The briefing for Sunday, June 7.

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun granted a preliminary injunction Friday halting the Trump administration's effort to impose conditions on states receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding. The blocked conditions included restrictions related to 'gender ideology,' 'immigration,' and 'fair athletic opportunities' for women and girls. Twenty Democratic states challenged the requirements, arguing the Agriculture Department had thrown 'unconstitutional and unlawful roadblocks' between federally-funded programs and states that depend on them.

SNAP provides nutrition assistance to approximately 39 million Americans, about one in nine people nationwide. Government lawyers had defended the new requirements as promoting 'sound stewardship of taxpayer dollars' and ensuring grant recipients comply with federal laws and policies. The program has seen significant changes recently, with beneficiaries decreasing by nearly 4.3 million from January 2025 to January 2026, primarily due to new requirements mandated by a Republican tax and spending cut bill passed last summer.

The judge said he would issue a detailed memorandum later explaining his decision. The ruling preserves federal funding flows to states while the legal challenge proceeds, maintaining critical nutrition support that states argued was threatened by the administration's conditions. The case represents a significant test of the administration's ability to use federal funding as leverage for policy compliance across unrelated areas.

Canada's food inspection agency announced a temporary ban Friday on livestock from Texas after flesh-eating screwworms were discovered in a second calf this week. The ban applies to cows and horses that were in Texas anytime within 21 days before crossing into Canada. Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster Friday over the 'imminent threat' posed by the outbreak, telling reporters the parasite is 'likely to spread over the course of the summer.'

The New World Screwworm is a parasitic fly whose females lay eggs in open wounds and mucous membranes of warm-blooded animals and people. When eggs hatch, hundreds of larvae burrow through living flesh, eventually killing their host if left untreated. The second case was detected in a one-month-old calf in Zavala County, about 5.6 miles from the first case discovered Wednesday in La Pryor, roughly 30 miles from the Mexico border. These mark Texas's first cases in 60 years and are part of an outbreak moving through Central America and Mexico.

The USDA has established a 20km-wide control zone with quarantines, movement controls, and surveillance around the affected area. Abbott's disaster proclamation directs additional resources to combat the spread, recognizing the outbreak as an 'imminent threat' to Texas's $113 billion cattle industry. U.S. and Canadian officials plan to release hundreds of millions of genetically altered sterile flies to halt population growth, though some experts question whether these tactics will be sufficient. Canada and the U.S. have significant two-way cattle trade, with Canada importing 550,000 cattle from the U.S. in 2025.

President Donald Trump said Friday he wants acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte to reduce the size of the intelligence office and begin firing personnel who served under previous Democratic administrations. Trump told The Wall Street Journal he has asked Pulte to 'start the process' of firing employees, specifically targeting officials who worked under Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Pulte, previously head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has no apparent national security expertise.

Trump appointed Pulte earlier this week in a move that has drawn bipartisan resistance in the Senate, which confirms permanent nominations. The temporary appointment has complicated renewal of a critical national security surveillance program, with Democrats who are key to the vote expressing distrust in Pulte's ability to help administer it. The intelligence office oversees 18 intelligence agencies and has already been significantly scaled back during Trump's second term.

Trump described the office's size as 'way too high for way too long' and said he wouldn't mind if Pulte reduced it. He told reporters on Air Force One he is considering five candidates for the permanent position, describing them as 'very respected people' without naming them. The president indicated Pulte might handle the 'hard work' of downsizing before a permanent director takes over. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the decrease in religious affiliation codes is not designed to make claims about any faith's legitimacy but rather to help chaplains structure resources more effectively.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth cut nine Navy officers from a promotion list to one-star admiral, including all three women who had been selected, according to a defense official. The Navy had originally selected 31 captains for promotion, but Hegseth's intervention also removed two Black men from the list. As a result, the Navy will not promote a single woman to one-star admiral this year, despite women making up about one-quarter of all Navy officers and nearly one-third of the service's midgrade ranks.

Eight female Navy officers of varying ranks told the Associated Press they view the development as evidence their careers will become politicized if they rise too far, with some saying they now feel a career ceiling exists. The officers spoke anonymously out of fear of retribution. The Pentagon has not provided rationale for removing any of the nine officers from the promotion list. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said on social media that 'military promotions are given to those who have earned them' and the Pentagon 'will never consider the color of a service member's skin or their gender as a factor in promotions.'

The Navy's promotion board process has been relatively consistent and transparent over years, with boards examining eligible officers' records and selecting the most qualified. The board that selected the original 31 officers was directed by then-Navy Secretary John Phelan, a Trump appointee, to consider performance, competence, and character, with special consideration for Indo-Pacific expertise given China's prominence in the National Defense Strategy. Hegseth has long argued, without evidence, that women in the military benefit from preferential treatment and are not suited for combat roles, telling military leaders in September that promoting based on 'race' and 'gender quotas' made the Pentagon 'less capable and less lethal.'

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles announced Friday it had opened 'multiple election fraud investigations' related to California's elections and sent a prosecutor to the county's vote-counting center. The announcement came a day after President Donald Trump made baseless claims of mass fraud in California's drawn-out vote count from Tuesday's primary. U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, Trump's appointee, posted on social media about ongoing investigations without providing details, saying only that California's elections have 'serious structural vulnerabilities.'

An assistant U.S. attorney visited the main ballot processing center Friday morning and 'was provided an overview of the public observation program, and participated in a walkthrough of the ballot processing operations,' according to Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder spokesman Mike Sanchez. The visit marked an escalation in Trump's campaign against the Democratic-dominated state, whose prolonged vote count has been a magnet for election conspiracy theories. Late-tallied Democratic-leaning mail ballots have been eating into vote totals for Trump's preferred candidates for governor and Los Angeles mayor.

Trump claimed Friday in Wisconsin that 'bad things are happening' in California's count, saying it's 'a crooked state' without providing evidence. Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, Trump's favored candidate, called for sweeping changes to California election laws, including limiting mail ballots to only those who request them and imposing an Election Day deadline rather than the current seven-day grace period. However, Hilton said in an interview his campaign has seen nothing that seems illegal, stating 'we certainly haven't seen anything of that nature that would warrant legal action.' Jesse Salinas of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officers welcomed discussion about election procedures but defended current practices.