Officials monitoring polling sites in Minnesota’s two largest counties, says Trump’s justice department – live

Key events

The Trump administration has issued a new rule barring Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) programs from funding gender affirming care for transgender youth.

Donald Trump also announced the new restrictions on his Truth Social platform.

The programs, meant for low-income children and youth, will not longer cover puberty blockers, hormones and surgical operations – which are rare among minors.

The move is the latest move in the administration’s efforts to deny gender affirming care.

“Every young person is entitled to the health care that they, their parents, and their medical providers agree that they need, without politicians interfering with these important and highly personal decisions. And yet, rather than working to make healthcare more affordable and accessible, the Trump administration continues to obsess over the healthcare needs of trans youth, this time by cutting off health insurance coverage for those who rely on Medicaid and CHIP to access that care,” said Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson. “The Trump administration is terrorizing trans youth and their families with these kinds of actions, and it has to stop.”

The new restrictions are currently scheduled to take effect on October 12, though youth who are already receiving gender affirming care through Medicaid and CHIP can continue with their treatments for an additional six months.

Children and youth can currently access gender-affirming care under Medicaid and CHIP in seventeen states. The new rules cite a 2025 Health and Human Services finding weak evidence for pediatric gender-affirming medical interventions and a review from the United Kingdom.

But medical experts including those at the American Academy of Pediatrics have said the HHS report misrepresents the medical consensus.

Alice Speri

Four prominent US human rights organizations have accused the Trump administration of using its “crippling” sanctions regime against the international criminal court (ICC) to undermine global efforts to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court on Tuesday, the groups – the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch and the Open Society Institute – argued that the administration’s targeting of the ICC, as well as of groups and individuals affiliated with it or assisting its work, amounts to a “blatantly illegal attack on international justice”, the groups said.

The suit challenges Trump’s February 2025 executive order, which authorized sanctions on ICC officials, judges and others working to support its investigation of Israeli crimes in Palestine – one of 18 investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity the Netherlands-based tribunal is overseeing.

The US state department and justice department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The US government has long opposed and sought to impede the work of the court – of which it is not a party – but those attacks escalated after the ICC prosecutor issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant over crimes committed in Gaza. The US responded by sanctioning ICC prosecutors and judges, three leading Palestinian human rights groups and Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestinian territory.

Earlier this summer, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, also escalated efforts against the ICC, announcing a campaign aimed at “dismantling” it by pressuring member states to leave the court.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has asked the Trump administration to immediately brief lawmakers following reports that the president hid in a catering container to board a secret flight in Turkey amid an assassination threat from Iran.

Schumer wrote on X:

The Senate should be immediately briefed on the Iranian threats against the President, the extraordinary measures taken to get him out of Turkey, any risks posed to US personnel, and any threat to the homeland.

It is unacceptable that Congress was kept in the dark and instead learned about this serious threat through press reports. Trump has put America’s sons and daughters in harm’s way by getting into an unnecessary and reckless war, and this administration has repeatedly refused to provide Congress and the public with the transparency they deserve.

This is exactly why Congress must reassert its constitutional authority and bring this conflict to an end. Republicans cannot keep prioritizing Trump’s luxury and vanity over America’s security.

The White House has asked the Department of Justice to weigh new charges against a former Olympian accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, according to a person familiar with the matter, pushing to revive a case Donald Trump has fumed about ever since an ally dropped it, citing insufficient evidence.

Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, dropped the charges against David Hearn on 31 July, blaming a contractor for a flawed installation. In a 20-page filing dismissing the charges, Pirro’s office said it had received evidence that damage to the pool occurred before Hearn visited it, and that “it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt”. Hearn has maintained that he reached in the water to touch a piece of already detached lining while he was on a bike ride in June.

The White House made the request to officials at Main Justice, the department’s Washington DC headquarters. It was unclear what the basis for filing new charges against Hearn would be. The request was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The justice department did not directly respond when asked whether it was considering filing new charges. “The Department of Justice follows the evidence when determining if crimes have been committed. We always evaluate any case based on the facts and the law,” a spokesperson said in an email.

The request from the White House to the justice department is itself extraordinary and underscores how Trump has moved to take control of the department and use it for his own ends. Traditionally, the justice department operates at an arm’s length from the White House to maintain impartiality and avoid the appearance of political interference.

'Fiercely independent' South Carolina votes on Lindsey Graham’s Senate successor

In the race to replace the late US senator Lindsey Graham, 10 candidates have been barnstorming South Carolina diners, church halls and recreation centers, compressing a normal year of campaigning into about a fortnight.

The Republican party is staging a special primary election in the state on Tuesday to choose Graham’s replacement. His sister, Darline, who has been serving as interim senator following his sudden death last month, is on the ballot.

If no candidate wins an overall majority of votes, the top two will advance to a runoff on 25 August. Polling suggests that this is the most likely outcome.

“You know, South Carolina politics is very local,” said Eaddy Roe Willard, a longtime Republican activist in South Carolina’s Richland county. “Something one of our former chairmen used to say about presidential candidates: we don’t decide whether or not we’re going to vote for you until we’ve had a chance to shake your hand at least three times.”

On Friday, Russell Fry, a Republican representative, pressed the flesh at Savage Craft Ale Works in West Columbia. On Monday morning, Darline Graham shook hands at Lizard’s Thicket breakfast restaurant, 2 miles away. Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina governor, and the US representative Ralph Norman were also just a few miles down the road in Aiken on Friday, Willard said.

After Lindsey Graham’s death on 11 July, Henry McMaster, South Carolina’s governor, appointed Darline Graham to fill the vacancy in the US Senate.

Lindsey Graham had already won the Republican primary election for his seat, so the Republican party must hold a special election to replace him on the ballot in November’s general election. The timeline is brutal by American political standards, holding an election within a few weeks of the vacancy.

The winner will face Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee and a pediatrician, in the November general election.

Donald Trump is now on his way to Geneva, Ohio, for the Patriot Games finale.

Notably, the president and the press pool are traveling on the Qatari-gifted “bridge” Air Force One.

We’ll bring you the latest lines when we next hear from Trump.

State monitors will observe federal election monitors, says Minnesota secretary of state

Rachel Leingang

Minnesota secretary of state Steve Simon provided more insight into federal election monitors in the state during a press conference on Monday, saying that state monitors will observe the federal monitors.

Simon said that both Hennepin and Ramsey counties, where Minneapolis and St Paul are located respectively, declined to allow the observers into polling sites, as is their right under state law. The justice department affirmed it would abide by this refusal and will have a “small number” of observers stationed outside a 100ft boundary at some polling sites. Any member of the public can be outside the 100ft boundary, he noted.

Sending federal election monitors is a normal process, he added, and it has occurred without incident in other states, including Michigan, recently. These monitors have a narrow purpose, to ensure provisions of the Voting Rights Act are being followed, he said. They can ask voters specific questions about these provisions, and voters can decline to answer if they so choose. Still, he said, his office and the Minnesota attorney general’s office will be observing the federal monitors.

“I think that’s a reasonable thing to do, given the record of the last several months and the very real concerns and even anxieties that people have about the justice department in particular, and about the federal government in general when it comes to activity near a polling place or in communities,” Simon said.

He said the federal government has been transparent with his office about where the federal observers intend to go in the state, and he has “every reason to believe that this will go smoothly”.

Fact check: Trump's DC takeover means the capital is 'safer than it has been in years'

In the year since the Donald Trump sent a wave of federal law enforcement to Washington DC – including the deployment of the national guard and the administration’s temporary takeover of the DC police department – officials have touted a reduction in crime.

The newly confirmed attorney general, Todd Blanche, claimed on social media that “in just one year” the capital “is safer than it has been in years”.

However, data from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) tells a different story.

While certain types of crime, like homicide, have decreased since this time last year, others are actually significantly higher. There has been a 40% increase in assault with a dangerous weapon in 2026. Overall, total violent crime in Washington DC is up by 3% compared to the same point in 2025.

The Trump administration claims regularly that the federal takeover has led to record-breaking dips in crime, but the drop in violent crime between 2025 and 2024 – when Joe Biden left office – was 29%.

There was also a consistent 32% decrease in the number of homicides in DC year-on-year, between 2023 and 2025.

Here's a recap of the day so far

The Department of Justice said that officials are monitoring polling sites in Hennepin and Ramsey county – Minnesota’s largest – throughout the state’s primary elections on Tuesday. In a press release, the justice department said that it has deployed approximately 20 staff from the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section and Minnesota’s US attorney’s office to continue “its nationwide effort to ensure free and fair elections”.

We’ll bring you the latest from the various primaries across the country, with a close eye on the Democratic competition in the Wisconsin governor’s race. There are also marquee races in Minnesota, where voters will pick the Democratic and Republican nominee in the gubernatorial race, and the closely watched Democratic primary in the Senate race between Peggy Flanagan, the state lieutenant governor and a progressive, and Angie Craig, a US congresswoman. Meanwhile, in South Carolina a special primary to replace the late Senator Lindsey Graham as the Republican nominee in the Senate race will see his sister, Darline Graham, who has received Trump’s endorsement, face nine other contenders.

We’re also chasing new reports that Donald Trump left Turkey last month on a secret military flight to Britain amid an Iranian assassination threat. ABC News reporter Michelle Stoddart, who traveled with the president and senior officials from Ankara in July, noted today that before the press corps departed the summit, they were given no additional guidance on the president’s movements or flight plans beyond his publicly posted Truth Social post. More here

The state department has revoked more than 175,000 visas of foreign nationals who officials say have “violated the terms of their visas, committed crimes, called for violence against US citizens”. These include people who allegedly “celebrated” the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, according to officials. The state department noted an instance of online comments which included: “when fascists die, democrats don’t complain” and another who said Kirk “died too late”.

Russia has freed a former US marine who had been in jail since 2022, after Vladimir Putin granted the ailing American a pardon on humanitarian grounds. Trump has said the agreement came about after he spoke to Vladimir Putin about releasing Robert Gilman, and confirmed that this was not a prisoner exchange.

Donald Trump said he is exploring to see if the federal government has any way of stepping in to try to end Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax in New York City.

“This dangerous political ‘experiment’ in New York will destroy what was once a great City and State,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

On Monday, a state judge temporarily blocked the tax, which would place a surcharge on second homes, after homeowners filed a lawsuit against the mayor and city officials. The tax would apply to people who own, but do not reside full-time in, any house worth more than $5m, or a condominium or cooperative unit worth at least $1m.

Trump said today that the policy is actually costing New York more – by forcing “tens of thousands” of people to leave the city “never to return”.

“It is pure Amateur Hour, and it’s hard, as President of the United States of America, to sit back and watch it happen, especially to a place I once loved,” he added. “Financial, and then Social, RUIN, is a 100% certainty … This doesn’t work in America, and must be stopped, NOW!”