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Trump ally and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell is offering to personally fund a statewide hand recount of every paper ballot cast in Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary, escalating his effort to challenge a race he lost to Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth by roughly 11 percentage points.
Lindell, who has refused to concede since the Aug. 11 primary, says his campaign identified “irregularities” in election-night electronic reporting data and intends to pursue a complete hand count.
“One of the few good election laws Minnesota does have is that as a candidate, I have the right to completely audit and hand-count every ballot in the state,” Lindell said, adding that he intends to exercise that right “to the full extent of the law.”
Because Lindell’s deficit is far outside Minnesota’s 0.25% threshold for a publicly funded recount in statewide races, taxpayers would not cover the cost. State law allows a losing candidate outside that threshold to request a discretionary recount, provided the candidate pays for it.
The Minnesota secretary of state’s office has estimated that recounting the governor and lieutenant governor races statewide would cost Lindell roughly $825,000. He has until Monday, Aug. 24, to submit both his formal request and payment, according to a letter from the office cited in reporting on the dispute.
Demuth defeated Lindell despite President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Lindell, and the race was called for her on election night. Lindell’s latest challenge comes after years spent promoting unsupported claims of widespread election fraud following Trump’s 2020 defeat.
*This is a developing story. This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
More human remains have been discovered at Lake Mead as the drought-stricken reservoir’s receding waters expose more of its shoreline outside Las Vegas.
The remains were found Sunday, Aug. 16. The National Park Service said there were no immediate signs of suspicious circumstances, while Las Vegas police classified the discovery as a noncriminal death investigation.
The Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner is working to identify the person and determine the cause and manner of death.
The discovery follows several cases involving human remains recovered from Lake Mead as its water level declined. In 2022, authorities found four cases involving multiple sets of remains, including an unidentified man whose body was concealed inside a barrel. Officials determined that he had been shot and classified his death as a homicide.
Three of the 2022 cases were later identified, including two men who had disappeared during separate trips to the lake in 1974 and 2002, and a Las Vegas man who vanished in 1998.
Lake Mead’s elevation recently dropped to approximately 1,040.4 feet above sea level, nearing the record low set in July 2022. The reservoir is a critical part of the Colorado River system, which supplies water to roughly 40 million people across seven states, tribal nations, and Mexico.
Prolonged drought, extreme heat, diminishing snowmelt, and decades of overuse have placed the river system under mounting strain. Federal projections indicate Lake Mead could continue falling through much of the year.
*This is a developing story. This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
In a remarkable public reunion, Donald Trump will appear this week on a radio show hosted by Michael Cohen, his longtime attorney and fixer who later became a prosecution witness against him.
Cohen said Wednesday that the interview will begin Thursday at 6 p.m. ET, with the remainder airing Sunday at 5 p.m. ET on his new 77 WABC program, “When You Know, You Know…”
The station confirmed Trump’s appearance, billing the interview as the pair’s “first public interaction in years.”
Cohen previously testified against Trump in the Manhattan hush-money case after their relationship collapsed spectacularly. More recently, however, Cohen has criticized prosecutors involved in the case and said he and Trump have begun repairing their relationship.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
*This is a developing story. This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
Donald Trump has announced nine nominees for lifetime federal judgeships, launching a late election-year confirmation push as Republicans face the possibility of losing control of the Senate in November.
The nominees would fill U.S. district court seats in Oklahoma, Alaska, Texas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Florida—all Republican-led states. The Senate calendar makes confirmation votes unlikely before the lame-duck session following the Nov. 3 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to capture the chamber.
Among the selections is Zach West, an Oklahoma state attorney who backed the proposed creation of the nation’s first taxpayer-funded religious charter school. Trump nominated West to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, calling him “a zealous advocate for the Constitution, Religious Liberty, and the Rule of Law.”
West also asked the Supreme Court to intervene after the Biden administration withdrew millions of dollars in family-planning funding from Oklahoma when the state stopped providing referrals to counseling services that could include information about abortion.
Trump’s second Oklahoma nominee, Trevor Pemberton, is a former Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals judge and former general counsel to Gov. Kevin Stitt. He was selected for the state’s Eastern District.
In Alaska, Trump nominated U.S. Magistrate Judge Kyle Reardon to fill a seat left vacant after former U.S. District Judge Joshua Kindred, another Trump appointee, resigned in 2024 following an investigation that found he had fostered an inappropriate sexualized relationship with a law clerk and created a hostile workplace.
Federal prosecutor Courtney Coker for the Northern District of Texas.
U.S. Magistrate Judge and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney Richard Bennett for the Southern District of Texas.
Littler Mendelson partner Brad Kelley and Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Mansfield for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Kentucky state Judge Daniel Ballou for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
Florida appeals court Judge Robert Long for the Middle District of Florida.
*This is a developing story. This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, says she knows “absolutely nothing” about supposed private communications between her brother and President Donald Trump—casting fresh doubt on Trump’s claim that Pyongyang has responded to his latest diplomatic overture.
Asked Tuesday whether Kim had answered his request for a conversation, Trump replied, “Yeah, he has.”
Trump declined to say Wednesday whether he and Kim were communicating directly. Asked whether he planned to meet the North Korean leader later this year, however, he answered: “Yeah, I will be.”
The contradictory accounts come as Trump presses aides to arrange an in-person meeting, potentially during a November trip to China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen.
Kim Yo Jong did not categorically rule out undisclosed contact, saying it could be the one area of her brother’s foreign policy she did not know about. She acknowledged the leaders’ “excellent” personal relationship and said Kim retained “personally good memories and feelings toward Trump.”
She made clear, however, that Pyongyang sees no broader change in its relationship with Washington. North Korea continues to regard the United States as an enemy and views ongoing U.S.-South Korean military exercises as evidence that Washington’s hostile policy remains intact.
Trump ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises in an apparent attempt to restart diplomacy. The allies have since shortened the drills, which began Monday, from 11 days to five and downsized or converted some field exercises.
North Korea dismissed the change as meaningless, arguing that the exercises remain provocative regardless of their reduced length or scale. The response dampens hopes that Trump’s unilateral concession will quickly produce another summit.
Trump also claimed Wednesday that North Korea possesses 57 “very powerful nuclear weapons,” publicly offering an unusually specific estimate of the country’s secretive arsenal.
Trump and Kim met three times between 2018 and 2019, but their first-term diplomacy collapsed over North Korea’s demand for extensive sanctions relief in exchange for limited denuclearization steps. Pyongyang has since expanded its weapons program and signaled that future talks would require Washington to abandon denuclearization as a precondition.
*This is a developing story. This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
Democrats are declaring victory in a razor-thin Pennsylvania special election that appears to have broken the Republican Party’s nearly three-decade hold on a conservative state House district north of Pittsburgh.
Democrat Brandon Dukes led Republican Scott Timko by just 97 votes Wednesday afternoon. With more than 99% of ballots counted, the unofficial tally stood at 8,469 votes for Dukes and 8,372 for Timko.
The Associated Press has not called the race as of this update, and the result has not been certified. Dukes and Pennsylvania Democrats have nevertheless declared victory.
If the lead holds, Dukes will have flipped a seat Republicans have controlled since 1999 and expanded Democrats’ narrow majority in the state House. He will serve the remainder of former Republican Rep. Stephenie Scialabba’s term before facing Timko again in the November general election.
The 12th District includes Cranberry Township, Mars, Zelienople, Evans City, and Jackson Township in Butler County. Trump carried the district by more than 18 percentage points in 2024 before winning Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s most closely contested presidential battlegrounds.
Butler County also carries extraordinary political symbolism: It was the site of the July 2024 assassination attempt against Trump.
Dukes’ apparent victory does not change which party controls the state House, but the result represents a dramatic shift in a district Trump won comfortably two years ago. Democrats hope it signals broader momentum ahead of November, when the party will try to defend its House majority, gain two seats in the state Senate, and re-elect Gov. Josh Shapiro to secure full control of state government.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who endorsed Dukes, called the apparent flip a significant political breakthrough:
“This is a big deal: Brandon Dukes just flipped a Pennsylvania state House seat held by Republicans for almost 30 years. His victory in Butler County reflects voters’ readiness for change, and the trust that he has earned in his district. I’m proud to be in his corner.”
Shapiro also congratulated Dukes, framing the result as part of a broader backlash against the Trump administration:
“Pennsylvanians are rising up and using their power to combat the chaos, cruelty, and corruption—and we’re not slowing down.”
*This is a developing story. This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
Donald Trump has nominated Dr. Heidi Overton—a physician, abortion opponent, and top White House domestic policy aide—to serve as commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Overton, who has helped shape several of Trump’s second-term health initiatives, would take control of an agency responsible for regulating the nation’s drugs, medical devices, vaccines, and much of its food supply. Her nomination requires Senate confirmation.
Trump announced the nomination on Truth Social:
“Today I am honored to nominate the wonderful Dr. Heidi Overton, MD, PhD, as our next FDA Commissioner. Dr. Heidi has been a ROCKSTAR in my Administration, where she has worked directly with Secretary Kennedy, Dr. Oz, and team, to deliver on the MOST TRANSFORMATIVE Health Agenda in History. She is known to take on the HARDEST issues, and bring me solutions that work best for the Country.”
He continued:
“She is SMART and RESPECTED by all! Dr. Heidi will work with Secretary Kennedy and Dr. Oz to RAPIDLY deliver on my priorities of FASTER Cures, INCREASED American Innovation, MAJOR Clinical Trial Reforms, LOWER Drug Prices, and even more MAHA WINS!”
The nomination comes after months of turmoil at the FDA, including sweeping staff cuts, leadership turnover, delayed food-safety regulations, and disease outbreaks that have intensified scrutiny of the agency’s ability to protect the public.
Overton would also inherit authority over mifepristone, the medication used with misoprostol to end pregnancies through 10 weeks. The FDA regulates how the drug may be prescribed and dispensed, including whether certified pharmacies may ship it by mail.
That authority could place Overton at the center of the national fight over medication abortion, which has become an essential route to care for many of the approximately 23 million women living in states with abortion bans or major restrictions.
In a 2023 policy brief, Overton used the terms “teleabortion” and “abortion-on-demand” while arguing for tighter restrictions on medication abortion. She urged Congress and state lawmakers to impose additional requirements “to protect women and children.”
Overton also appeared beside Trump during last week’s signing of an executive order seeking to break the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine into three separate shots. Separate measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines are not currently licensed in the United States, meaning the administration’s plan could take years to implement.
At the event, Overton stood by as Trump falsely suggested that the number or timing of childhood vaccines could contribute to rising autism rates. A 2025 review by the World Health Organization, covering decades of evidence and 31 recent primary studies, reaffirmed that there is no causal link between vaccines and autism spectrum disorder.
*This is a developing story. This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
The Treasury Department is at least doubling the size of its planned purchases of longer-term U.S. government debt in a bid to steady a bond market rattled by persistent inflation, the unresolved war with Iran, and mounting concern over federal borrowing.
The expanded buybacks will run from Sept. 9 through Nov. 4. The Treasury Department said Wednesday the increase “reflects Treasury’s desire to provide greater liquidity support” in longer-dated sections of the market.
The intervention follows a punishing week for government debt. Yields on 10-, 20-, and 30-year Treasury securities all climbed to levels not seen in roughly two decades, with the 30-year yield rising above 5.33%—its highest level since June 2007. The 10-year yield rose above 4.74%.
That surge carries consequences far beyond Wall Street. Treasury yields help determine rates on mortgages, business loans, auto financing, and other forms of credit, meaning the selloff threatened to make borrowing even more expensive for households, companies, and the federal government itself.
Yields retreated after Wednesday’s announcement, with the 10-year rate falling to about 4.65% from 4.71% late Tuesday. Stocks also moved modestly higher, putting the S&P 500 on track to break a three-day losing streak. The index closed at another record high last week, supported by the continuing boom in artificial intelligence investment, although markets remain volatile.
The bond selloff intensified after the two-month ceasefire between the United States and Iran expired Monday without a broader agreement. Trump said Tuesday that no peace talks are currently scheduled. Earlier in the week, he threatened to bomb Oman if the longtime U.S. partner “gets in the way” of Washington’s effort to end the conflict.
Those developments pushed Brent crude back above $91 a barrel Tuesday. Oil remains below its March peak but well above prewar levels, keeping pressure on transportation, manufacturing, and household costs. AAA data shows gasoline averaging about $4.08 a gallon—roughly $1 more than a year ago—and prices this month are on track to be the highest ever recorded for August.
Inflation eased to an annual rate of 3.4% in July, down from a three-year high of 4.2% in May but still nearly a percentage point above last year’s rate and well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
That has left the Fed caught between renewed pressure to raise interest rates and White House demands to lower them. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who took office in May after a tumultuous confirmation process, has remained guarded about the central bank’s next move and has signaled skepticism toward aggressive intervention.
The buyback expansion also follows the Trump administration’s extraordinary intervention to support the Japanese yen. The United States purchased billions of dollars’ worth of yen in coordination with Tokyo—the first such U.S. effort in nearly 30 years—as the currency approached 40-year lows.
Japan holds an enormous share of U.S. government debt and has sold Treasury securities to finance efforts to strengthen the yen. Large-scale sales can push U.S. bond prices lower and yields higher, making Washington’s borrowing more expensive. The currency intervention may therefore serve two purposes: stabilizing the yen and reducing pressure on Japan to unload more U.S. debt.
*This is a developing story. This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
The Justice Department is defending its criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey, arguing in court papers filed Tuesday that an Instagram photo of seashells arranged to read “8647” could reasonably be interpreted as a threat against President Donald Trump.
“There is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey’s post could read it to mean ‘Kill President Trump’,” prosecutors wrote.
Comey was indicted in April on two felony counts—making a threat against the president and transmitting that alleged threat across state lines—over the image he posted while vacationing in North Carolina in May 2025. Prosecutors contend that “86” was a coded instruction to kill or remove Trump, the 47th president.
Comey deleted the post after Trump’s allies denounced it, saying the possibility that it could be viewed as a violent threat had never occurred to him. He has denied the charges.
His lawyers are asking a federal judge to dismiss the case, arguing that “86” commonly means to remove, reject, or get rid of something—not to kill—and that the post was constitutionally protected speech rather than a “true threat.” They have also accused the administration of vindictive and selective prosecution, saying the indictment is part of Trump’s yearslong campaign to use the criminal justice system against a former political adversary.
Trump has feuded with Comey since his first term, when the former FBI director oversaw the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. A separate case accusing Comey of lying to Congress was dismissed after a judge ruled that the prosecutor who brought the charges had been unlawfully appointed.
*This is a developing story. This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
Donald Trump is urging aides to arrange a meeting as soon as this fall with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing U.S. officials. The effort would revive Trump’s first-term diplomatic push to persuade Kim to abandon North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
Trump has privately discussed holding an in-person meeting with Kim during the president’s next trip to Asia, according to the officials. That trip could take place in November, when world leaders gather in Shenzhen, China, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The leaders’ meeting is scheduled for Nov. 18 and 19.
No official planning is underway, but Trump’s interest in another high-stakes meeting comes as victory in Iran remains elusive and the president searches for a major foreign policy achievement. Most U.S. presidents have declined to meet Kim without preconditions. The North Korean leader is believed to control at least several dozen nuclear warheads, although some experts say the arsenal could be significantly larger.
A White House official said Trump and Kim would meet at an appropriate time. North Korea’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This live blog will be updated frequently as developments come in. Check back often, and refresh the page for the latest updates.
Press freedom does not survive on vibes. It survives because readers decide the work is worth protecting. The Developer is independent, ad-free, and reader-funded—which means your support goes directly into the reporting, not into some billionaire’s pocket. If my work helps you stay informed, consider upgrading to paid: $8/month or $80/year. If upgrading isn’t possible right now, sharing The Developer with someone who needs to read it matters just as much. Help keep independent journalism alive and impossible to buy.
*This is a developing story. This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
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