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以色列三方高层联合声明：继续黎南部军事行动

2026年6月23日 07:30 / 联合早报

去年7月23日，以色列总理内坦亚胡（左三）和国防部长卡茨（左四）等内阁成员出席议会全体会议。 （路透社档案照片）

以色列总理内坦亚胡、国防部长卡茨、国防军总参谋长扎米尔三人发表联合声明，再次表明以军将继续在黎巴嫩南部开展军事行动以应对“安全威胁”，同时维持以方在黎南部控制的“安全区”。

路透社报道，内坦亚胡、卡茨和扎米尔星期一（6月22日）在一场安全会议后发表联合声明说，以色列军方将继续采取行动，以“消除”针对以色列士兵和公民的威胁，摧毁武装分子的基础设施，并维护黎巴嫩南部的安全区。

声明补充说，这三名高层“明确表明保障以色列公民和国防军的安全，始终是他们绝不妥协的指导原则”。

以总理办公室也发表声明说，三人与以军北方司令部指挥官召开会议，评估北部战线安全形势，以军将继续“坚定不移”地采取行动，摧毁相关军事基础设施、消除威胁。

另据新华社报道，内坦亚胡当天早些时候说，以军在黎南部拥有“充分行动自由”，以方将继续在黎南部“安全区”驻留，直至相关安全需求得到满足。

美国和伊朗代表团上星期天（21日）在瑞士比尔根山举行谈判，这是美伊签署谅解备忘录后的首轮会谈。伊朗一直将黎巴嫩问题与谈判紧密捆绑。

在美伊上周公布的谅解备忘录正式文本中，第一条就是要求立即并永久停止包括黎巴嫩在内的所有战线的军事行动，同时要求确保黎巴嫩领土完整与主权。

Washington’s Reflecting Pool to be drained again after makeover leads to algae, peeling paint

2026-06-22 17:59 UTC / Reuters

Item 1 of 4 Workers vacuum algae from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, after recent renovations following a directive from U.S. President Donald Trump to paint it blue ahead of the 250th anniversary of U.S. Independence, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 21, 2026. REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz

[1/4]Workers vacuum algae from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, after recent renovations following a directive from U.S. President Donald Trump to paint it blue ahead of the 250th anniversary of U.S. Independence, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 21, 2026. REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Summary

DC Water issues permit to drain historic landmark, again
Trump, without evidence, says vandals caused damage, threatens jail time
Peeling ​paint, algae blooms appear weeks after $14.7 million federal renovation
Company says it will repair ‌pool under warranty

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) – The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Washington’s National Mall is set to be drained again for repairs after algae and peeling paint appeared just weeks after a $14.7 million renovation, while ​President Donald Trump threatened prison time for anyone caught damaging the pool.

The DC ​Water authority issued a permit to drain the 2,000-foot-long (609-meter) rectangular pool, it ⁠said Monday, while the repair company said it would fix the pool as part ​of its warranty.

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The National Park Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Peeling paint ​and algae growth have been visible in the pool since soon after Trump declared the renovation project complete on June 6. Concerns have been raised about the no-bid contract to recoat the pool before the nation’s 250th ​anniversary celebrations next month, as well as for the ducks that use its water.

Workers ​from the National Park Service earlier this week poured hydrogen peroxide into the pool to combat the ‌algae.

Trump, without ⁠evidence, has blamed vandals for the state of the landmark. On Monday, he echoed a weekend threat by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro to prosecute people accused of attempting to destroy the pool.

“Please remember that there is a 10-year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the ​attempted destruction, of such ​things – Which will ⁠be fully enforced!” Trump wrote in a social media post.

Destruction of federal property can carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.

At least ​five people have been arrested, including a former Olympian who publicly ​denied the ⁠charges, while five others were issued citations, according to media reports citing an administration official. The U.S. Park Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company responsible for ⁠the ​renovation work, Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings, said on Sunday ​the areas that required repairs made up “a very small part of the massive 7-acre (2.83-hectare) project, and do not indicate ​a failure of the liner.”

Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Michelle Nichols and Bill Berkrot

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Trump CDC nominee Schwartz to resign posts, sell holdings if confirmed

2026-06-22T19:06:18.037Z / Reuters

By Reuters

June 22, 2026 7:06 PM UTC Updated 8 mins ago

A sign sits outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Roybal campus in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. March 18, 2026. REUTERS/Megan Varner/File Photo

June 22 (Reuters) – Erica Schwartz, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said she ​will resign from UnitedHealth and board roles, sell healthcare-related holdings and ‌recuse herself from matters involving former employers and clients if confirmed, in a financial disclosure to the HHS Ethics counsel.

Here are some details ​from the letter dated June 16:

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• Schwartz said her employment ​with insurer UnitedHealth Group will end upon confirmation, and she will ⁠receive a cash payment equal to one year’s salary ​and a bonus before assuming the CDC role, or forfeit the money.
• She ​said UnitedHealth also agreed to cash out certain unvested restricted stock units and unvested stock options that would otherwise have vested between August 2026 ​and August 2027, while any remaining unvested awards would ​be forfeited.
• Schwartz said she would divest any UnitedHealth stock obtained through the exercise ‌of ⁠vested stock options as soon as practicable, but no later than 90 days after confirmation, and recuse herself for two years from specific-party matters involving the company after the last ​cash payment.
• She also ​said she ⁠would resign from board positions at Butterfly Network and Aveanna Healthcare Holdings, divest stock in both within 90 ​days, and face additional recusal obligations tied ​to accelerated ⁠equity awards and compensation.
• Schwartz would resign from the Searching for Solutions Institute foundation and avoid acquiring direct financial interests in a wide range of industries affected by ⁠the ​Department of Health and Human Services, ​including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, healthcare, food, insurance, communications and software.

Reporting by Puyaan Singh ​in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Sahal Muhammed

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Greenspan playbook to get a replay under Warsh

2026-06-22 17:37:36 / Reuters

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) – Some of the late former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s most noted attributes as a central banker as well as what proved his greatest blind spot are about to get a replay under new Chairman Kevin Warsh.

Like “the maestro” — who died on Monday and whom Warsh cited four times during his White House swearing-in ceremony exactly one month ago — Warsh is reluctant to say too much while trusting financial markets to figure things out on their own.

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It was a recipe that helped sustain tame inflation and steady growth for most of Greenspan’s more than 18 years as head of the U.S. central bank, so much so the era was dubbed the “Great Moderation.”

But it also led him to downplay signs of a housing bubble on grounds that the smartest people at the richest financial institutions would not systemically misprice assets or overlook systemic risks. A crisis with roots in the U.S. subprime mortgage market overwhelmed the global financial system shortly after Greenspan left office, and led him to acknowledge in congressional hearings “a flaw” in his thinking about rational and efficient markets.

Greenspan, who died at his home from complications of Parkinson’s disease at age 100, “could dazzle and puzzle” by “finding insight in often obscure pieces of data, occasionally combining these series in wondrous ways,” Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Donald Kohn, a top Fed staffer under Greenspan and eventual Fed vice chair, wrote

in an appreciation
published on Monday.

But despite noting the fast rise in some local housing prices, Kohn noted, Greenspan “doubted a national bubble across these markets, and he did little with his soapbox or powers over bank regulation to preemptively build resilience.”

Preemptive regulation became the order of the day in the wake of the crisis, with the Dodd-Frank slate of reforms forcing banks to build larger capital buffers, create resolution plans, and take other steps under closer Fed and federal government scrutiny so that none would ever be considered so big they could not be allowed to fail — and force future taxpayer bailouts.

Some of that is now being loosened under Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, and Warsh has said one of his aims is to pare back the Fed’s imprint.

‘BLINDERS COME OFF’

Warsh has cited Greenspan as a major influence over his approach to the chairman’s job, paying homage to him repeatedly during his May 22 swearing-in, and has related some of his signature views about the economy and the proper role of the Fed to positions Greenspan was noted for.

Those include a more truncated view of how much, how frequently, and how specifically central bankers should talk about an inherently uncertain future. Greenspan prided himself on being noncommittal, even obscure, as a way to be freer to respond to new developments, and Warsh has said he feels the Fed’s current inclination to explain itself risks tying the hands of policymakers.

The first policy statement under the Fed’s new chairman, issued last week, returned to a shorter format and stripped out explicit guidance about the future path of policy.

Yet he has also been willing to talk about the future when it matters, and in the months prior to his swearing-in noted how Greenspan in the mid-1990s pinpointed that rising productivity would help ease inflation — and argued against rate hikes that were gathering support among his colleagues.

Warsh says a similar dynamic may be developing now due to the spread of artificial intelligence technologies, and has assigned a study of productivity to one of the five task forces he has appointed at the outset of his chairmanship.

Those and other reforms Warsh says he wants to pursue are organized around an idea Greenspan would likely endorse: that the central bank shouldn’t posture as the only player in town, but keep its role as narrow as possible and let households, businesses and investors sort out the rest.

In dialing back things that grew out of the 2007-2009 crisis, like the Fed’s large balance sheet and its expanded communications policy, Warsh must now decide how far that goes in the one area where Greenspan himself said he got it wrong.

In his opening press conference, Warsh said that at the outset at least, it’s best if the Fed is reacting to markets rather than markets reacting to an overly chatty Fed.

“Financial markets perform best when they react to incoming data. I think the financial markets work less efficiently when they ask a question. How will the Federal Reserve react to that incoming information?” Warsh said. “When all the financial markets are doing is reflecting back what we’ve said, then we’re taking the most important source of information and we’re being blind to it. I’d like us to create a system where those blinders come off, where markets are following data that they efficiently think is reliable.”

Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Andrea Ricci

US proposes to slash costs for energy drillers on federal lands

2026-06-22T18:31:15.146Z / Reuters

By Reuters

June 22, 2026 6:31 PM UTC Updated 1 hour ago

A drone view of drilling rigs in Midland, Texas, U.S. June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Eli Hartman/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

June 22 (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Monday proposed looser rules for oil and gas drilling operations on federal ​lands, including a dramatic cut to clean-up costs ‌for abandoned wells.

The moves are aligned with President Donald Trump’s goal to reduce regulations for businesses and make it easier to ​invest in production of domestic fossil fuels.

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“These targeted updates ​cut through the red tape that has historically ⁠deterred investment, ensuring our public lands remain a ​reliable engine for economic growth and innovation,” Interior Secretary ​Doug Burgum said in a statement.

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The Department of the Interior said it would lower the cost of statewide bonds for wells ​to $25,000 per state from $500,000, a level implemented during the Biden ​era.

Bonds cover the costs of plugging abandoned oil and gas wells ‌if ⁠an oil and gas company goes out of business. An analysis by non-profit Resources for the Future in 2021 estimated it costs about $20,000 to plug a ​single oil and ​gas well.

Interior’s ⁠other proposals include shortening public participation in oil and gas permitting to 10 days ​from 90 days.

The agency is also proposing ​to ⁠roll back requirements aimed at curtailing methane emissions from oil and gas operations. The changes would cut compliance costs ⁠by ​nearly $17 million a year, Interior said.

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Methane ​is a potent greenhouse gas that tends to leak from drill sites ​and pipelines.

Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

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US FAA taps ASI for software overhaul to improve flight schedules, cut delays

2026-06-22 19:43:08 UTC / Reuters

By David Shepardson

June 22, 2026 7:43 PM UTC Updated 2 mins ago

A sign marks the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center in Nashua, New Hampshire, U.S., October 9, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) – The Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday that it has awarded an $875 million, 12-year contract to Air Space Intelligence to overhaul U.S. flight scheduling ​to improve how flights are managed.

The FAA will use a new system ‌to ensure adequate capacity for air traffic demand and provide data for the management of flights. The system will use data to prevent significant congestion and delays “by strategically coordinating schedules and trajectories ​before aircraft depart,” the FAA added.

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The system, dubbed Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, ​and Trajectories or SMART, uses data to analyze airline schedules, weather, airport ⁠capacity, airspace conditions and operational constraints to predict traffic flows and identify potential ​conflicts before they occur.

Airlines have been talking to the FAA for months about the program ​but have expressed concerns privately about how the agency will decide which flights will need to be moved when there are conflicts and whether the system can be rolled out as soon as ​this fall.

Facing rising demand, runway construction, severe weather issues and air traffic controller shortfalls, ​the FAA has struggled to address congestion issues for years. The agency ordered airlines at Chicago O’Hare ‌in ⁠April to cut 300 daily flights, citing congestion concerns, and last week extended flight cuts at Newark and other New York-area airports.

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Last year, Congress awarded $12.5 billion to replace outdated technology and boost understaffed air traffic control towers. USDOT wants another $10 billion for further improvements.

Air ​Space Intelligence CEO Phillip ​Buckendorf said the system ⁠will use “commercially proven technology already helping everyone from major airlines to the broader aviation community operate more efficiently and predictably.”

“We must ​change how flights are managed,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, ​noting that ⁠the system “will fundamentally reshape how the airspace is managed – slashing thousands of delays and cancellations in the process.”

Airlines for America, the main industry trade group, said the program will “make air ⁠traffic ​more efficient and timely while maintaining our gold standard ​of safety.”

The group said the program will provide carriers with “more efficient routings and more predictable information about system ​capacity in order to balance capacity and demand.”

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Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Mark Porter

Interstellar comet that zoomed past Earth could be oldest and coldest object ever seen in solar system, astronomers say

June 22, 2026 / 1:03 PM EDT / CBS/AFP

An interstellar comet that blazed past the sun and swung by Earth last year could be nearly three times older than our solar system and is unlike anything ever before seen in our cosmic backyard, astronomers said Monday.

The comet 3I/ATLAS is just the third visitor from beyond our solar system that humanity has ever observed, its unusual brightness offering scientists an unprecedented opportunity to study something that came from elsewhere in the galaxy.

After being spotted in July last year, the space rock prompted excitement online, with one prominent Harvard researcher speculating it could be an alien spacecraft — a theory that NASA shot down.

Now, observations by the world’s most powerful telescopes are revealing more about the unique comet.

According to a new study published Monday in the journal Nature, 3I/ATLAS could be up to 12 million years old. Our solar system is believed to have formed around 4.5 billion years ago.

Lead study author Martin Cordiner of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center told AFP that “maybe it’s the oldest object to have been observed in our solar system.”

This image, provided by NASA, shows the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 30, 2025, about 178 million miles from Earth. NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory), J. DePasquale (STScI) via AP

However, there could be “edge-case scenarios” that offer other explanations for the comet’s unusual chemical composition, he added.

The new research is based on the comet’s ratio of chemical elements, called isotopes, detected by the James Webb space telescope and the ALMA observatory in Chile.

These measurements “reveal an elemental composition unlike any solar system body,” the study said.

Possible relic from “cosmic noon”

Compared to comets in our solar system, 3I/ATLAS has 10 times more deuterium, a type of hydrogen commonly seen in heavy water, according to the study.

“That high abundance of heavy water can only really happen, according to our understanding of astrochemistry, in a very cold environment,” Cordiner explained.

This means the comet is also likely among the coldest objects ever seen in our solar system, the isotopic evidence suggesting it formed in an environment that was minus 243 degrees Celsius.

Exactly where this comet came from within the Milky Way remains a mystery.

But these interstellar objects are thought to form in a similar way to the comets in our Solar System — being flung out during the violent formation of a new planet.

Untethered to any star, 3I/ATLAS likely spent billions of years on “vast unimaginable trajectories around our galaxy,” Cordiner said.

The scientists also detected a strange lack of chemical enrichment on the comet, which suggests it formed relatively close to stars being born.

It could even be a “relic” from an era called “cosmic noon” when many stars were forming around 10 billion years ago, Cordiner said.

The previous interstellar objects — 1I/’Oumuamua, which was spotted in 2017, followed by 2I/Borisov in 2019 — were not bright enough to gather isotopic evidence.

NASA has released several images of 3I/Atlas, including one in November showing it move through space about 180 million miles from Earth.

Last October, images taken by two Mars orbiters showed a bright, fuzzy white dot of the comet, appearing to move against a backdrop of distant stars as it was about 18,641,135 miles away from Mars. The month before that, an image showed the growing tail of 3I/ATLAS streaking across our solar system.

This image provided by NASA/European Space Agency shows an image captured by Hubble of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 277 million miles from Earth. NASA/European Space Agency via AP

Harvard professor Avi Loeb, who had previously sparked controversy by suggesting ‘Oumuamua could be an alien spacecraft, made similar suggestions about 3I/ATLAS.

“We should put all possibilities on the table that it’s a rock, a comet, or something else until we get the evidence, the data that will tell us what it is,” Loeb said in an interview with CBS Boston.

However NASA has dismissed the possibility of alien life. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) said last month it had found “no evidence of extraterrestrial technology” on the comet.

“Just the beginning”

Several astronomers who have studied 3I/ATLAS, but were not involved in the new research, hailed the unprecedented results.

“Until these measurements we could only really dream about” getting this kind of information for an interstellar object, Darryl Seligman of Michigan State University told AFP.

He cautioned that the comet’s age remained uncertain, adding it was “a safe bet that it’s older than anything that formed in the solar system.”

Astronomer Peter Veres, who was involved in identifying the comet at the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, called the research “exciting.”

“The comet is now leaving the solar system and will never return, so future observations will become increasingly difficult,” he told AFP.

However astronomers expect to spot many more interstellar objects in the coming years, particularly via the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.

“This is just the beginning of an exciting new field, we’ve got a lot more to learn about these things —and what they can tell us about our galaxy,” Cordiner concluded.

US judge shuts down DOJ immigration probe into Walz, Minnesota officials

2026-06-22 16:52:03 / Reuters

[1/2]Minnesota Governor Tim Walz attends the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing investigating fraud in Minnesota state social services, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 4, 2026. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

• Summary

• Judge quashes DOJ subpoenas to Walz, other officials
• Trump administration demanded info in probe examining interference with immigration surge
• Judge finds justification for investigation “risible”

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge found ​that the Trump administration unlawfully demanded information from several Minnesota officials at the height of its immigration crackdown in the state ‌earlier this year, ruling that the Justice Department had abused the investigative process.

The

ruling, opens new tab
by Minnesota-based U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz quashed subpoenas to the office of the state’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz and five other local and state offices, according to an order made public on Monday.

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It effectively halts a probe by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department into whether ​Democratic officials had impeded immigration enforcement in their public resistance to the deployment of thousands of agents to conduct deportation roundups.

Schiltz, an appointee of Republican ​President George W. Bush, wrote that the Justice Department’s legal justification for the investigation was “risible.”

“The Court finds that the ⁠dominant purpose of the challenged subpoenas is to coerce Minnesota officials into assisting the federal government with enforcing civil immigration law and to harass ​and retaliate against them for failing to do so,” Schiltz wrote. The order issued on June 17 was unsealed on Monday.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the ​department “takes the unlawful obstruction of federal law enforcement operations extremely seriously and will continue to act in full compliance with the law to investigate these matters.”

SUBPOENAS TIED TO IMMIGRATION SURGE

The immigration surge led to numerous violent confrontations with residents and activists in the Minneapolis area, including the killings of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in January.

The ruling is ​the latest to find that the Trump Justice Department conducted a politically motivated investigation aimed more at harassing opponents than examining potential crimes. A ​judge in Washington, D.C., made a similar finding in halting a probe into then-Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in March.

The Trump Justice Department sought a wide range of information on ‌state ⁠and local policies and directives related to federal immigration operations. The subpoena recipients included Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Walz, whom Trump has frequently derided and who served as Democrat Kamala Harris’ vice presidential nominee in 2024.

Walz said in a written statement that the decision was “a victory for the rule of law and our democracy.”

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat whose office was also subpoenaed, applauded the ruling. In a written statement he said, “In America, we ​settle our political differences at the ​ballot box, and it should disturb ⁠every American that Donald Trump is weaponizing the criminal justice system against people he disagrees with.”

The Justice Department issued the subpoenas in January as Trump administration officials accused Walz and other officials of deliberately stoking interference with Immigration ​and Customs Enforcement operations in the state.

Walz openly encouraged citizens to record video of ICE arrests and lauded ​protesters opposed to the ⁠Trump administration’s crackdown.

DOJ lawyers said the investigation was focused on whether state and local officials had violated laws barring obstructing federal operations and harbored migrants living illegally in the United States.

Recipients challenged the subpoenas in court, arguing they were issued for the improper purpose of retaliating against political opponents and coercing cooperation with ⁠the federal ​government.

Schiltz found that the DOJ put forward little evidence that state and local officials had ​violated any laws.

“The fact that connections between the information sought in the subpoenas and any possible criminal violation range from extremely weak to nonexistent only adds to the overwhelming evidence that ​these subpoenas were not issued to investigate, but to harass, coerce, and retaliate,” the judge wrote.

Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Daphne Psaledakis and Bill Berkrot

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Judge blocks Trump’s use of revamped immigration database for voter checks

2026-06-22T17:54:05.394Z / Reuters

A poll worker holds a roll of ‘I voted’ stickers at an El Dorado County polling station during California’s special election on Proposition 50 in El Dorado Hills, California, U.S., November 4, 2025. REUTERS/Fred Greaves/File Photo

• Summary

• U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan sets aside Trump’s revamp of DHS’s SAVE system
• Voting-rights groups argued states’ use of the system disenfranchised U.S. citizens
• Ruling comes ​as Trump seeks to boost federal government’s role in elections

June 22 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Monday blocked the ‌Trump administration from using a revamped version of an immigration database for checking the accuracy of state voter rolls, dealing a blow to U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to boost the role of the federal government in elections ahead of the midterm elections in November.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security revamped a system it uses ​to verify individuals’ citizenship and immigration status to make it easier for state and local officials to use it to make ​sure voters were U.S. citizens.

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In a

75-page decision
on Monday, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, D.C., sided with ⁠voting rights and privacy advocates who argued that the overhaul of the system, known as SAVE, made it less accurate and risked ​disenfranchising eligible voters.

“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to ​vote,” wrote Sooknanan, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

Neither DHS nor the Justice Department, which represents the administration in court, immediately responded to requests for comment.

TRUMP SEEKS TO BOOST FEDERAL ROLE IN ELECTIONS

Trump’s Republicans are locked in a fierce battle to maintain control of both ​houses of Congress in the November 3 midterm elections.

In the U.S., federal elections are administered by individual states. Trump and his allies have long ​asserted that states are not doing enough to prevent voter fraud, even though audits and academic studies have found that it is rare. Trump argues, falsely, ‌that ⁠his loss in the 2020 presidential election was due to fraud.

His administration’s efforts to boost the federal government’s control over elections have largely been stymied by the courts.

Three federal judges in separate cases have blocked Trump’s 2025 executive order requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and restricting the counting of mail ballots.

A March 2026 executive order restricting mail-in voting has also drawn legal challenges. Federal judges have also rejected nine of the ​lawsuits the administration has brought against ​30 states and the District ⁠of Columbia for refusing to hand over their complete voter rolls.

Critics say Republicans are driven less by concerns over election security than by an effort to gain political advantage by narrowing the electorate, risking the disenfranchisement ​of eligible, often Democratic-leaning voters.

DATABASE REVAMP RAISES PRIVACY CONCERNS

Last year’s SAVE revamp allowed users to search ​many records at a ⁠time and gave them access to individuals’ Social Security numbers.

Since then, several Republican-led states have compared their voter lists to the database and cancelled the registrations of registered voters flagged as noncitizens.

The advocacy groups who brought the lawsuit, including the League of Women Voters, said that has resulted in ⁠people who ​were wrongfully identified as noncitizens being kicked off voter rolls.

Voting-rights advocates argue that SAVE ​can be outdated, meaning immigrants who have been naturalized and are thus eligible to vote are sometimes labeled as noncitizens.

Sooknanan ruled that the revamp also violated privacy laws restricting ​the federal government’s disclosure of Social Security numbers and other information.

Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis

Albania protests sparked by Jared Kushner-backed luxury resort plans snowball into anti-corruption movement

June 22, 2026 12:23 PM EDT / CBS News

By
Emmet Lyons Producer

Thousands of Albanians have taken to the streets of the country’s capital Tirana for 21 consecutive days in protests sparked by concerns over a Jared Kushner-backed luxury tourism development in an area rich in natural beauty.

Anger over the construction plans for the historically protected Pishë Poro-Narta area on the country’s coast have expanded into a wider movement against alleged corruption in the Albanian government and the country’s ruling elite.

Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, is among a group of investors seeking to build a luxury tourism complex on Albania’s Sazan Island and along the country’s Adriatic coastline. Early planning documents reviewed by CBS News show the project could include 800 guest rooms and suites, luxury villas, a golf course, a casino, a water park, and townhouses and apartments.

Protesters gather in front of Albania’s Prime Minister’s Office during a demonstration against plans for a luxury resort development near a protected natural area, in Tirana, June 20, 2026. Adnan Beci/AFP/Getty

CBS News sought comment from Kushner’s firm Affinity Partners earlier this month to confirm his involvement in the project. The company referred CBS News to Sazan Real Estate Development, and a spokesperson for that firm said it represented all investors in the project “who are involved in their personal capacity.”

“This project is still in its design and iterative phase, with our team continuing to refine scope, approach, and vision through a deliberate process that prioritizes environmental stewardship and showcases the country’s natural beauty. We look forward to continued engagement about the potential of this project and its potential to make Albania even more of a global destination,” a Sazan Real Estate spokesperson said in a June 18 statement to CBS News.

The planning documents also shed light on who else is financially backing the deal. Among the parties involved is the Qatar-based Assets Group, run by brothers Moutaz and Ramez Al Khayyat, Syrian-born billionaires with ties to the Qatari royal family, and to Washington.

They attended President Trump’s inauguration, and according to the New York Times, their brother Mohamad Al Khayyat previously lobbied U.S. lawmakers to lift sanctions on Syria and pitched the idea of developing a Trump-branded golf course in the country.

A representative for Sazan Real Estate confirmed the involvement of the Al Khayyat brothers in the project to CBS News on Thursday.

Corporate filings reviewed by CBS News on Monday appear to show Sazan Real Estate was initially registered and formed in Qatar. The documents cite the Al Khayyat’s Assets Group as a partner of the company.

The filings also appear to show that Sazan Real Estate is the parent company of Zvërnec South Adriatic Development. According to local reporting, Zvërnec South Adriatic Development is the firm that holds the development permit to build on the land in Sazan island and along the Pishë Poro-Narta coastline.

The documents reviewed by CBS News also reveal that Zvërnec South Adriatic Development is controlled by a complicated structure of five different shell companies registered and formed in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Albanian activists have told CBS News that a lack of transparency from the government — both over this project and wider issues related to alleged corruption — are driving the outrage behind the protests, which have become some of the largest seen in Albania since the fall of communism in the country in 1991.

Protesters gather in front of Albania’s Prime Minister’s Office during a demonstration against a luxury resort development near a protected natural area, in Tirana, June 20, 2026. Adnan Beci/AFP/Getty

“There was no public consultation whatsoever,” Aleksandr Trajce, executive director of the country’s leading conservation group, Protection and Preservation of the Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA), told CBS News earlier this month. “There was nobody who was informed. Just one day, we saw bulldozers entering outside, opening up roads, cutting trees, destroying the dunes, and so on. So the public knew nothing.”

Prime Minister Edi Rama, who has led Albania since 2013, has insisted the project will go ahead despite the mounting public pressure.

He championed the development as a potential economic boon for the country, which has one of the lowest rates of GDP per capita in Europe.

A sign denouncing Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama is seen as protesters demonstrate against the government, following weeks of protests sparked by plans for a luxury resort backed by a company linked to Jared Kushner on an environmentally sensitive part of the Adriatic coast, in Tirana, Albania, June 21, 2026. Valdrin Xhemaj/REUTERS

Rama’s socialist administration has been embroiled in a corruption scandal since charges were filed late last year against Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku, a close ally of the leader. The country’s parliament, led by a socialist majority, has blocked her arrest, however.

A spokesperson for Albania’s independent anti-corruption body SPAK confirmed to CBS News last week that it had opened an investigation into a planned development, but they said the investigation does “not concern any company associated with Mr. Kushner.”

CBS News traveled with protesters earlier this month to the Zvërnec area on Albania’s southern coast, where some of the development is planned. There was no trace of bulldozers or building equipment beyond some tire tracks on the beach.

Demonstrators attributed that to an effort by the Albanian government to quell public anger over the project, but they also told CBS News that initial work toward the development plans had already caused environmental damage.

A local environmental officer with PPNEA told CBS News the group had documented the destruction of at least one sea turtle nest in the area by bulldozers.

As protests continue, Sazan Real Estate Development told CBS News the development’s “future will ultimately be determined by Albania and the Albanian people.”