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A sign directs Gwinnett County, Georgia, voters to a polling station ahead of the 2025 general election.(Photo by Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder) The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is unlawfully scrutinizing naturalized U.S. citizens and placing them at risk of disenfranchisement, civil rights groups alleged in a lawsuit Wednesday, less than a week before Election Day. The lawsuit,  filed in California , came as Homeland Security asked for an emergency order to restart election-related field operations in nine states after a federal judge paused them over concerns they could sweep up U.S. citizens. The developments add to the  growing legal war over the midterm elections being fought in federal courts across the country. President Donald Trump’s administration is waging an aggressive and highly visible effort to target alleged noncitizen voting — a campaign Democrats and voting rights groups fear will wrongly ensnare Americans entitled to cast a ballot. Homeland Securit...

Early voters line up at the Midtown Mall in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. (Yereth Rosen photo/Alaska Beacon) Less than a week before Election Day, President Donald Trump’s unprecedented drive for power over elections has set the stage for a series of courtroom fights that could quickly lead to a high-stakes showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over the limits of federal authority. Democrats and voting rights advocates have long feared Trump would attempt to interfere in the midterm elections, especially if Republicans appear poised to lose control of Congress. With early voting  well underway across much of the country, they say those concerns are being confirmed as the Trump administration rushes forward a last-minute legal campaign to pressure election officials in a growing number of states. The U.S. Department of Justice over the past two weeks has sued Alaska and California, seeking extraordinary federal intervention in their elections. Signs suggest the lega...

Voters mark their ballots during the first day of early voting at the Bismarck Event Center in Bismarck, North Dakota, on Oct. 22, 2026. (Photo by Jack Dura/North Dakota Monitor) WASHINGTON — Tens of millions of Americans have already made their way to the ballot box as early voting is underway in a midterm election that will determine control of the House and the Senate, possibly flipping one or both from Republicans to Democrats.  As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 34 million people have either gone to the polls to cast a ballot or have mailed in their vote, and the current tally is on track to surpass early voting in the 2022 midterm elections, said Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at University of Florida who runs the  UF Election Lab that tracks early voting. With one week until Election Day on Nov. 3, McDonald said he’s not sure if voters will surpass record-breaking early voting of 2018, but it’s clear that the surge in early voting will eclipse tur...

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks to reporters following a visit to the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network on Oct. 27, 2026. (Photo by Katherine Dailey/Michigan Advance) DETROIT — A day after Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made anti-Arab remarks at a get-out-the-vote rally for Republican candidates in Grand Rapids, he declined to address the comments during a stop in Detroit to promote a new care program for homeless individuals.  Kennedy said Monday evening that Arabs do not contribute to research in science and literature, blaming the Muslim Brotherhood for “destroying” the Muslim tradition that “produced all of these great foundational discoveries in science and medicine and biology and navigation” — remarks that have been largely condemned as racist and Islamophobic. “There are five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don’t produce science,” Kennedy said. “They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They do...

First Liberty Building and Loan the day after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed its complaint against the Newnan-based lender. Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder Edwin Brant Frost IV, the founder of a conservative lending firm in Georgia, was sentenced on Monday to 15 years in prison for his role in running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors out of millions of dollars. Frost, a 69-year-old and founder of the now-defunct First Liberty Building & Loan, was accused of leading a $140 million Ponzi scheme that officials say started around 2021 and scammed about 300 investors. Frost, who was convicted of wire fraud in May after he pleaded guilty, will also have to pay back over $76 million in restitution to victims. After he serves his sentence, he will have three additional years of supervised release. At Frost’s sentencing hearing Monday in Newnan, Frost took responsibility for his role in scamming these investors, including many people who handed over their savings for ret...

Fenn Church, center, is flanked by supporters at the gate of his property in Shelby County, Alabama. (Lee Hedgepeth/ Inside Climate News) This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News , a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here . CALERA — Fenn Church knew what he had to do. “I’m going to stand in front of that gate and say, ‘This is my home, and I’m not letting you drive through that gate,’” Church said on Thursday morning. “And then if they want to arrest me, they can handcuff me and take me to jail or run me over. But this is where I take my stand.” For months, Church had fought Alabama Power’s effort to use eminent domain to secure access to his property in Alabama’s lower courts, arguing that the utility could easily use alternative routes to build a transmission line that would not be as disruptive to homeowners like himself in rural Shelby County, about a 45-minute drive south of Bir...