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19 states sue over Trump's voting executive order, arguing it's unconstitutional

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19 states sue over Trump's voting executive order, arguing it's unconstitutional

People fill out their ballots in voting booths at the Green Street Community Center in Concord, N.H., on Nov. 5, 2024.

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Nineteen states are suing over President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order on voting that he signed last week, saying it is “an unconstitutional attempt to seize control of elections” that will create barriers to voting that could disenfranchise millions.

The lawsuit, which is the fourth legal challenge so far against the executive order, calls on a federal district court in Massachusetts to block several provisions of the executive order, which the attorneys general argue “usurps the States’ constitutional power and seeks to amend election law by fiat.”

The lawsuit is filed by Democratic attorneys general from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

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“We are a democracy — not a monarchy — and this Executive Order is an authoritarian power grab,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement. “With this Order, this President is prioritizing his own quest for unchecked power above the rights and will of the public.”

Trump’s March 25 order seeks to make dramatic changes to voting and election administration and threatens that if states do not comply they could lose federal funds and face potential action from the U.S. attorney general.

Among the changes, the executive order directs the Election Assistance Commission – an independent, bipartisan body — to rewrite the federal voter registration form to include a requirement that Americans must show a copy of a proof of citizenship document to register to vote in federal races. It also aims to prevent states from counting mailed ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive after the election, which 18 states currently allow.

The lawsuit argues that these changes cannot be ordered by a president, since it is up to states and Congress to decide how elections should be run. It also argues the president cannot direct the Election Assistance Commission to take actions since it is an independent body, and that adding a proof of citizenship requirement on the federal registration form conflicts with existing federal law.

The suit says the executive order “sows confusion and sets the stage for chaos” since states will have to divert staff and resources toward implementing new training, testing, voter education and coordination “at breakneck pace” to comply with the order – or risk losing needed funds if they don’t comply.

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Three other federal lawsuits have already been filed this week against the executive order. All are assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C. who ordered Thursday that the three suits will be consolidated and will proceed together.

Two of those lawsuits were brought by voting rights groups on behalf of organizations that assist voters with registration. The other was brought by Democratic election attorney Marc Elias’ law firm on behalf of Democrats.

Trump has said his executive order is necessary to stop fraud and “straighten out our elections.”

False claims about election fraud have become part of Trump’s brand, the most notable example being his denial of his 2020 election loss.

In the leadup to the 2024 election, Trump promoted the bogus theory that Democrats would attempt to steal the election by helping noncitizens vote in large numbers. There is no evidence of such a plot.

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In fact, past audits have shown that cases of noncitizens voting are rare. Under current federal law, voters must attest, under penalty of perjury, that they are U.S. citizens when they register to vote, and some states take additional steps to verify citizenship. Those who try to vote illegally can face prison time and deportation.

Still, in response to the lawsuit filed by Democrats challenging the executive order, U.S. Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted to X, “Why are top Democrats suing to allow non-citizens to vote in American elections? You know why.” Billionaire Elon Musk, who owns X and is a top adviser to Trump, shared Lee’s post with one word, “Fraud.”

The lawsuits challenging the executive order argue that requiring voters to show a copy of a proof of citizenship document to register to vote would create an unlawful burden on voters, and conflicts with the 1993 federal law, the National Voter Registration Act, that spells out registration requirements.

More than 21 million American adults do not have a proof of citizenship document like a birth certificate or passport, or do not have easy access to one, according to a survey commissioned by voting rights advocates. Furthermore, Trump’s executive order only names a limited number of documents that can be used to prove citizenship: a U.S. passport, military ID cards that state citizenship, or a government-issued photo ID that lists citizenship, though most states do not offer IDs that list citizenship. It remains unclear if birth certificates are a valid way to prove citizenship under the executive order. Only half of Americans have a passport.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are backing federal legislation that will change federal law to require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Republican House leaders said in a statement on Monday that the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, known as the SAVE Act, “cements into law President Trump’s executive action to secure our voter registration process and protect the voices of American voters.”

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

@fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @Bogs4NY via X

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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