Monday, October 26, 2026 · Evening Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. A federal appeals court on Monday [ruled 2-1 against the Trump administration's effort to force California to set aside ballots from more than 20,000 voters it suspects of being noncitizens](https://www.rawstory.com/trump-election-lawsuit-2678147946). The court turned away the request to segregate those mail-in ballots, saying a lower-court judge should hear the dispute first, and denied the Justice Department's bid to block California from counting mail-in ballots days before the midterms.

The ruling exposes the fraud narrative for what it is: a pretext. On Monday Trump offered $1 million to anyone who reports voter fraud, part of how [the administration has moved aggressively to intervene in the midterms, including the push to segregate California ballots from voters it considers likely noncitizens](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-10-26/ahead-of-midterms-trump-offers-1-million-reward-to-voter-fraud-tipsters). The same prosecutorial machinery grinds its enemies: former FBI director James Comey [faces federal charges for a third time, his lawyers saying the case stems from an alleged disclosure of classified information to the New York Times in 2016](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckly0xqjnlwvo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss), as prosecutors accuse him of unlawfully disclosing national defense information to a reporter.

With control of Congress at stake and Election Day just over a week away, Trump's closing message is bigotry. At a Sunday rally in Michigan he unleashed a volley of Islamophobic comments against Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee — the day after Barack Obama and El-Sayed, a Michigan Senate candidate, campaigned together in Detroit.

Capital landed its own blow on workers: Microsoft confirmed a 60,000-worker buyout, with eligible employees in the US, Canada, India and the UK offered voluntary exits, deepening H-1B visa uncertainty. The administration's war on migrants runs on: 12 Somali immigrants were loaded onto a plane and flown to an ICE facility at Guantanamo Bay. Abroad, the left won: Lula da Silva won another term in Brazil on Sunday, a result that is a defeat for Trump and MAGA.