This isn’t his first,and likely won’t be his last, attempt to squash voting by mail, but on Monday President Trump asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for a sweeping executive order that would place major new restrictions on mail-in ballots for November’s midterm elections. His Justice Department asked the justices to halt for now lower court decisions blocking the sweeping changes in nearly half the country.

The request comes shortly after Trump delivered a primetime address elevating his years-long push to raise doubts about the legitimacy of elections, and could be one of several voting-related challenges before the court ahead of the high-stakes midterm contest. He claims that voting irregularities are widespread, despite a lack of evidence.

Trump ordered the government in March to create a “state citizenship list” of eligible voters and deliver mail ballots only to people on that list.Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia sued, saying the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to set election rules, not the president. Their attorneys have said Trump’s proposed changes are ripe for abuse and could cause chaos. “The President’s latest attempt to interfere with the States’ administration of their elections is as unprecedented as it is unconstitutional,” the states wrote in their lawsuit. “Under our Constitution, the President has no authority to restrict voter eligibility or mail voting to lists of voters pre-authorized by the federal government.”

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the challengers to respond to the government’s emergency application by Monday, Aug. 3rd. The justices could rule after the administration responds to the states’ filing. For years, Trump has made unfounded claims sowing doubt about voting by mail and claiming that it allows widespread fraud. But so far, the courts have stymied many of his efforts to restrict mail voting and remain skeptical.

It’s nothing new, but you might’ve thought the 1970s or ‘80s was the heyday of cocaine. But global production and use of the narcotic have reached historic highs, with global manufacture surging to roughly 4,100 metric tons of pure product and an estimated 25 million users worldwide, according to the UNODC World Drug Report 2026. What’s more, the U.S. maintains the highest estimated number of individual cocaine users globally.

The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to a previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration. In a recent assessment reviewed by the Washington Post, DEA analysts found the strikes had failed to affect the supply or price of cocaine in the United States and had led traffickers to diversify beyond go-fast boats and to avoid international waters, opting instead for larger boats and hemming close to coastlines, where U.S. forces are less likely to open fire.

Meanwhile, authorities from Italian, Spanish and Portuguese police seized more than 3 tons of cocaine and arrested four people in a major international operation in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday. And this was after Italian authorities seized nearly 1,700 pounds of cocaine hidden inside a refrigerated shipping container carrying bananas at the Port of Vado Ligure, a popular commercial seaport on Italy’s northwestern Mediterranean coast.

Scientists have warned for months that a “super” El Niño is brewing. Now, forecast models suggest it could eclipse every event on record. A new analysis by Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather paints a worrying picture of the climate phenomenon developing in the Pacific Ocean.

Models have consistently forecast that this year’s El Niño—characterized by hotter than normal waters in the eastern tropical Pacific—will likely surpass the previous record-holder. And Hausfather says it will by “a truly mind-blowing margin.” The new analysis relies on 667 simulations and compares them with historical records of the most intense El Niño events since 1877. It also disentangles El Niño's intensity from the background warming driven by fossil fuels, making it easier to draw comparisons between super El Niños.

As El Niño ramps up, the ocean pumps more and more heat into the atmosphere, with peak sea surface temperatures arriving between November and February. Because this peak occurs so late in the year, we see the biggest global temperature impact the year after El Niño forms. According to Hausfather, 2026 could briefly become the hottest year on record before 2027 potentially overtakes it. Justin Mankin, a professor and climate researcher at Dartmouth College, told Nature News that if the forecasts are anything near correct, the 2026-2027 El Niño could cause “$10 trillion in economic losses by 2032.”