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Senators head for the exits without meeting Trump’s demands for voting bill

WASHINGTON — Senators headed for the exits in the predawn hours Saturday, ending for now a crushing standoff over President Donald Trump’s demands that they stay in session to pass a strict proof-of-citizenship voting bill before the summer recess.

While they wrapped up many key priorities in the overnight votes, advancing Trump’s SAVE America Act was not among them.

Instead, Republican senators who had brought the chamber to a standstill spoke to Trump late in the evening about an alternative plan: They would try again to approve elements of the voting bill as part of a broader GOP budget package to fund the Iran war and replenish the Pentagon when they return to work in September.

“Obviously, with the president at his direction, this is what he wants to do,” said Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the GOP budget committee chairperson, flanked by Sens. Mike Lee (R., Utah) and Rick Scott (R., Fla.) after their phone call with the president.

The sudden wind-down after weeks of Trump ramping up his demands shows just how deeply the president is able to reach into the halls of Congress to set the agenda or disrupt it, the executive directing the affairs of the legislative branch. While Trump is often seen as a de facto speaker of the House, he is trying his hand at mastering the Senate.

Trump had poked and prodded Senate Majority Leader John Thune for weeks to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that does not have enough support from the Republicans who hold majority power, let alone the Democrats whose votes would be needed to advance it in the Senate.

The president has gone so far as to insist the Senate abandon its filibuster rules to jam the SAVE America Act past the 60-vote threshold that is typically needed to advance legislation in the chamber — something Thune and most senators have no interest in doing.

“John’s trying. He’s trying hard. I really believe that. But if he doesn’t get there, it would be unfortunate,” Trump said in an interview with Punchbowl News that posted Friday.

Trump’s pressure couldn’t overcome Thune’s reality

Thune himself has worked to carefully balance the often unusual demands of the president with the political reality of his slim GOP majority. Republicans are down one vote with the prolonged absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former leader, who said this week he was released from a rehabilitation center and is recovering at home.

“I think everybody’s, for the most part, on the same page,” Thune (R., S.D.) said about the trio’s call with Trump, adding that eventually the Senate would have to tackle another budget bill.

During a daylong session that dragged for nearly 20 hours, Thune successfully powered through a lengthy list of other Trump priorities. Senators confirmed the president’s pick of Todd Blanche as the attorney general, passed a sweeping Russian sanctions package to aid Ukraine, and approved a bipartisan package to fund the government into December in an early step toward avoiding a government shutdown.

The Republicans also tried to push forward a slimmer voting bill that would require people to show IDs before casting ballots for federal elections. It failed to advance, largely on a party-line vote with Democrats opposed.

But the failure to make progress on the SAVE America Act had erupted as an online crusade for Trump’s allies in Congress, amplified by activists urging them on.

Led by Lee, a growing group of senators was refusing to adjourn for the summer break without passing Trump’s priority voting bill.

At dinnertime, Thune gathered all the Republican senators for a meeting as the standoff deepened at the Capitol. There was no immediate way forward for the SAVE America Act or the broader budget bill. Thune encouraged the trio of senators to talk to the president, which they did, before regrouping back at Thune’s office.

“We had about a two-hour conference meeting trying to figure out, you know, what we need to do to, to come to an agreement, to accomplish what the president wanted,” Johnson said. “Then we had discussion with the president, he agrees.”

Lee acknowledged he was disappointed by the outcome, but said he understood the political reality of the situation.

“We are not in a position right now where we have the wherewithal to pass it,” Lee told reporters at the Capitol, after the three senators emerged from Thune’s office following their call with Trump.

Near daybreak, when the Senate did call for the vote to adjourn, Lee and others objected with hearty nos.

On the simple voice vote, the ayes had it, and the motion to adjourn was adopted.

August 8, 2026
Senate passes bill to avert government shutdown before midterm elections

The Senate overwhelmingly approved a measure early Saturday to fund the government through Dec. 11 and temporarily block the White House from giving political appointees more control over federal grants.

The 90-6 vote came after Republican leaders worked for hours through the night to reach an agreement that would allow them to vote on multiple priorities before leaving town for the five-week August recess.

Just 6 senators — Bill Cassidy (R., La.), Tim Kaine (D., Va.), Ed Markey (D., Mass.), Rand Paul (R., Ky.), Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) — opposed the funding measure, which would avoid a politically perilous shutdown ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. But it still must be approved by the Republican-controlled House, where the appetite for rebuking the White House on grant funding was unclear.

The bill, like a similar House measure passed last month, would fund the government past a Sept. 30 deadline. The Senate bill also would finance a number of requests from the White House, including funds for housing and nutrition programs. And it would extend expiring authorization for veterans’ healthcare programs.

But the big difference between the House and Senate bills is the Senate’s decision to include a provision regarding federal grants. That provision would temporarily block the White House budget office from adopting a rule change to give political appointees more power over discretionary grant funding, diminishing the power of independent peer reviewers.

Proposed in May, the rule change would require political appointees to review grants before they are awarded to ensure they advance the president’s priorities and do not support projects the administration opposes, including those that “fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate” diversity, equity, and inclusion principles or “deny the biological reality of … the sex binary.” It also would give agencies the power to end grants at any time.

Trump administration officials say the rule would add needed oversight to federal grant-making, ensuring federal funds aren’t wasted or misused. But Senate Appropriations Committee Chairperson Susan Collins (R., Maine) said it has the “potential to politicize grants and harm small, rural communities, families, and biomedical research.”

Collins and Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the lead Democratic appropriator, worked together to craft the bipartisan Senate measure. House lawmakers could take it up after they return from recess at the end of August.

If the provisions added by the Senate draw backlash, however, lawmakers could quickly find themselves in a rush to negotiate a compromise before the government runs out of funding on Sept. 30.

Senate Republicans also initially hoped to hold a vote on a separate $150 billion budget framework to help fund the Iran war and impose new restrictions on voting ahead of the midterm elections, but Republicans scrapped that plan late Friday night.

Republicans grappled during a two-hour closed-door meeting Friday night with whether to take up the budget framework, with which several Republicans had expressed concerns.

A small group of Republicans spoke with Trump after the meeting and agreed to push off the vote until September, according to Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), the chairperson of the Senate Budget Committee.

“We’re in total agreement,” Johnson told reporters. “There was no argument about it.”

The Senate also agreed early Saturday morning to vote in September on legislation to regulate college sports led by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.). The back-and-forth over whether to vote on the bill before leaving for recess was one of several interlocking issues that kept the Senate in session late into the night.

Senate Democrats blocked a bill during the early Saturday vote series that would require voters to show photo identification. Senate Republicans held a procedural vote on the measure in lieu of voting on the Save America Act, a more expansive bill that would impose stricter election rules which President Donald Trump had demanded the Senate pass before leaving Washington. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) has said repeatedly that the Save America Act does not have enough support to pass.

The decision to postpone the vote on the budget resolution came hours after Republicans unveiled the $150 billion spending framework, which was significantly larger than a $95 billion plan approved last month by the House. Johnson said Senate leaders intend to spend only about $105 billion.

The smaller number tracks closely with the House package. Both would allot $60 billion to the Pentagon, which faces an urgent budget shortfall caused largely by the war with Iran, and $13 billion for intelligence needs related to the war. They also would provide $12 billion for farmers struggling to keep pace with inflation.

Senate Republicans will seek to use up to $20 billion for election-related measures, Johnson told the Washington Post. That’s twice the amount provided in the House package. Republicans hope to use that money to pass some parts of the Save America Act, although it’s unclear how much of it would be allowed under reconciliation, the special process Republicans would use to pass the bill without Democratic votes.

The delay in considering the measure will give Republicans time to revise their plan and win over skeptical senators.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) has said he will not support a package that included elements of the Save America Act. Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) also signaled opposition to the budget resolution, while Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.) complained about the lack of budget cuts to cover the cost of the new spending and avoid adding to the nation’s $39.9 trillion debt.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), the chairpersons of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and other Republicans, meanwhile, have called for increasing the amount of funding for the Pentagon.

The budget framework is the first step in the reconciliation process, which would allow Republicans to evade a Democratic filibuster and move the bill with a simple majority instead of 60 votes. But both chambers must approve identical budget frameworks to set funding levels before beginning work on the actual legislation — and time is running out before the midterms.

The Senate is set to recess until Sept. 14 and is scheduled to be in session for only three weeks before recessing again. Congress already faces a towering agenda during those weeks.

August 8, 2026
Why a child’s stuffed bunny is blowing up a political race — and the internet

Until now, the mom in Pennsylvania had never heard of Rep. Max Miller or the “little blue bunny.” But she knew all about Buddy.

Her 10-year-old daughter would not sleep without that pink blanket attached to a teddy bear’s head. Long missing an eyebrow, the plushie looked forever quizzical.

“He’s the most precious thing in the world to her,” said Beth Tyson, a 47-year-old family therapist.

Though she rarely had time to stay on top of politics, let alone a House race in Ohio, Tyson kept reading about what she suspected was another little girl’s most precious thing in the world. All over the country, parents on social media seemed equally invested in the saga of a stuffed animal that turned a MAGA firebrand’s reelection campaign into a national news frenzy.

Miller, 37, has faced domestic violence and physical abuse allegations for years, most recently from his ex-wife, the mother of his 2-year-old daughter. But no detail has broken through quite like the “little blue bunny.” Conservative colleagues who previously had avoided commenting on Miller’s personal life called this week for his resignation after his former father-in-law, another powerful Ohio Republican, accused the second-term congressman of holding his granddaughter’s stuffy “hostage” for 48 hours.

“This girl is crying at night because she can’t sleep without her little blue bunny, and his answer is, ‘I’m just not going to give it to you,’” Sen. Bernie Moreno told reporters Tuesday.

Miller, who has denied all claims of abuse, posted screenshots on X the next day that he said exonerated him. His ex-wife’s team had sent the wrong “conduit” to fetch the bunny, he said, according to the text messages between the two, which delayed the handoff by 14 hours — not 48.

She asked him to please just leave it in the mailbox, according to the exchange, which racked up 2.3 million views. CNN’s Jake Tapper asked the question on so many minds, “Did you hold this doll hostage?”

“No, Mr. Tapper,” Miller replied, asserting that doing so would be “incredibly disturbing.”

On this, the internet agreed.

“What kind of father wouldn’t deliver the bunny himself, knowing that it helps his little girl sleep at night?” one commenter asked.

“This does not make you look better,” added a reporter for Gateway Pundit, a far-right news site.

“There are literally thousands of fathers reading those tweets and thinking: ‘When my daughter lost her favorite toy, I led a search party as if for a downed NATO nuclear warhead. And when that failed, I paid $300 for a replica on eBay,” posted David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush.

Suddenly, the standoff over a toy in Ohio had sparked passionate chatter nationwide.

“Everybody gets it, no matter which side of the aisle they are on,” said Jon Krosnick, director of the Political Psychology Research Group at Stanford University. The little blue bunny, he added, “communicates so powerfully to all of us.”

Perhaps everyone has loved their own snuggle buddy or knows someone who does. Parents posted about the little blue bunnies in their homes (and the secret replacements in their closets). Tales of lost comfort items read like horror stories.

“We have six backup monkeys,” said Danielle Baumann, a 35-year-old mother of twin toddlers following the Ohio tale from Los Angeles.

Her daughter is especially attached to what she believes is the sole Punch, always trying to feed him dinner.

“I can’t even imagine her losing him for one night,” Baumann said.

The image of a child separated from a beloved pal cuts to our emotional cores, said Eve Ng, an Ohio University professor who studies mass communication. It also resonates in a world that consumes information in snippets.

“This visual is particularly powerful,” she said, “because it manages to sum everything up in one symbol.”

Tyson, the family therapist, didn’t want to pass judgment or wade into politics. She doesn’t have much of a stomach for America’s us-versus-them clashes, anyway. But she often speaks to the power of stuffies. Adults, she believes, should handle them carefully.

Buddy has been her daughter’s companion since she was a baby. The girl still grasps it in her fingers at night. Him — not it. They used human pronouns for Buddy. Kids tend to be magical thinkers, Tyson said, so that thing is real.

From her work, she knew a stuffy can soothe a young nervous system. Getting super attached to one, she added, is a healthy sign that a child can form a secure bond.

“It can be something to tell secrets to,” she said, “or something that helps you cope, or something that makes you feel safe.”

Randi Jaffe, 39, wondered if anyone had posted a picture of the little blue bunny. As the founder of the Lost Stuffy Project, she has replaced synthetic critters lost in the California wildfires or Texas floods.

Now she wanted to source a duplicate for an embattled congressman’s kid. “She could keep one at Mom’s and one at Dad’s,” Jaffe said, working through a possible solution to the impasse.

Of course, those parents might have to make sure the second bunny had the same degree of wear and tear as the first. A pristine replacement can register to a tiny person as a stranger. But not always. She thought of one survivor of the Los Angeles blaze, a girl who had lost her purple rabbit named Bubbles.

“WANTED,” Jaffe had posted to her Instagram followers with a photo of the out-of-production Squishmallow.

Someone in Canada replied that she had a Bubbles to spare, and where could she ship it?

Later, Jaffe received a tender email.

“Since the fire there have been so many things that felt impossible to replace,” the girl’s mother wrote, expressing her gratitude. Her daughter had lost so much, she added, “and Bubbles somehow became the symbol of it all.”

August 8, 2026
Iran makes new strait demands, the UAE says a ship was targeted

Iran issued dramatic new demands for the Strait of Hormuz to reopen as the United Arab Emirates said one of its ships was targeted by an Iranian missile. Yemen’s military attacked the country’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. And Turkey’s Kurdish peace bill won approval in parliament.

Here’s a look at developments across the Middle East on Saturday.

Iran says strait won’t open until the U.S. ‘corrects’ behavior

Iran’s politburo-like body known as the Supreme National Security Council said the Strait of Hormuz will not open until the United States “corrects its behavior,” issuing new demands that could shake up talks on a deal to manage the waterway and traffic on it.

Iran’s state broadcaster published the statement by the council’s secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who is also a commander in the powerful Revolutionary Guard.

The U.S. must never threaten Iran again, the statement said, and must permanently end the war with Iran and its armed allies in the region. The U.S. must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area. It also must “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions, and “unconditionally” release frozen assets.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S., which has wanted an acceptable deal first on the strait before ending the blockade. According to the interim deal signed in June, a schedule to end sanctions and plan on compensation would be part of the final deal, and negotiations would address frozen assets.

The end of a 60-day period to negotiate a final deal will end in just over a week but could be extended.

Iran has said it was close to reaching a separate deal with Oman to manage the strait, which runs between the two countries. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi earlier Saturday said they were close to reaching an agreement on navigation, “specifically the determination of a transit route.” But the waterway’s reopening is contingent on other conditions, he said in remarks shared on social media.

Oman, a mediator Gulf Arab country which has said relatively little on the talks, said in a statement Saturday that the discussions were ongoing “in a positive and constructive atmosphere,” and condemned attacks on ships on the strait.

The strait, crucial to global supplies of oil and natural gas, had been considered an international waterway before the war.

Iran attacks vessel in Strait of Hormuz, UAE says

A vessel owned by Abu Dhabi’s state-owned ADNOC oil and gas company was attacked while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, Emirati authorities said earlier Saturday. The Foreign Ministry said Iran fired the missile as part of attacks on commercial shipping.

ADNOC in a statement said there were no casualties following the attack early Saturday. The company said over a dozen of its vessels have been attacked by missiles and drones while transiting the strait since the United States and Israel launched the war on Iran in February. One crew member has been killed and 20 others wounded, it said.

ADNOC didn’t elaborate on the attack’s location or any damage.

Later, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center said a vessel east of the town of Khasab, Oman, had been struck by a projectile that caused a fire that was put out, with the vessel and crew safe. It was not clear whether this was the ADNOC incident.

Yemen’s military attacks Iran-backed Houthis

The attacks were in response to the Houthis’ recent strikes in central and eastern Yemen. Col. Majed al-Nazili, spokesperson for Yemen’s military, said the attacks targeted the rebels’ “sites and capabilities” on multiple front lines, without elaborating.

The escalation between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognized government and its backer, a Saudi-supported coalition, threatens to reignite Yemen’s civil war following a 2022 truce.

Turkey’s Kurdish peace bill wins approval in parliament

A Turkish draft law aimed at advancing a peace effort with the country’s Kurdish insurgents passed its first hurdle in parliament on Saturday. A committee approved the measure. It is expected to be approved in the general assembly next week.

Last year, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, declared its decision to disarm and disband as part of the peace initiative aimed at ending the decades-long conflict with the Turkish state.

The draft legislation defines the procedures for the group’s disarmament and rehabilitation of some PKK members. The measures would come into effect once Turkey’s National Security Council confirms that the group has disbanded and surrendered all weapons.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since it began in the 1980s. Turkey and its Western allies consider the group a terrorist organization.

August 8, 2026
Pentagon strips security clearance from former Air Force secretary

The Trump administration has revoked the security clearance of Frank Kendall, who served as Air Force secretary under President Joe Biden, accusing him of disclosing classified information about Air Force One to the media.

Kendall has recently been quoted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, in stories scrutinizing the security features of the Boeing 747 gifted by Qatar, the plane President Donald Trump is using as his official presidential aircraft.

Kendall told the Times that he was “surprised to see this plane used outside the U.S.,” given how speedily it was modified after the Qatari royal family gave it to the United States. To the Journal, Kendall expressed skepticism that the plane had been “maxed out” with security features, as Trump has said it would be.

In an X post Friday night, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Kendall was being stripped of access to classified information and his ability to hold any sensitive position following “unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding Air Force One’s capabilities.”

“Safeguarding classified information is a non-negotiable duty. Those who violate that trust forfeit the privilege of access and any role requiring it,” Parnell wrote.

Kendall could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday. The former Air Force chief, who also served in the Defense Department during the Obama administration, told the Journal he was “mystified” by the revocation of his security clearance.

“I’ve been extremely careful to not say anything that could be classified, and as far as I know I have not said anything classified,” Kendall said, adding that so far he had not been told what classified information he had supposedly revealed.

The luxury airplane gifted by Qatar has raised ethical, legal, and security concerns since Trump announced the unusual arrangement last year. Fresh questions about the new Air Force One’s security arose last month after Trump switched jets at the last minute for part of his travel back from the NATO summit in Turkey.

Trump denied that security concerns were behind the switch of planes for the first leg of his trip — but also suggested that Iran could have tried to attack his plane, saying he was “number one on their list” of people to assassinate.

The White House said last month that Trump would tentatively return to flying on an older Air Force One while the Qatari-gifted jet received unspecified “additional upgrades and enhancements” that would take about a month to complete.

August 8, 2026
Senate narrowly approves Blanche as attorney general, capping a tough confirmation fight

The Senate narrowly voted to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general early Saturday morning, cementing President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer as the head of the Justice Department despite rare pushback from Republicans that had left his nomination in doubt.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.) provided the crucial vote for Blanche as two other Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — sided with Democrats against the nominee. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who has been absent from the Senate since he suffered a fall in June, missed the vote.

The 50-49 vote at 4:31 a.m. — right before the Senate left for a five-week recess — gives Blanche the imprimatur of Senate confirmation in a job he has held on an acting basis since Trump fired former attorney general Pam Bondi in April.

But it hardly amounted to a full-throated endorsement.

Cassidy, despite voting in Blanche’s favor, joined Murkowski and Collins in publicly raising questions about the politicization of the Justice Department under Trump. The three also voiced concerns about Blanche’s role in a controversial deal struck this spring to resolve the president’s legal claims against the IRS — an agreement that included a now-scuttled proposal for a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who claimed they were victims of political prosecutions.

Two other Republican senators — John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — expressed similar reservations and threatened earlier in the process to vote against the nomination, although both ultimately backed Blanche.

Explaining his decision, Cassidy described it as a choice between Blanche — who before his time as Trump’s personal lawyer had spent years as a federal prosecutor and a partner at a prestigious Manhattan law firm — and the possibility that Trump might pick someone worse.

“Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this, but the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor Friday. “It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department as effectively under President Trump and who, indeed, may not be as good as Mr. Blanche.”

For his part, Blanche said after the vote that he was “deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me” and thanked the Senate for staying late for the vote.

“To the dedicated public servants of the Department of Justice,” he said in a post to social media, “thank you for your work each day to uphold the law and keep our country safe.”

With the confirmation fight now behind him, Blanche sheds the “acting” part of his title and, with it, any doubt about his authority as the head of a cabinet agency that Trump has made central to his second-term agenda.

Since returning to the White House last year, the president has eroded the Justice Department’s long tradition of independence, demanding it pursue prosecutions of his political enemies and directing resources toward rewarding his allies.

Meanwhile, the department has been ravaged by vacancies, low morale among career staff, and increasing credibility problems with federal judges.

Blanche, first as Bondi’s No. 2 and then as the department’s acting leader, has played a central role in that transformation, although his boosters in Congress have praised his efforts to step up fraud enforcement, prosecute illegal immigration and combat violent crime.

“America is safer with Todd Blanche at the helm of the Justice Department,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Cassidy called aspects of Blanche’s track record troubling, but he cited the bond Blanche built with Trump as he defended him in four criminal cases during his years out of office. The senator said he hoped that trust would strengthen Blanche’s ability to talk the president out of decisions that run contrary to the rule of law.

But Democrats insist that, at every turn, Blanche has proven unable — or unwilling — to do just that.

Since becoming acting attorney general, Blanche has defended the president’s “right” to intervene in criminal investigations and his controversial pardons of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He has breathed new life into probes of Trump critics, including investigations of former FBI Director James B. Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan and Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide from the president’s first term who testified against him in Congress.

“This nation deserves an Attorney General who loves the Constitution more than he loves the President. Sadly, for our nation, Todd Blanche, is not that person,” Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a statement Saturday.

But it is the out-of-court deal Blanche announced this spring to resolve a lawsuit the president filed against the IRS earlier this year, over the leak of his tax returns to the media, that has drawn the most unified criticism from lawmakers.

In addition to the taxpayer-backed nearly $1.8 billion payout fund, the deal also extended unusual tax protections to Trump, two of his sons and their businesses, shielding them from any preexisting tax audits.

Lawmakers from both parties decried the agreement, describing the proposed payouts as a “slush fund” designed to reward Trump’s allies, and denouncing the tax provisions as a corrupt exercise in self-dealing from a president who has often complained of burdensome audits.

Facing bipartisan pressure, Blanche walked back plans for the fund. But Cornyn and Tillis, both of whom are not running for reelection after Trump declined to support them, demanded written assurances from Blanche that the president would not later reverse that decision before they agreed to support his nomination.

Blanche ultimately relented, issuing statements late last Sunday declaring the fund officially dead and clarifying that the deal’s tax provisions protected the Trumps only from past tax audits and would not prevent the IRS from reviewing their finances in the future.

But critics have questioned whether Blanche’s written pledges hold any legal weight, given that they were not signed by Trump and his legal team, and could be ignored by the president at any point.

Murkowski raised that possibility in a statement Friday announcing her decision to vote against Blanche’s nomination. The only reason the payout fund was now off the table, she said, was because Blanche needed Senate support for his nomination.

“Once we vote, that will end, and there is no telling what the future holds,” she said.

“The country needs an attorney general who will check the worst impulses of this administration,” Murkowski added. “I hope Mr. Blanche is able to achieve that if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case.”

August 8, 2026
For some families, the answer to the housing crisis is in the backyard

A boom in state policies legalizing backyard housing construction is allowing some families to build multigenerational compounds for grandparents, parents, and grandchildren to all live together on the same property.

Twenty-four states have passed laws meant to enable construction of “accessory dwelling units,” or ADUs: separate housing units attached to or located nearby existing homes. The ADUs might be converted basements, over-the-garage apartments or, frequently, small homes built in backyards. In the past two years alone, 11 states have passed laws allowing ADUs at any single-family home, according to New York University’s Furman Center, plus many more state and local laws are meant to reduce barriers to ADU construction.

Pennsylvania lawmakers are currently considering legislation that would allow homeowners to create ADUs in places that are zoned for single-family houses without having to get special permission. The bill passed the state House in June and is now before a state Senate committee.

While many ADUs are used as rental housing, it’s nearly as common to use ADUs for multigenerational living — often elderly parents moving into their own small home on their adult children’s property, or adult children living in their parents’ yard or above a parents’ garage instead of moving away.

California has led the charge on legalizing ADUs, passing a string of laws over the past decade. Several surveys in the state consistently show that about 3 in 10 ADU owners have a family member living in the unit, while about 4 in 10 rent them to strangers.

As soon as Massachusetts moved to prevent cities from restricting ADUs in 2024, Joel and Oreon Mode — who live on the outskirts of Boston — pitched the idea of building one to their son Carter and his wife, Zoe. What if the Modes built a 900-square-foot house in their backyard and moved into the new home, then sold the big house where Carter had grown up to Carter and Zoe at a steep discount?

The Modes would have a single-story place as they got older, instead of their current home where they have to go upstairs to their bedroom. Their 33-year-old son, who had just had a baby, would get to move out of his nearby apartment into a single-family home at a price he could afford. And the Modes would have more time with their granddaughter.

“Our home … would have gone on the market for about $1 million, which is stupid. It’s just idiotic,” Joel, 67, a special-education teacher, said in an interview. “Selfishly, we’ve got this lovely little granddaughter who we’re gaga over, and we’re very close with Carter and Zoe, and we didn’t like the idea that they would be two hours away,” where they would need to go far from Boston to find a home they could afford.

Carter and Zoe eagerly agreed. The family all share a property now in Sudbury, Mass. Oreon, 67, recently retired from her job as a project manager and has time to care for her granddaughter, which means Carter and Zoe don’t pay for daycare either. “I’ve had my friends go: ‘Aren’t you going to get on each other’s nerves?’” Oreon said. “Yeah, probably, but that’s family. That’s what family does.”

Christopher Lee, the lead designer at the company that built the Modes’ new backyard home, said his firm’s homes cost between $200,000 and $600,000 to build, with most running about $300,000 for a two-bedroom house.

“When we started, it was almost all aging parents moving into people’s backyards,” he said. Lately, he’s started seeing more instances where the younger generation is living in the ADU, often people who were priced out of buying a house when prices surged during the pandemic.

“We’re starting to see people using ADUs as starter homes,” Lee said. “We’ve done a handful now where it’s adult children moving into their parents’ backyard and they’re building a house for them and maybe a spouse and firstborn child. … There’s been some level of acceptance that high prices are here to stay. People are moving on.”

Dohyung Kim, an urban planning professor at Cal Poly Pomona, pointed out that ADUs have been marketed as multigenerational housing long before the recent boom in policies aimed at using these small homes to ease the nationwide housing crunch. After all, the additions have long been called “granny flats” or “mother-in-law suites,” implying relatives moving in. (The homebuilder Lennar, which declined to comment for this piece, calls theirs “next gen,” in a nod toward adult children living at their parents’ homes.)

Zoning rules that only permit one house on a lot made it illegal to build ADUs in much of America for decades, Kim said, and still exist. Often, he said, the towns that passed those rules object to the idea of the ADUs being used as rental housing as opposed to for family members.

“Many people build ADUs and use it as a granny flat. But at the same time, many people built ADUs and rented it out,” Kim said. “The tenants used to be more likely to be low-income people of color. Historically, many cities did not want to see that happen.”

Lindsey Fitzgerald, a sales representative for Coca-Cola, moved into an ADU on her mother’s property in Billerica, Mass., with her boyfriend and child. “When I got pregnant, my mom told us that she would be our childcare while we worked. This made all the sense to build this ADU,” she said. “It’s the cheapest way to build or buy a house right now. The market is so crazy that this is what made sense for our family.”

Fitzgerald said that she can look right through her window into her mom’s house; her toddler son delights in going between the two homes. “As my mom gets older, then I’m also here for her to help her,” she added.

Fitzgerald’s mother, Linda Dahl, was already used to having something of a family compound: Dahl’s sister lives in the other half of her split-level home, and her adult son lives with her in the main house.

Dahl said, with a laugh, that her son wants her to put another ADU in her yard so that he can live there instead. “I probably could.”

Contractor David Giacomin, who works in Maryland, said that nine times out of 10, when he builds ADUs the owner is planning for family to live in them — usually elderly parents, or sometimes adult children. Giacomin used to own a Maryland yoga studio, but he started casting about at age 50 for a new business idea when it shut down during the pandemic.

His business has boomed thanks to a state law requiring all localities to permit ADUs by this fall, including in Rockville and Gaithersburg, cities that formerly banned most ADUs. But other requirements, like mandates to install fire-suppression sprinklers, make it much more costly to build them than he thinks it has to be — and most homeowners struggle to get a mortgage to build one.

“If you put a pencil to it, you’d have to charge so much to get your money back in a reasonable time, that it just doesn’t make sense to have it as a rental,” Giacomin said. He thinks that’s why he’s mostly building for families.

One of his clients, Anne Lao, plans to move into one on her daughter’s property in Silver Spring, Md., next month. Lao and her husband moved from California to live just 10 minutes away from their daughter, but since the death of Lao’s husband, Lao’s daughter encouraged her to be even closer. Lao, 70, wasn’t thrilled at the idea of living in an addition, but she agreed to live in a unit at the end of the driveway, where a detached garage used to be.

“When I’m getting older, and if I need help, it’s just very convenient to be right next to them,” Lao said. “It just gives you a little bit more privacy and independence. They have their privacy also.”

She looks forward to seeing her 9- and 10-year-old grandchildren nonstop. “I’m sure I’m going to have visitors every day.”

The rise in ADUs has opened some people up to the idea who might not have considered intergenerational living before, said Wayne State University urban planning professor Kami Pothukuchi.

“For immigrant groups that have a tradition of living in intergenerational households, where older parents will live with their adult married daughters or sons and their families, that has been common and is still common and really has nothing to do with ADUs,” Pothukuchi said. “But where ADUs are legal — that is certainly something that you’re seeing a lot more, within American families that don’t have this as their immediate tradition of living intergenerationally.”

It’s hard to quantify just how common these family compounds are, she said, because so many ADUs, such as basements and garages, are converted into separate living spaces without permits. “If it’s unpermitted, it’s not counted.”

Because some ADUs are counted as part of the main house and some are counted as their own household in the U.S. Census, it’s hard to parse out a trend in multigenerational households in federal data.

David Garcia, who works on housing policy at Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation, said he hopes future research will provide greater clarity.

“Part of the challenge with ADUs is we want them to do a lot of things,“ he said. ”We want them to stabilize families. We want them to create more housing stock. But it’s hard for us to know exactly how much of those goals ADUs are fulfilling without better data.”

Inquirer staff writer Michaelle Bond contributed to this article.

August 8, 2026
A Russian retail giant’s warehouse burns after Ukraine’s latest long-range drone attack

Ukrainian long-range drones hit a warehouse of Russia’s biggest online retailer in the Ural Mountains, more than 1,200 miles from the two countries’ border, local officials and the company said Friday.

Ukraine has regularly hit targets in the distant Urals this year and has even struck a Russian oil refinery in western Siberia, nearly 1,550 miles from the border. The attacks are examples of how Kyiv has used drone innovation as a key part of its response to the invasion by its much bigger enemy more than four years ago.

Its successes have drawn international interest and drone cooperation agreements with nine countries, with further deals being negotiated with 15 other countries, according to Kyiv officials.

Wildberries said its warehouse in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, was set ablaze by the attack. Most merchandise wasn’t damaged, the company said, unlike at some of the more than a dozen other Wildberries depots struck by Ukraine in recent weeks that have burned down.

The regional governor, Denis Pasler, said three drones hit the warehouse’s roof. Artyom Zhoga, the Kremlin’s representative in the region, said that 800 people were evacuated from the warehouse and nobody was hurt.

Kyiv is trying to rattle the Russian public and the Kremlin with the attacks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting Friday of the country’s Security Council. He said in televised opening remarks that the meeting would focus on additional measures to “strengthen … protection of infrastructure facilities” but gave no further details.

Ukraine presses on with plans for new weapons

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is pushing for his country to keep up the pace of technological development, especially in air defense systems to help stop Russian ballistic missiles that are exploiting Ukraine’s shortage of American-made Patriot interceptor missiles and battering civilian areas.

A joint European anti-ballistic development program is already underway, Zelensky said late Thursday, with 10 countries engaged in developing an anti-ballistic shield. Europe is concerned about Moscow’s ambitions on the continent beyond Ukraine.

“Ukraine is capable of producing its (anti-ballistic) missile and launcher, while our partners will provide the necessary components and critical elements — radars, sensors, and everything else required,” Zelensky said on social media. “An anti-ballistic program of our own — one that is truly large-scale — will greatly benefit everyone in Europe.”

At the same time, Ukraine is working on manufacturing its own ballistic missiles to use against Russia. “The tests have shown strong potential. We need to turn this into a real weapon,” Zelensky said.

Defenders are under pressure in eastern Ukraine

Ukrainian front-line defenses in eastern regions, meanwhile, remain under strain as Russia’s bigger army looks for a breakthrough after months of minimal advances that Western analysts and officials say have had a high cost for Moscow in troop casualties.

Ukraine has been evacuating children from Kramatorsk, one of the four eastern Donetsk region cities that make up the Ukrainian so-called Fortress Belt. The line of four large and heavily defended cities, about 30 miles long, has been key to denying Moscow its goal of seizing Ukraine’s industrial heartland.

The head of the Donetsk region’s regional military administration, Vadym Filashkin, said Friday that more than 800 people, including 91 children, were evacuated over the previous 24 hours.

Ukraine has been deploying midrange strike drones to disrupt Russia’s supply lines and slow its advance.

Zelensky said that the recently appointed commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, reported to him Friday about the military situation in Donetsk.

He said in a social media post that they reached “an understanding of how to strengthen” Ukraine’s defenses there but gave no details.

Russia and Ukraine sustain nightly drone attacks

Russia’s air defenses downed 203 Ukrainian drones from late Thursday through early Friday, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said.

Over the past week, the Russian military struck 31 bulk cargo vessels and three tugboats that operated “in the interests of the Ukrainian armed forces,” it said.

It added that late Thursday two ships were hit by Geran-4 drones in the Black Sea east and southeast of Odesa and one was struck in the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk.

In other attacks, the ministry said that the military hit a facility assembling long-range drones in Okhtyrka in the Sumy region on Thursday. It also released a video of a train purportedly carrying military equipment struck by a Geran drone and then an Iskander ballistic missile near Vyshneve in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukraine with 147 long-range strike drones overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force.

In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, a Russian drone struck a busy market Friday morning, wounding 10 people, authorities said.

Russia also launched glide bombs and drones of various types at the regional capital, according to the head of regional administration, Oleh Hryhorov.

The attack targeted residential buildings, transport, and infrastructure, wounding two people, he said.

August 7, 2026
Student kills at least 7 people at a high school and a home outside Bangkok, officials say

NONTHABURI, Thailand — A student opened fire at a high school outside Bangkok on Friday, killing at least five people and wounding more than 20, according to authorities, who said he also appeared to have killed his two grandparents at the family home earlier in the morning.

The 14-year-old shooter took his own life at the school, officials said.

Five school staff members, including teachers and administrators, died in the shooting around 10 a.m. at Debsirin Nonthaburi School in Nonthaburi province northwest of Bangkok, Deputy Interior Minister Polapee Suwunchwee said at the scene.

The boy also killed his grandparents at the home he shared with them prior to the school shooting, Polapee said.

Bangyai Hospital, about 3 miles from the school, said 23 people were wounded, of whom 10 were in critical condition, with most suffering gunshot wounds. Earlier reports gave conflicting casualty numbers.

A witness said students hid inside a classroom while they heard gunshots from another building before police officers knocked on the door and cleared a way for them to leave the building.

Amporn Niamfuang, who owns a restaurant 160 feet from the school, said there was the sound of a single gunshot and then a pause.

“And then there were multiple continuous shots,” Amporn said, recalling the narrow road outside the restaurant filling with fleeing students. “Students were running scared and pouring onto the street. Young girls were holding each other’s hands and crying. I went inside to hide.”

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, speaking after touring the school, confirmed reports that the shooter was 14 and had killed himself. He said the student had shown signs of stress connected to school.

The gun, described by police as small and compact, was legally registered to the student’s grandfather, he said.

About an hour after the shooting, people stood outside comforting one another as police and first responders walked around the co-educational state school, which has an enrollment of about 3,000 students ranging from 12 to 18 years old.

All classes will be suspended from Monday through Friday, and school staff have been instructed to work from home during that time, the school said.

Police find grandparents dead at family home

After the shooting, police went to the student’s home and found both grandparents dead of apparent gunshot wounds, regional police Commander Wattana Yeejeen said.

The student appeared to have shot them before attending school as normal. He waited until classes started and began shooting inside his classroom before walking out and firing more shots, police spokesperson Trairong Piwpan said.

The boy fired more than 20 shots and police found he still had 30 rounds after shooting himself, he said.

Several family members, including his uncle and sisters of the grandfather who were at the family home while police investigated, said he usually kept to himself and was a good student.

The family members said they were unaware of any troubles he faced at home or school.

Thailand has high rate of gun owners

Thailand has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in Asia, second only to Pakistan and far surpassing its other Southeast Asian neighbors.

Data collected in 2017 by the groups Small Arms Survey and GunPolicy.org in their last extensive international study found civilian gun ownership in Thailand was about 15.1 guns per 100 people, compared with less than one per 100 in neighboring Malaysia.

Thailand had 3.49 deaths by firearms per 100,000 people, according to 2023 statistics published by World Population Review. That puts it well behind parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, but relatively high in Asia. Only the Philippines is higher in Southeast Asia.

In February, a 17-year-old stole a gun from police and opened fire at a public high school in southern Thailand, briefly taking people hostage in a two-hour attack that killed one person and injured two others.

A 14-year-old boy was accused of a 2023 shooting at a major Bangkok shopping mall.

August 7, 2026
White House drafting order on vaccines, autism despite pollsters’ warnings

White House officials are drafting an executive order focused on the childhood vaccine schedule and autism, according to four people familiar with the matter. The order would continue to spotlight a divisive issue that Republican pollsters have warned carries political risk ahead of November’s midterm elections and would follow the confirmation of a new CDC director who has promised to uphold the scientific integrity of the agency.

The aim is to focus on the vaccine schedule, research around autism, and parental choice, according to three people familiar with the matter, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. Further details and timing of the order remain unclear, and it is subject to change.

The effort underscores President Donald Trump’s determination to elevate vaccine policy within the administration even as a federal judge has halted Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sweeping overhaul on this front, including changes to the childhood immunization schedule.

The development also comes after a federal advisory committee on autism last month released a draft update to a federal strategic plan that sets priorities for autism research and serves as a blueprint for federal research funding.

In a statement Thursday, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said, “President Trump has been clear: America must have the best childhood vaccine schedule in the world.”

He added: “The Administration remains steadfastly committed to delivering on this presidential priority with Gold Standard Science for the countless parents whose questions and concerns about vaccinations have been ignored or mocked.”

Trump has questioned whether the number of childhood vaccines can cause autism, despite decades of research finding no link. At a Cabinet meeting last week, Trump asked Kennedy for an update on autism research.

“We will have an answer for you,” Kennedy replied.

Kennedy, the founder of a prominent anti-vaccine group, has long disparaged vaccines and argued they have not been properly studied, including during an appearance on CNN last weekend. The comments have alarmed medical experts who say commonly administered shots are safe and effective.

In recent months, Kennedy has publicly leaned into his health department’s quest to improve food and drug pricing instead of vaccines. But behind the scenes, Kennedy’s allies are continuing work to reshape the federal apparatus guiding vaccines, including crafting studies to research a wide range of vaccine-related questions, including whether routine immunizations are linked to autism, autoimmune disorders, and other medical conditions.

After a federal judge halted the Department of Health and Human Services’ reduction of immunizations in the childhood schedule, the Trump administration released an executive order in late May directing the health department to realign the schedule with those of other developed countries that recommend fewer shots. It was not immediately clear how the new executive order would differ from the earlier directive.

‘It’s a personal issue for him’

Trump last year announced moves that he said would combat the rise of autism in the United States. The president in September warned pregnant mothers against taking Tylenol and touted the potential of leucovorin as an autism treatment.

“I told them … we have to find out” the causes of the condition, Trump said, flanked by Kennedy and other administration officials at the White House.

The warnings from Trump and U.S. health officials on acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol and hundreds of other medications, represented a major shift in public health guidance. Research has yet to bear out the president’s claims on Tylenol and leucovorin.

Trump has privately questioned why his administration has yet to release new recommendations on vaccines and urged his deputies to move faster, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. The Wall Street Journal first reported that Trump was pushing to prioritize the study of vaccines and autism.

“It’s a personal issue for him,” said one of the people, an administration official with knowledge of Trump’s comments. Trump has repeatedly invoked his own theories on the rise in autism, shaped by conversations with friends and advocates. Trump has previously said that he and his wife, first lady Melania Trump, deliberately spaced out childhood vaccines for their 20-year-old son, Barron.

Trump has repeatedly pressed Kennedy on his agency’s autism efforts in public cabinet meetings, including five minutes of back-and-forth during an October meeting.

“I’m addressing it the best I can as a nondoctor, but I’m a man of common sense,” Trump said then.

‘Never betray the science’

On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Erica Schwartz to helm the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which makes recommendations on vaccines.

The CDC has been without a permanent leader for most of Trump’s second term. Susan Monarez, who served in the role for less than a month, told senators she was fired last year after Kennedy pressured her to support changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.

During her confirmation hearing, Schwartz was repeatedly pressed by senators on whether she would defend the CDC’s scientific integrity if political directives conflicted with the evidence. She pledged that she would “never betray the science” but stopped short of saying she would publicly oppose Kennedy if he directed the agency to take actions she believed were unsupported by scientific evidence.

Schwartz said she had not reviewed a CDC webpage that suggests a connection between childhood vaccines and autism, and declined to say whether it should be removed. She said, however, that the existing medical evidence does not support a link.

In July, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee released a 336-page draft strategic plan. Some advocates say the draft from the federal autism advisory committee shifts the field toward investigating autism as a result of medical injury, despite decades of research showing that autism is primarily rooted in genetics and early brain development. Although the plan does not explicitly identify vaccines as a cause of autism, critics say references to a potential “exposure or biological event” that might lead to autism echoes the framework long advanced by Kennedy and others who have promoted the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism.

The autism advisory committee was reconstituted earlier this year by Kennedy, who appointed members who have echoed his controversial views and advocated for unproven treatments.

The draft strategic plan “doesn’t mention or describe the cause of medical injury, but we can read between the lines,” said Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation. “The President and the HHS Secretary have been very vocal in the past about their belief that vaccines cause autism, as have several public members of the new federal IACC in their past statements, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.”

Singer said the concern is less about what the draft says than the research agenda it establishes.

Current research suggests that autism is largely written into our biology. Scientists have identified hundreds of genetic variants that collectively shape the developing brain. The evidence now points more clearly in one direction: Autism begins before birth and is not caused by vaccines or any single environmental factor. Vaccines are the one environmental factor that have been studied most extensively, she said, and large studies across multiple countries have found no evidence that they cause autism.

But an executive order linking childhood vaccines to autism could be viewed as providing “backup ammunition and another legal document,” one administration official said on background, to revisit vaccine-related research in a final version of the strategic plan.

Kennedy was slated to visit the Atlanta-based CDC on Friday, where he was to participate in a ceremony marking the first anniversary of a gunman spraying hundreds of bullets at the agency’s headquarters. Investigators said the gunman appeared motivated by distrust of coronavirus vaccines.

August 7, 2026