X-Risk Daily

Reuters reported that USPS' final rule requires states to provide lists of voters who received mailed ballots to the agency, implementing the executive order Trump signed in March after years of calling for tighter rules on voting by mail and pushing the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud. Under the rule's terms, USPS would not collect party affiliation or inspect ballot contents, but would not collect or record party affiliation and will not inspect ballot contents... USPS will maintain data from the exterior of the envelope, including address and barcode information.

The rule text acknowledges that two federal courts, in California and Massachusetts, have issued injunctions currently barring USPS from proceeding. The Massachusetts case is the more recent: Fox News reported that U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani granted a preliminary injunction preventing the USPS from implementing or enforcing Section 3 of Executive Order 14399 for the Nov. 3 midterm elections, or any earlier federal election. That ruling built on an earlier one; Talwani had previously blocked several provisions of the executive order in June, finding they likely exceeded the president's authority, and the appeals court left that injunction in place July 25, while the administration's appeal proceeds. The ACLU, which represented plaintiffs including the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, said the court found "the executive branch has no authority to regulate elections" and recognized that the executive order is currently causing "irreparable harm" to both voting rights groups and voters by creating confusion.

Publishing the rule regardless does not itself violate the injunctions, since USPS has said it will be formally published on August 26 but USPS will take no action to implement the order unless a court lifts the injunction, but it signals the administration's intent to move the moment any legal obstacle is lifted. That intent is reinforced by the pending appeal: the Trump administration has made an emergency request to the U.S. Supreme Court to lift that injunction; that request is pending, and the Department of Justice has previously indicated it could escalate further if lower courts do not rule in its favour.

The dispute fits a pattern the ACLU says extends beyond this single order: this executive order is President Trump's second attempt to seize control of federal elections by executive fiat, issued despite injunctions from three separate federal courts blocking a previous 2025 executive order on similar grounds. Voting rights groups argue the mechanics of the rule pose a direct threat to ballot access, since Trump's rule could allow USPS to refuse to deliver ballots to eligible voters if they are not on approved lists or if states fail to comply with new federal requirements. The Brennan Center for Justice has separately warned that the order's central aim is to let USPS decide who may vote by mail and instructs it to refuse to deliver ballots sent by anyone not included on newly created federal mail voter lists, a shift in authority over election administration that plaintiffs say usurps power the Constitution assigns to the states.

Go deeper: Lawfare's analysis of the executive order's legal mechanics, the Brennan Center's breakdown of the order's provisions

US President Donald Trump said on 22 August 2026 that he "views the strait of Hormuz as an American territory right now," according to remarks reported in an Al Jazeera live briefing, while claiming Iran "would love to make a deal, but they're not ready to make the right deal in my opinion." The comments came as the war between the US and Iran, now in its seventh month since fighting erupted on 28 February, showed no sign of resolution. Trump made the remark alongside a jab at his own military campaign, telling reporters, according to Political Wire, "We don't even know if we won."

The claim is not new. Trump first floated declaring Hormuz American territory on 14 August, telling a crowd on Long Island that "after we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States." Days later he posted a map of the waterway on Truth Social captioned "New US Territory," prompting Iran to reject the threat outright. Parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the strait "will remain Iranian," and Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi wrote that "the Strait of Hormuz cannot be taken over by a tweet, nor by an aircraft carrier, nor by issuing a decree, nor by an election speech. Iran is neither afraid of threats nor intimidated by a show of force."

The strait, which normally carries about a fifth of the world's traded oil, has been at the centre of the conflict since Iran restricted traffic through it after the war began. Tehran has tied any reopening to Washington ending its naval blockade, lifting sanctions, releasing frozen Iranian assets and paying war damages, while a June memorandum of understanding meant to halt military operations broke down within weeks amid claims of violations on both sides. Trump's envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner said last week that the US and Iran were having "very positive and active conversations," a claim Trump himself has since denied, insisting no talks are scheduled and that "the Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect."

Legal experts cited by Al Jazeera say Trump's related proposal to impose a toll on shipping through the strait would breach international law governing free maritime transit, and Trump has not explained how the US would enforce a territorial claim over waters bordered by Iran and Oman. CNN's analysis of the standoff notes that shipping traffic remains severely restricted, "underscoring Tehran's ongoing leverage over Hormuz" regardless of the rhetoric from Washington. The declaration also follows a pattern: since returning to office, Trump has threatened to annex Greenland, absorb Canada and take control of the Gaza Strip, without acting on any of those threats.

The attack coincided with a wave of cyber intrusions against water infrastructure in the United States, which CNBC reported affected water facilities across at least seven states, prompting warnings from the FBI and other US authorities that blamed Iran.

British officials have declined to name the affected site, citing security concerns, but have been emphatic about its limited scale. A government source told the Telegraph, as quoted by Ynet: "We have thresholds for important generators to legally notify us of cyber activity, and this site is nowhere near. It's a very small scale site, less than a rounding error compared to grid capacity." A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero told CNBC that "this story refers to an incident impacting a small-scale energy generator, and at no point was there a risk to the wider energy system. The U.K. has a highly resilient energy system. We work closely with the energy sector to protect infrastructure and ensure the highest security standards." The department also said it had briefed energy company chief executives, written to firms with guidance, and is updating its cybersecurity regulations.

The incident unfolded against a backdrop of British involvement in the US military campaign against Iran. The UK has allowed Washington to conduct what it calls "defensive" operations from British bases hosting American aircraft, while London has maintained that it will not permit those facilities to be used for offensive operations against Iran. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned last month that "any base used for aggression against Iranian territory constitutes a legitimate target for our forces." Analysts cited by the Telegraph suggested the attack's purpose may have been less about damage than demonstration: one theory floated in the report is that the operation was intended as a demonstration of capability, showing that hackers linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could penetrate British systems and shut down sensitive infrastructure.

The episode sits within a longer pattern of Iranian-linked cyber activity against Western infrastructure. Iran has previously been accused of carrying out cyberattacks on various countries, including in relation to a massive power outage in Turkey in 2015 and several possible breaches of Israeli government websites in 2022, and Washington has separately alleged that an Iran-affiliated group known as "CyberAv3ngers" carried out a campaign against it in 2023 that compromised at least 75 devices in multiple infrastructure sectors. On 18 August, the US Department of Justice charged 17 Iranians with conducting a "massive cyber theft campaign on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian entities". Iran itself has faced retaliatory hacking, including a cryptocurrency exchange breach in June that drained more than $90 million, claimed by the pro-Israel group Predatory Sparrow.

A parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee assessment, reported separately by the Telegraph, described Iranian cyber warfare as a "significant area of asymmetric strength," noting that Iran is believed to spend tens of millions of dollars supporting hacking groups involving hundreds of personnel. A Cabinet Office risk assessment published last month reportedly placed the likelihood of a successful cyberattack on UK critical infrastructure at its highest assessed level, underscoring why even a contained, four-day outage at an obscure generator has drawn sustained government and press attention.

In a Financial Times op-ed timed a day ahead of a planned news conference, Bessent wrote that "at dawn begins an economic D-Day, the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary." He added that "the world should understand that our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains the tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone." According to Fox News, the campaign would target countries and entities that buy or transport Iranian oil, facilitate financial transactions, host Iranian flights, maintain ship registries or enable ship-to-ship fuel transfers. Bessent told CNBC the strategy amounted to a "one-two punch" combining sanctions with a naval blockade, and cited Venezuela and Cuba as precedents he said had worked, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The rhetoric follows President Trump's own warnings. According to CNBC, Trump wrote in a Wednesday evening post that "this will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat." CNBC also noted that the announcement came as the war against Iran nears the six-month mark without any hint that the US is close to clinching either a diplomatic or military victory. Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf mocked the threat, according to Fox News, saying restrictions from Washington would backfire and pointing to "importing frozen meat to fix meat prices."

On the same day, Iran's parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee approved Article 3 of a draft "Strategic Action Plan to Ensure the Security and Development of the Strait of Hormuz," a measure that would let Tehran charge ships for transiting the waterway. Committee spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said, as reported by ThisDayLive, that "a fee will be charged for services including maritime, environmental, fuelling under special conditions, insurance, safety, and other services provided in the Strait of Hormuz." Payments could be made in rials or another currency Tehran designates. The provision still needs approval from the full parliament and then the Guardian Council before becoming law, and the proposal must still be considered by the full parliament before being forwarded to the Guardian Council, which reviews legislation for compliance with Iran's Constitution and Islamic principles.

The move builds on measures Iran has already put in place. Reports indicate Iran has begun charging transit fees of up to $2 million per voyage on some commercial vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, on an informal, ad hoc basis. An earlier NPR report described a related plan under which fees of up to 7% of cargo value would apply to commercial vessels, with fines of 20% of cargo value for violations of Iran's conditions, a plan the Trump administration had already rejected. The strait carries roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil and gas, according to Life News Agency, which noted it forms part of broader Iranian efforts to formalise management of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of the world's seaborne oil normally flows.