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President Donald Trump has big plans for redesigning the way states hold elections ahead of the 2026 midterms, calling for a nationwide end to mail-in ballots and voting machines on Monday. The U.S. Constitution stands in his way. In a new post on his social network Truth Social, Trump wrote that he was “going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS” as well as voting machines, which he called “Highly ‘Inaccurate'” and “Seriously Controversial.” “ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS,” Trump wrote without providing evidence supporting his claims. Presidents aren’t given power over state election law. The “Elections Clause” in Article I Section 4, leaves “the times, places, and manner of holding elections” for the U.S. House and Senate up to the states, and only Congress is given power “make or alter” these rules. The Elections Clause is one of the Constitution’s many built-in mechanisms for separating and checking power, and already, federal judges have blocked parts of a past Trump executive order that would have imposed federal rules over elections. Undermining election integrity Trump’s attacks on election infrastructurefrom mail-in ballots to ballot drop boxes have forced local elections officials to find new ways to build trust. Maricopa County, Arizona, gave tours of its tabulation and election centers ahead of the 2024 election, while in Ada County, Idaho, officials now publish every ballot online. Ironically, voting records show Trump has himself voted early, and after opposing early voting measures and calling them fraudulent ahead of his 2020 election loss, he paid lip service to early voting in 2024. A Republican “Swamp the Vote” initiative in 2024 asked Trump supporters to pledge to vote early or request a ballot in an effort to boost early turnout, and it worked. Now he wants to ban mail-in ballots entirely. Trump falsely claimed in his social media post on Monday that the U.S. is the only country with mail-in voting (at least 40 countries allow people to vote by mail), and he said he would sign an executive order ahead of next year’s midterm election to make the changes. Eight states and Washington, D.C., allow for all-mail-in elections, and an additional 15 states allow for mail-in elections in some circumstances and jurisdictions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Hollow legal ground Trump’s apparent legal argument for having the power to end mail-in voting as president, as laid out in his post, is that states are “merely an ‘agent'” for the federal government in counting and tabulating votes, and the president is the ultimate authority of the federal government. “They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them,” Trump wrote. Like his push for Texas to adopt new congressional districts that are gerrymandered to help Republicans, Trump’s latest election proposals are about letting the president decide policy that’s actually left up to the states, and giving the executive branch power to shape the legislative branch that was designed to act as one of its checks. Rather than a separation of powers, it’s a consolidation.
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The era of job hopping is overget ready for job hugging. Korn Ferry, a global organizational consultancy firm, recently published a new report showing that employees are no longer moving quickly between new job opportunities, and are instead choosing to stick it out in their current positions for the foreseeable future. At an alarming rate, more and more employees are displaying what is colloquially known as job huggingwhich is to say, holding onto their jobs for dear life, the report reads. Just a few years ago, job hoppingor moving from company to company in search of the next best opportunitywas trending among employees, especially younger workers looking to climb the corporate ladder. Now, though, the opposite is true. Korn Ferrys analysts say AI disruption, a lack of new jobs, and an unpredictable economic market are some of the main reasons why employees are doubling down on their current positions. What is job hugging? According to a July report from Eagle Hill Consulting, the majority of employees plan to stay in their current position for at least the next six months, with Gen Z employees reporting the most intent to remain in place. Further, the data found that the Market Opportunity Indicatora measure of employees perception of the outside job markethas dropped to its lowest level since the reports inception. The growing pessimism around employment opportunities isnt unfounded. A recent report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that through the end of July, U.S.-based employers had announced more than 800,000 job eliminations in 2025the highest number of jobs lost in the same period since the global pandemic in 2020. Meanwhile, job growth has turned sluggish: Per a July report from Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the U.S. economy created just 73,000 jobs in July, down from the 111,000 monthly average of earlier this year. The report also majorly edited down previous estimates for May and June job creation. Many employees are pumping the brakes on hiring as inflation rises and President Trumps tariffs continue to throw the market into periods of major flux. On top of these trends, the increasing utility of AI technology is changing how some organizations are structured, and even threatening some occupations with replacement. Korn Ferry cites all of these factors as contributing toward the growing prevalence of job hugging. Market instability is one of the major reasons I see as to why candidates, especially to performers, are reluctant to move, says Stacy DeCesaro, a managing consultant at Korn Ferry. Top performers are waiting for a more stable market before they take a risk with a new role and company. Top performers are generally only leaving if they are miserable in their current role, are offered a significant compensation increase, or are feeling very unsettled with their companys viability, leadership, or culture. For recruiters, Korn Ferry’s report notes, this trend is poised to make hiring significantly more difficult. On the bright side, though, it might be an opportunity for organizations to invest more in their top talent and encourage younger employees to put down roots.
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E-Commerce
As Russia held its Victory Day parade this year, hackers backing the Kremlin hijacked an orbiting satellite that provides television service to Ukraine. Instead of normal programming, Ukrainian viewers saw parade footage beamed in from Moscow: waves of tanks, soldiers and weaponry. The message was meant to intimidate and was an illustration that 21st-century war is waged not just on land, sea and air but also in cyberspace and the reaches of outer space. Disabling a satellite could deal a devastating blow without one bullet, and it can be done by targeting the satellite’s security software or disrupting its ability to send or receive signals from Earth. If you can impede a satellite’s ability to communicate, you can cause a significant disruption, said Tom Pace, CEO of NetRise, a cybersecurity firm focused on protecting supply chains. Think about GPS, said Pace, who served in the Marines before working on cyber issues at the Department of Energy. Imagine if a population lost that and the confusion it would cause. Satellites are the short-term challenge More than 12,000 operating satellites now orbit the planet, playing a critical role not just in broadcast communications but also in military operations, navigation systems like GPS, intelligence gathering and economic supply chains. They are also key to early launch-detection efforts, which can warn of approaching missiles. That makes them a significant national security vulnerability, and a prime target for anyone looking to undermine an adversary’s economy or military readiness or deliver a psychological blow like the hackers supporting Russia did when they hijacked television signals to Ukraine. Hackers typically look for the weakest link in the software or hardware that supports a satellite or controls its communications with Earth. The actual orbiting device may be secure, but if it’s running on outdated software, it can be easily exploited. As Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022, someone targeted Viasat, the U.S.-based satellite company used by Ukraine’s government and military. The hack, which Kyiv blamed on Moscow, used malware to infect tens of thousands of modems, creating an outage affecting wide swaths of Europe. National security officials say Russia is developing a nuclear, space-based weapon designed to take out virtually every satellite in low-Earth orbit at once. The weapon would combine a physical attack that would ripple outward, destroying more satellites, while the nuclear component is used to fry their electronics. U.S. officials declassified information about the weapon after Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, issued a public warning about the technology. Turner has pushed for the Department of Defense to provide a classified briefing to lawmakers on the weapon, which, if deployed, would violate an international treaty prohibiting weapons of mass destruction in space. Turner said such a weapon could render low-Earth orbit unusable for satellites for as long as a year. If it were used, the effects would be devastating: potentially leaving the U.S. and its allies vulnerable to economic upheaval and even a nuclear attack. Russia and China also would lose satellites, though they are believed to be less reliant on the same kinds of satellites as the U.S. Turner compared the weapon, which is not yet ready for deployment, to Sputnik, the Russian satellite that launched the space age in 1957. If this anti-satellite nuclear weapon would be put in space, it would be the end of the space age, Turner said. It should never be permitted to go into outer space. This is the Cuban Missile Crisis in space. Mining the moon and beyond Valuable minerals and other materials found on the moon and in asteroids could lead to future conflicts as nations look to exploit new technologies and energy sources. Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy announced plans this month to send a small nuclear reactor to the moon, saying it’s important the U.S. does so before China or Russia. Were in a race to the moon, in a race with China to the moon, Duffy said. To have a base on the moon, we need energy and some of the key locations on the moon. … We want to get there first and claim that for America. The moon is rich in a material known as helium 3, which scientists believe could be used in nuclear fusion to generate huge amounts of energy. While that technology is decades away, control over the moon in the intervening years could determine which countries emerge as superpowers, according to Joseph Rooke, a London-based cybersecurity expert who has worked in the U.K. defense industry and is now director of risk insights at the firm Recorded Future. The end of the Cold War temporarily halted a lot of investments in space, but competition is likely to increase as the promise of mining the moon becomes a reality. This isn’t sci-fi. It’s quickly becoming a reality, Rooke said. If you dominate Earths energy needs, thats game over. China and Russia have announced plans for their own nuclear plants on the moon in the coming years, while the U.S. is planning missions to the moon and Mars. Artificial intelligence is likely to speed up the competition, as is the demand for the energy that AI requires. Messages left with Russia’s Embassy in Washington were not returned. Despite its steps into outer space, China opposes any extraterrestrial arms race, according to Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for China’s Embassy in Washington. He said it is the U.S. that is threatening to militarize the final frontier. It has kept expanding military strength in space, created space military alliances, and attempted to turn space into a war zone, Liu said. China urges the U.S. to stop spreading irresponsible rhetoric, stop expanding military build-up in space, and make due contribution to upholding the lasting peace and security in space. What the US is doing about security in space Nations are scrambling to create their own rocket and space programs to exploit commercial prospects and ensure they aren’t dependent on foreign satellites. It’s an expensive and difficult proposition, as demonstrated last week when the first Australian-made rocket crashed after 14 seconds of flight. The U.S. Space Force was created in 2019 to protect American interests in space and to defend U.S. satellites from attacks from adversaries. The space service is far smaller than the more well-established services like the Army, Navy or Air Force, but it’s growing, and the White House is expected to announce a location for its headquarters soon. Colorado and Alabama are both candidates. The U.S. military operates an unmanned space shuttle used to conduct classified military missions and research. The craft, known as the X-37B, recently returned to Earth after more than a year in orbit. The Space Force called access to space a vital national security interest. Space is a warfighting domain, and it is the Space Forces job to contest and control its environment to achieve national security objectives, it said in the statement. American dominance in space has been largely unquestioned for decades following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union. But the new threats and competition posed by Russia and China show the need for an aggressive response, U.S. officials say. The hope, Turner said, is that the U.S. can take steps to ensure Russia and China can’t get the upper hand, and the frightening potential of space weapons is not realized. You have to pay attention to these things so they don’t happen, Turner said. David Klepper, Associated Press
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