McDonald’s is one of many fast food places launching seasonal fall items, but customers are less than thrilled with its new beverages and breakfast items.
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Day: September 8, 2026
The Trump administration’s proposal to crack down on voting by mail in federal elections – articulated in a March 2026 executive order – faces its toughest legal test so far, as the Supreme Court decides whether to allow the measure to go ahead, or maintains a lower court’s block on its implementation.
Despite offering no evidence of widespread fraud, the White House has said the many measures it wants to put in place will “enhance election integrity via the United States Mail.” Those measures include using the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Justice to vet the eligibility of voters, establish new standards for mail ballots and who can use them, and investigate and prosecute any state and local officials who issue federal ballots to ineligible voters, including noncitizens.
Two major lawsuits were filed to stop the administration from carrying out plans related to the Postal Service. The lawsuits say the plans would result in widespread disenfranchisement and that the administration had no constitutionally granted authority to interfere in how states run elections.
The cases have worked their way through lower courts, and now the Supreme Court is considering the plans for the second time, having allowed them on Aug. 24, 2026, to go ahead in a technical decision that did not deal with the substance of the administration’s plans. A federal court then issued an injunction to stop the rollout of the Postal Service plans, and after the Trump administration appealed that injunction, the Supreme Court is now, finally, considering whether the injunction should be lifted and the administration’s plan regarding new mail-in ballot rules can be carried out. The Conversation U.S. Politics and Legal Affairs Editor Naomi Schalit spoke about the importance of the legal battle with John E. Jones III, the president of Dickinson College, who served for almost two decades as a federal court judge.
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Schalit: I’d like to talk less about the legal issues and more with you about the importance of this case. I thought I’d start with a really obnoxious kind of question that I have never asked before in my whole career: On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most important and 1 being the least, how important is this?
Jones: Ultimately, the decision in this case is at least a 9, if not a 10. It has the potential, if decided in a certain way, to interfere with the franchise of voting in a way that the federal government has never attempted to do, and certainly the president has never attempted to do before. It literally could disenfranchise thousands and thousands of voters, depending on where the decision lands.
Has it happened before that such a momentous case with potential ramifications for voting has come to the Supreme Court this close to an election? The midterms are less than 60 days away.
I can’t think of any historical analog to this case. My overarching sense from a process standpoint is that it didn’t have to be this way. The Supreme Court could have decided it on the first go-round, when it rendered the decision that allowed the order to go ahead by staying the injunction from the lower court and would not address the merits of the challenger’s claims.
You’re a former federal judge. You understand the culture, how things work. How will the justices approach consideration of this case?
The Supreme Court doesn’t convene its term until October. It is not uncommon for the justices to sort of scatter and do different things. Some teach, some lecture, some write books, some probably relax during the break. That creates some logistical difficulties when there needs to be a coalescing of the members of the court.
The briefs are immediately due, and it does not appear that they’re going to have oral argument, since this is coming off the so-called shadow or emergency docket.
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Given all those things, and the urgency with which some resolution is required in light of the upcoming election, I am going to go out on a judicial limb and say that I think what the court will likely do is engage in an exercise in balancing. We call it a balancing of the equities. To determine whether one side or the other will suffer irreparable harm.
In other words, who is harmed more? That’s what happens when you enter an injunction. You have to weigh the equities. That’s what courts do.
So it would be easy to see that the justices could say that, because of state elections apparatus, the states stand to be harmed more than the administration if this kind of patched-together regime is implemented by the Postal Service. They could say, in fact, it may be impossible to implement it in time for the midterm elections.
I think it is highly possible that they will deny a stay of the lower court’s injunction and not allow the executive order to be implemented, at least the part involving the U.S. Postal Service, which is the problematic part in terms of this election. And they may not rule on the constitutionality of the executive order until sometime after the election, perhaps after they conduct oral argument and they have an opportunity to more thoroughly consider the case.
So instead of entering this discussion thinking about whether the executive order was constitutional, they would be beginning their consideration by looking at the very immediate problems that may be caused by it, and asking, “Where’s the greatest damage going to be done if we let this go on or if we stop it?”
That’s precisely correct. An injunction or a temporary restraining order is not a decision on the merits of a case. When a court enters an injunction or vacates an injunction, the court has got to look at where the greater harm occurs if it acts and when it acts.
The government’s argument, which is that the greater harm is to our democracy because of the potential for fraud and for noncitizens to vote, is not supported by the record in this case.
From the standpoint of the challengers, they assert the almost sheer impossibility of implementing this. In fact, there are major logistical problems. It appears that the Postal Service is cobbling the process together on the run, so to speak.
I think the court might say that the public interest and equities lead us to say that we’re just going to deny the stay and thus keep the injunction in place. It’s not workable for this election. But we will reserve for another day – another election, so to speak – whether in fact the executive order is unconstitutional.
John E. Jones III does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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Tuesday, in a traditional NFL game week, is a day off. We’re here to help you through that, as the last word wrapping up the weekend was and the first look at what’s still ahead. Each week, we’ll take you inside the league, making the extra call, researching a wild stat and introducing the names and faces that will shape the 2026 season in success and struggle. And while we’re introducing things, the NFL will have 21 new offensive coordinators this season, a testament to the boom-or-bust nature of the job, where you’re either hot enough to become a head coach or ordinary enough to get fired. The middle ground is a thin strip of land, such that every NFL team will play more than half its schedule against new offensive coordinators. As if starting a season in Australia weren’t challenge enough, the San Francisco 49ers will play 15 of 17 games against new offensive coordinators: their first eight opponents and their final seven. The Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers and New England Patriots have 14 such games as well, and especially early in the season, it’s that much harder to prepare, not knowing exactly what an opponent’s offense will actually look like. To appreciate the full range of which way a new offensive coordinator can go, consider the Seattle Seahawks. Their new offensive coordinator in 2024, Ryan Grubb, got fired and is now back in college football at Alabama. His replacement, Klint Kubiak, parlayed a Super Bowl championship into becoming head coach of the Raiders. The new offensive coordinator you’re perhaps least likely to have heard of before is Seattle’s Brian Fleury, a defensive assistant as recently as 2019 and the 49ers’ tight ends coach the last four years. Game prep for Week 1 games can often mean pulling tape from a coach’s previous stops, sometimes even in college, to better anticipate what’s coming. Then you have games like Cardinals-Chargers, where Arizona has a new head coach in Mike LaFleur and a new offensive coordinator in Nathaniel Hackett going up against a first-time defensive coordinator in Los Angeles’ Chris O’Leary, who spent 2024 as the Chargers’ safety coach and was defensive coordinator at Western Michigan last year. “With a lot of new faces calling plays in the league, you approach it like early games on your schedule,” O’Leary told me. “You use old film in the early parts of the year to see what they’ve done historically and also see what those teams have done in the past to make their current roster of players successful. “As the season goes on, you have film from earlier in the season that you put a heavier emphasis on, but still watch that old tape to have a big picture of what those playcallers like to do and their tendencies.” Want an underdog to root for in 2026? Try nearly any defending division champ. Finishing in first place means a first-place schedule, and while that’s only three games out of 17, it sets up a default expectation of regression for the best teams of last season. Of eight defending division champs, just one is the oddsmakers’ favorite to repeat: the Philadelphia Eagles, who are still predicted to finish a game ahead of the Dallas Cowboys (via projected win totals). But four other division champs — the Denver Broncos, Chicago Bears, Pittsburgh Steelers and Carolina Panthers — face the third-best odds out of four teams to win their divisions, so even finishing second is seen as overachieving. If it seems like overreaction, it really isn’t. Of the eight 2024 division champs, only one (Eagles) pulled off the repeat, and only two out of eight (Houston Texans and Los Angeles Rams) improved on their 2024 record. Add up the win totals for the 2024 division champs, and those teams combined to win 21 fewer games in 2025, an average drop of 2.6 wins. The idea that the NFC East is the lone source of continuity is amusing in itself, in that the Eagles’ repeat last year ended a run of different teams winning the division every year from 2005 to 2024. I’ve had international datelines as an NFL writer, but none of them across the International Date Line, as the 49ers and Rams are in Australia this week. You can get jet lag just from doing the math on what time it is there. Their game will be broadcast from Melbourne with an 8:35 p.m. ET kickoff Thursday, but will go in the history books as a Friday game because local time for kickoff is 10:35 a.m. Friday. “I feel like I’m in the future,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said Monday, trying to understand calling home to talk to his family, which is somehow the day before. Stranger still: Even though the game will be kicked off in the morning down under, it will qualify officially as a “prime time game,” according to the Elias Sports Bureau, which recognizes a prime time game as any that has its kickoff at 7 p.m. ET or later. The NFL generally avoids Friday games except for recent forays into Black Friday as an expansion of Thanksgiving games. It’s the first time either the 49ers or Rams have played on a Friday in nearly 40 years, and both of their last two Friday games were against each other, with Joe Montana leading San Francisco to wins over Los Angeles in pre-Christmas regular-season finales in 1984 and 1986. Which NFL head coaches have the best record in Week 1 games? Only 11 out of 32 have a winning record as head coaches in Week 1 — another 11 have never won an opener as head coach, though six of those are guys making their debut this week. The best? The Chargers’ Jim Harbaugh is 6-0 and the Eagles’ Nick Sirianni is 5-0, with the Rams’ Sean McVay close behind with a 7-2 record in Week 1. After those, the coach whose Week 1 record is most improved from their overall record is Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles, who has a .452 winning percentage for his career, but a 6-2 (.750) mark in season openers. Most curiously bad Week 1 coach? That might be the Patriots’ Mike Vrabel, who has a .586 win percentage overall but is 2-5 for his career in Week 1 and has to go across the country to face the Seahawks on Wednesday. And temper your expectations for new head coaches in their first year on the job. Last year, those coaches went 1-6 in Week 1, with the Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen getting the lone win. This year’s rookie coaches are good for at least one win, unless the Raiders and Miami Dolphins manage to tie with Kubiak and Jeff Hafley squaring off in their first games as head coaches. Of the rest, only the Baltimore Ravens’ Jesse Minter, opening against the Indianapolis Colts, is favored to win. One of the more obscure but fun streaks you can keep an eye on this week: The Bucs have gotten a touchdown from a rookie receiver in Week 1 in each of the last three seasons: Trey Palmer in 2023, Jalen McMillan in 2024 and two from Emeka Egbuka last year. Can Ted Hurst, a third-round pick from Georgia State with a promising mix of size and speed, keep that streak going this week as they face the Bengals in Cincinnati? Just remember that nobody gets touchdowns from rookie receivers in Week 1 wins like the Bucs do. Since 2023, they have four, and the rest of the NFL has … three of them, total.Latest Sports News from FOX Sports
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What’s New At Costco: September 2026 Edition
Costco’s September releases are now available, and there are some delicious goodies as always. Check out some of the best, including gummy candy and matcha.
Food Republic – Restaurants, Reviews, Recipes, Cooking Tips
Spooned on after cooking, this delicious Korean topping works seamlessly with the sweet potato’s natural sugars to cover all five basic tastes.
Food Republic – Restaurants, Reviews, Recipes, Cooking Tips
A Republican-led bid to revive a redistricting plan that favors the GOP fell short at the Supreme Court Tuesday, but it later picked up steam after a federal judge in Missouri ruled that officials must move ahead with the districts used in primaries last month — a map that’s likely to net Republicans an additional House seat.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh turned down a Republican-backed emergency appeal that sought to block a Missouri Supreme Court ruling last week restoring earlier district lines and ordering that voters to weigh in on the redistricting plan in November for use in future elections.
However, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Clark, in a decision made public within minutes of Kavanaugh’s ruling, issued a temporary restraining order that effectively set aside the state Supreme Court’s decision and granted Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins’ request to move forward with the plan likely to elect a Republican in one of the state’s two districts currently held by Democrats.
The Democratic group leading the push to block Republicans’ redistricting efforts swiftly appealed Clark’s decisionto the 8th Circuit Court and asked the court for an emergency temporary stay while it considers the appeal. The group hasasked Clark to stay his order, and it also asked Missouri’s Supreme Court to hold Hoskins in contempt.
The dissonant rulings add another layer of chaos to Missouri’s election administration. Local election officials had prepared for months as the debate over which map to use moved through the court system, planning for elections in the event either map gets used. The state used the new, gerrymandered map for August’s primaries.
The timing of settling these legal disputes is crucial. The rulings came hours before the Tuesday deadline for Missouri election officials to make changes to any ballots, and ballots must be finalized before ballots begin to be sent out on Sept. 19.
Hoskins sent an email to election officials Tuesday evening directing them to comply with Clark’s order and prepare for November’s election under the gerrymandered map, according to Democrats’ filing Tuesday evening to the Missouri Supreme Court.
Kavanaugh issued his ruling because he handles urgent matters arising in the 8th Circuit, which includes Missouri. Kavanaugh issued no explanation of his decision, nor did he indicate that he had referred the matter to the full court, as is customary in significant cases. Missouri officials could ask another justice for relief, but such requests are almost never granted.
The justices rarely disturb state courts’ decisions about matters like the referendum petitions in Missouri that sought to put the redistricting before voters for approval.
Clark, a St. Louis-based Trump appointee, said two Republican candidates who sued were likely to prevail in their arguments that changing the district lines at this point in the process would violate two provisions in the U.S. Constitution: one establishing the House of Representatives and another guaranteeing equal protection of the laws.
Lawyers for state officials warned in their appeal to the Supreme Court that the state faced “disaster” and “unprecedented chaos” in part because primaries already took place under the new lines last month.
Democrats argued any last-minute chaos to Missouri’s election administration was intentionally created by Hoskins, pointing to Republican leaders in the state arguing that delaying the decision on the redistricting referendum would benefit Republicans.
President Donald Trump denounced the state Supreme Court ruling last week.
“The Election Process, as usual, is being disturbed in America!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Missouri must be able to use the map that was in effect just a couple of months ago, in the Primary. This is a Dark Day for “Justice” in Missouri!”
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The main entrance to the Alaska Native Medical Center is on Sept. 6, 2026. The building’s design incorporates elements of Alaska’s Indigenous cultures, and has been recognized by professional architecture and design organizations. The hospital was previously owned by the Indian Health Service. A transfer made effective in late August gave ownership to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The nation’s biggest tribal health organization now owns the Anchorage hospital it has long operated.
The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium gained title to the Alaska Native Medical Center, the hospital at the center of the organization’s 140-acre campus in Midtown Anchorage. Ownership was officially transferred from the Indian Health Service last month.
The long-sought acquisition was an important milestone, said ANTHC President Natasha Singh.
“Alaska Native people have done a great job operating the Alaska Native Medical Center. The hospital is truly the heart of our system and now we officially own it. This gives us more control over our own future,” she said in an interview.
The hospital, the second largest in Alaska after Providence Alaska Medical Center, opened in 1997, the same year that ANTHC was founded. Until now, the Indian Health Service was the facility owner. Through a compact with the Indian Health Service, ANTHC operated most of the services at the hospital, while Southcentral Foundation, the Tribal health provider for the local region, operated some of the primary care services.
Federal ownership had some downsides, Singh said. Because of it, the consortium did not qualify for certain federal funds that it would have otherwise been able to use, she said. And investment in the facilities was too slow to meet patient needs, she said.
The hospital acquisition was preceded by several preliminary steps over the past several years.
There were some Congressional acts transferring federal land to ANTHC, including a bill sponsored by the late Rep. Don Yong that was signed by President Barack Obama in 2013. There was a formal decision by the ANTHC board, which has members from all of the state’s regional tribal health organizations, on how and when to take ownership. And there was an official request submitted to the federal government a little over a year ago, Singh said.
“It’s been our longtime vision, but I think our federal partners acted quickly when we put in the request,” she said.
Even before the ownership changed, the board approved over $462 million in improvements, including an expansion of the emergency department, Singh said. It was the largest investment in the hospital’s history, intended to counter “decades of underinvestment,” she said.
“So half a billion dollars (was) essentially planned to go into a building the Tribes did not even own, but the ANTHC board knew how much it really matters,” she said.
The transfer also followed a $400 million settlement with the federal government for shortfalls in funding of administrative services, facilities maintenance and other functions.
The modern hospital evolved from historic services provided by the Indian Health Service, which began serving Alaska Natives in the 1940s, according to a summary compiled by Southcentral Foundation. In 1953, the federal government opened a hospital in Anchorage, primarily to serve patients suffering from a tuberculosis epidemic, according to the summary. Despite impacts from the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake, it continued to operate through the disaster, and even cared for patients evacuated from Providence Hospital. The modern hospital replaced that facility.
The modern hospital was designed with elements of Alaska Native cultures, and it and its adjacent facilities have won awards for their innovative architecture, including one in 2018 for patient housing and one from last year for the emergency department expansion.
With the transfer of ownership, ANTHC now owns most of the buildings on the campus. There is still a federally owned building that houses the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Arctic Investigations Program, and Southcentral Foundation owns some other buildings.
Changing the name of Nashville’s airport to honor Dolly Parton isn’t as easy (or as cheap) as you’d think. Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
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