decades ago, and criticized the Supreme Court’s June ruling that struck down his earlier 2025 effort to end the policy entirely. He called the high court’s decision a “bad decision, very unfair decision” that harmed the U.S., noting that his administration is now pursuing its goals through a revised legal approach. “Our country suffers because of it, and we’re ending it in a different way,” Trump said.

The text of the first executive order frames the new restrictions as a necessary safeguard against exploitation of U.S. immigration policy. “My Administration has guarded against the risks posed by malign foreign actors who attempt to swindle American citizens by taking advantage of the generosity of our Nation,” the order reads.

Trump and senior White House officials have repeatedly targeted birth tourism in public remarks, repeatedly claiming that adversarial nations including Russia and China encourage the practice to let their citizens infiltrate the U.S. Trump claimed Thursday that hundreds of thousands of children are born in the U.S. through birth tourism each year, a figure that contradicts independent research from nonpartisan policy analysts. The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates that even the most generous census-based calculations put the annual number of births from birth tourism between just 22,000 and 26,000. Government data analyzed by MPI puts the 2024 number even lower, at roughly 9,600 births to foreign women listing non-U.S. residential addresses.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, a key architect of the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies, joined the president for the announcement, arguing that birth tourism allows foreign visitors to exploit U.S. benefits systems. “The idea is that people come here pretending to be a tourist, pretending to be a visitor. But the real reason they’re here is to have a child, to make that child an automatic citizen, leave our country and then have a U.S. citizen child,” Miller said, adding that these children would then gain access to public welfare benefits, voting rights, and “all the other rights and privileges that belong solely to Americans.” Miller also asserted that the president holds clear legal authority to restrict birth tourism under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which grants the sitting president power to set entry exceptions and limitations for people seeking to enter the U.S.

This latest effort follows a high-profile legal battle over Trump’s first executive order on birthright citizenship, which he signed just days into his 2025 second term. That order sought to end the birthright citizenship protections guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Legal challenges quickly made their way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in June that Trump’s 2025 policy was unconstitutional, leaving the existing birthright citizenship framework intact. The ruling represented a major legal setback for the Trump administration’s broader goal of restricting immigration and reshaping citizenship eligibility for people entering or born in the U.S.