Up to 1,700 National Guardsmen are being activated across 19 states in the coming weeks to support DHS with the administration's nationwide illegal immigration enforcement push. Their assignments are administrative — fingerprinting, DNA swabbing, photographing and processing detainees — so ICE agents can stay in the field. Vermont declined to activate its Guard despite Pentagon authorization, and the White House says these deployments are separate from the D.C. crime operation.
A federal judge on Tuesday lifted his injunction blocking termination of TPS for Ethiopian migrants, clearing the final legal obstacle to the administration's rollback. Every TPS termination order is now free to take effect after the Supreme Court greenlit the broader effort earlier this summer. DHS can begin enforcement immediately.
The S&P 500 touched a fresh record and closed the week up 0.36 percent at 7,785, with the Nasdaq up 0.14 and the Russell 2000 jumping 1.12 percent. Wholesale prices ran 4.7 percent above year-ago levels, down from June's 5.5 percent, cooling the inflation picture even as gasoline still climbs at a 24.6 percent annual rate. Traders now put only a 32 percent chance on a Fed rate increase in September.
The USS Benfold suffered a generator failure that left the guided-missile destroyer without power for four days in contested waters, forcing the Navy to tow it to Subic Bay in the Philippines. The incident exposes readiness and maintenance vulnerabilities in a theater where a disabled American warship is a strategic liability. It comes as the Navy is stretched across two active flashpoints.
With the 60-day US-Iran negotiating window expired on August 17, the President says no new talks with Tehran are planned and insists the Strait of Hormuz is "open and operating." Iran's parliament speaker countered that Tehran will keep its grip on the waterway until sanctions are lifted and frozen assets released, while a deputy foreign minister called Trump "deluded." Ship traffic tells the story: 28 confirmed crossings from Friday to Sunday, against a pre-war average of 130 per day.
The Emirates cut off all trade with Iran Wednesday after reporting two ballistic missiles fired toward its territory, a charge Tehran denies and calls a false flag. Separately, a vessel east of Al Khasab, Oman was hit August 18 by an unknown projectile that damaged the engine room and killed a crew member. Turkey is pressing to broker a return to US-Iran talks.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions on ICC President Tomoko Akane of Japan and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, calling the court "corrupt and fatally politicized." Rubio said the administration's "whole of government campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the ICC to national sovereignty will be sweeping." Three sitting ICC judges have already sued over earlier sanctions.
The Health and Human Services Department has proposed a rule ending the practice of food manufacturers declaring ingredients "Generally Recognized as Safe" without ever telling the FDA. The change converts a voluntary notification system dating to the 1950s into a mandatory one, and creates a framework for post-market safety reviews. Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas said it "would give FDA greater visibility into the substances used in human and animal food."
Health officials reported additional Vibrio vulnificus infections Tuesday, with 15 cases in Florida as of August 13 and 10 in Louisiana as of August 12. Seven people have died this year — two in Florida, five in Louisiana — and Mississippi has logged 29 total Vibrio cases. The bacteria thrives in warm coastal water from May through October and enters through unhealed cuts, fresh tattoos, piercings and surgical incisions.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced 14 arrests in a cocaine trafficking operation run out of the Delta Upsilon and Sigma Chi houses, with suppliers driving to Philadelphia and New York for pickups. Investigators say cutting and packaging cocaine "was, for some pledges, an indoctrination into the fraternities." Thirteen of those charged were Penn State students at the time; one was a student's father, charged with tampering with evidence.
