A rare bit of good news for transgender people in federal prisons. The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to allow the Bureau of Prisons to implement its new anti-transgender policies in federal penitentiaries around the U.S. while a case challenging those policies is litigated in court. Politico The Trump administration had asked the court to intercede in the case and overturn rulings staying enforcement of new BOP rules banning gender-affirming care behind bars. NPR Two of the court’s six Republican-appointed justices dissented from the order. The New York Times TMP Context: A judge stops federal prison officials from implementing a ban on care for transgender prisoners in the federal system. The Marshall Project

Pool, pond. The Justice Department’s inspector general says he won’t investigate the federal prosecutors who brought false claims against Olympian David Hearn relating to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Hearn was cleared of allegations that he intentionally vandalized the pool. DOJ officials say the Office of Professional Responsibility is the proper executive-branch agency to investigate allegations of misconduct by federal prosecutors. The Associated Press “Unlike the inspector general, who is presidentially-appointed and Senate confirmed, however, the head of the Office of Professional Responsibility is appointed by the Attorney General and is generally viewed as less independent than an inspector general's office.” CBS News

Immigration nation. ICE officials are mulling plans to add 24 contractors to the agency’s Vermont offices to boost federal immigration “intelligence hubs.” VTDigger “Reliably Republican” residents of Roxbury, New Jersey, are furious with plans for an immigrant warehouse jail in their midst. Gothamist An ICE raid at an Idaho racetrack a year ago reverberates still in a courtroom and as a political topic. Time Immigrant services scams are common in North Carolina but officials suspect many victims are afraid to report crime. The Associated Press Congressional Democrats blast plans to have unaccompanied minors represented by government attorneys during immigration court proceedings. Mother Jones

Banana Republic. Armed federal agents affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security are knocking on doors in states across the U.S. asking residents about their immigration status and voting registration. The states targeted are California, Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. Experts and former officials say such tactics are unprecedented. CBS News More: The Trump administration’s purported list of 20,000 noncitizen voters in Los Angeles County has a “high percentage” of U.S. citizens on it, state officials say. And only 7,000 people on the Justice Department’s list have LA County addresses. The Guardian Arlington, Virginia, sues to keep armed federal agents away from polls. Democracy Docket

Newly released body camera video shows the moment a 1-year-old boy was fatally shot by police in Senatobia, Mississippi, in June. State officials announced earlier this week that the shooting was justified. The New York Times

Five people were shot to death in a 48-hour period in Baltimore, Maryland, prompting the mayor to call a special meeting with police officials. The city has seen a dramatic, yearslong drop in its homicide rate. CBS News TMP Context from 2015: David Simon on Baltimore’s anguish. The Marshall Project

An Arizona man has sued DHS and the Internal Revenue Service to recover more than $400,000 that he claims was seized from him by federal agents last year. Reason Mario Ayala, who runs a check-cashing and money transfer business, says the feds raided his business in February 2025 but have never charged him with a crime or explained the raid. 12News

A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday sentenced a Guatemalan man to 30 years in prison for his role in a 2022 human smuggling operation that ended with the death of 53 people left in a tractor-trailer. Rigoberto Ramon Miranda Orozco was extradited to the U.S. to stand trial and pleaded guilty to being part of the deadly operation. The Associated Press

Officials in Sacramento, California, have undermined the work of the city’s civilian police review board. The Sacramento Community Police Review Commission has suggested 178 recommendations to improve policing in the city since 2016. Police officials have voluntarily implemented only 10 of those suggestions. The Observer

The persecution of Rep. Ilhan Omar as a sign of desperation. “There is no evidence that Omar lied or otherwise misled the federal government to obtain citizenship. The idea itself comes from the fetid swamps of the online far right — an expression of the anti-Somali bigotry that President Trump has elevated to the equivalent of state ideology.” The New York Times

When justice depends on the price you can pay. “In a cash bail system, justice depends on the size of your bank account. Asking a judge to lower a bond means requesting a separate hearing that can take months, especially in a small county. And if you cannot pay, the fastest way out of a cell is to plead guilty, not to win and not to be found innocent but to give up. People take the plea, and if I were in their position, I probably would too.” Texas Observer

The easing of child labor laws in Republican-run states is a form of child abuse. “Between 2021 and 2023, fourteen states introduced or passed bills that weakened child labor laws.” The New York Review of Books

The U.S. Supreme Court should stop pretending there is accountability for federal officers and agents. Reversing the Bivens case, rather than continuously narrowing its scope, “could bring us a gigantic step closer to sound federal statutory reform. A common sense, political and legislative consensus is achievable as early as the 2028 election cycle by finding common ground across a wide range of equity holders, from civil rights plaintiffs to federal law enforcement and carceral employees and their agencies, to federal courts.” Lawfare TMP Context: A Bivens case in Maine under state law. The Marshall Project

Foreign threats to U.S. elections are growing faster than we can stop them. “Public reporting to date suggests the United States will get through November despite continued foreign efforts to influence the election. The danger lies in treating such an outcome as evidence that the system is prepared for what follows. November matters not simply as another election, but as the starting point for a race the United States may already be losing.” Just Security

The United States of Grift. Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan billionaire given a sweetheart plea deal on a campaign finance violation, wanted a pardon from the president. He got one weeks after he handed an extraordinarily lucrative job to Alina Habba, Trump’s former personal attorney who was at the time an adviser at the Justice Department. The job guaranteed her $50 million over four years. The New York Times

“Alarming vulnerabilities within Flock’s nationwide network.” Their police jobs ended but they continued to use Flock surveillance to keep tabs on their ex-spouses and others. The Washington Post TMP Context: The troubling personal side of public surveillance. The Marshall Project

Annals of Indiana. Jeffrey Weisheit is scheduled to be executed in Indiana next month. On Monday, the mother of the two children he was convicted of murdering more than a decade ago urged the state’s parole board not to accept his request for a reduced sentence. Indiana Capital Chronicle The father of the slain children, however, supports clemency for Weisheit. “Jeffrey, I forgive you,” Steven Lynch told the parole board. Indiana Capital Chronicle

No justice, no peace. Louisiana’s justice-of-the-peace program orders the evictions of thousands of state residents each year in a system that heavily favors landlords over tenants and saddles people with debt due to excessive fines and fees. The Guardian TMP Context: How to fight modern-day debtors’ prisons? Sue the courts. The Marshall Project

“The release of documents is really important.” Newly declassified documents from the Bush administration shed new light on the federal government’s use of torture, or “enhanced interrogration,” in the years following the 9/11 terror attacks. The New York Times