The Daily Brief
Today
Good morning. The message came on August 7, as Jeanne was finishing a shift at a restaurant in the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had terminated her legal status and her work permit, part of the administration's drive to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and expose them to ICE. Some are now weighing a passage north into Canada. The threat is not abstract: in Texas an ICE agent shot and wounded a Venezuelan DoorDash driver in the torso, and protests broke out in Austin.
The same machinery turns on citizens. The EPA has launched a drinking-water study that will for the first time test for traces of the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol, a probe anti-abortion activists, attorneys general and lawmakers have lobbied for over years. In Los Angeles County, officials say they have received federal grand jury subpoenas demanding voter registration data on dozens of people the administration suspects may not be citizens. And Trump has moved to ban outlets including MS NOW, CNN and Politico.
Abroad the pattern rhymes. In the West Bank, Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian homes in Beit Imrin, north of Nablus, destroying walls and infrastructure, cutting off electricity and stealing the contents of houses. In Germany, the far-right AfD took its second first-place state result this year, closer to regional power than any far-right party since World War II — a night Chancellor Merz conceded was a "disaster" for the political center even as he vowed to press on with his tax and welfare reforms. In Russia, Putin's party is set to win the Duma vote even as Ukraine launched more than 1,000 drones, hundreds aimed at Moscow, on election day.
At home the map still offers openings: a new poll gives Democrat James Talarico a narrow, within-margin edge over Ken Paxton for the Texas Senate seat, though Greg Abbott leads for governor — the long-shot Democrats have chased in Texas for decades. For the retirees this government presides over, the average benefit was $2,085.98 a month in July.
Zoom out: The day is a portrait of state power turned against migrants, abortion access, voters and the press at home while the far right advances at the ballot box abroad.