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1. Voting rights continue to be contested by forces within the Trump administration and in state governments around the country. • President Trump canceled the signing of a bipartisan housing bill, saying he refuses to sign it until the Senate passes the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act—a bill that could disenfranchise millions of voters. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is now talking about trying to pass the SAVE America Act via budget reconciliation, which, if successful, would allow it to pass the Senate without Democratic votes. • Postmaster General David Steiner told senators that, under a new proposed rule, the U.S. Postal Service will not deliver mail ballots unless states hand over their voter lists to the Trump administration. Multiple federal courts are hearing lawsuits challenging the new regulation. • By declining to take up a lower court ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court is allowing a decision to stand that ends a tool to protect minority voters in seven states. Legal action on this matter is expected to continue in order to clarify whether private organizations have the right to sue to enforce Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act. 2. On immigration and policing, we continue to see state power and violence used cruelly against regular people, ending lives and devastating families and communities. • A police officer in Mississippi shot and killed 1-year-old Kohen Kartier Wiley while responding to a shoplifting call at a Walmart. Wiley was killed while riding in a car with his mother and another adult woman, who was critically wounded in the police shooting. • Daniel Sanchez-Estrada has been sentenced to 30 years in prison after moving a box of antifascist literature linked to a Fourth of July protest at an immigration facility in Alvarado, south of Fort Worth, despite not being physically present at the scene. The sentence is longer than many Jan. 6 rioters received. Other individuals more directly involved in the Fourth of July protest received even longer sentences of at least 50 years. • A hunger and labor strike by detained immigrants at Newark migrant jail Delaney Hall that sparked weeks of protests outside the detention center has effectively ended, according to immigration advocates. Unfortunately, it appears to have ended not because conditions inside Delaney Hall have improved but because of intimidation and disciplinary tactics by guards. • The government has now reported that 51 people have died in ICE custody since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term. Experts believe the official figure is an undercount, in part because some people were released from custody and died shortly thereafter. 3. In foreign affairs, important developments emerged in several nations around the world. • Americans’ perceptions of the war on Iran and the agreement to end it are decidedly mixed. Seventy-eight percent of Americans want the war to end now, but only 22% think the agreement between the U.S. and Iran is better for the U.S., with 37% believing it’s better for Iran and 41% saying it’s about equal for each. • The situation in southern Lebanon continues to be extremely volatile, with Israel having destroyed and occupied many towns and villages along the Israel-Lebanon border—up to seven miles deep into the country in some places. Israel says its troops will remain in southern Lebanon for the foreseeable future, while the Iranian and Lebanese governments are calling for them to withdraw as part of the U.S.-Iran agreement. • Communications equipment that Ukraine says was helping support Russian drone strikes from Belarusian territory has stopped operating, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, days after he issued an ultimatum to Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. Moscow responded by accusing Kyiv of violating Belarus’ sovereignty. • Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that her country seeks to restart oil shipments to Cuba soon, a move that could provide much-needed relief as the island’s crises deepen amid a lack of petroleum. The Mexican government will reportedly seek to send the oil via commercial sources rather than state-owned companies to sidestep the U.S. blockade. • A Trump-admiring far-right millionaire has won a razor-thin victory in Colombia’s presidential runoff election. He has promised to adopt an iron fist approach against criminal groups, including a return to full-scale military confrontation.
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