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Mizzou played two rounds of golf in Wichita, Kansas, Monday, sitting in second place at two-under par with 18 holes to play in the University of Oklahoma Intercollegiate. 

The Tigers were in fifth after Round 1, but had a strong three-under par second round to move into runner-up position.

Melanie Walker and Addie Dobson are tied at fourth individually in the tournament with a two-under 140.

Walker birdied five hole on the front nine in Round 2. In Round 1, she only finished below par on one hole — an eagle on Hole 4.

Mizzou has a lot of work to do in order to catch the leader, Oklahoma. The Sooners have a 5-stroke lead heading to the final round of their invitational.

The Tigers will attempt an improbable comeback starting at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday. 

2028 three-star prospect Karlin Kirk committed to Mizzou gymnastics on Monday. She’s the second commit for Shannon Welker in the 2028 cycle following Annie Cole’s commitment on Sept. 25.

Kirk is a product of Cary, North Carolina, who competes for Sonshine Gymnastics.

She was tabbed as an “under-the-radar” recruit on bars by College Gym News, posting a 9.650 as her highest score. Her highest event score in Level 10 gymnastics, the highest competitive tier in USA Gymnastics, was a 9.7 on vault.

Kirk also took official visits to Nebraska, Minnesota, NC State and Denver this year in her recruitment process. 

The addition bolsters the Tigers' 2028 recruiting class just after the program brought in the No. 6 recruiting class in the Class of 2026.

Welker's Class of 2026 recruits, headlined by fifth-ranked Imani White, will make their Mizzou debuts this winter.

(The Center Square) –  An Irvine, Calif. woman accused of operating as an unregistered agent for China was scheduled to appear for arraignment in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Monday - one day after being arrested by the FBI at Los Angeles International Airport.

Wanying Zhang, 34, also known as "Heather Zhang," was taken into custody by the FBI’s Los Angeles field office on Sunday as she attempted to board a flight bound for China.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli highlighted the arrest on X, noting that federal authorities intercepted Zhang before she could leave the country.

"We just arrested a Chinese foreign agent at LAX attempting to depart for China," Essayli posted. "According to the affidavit, Zhang traveled to Seattle in 2025 and, at the direction of PRC [People's Republic of China] officials, surveilled a close relative of a Taiwanese government official, sending photos, videos and license plate information to those officials."

According to the federal criminal complaint, Zhang’s alleged operations spanned from June to September 2025 without notifying the U.S. attorney general, something that is required by federal law.

In a Department of Justice press release, investigators detail a calculated scheme utilizing specialized tradecraft to evade detection. For example, authorities believe that in June 2025, Zhang traveled from Southern California to China, where investigators claim she met directly with Chinese officials and received orders to conduct surveillance on U.S. soil.

U.S. authorities alleged that on Aug. 29, 2025, Zhang and an accomplice flew from John Wayne International Airport in Orange County to Las Vegas, later traveling to Washington state, where the victims reside.

DOJ also states that court documents show Zhang coordinated her travel with an associate, utilized counter-surveillance tradecraft and sent real-time updates to Chinese handlers — including a boarding pass photo, video footage outside the target's residence, confirmation of spotting the target and vehicle license plate numbers.

Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, called the alleged actions a "brazen plot directed by the Chinese government to conduct a covert surveillance mission on U.S. soil."

Rozhavsky added that the case demonstrates the FBI's commitment to defending democratic allies. Taiwan, an independent constitutional democracy, maintains that it is not part of the People's Republic of China, despite Chinese claims that Taiwan is part of China.

Kellie Harper, set to begin her 22nd season as a collegiate head coach and second as the coach of Missouri women’s basketball, had goosebumps on her arm thinking about the potential of her team.

It's been a while since Missouri was a winning program. She’s hoping the latest rendition of Missouri’s roster is the one to end that drought.

“This is a team that will pull together and this is a team that is going to be united in their goal on the court of winning,” Harper said Monday. “I've got cold chills saying that.”

The 2018-19 season marked both the last time the Tigers finished with a winning record against SEC opponents or made the NCAA Tournament.

Missouri, after finishing 17-17 and 4-12 in Southeastern Conference play in Harper’s debut season, overhauled its roster over the offseason. Just four players from the 2025-26 roster remain for the upcoming season.

Postseason desires

Should the Tigers do enough of their desired winning, they could make it back to the NCAA Tournament. 

“That's definitely the end goal for this team, and I think it would be really, really special for us to be able to do it this year,” Grace Slaughter, Missouri’s leading scorer in each of the last two seasons, said. “We made a good jump last year, making a postseason appearance (the Women's Basketball Invitational Tournament). But obviously, we'd love to make another jump this year to the NCAA Tournament."

Making the NCAA Tournament would mean thriving, or at least surviving, in the SEC, a task far easier said than done. The conference features the Dawn Staley-led South Carolina Gamecocks, Kim Mulkey’s LSU Tigers and plenty other competitive teams.

Missouri has struggled in conference play for the better part of a decade, but each new season offers a page to write a new chapter. This could be its chance.

“I think there are going to be some surprises,” Harper said. “I hope we're a positive surprise.”

Being a surprise also means starting somewhere. Missouri, based on its recent history, likely won’t be an early pick to win big games. That doesn’t mean it can’t.

“We're still trying to find ways to get wins, find ways to be better,” Harper said. “You got to steal some wins that you're not — on paper — supposed to get. We want to knock somebody off and give ourselves a chance to be as good as we can possibly be. And then I'm not ever going to sell us short. Our goal will always be very lofty.”

'The Fab Five,' Missouri’s way

After officially being named head coach of the program in March of 2025, when the high school recruiting cycle had nearly run its course, Harper hit the transfer portal hard to complete her roster for the season, bringing in eight transfers to round out the 13-player roster.

Now having been at Missouri for the senior seasons of the high school Class of 2026, Harper constructed her roster in a way that best fits her program.

“We felt like signing a really good high school class was going to be the best avenue for us to really step up our team,” Harper said. “And I think we were able to address some athleticism on the perimeter. We were able to address some height and depth in the post and some competitiveness in that class.”

At the helm of the five-player class is Natalya Hodge, a four-star prospect and the No. 9 point guard in the nation, per 247Sports. Hodge scored over 2,000 career points before beginning her senior season at Bearden High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, an area Harper is familiar with from her time at Tennessee, and is the only primary ball-handler in the freshman class.

Joining Hodge in the class is four-star forward Khloe Ford, a 6-foot-4 Alabama product that could contend for a starting frontcourt spot. Ellie Muller, a graduate of Dowling Catholic, the alma mater of WNBA star Caitlin Clark, stands at 6’3, while Cecilie Brandimore, a Tennessee product, measures in at 6’4. Hodge’s lone backcourt running mate in the class is Jada Maples, a 5'10", four-star combo guard out of Arkansas.

Each member of the group has one thing in common.

“They are going to make mistakes — they are young, and there's a lot of them,” Harper said. “I think we, as coaches, have to find a balance of pushing them, but also being patient as they grow, because it's just a natural progression of college athletes.”

The few — but notable — returners

For the last three seasons, it’s been rather difficult to discuss the Tigers without mentioning Slaughter. She’s ascending up Missouri’s all-time leaderboards, ranking top-10 in career points, box plus-minus, 3-point field goals, minutes and a few more categories, and will likely climb higher throughout the upcoming season.

She’s improved in each of her first three seasons with the program, posting career highs across the board in 2025-26 with 18.7 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game. As the face of an otherwise struggling program, it’s been hard to pick at major holes in her game — what’s left to improve on?

“We want to be able to see the improvements this year be holistically broader,” Harper said of Slaughter. “I don't know if she can score more points or not. Maybe she can score more points. But how do we develop the entire athlete? We're doing that with strength and conditioning. We're doing that with her skillset development, her ball handling, her rebounding, defense.”

There are more freshmen on Missouri’s roster than there are returners or incoming transfers. Being such a young program in the SEC, the Tigers will rely on experienced players who’ve been donning Tiger stripes for a few seasons to give those freshmen guidance.

Averi Kroenke, a fifth-year guard set to make her return to the court after missing the 2025-26 season with a torn ACL, is here for it.

“I try to be someone that all of these players know they can come to for anything on the court and off the court,” Kroenke said. “Whether it's they need help with a play or how we do something offensively and defensively, or if it's ‘Hey I'm homesick,’ ‘Hey I'm struggling with this class, what can I do?’ I just want to be someone that they can come to, and I try to embrace that role and just be loving and caring for them.”

Sharpshooting wing Abbey Schreacke is set to enter her fourth season with the program, having averaged more than seven points per game and shooting over 35% from 3-point range in each of her first three.

The last returner is Reka Toman, a 6’0" forward entering her second season with the program after averaging 1.5 points per game across 26 appearances in 2025-26.

“We are very blessed to have people that have been here — they know the ropes, they love Mizzou — that are unbelievably good people and they're people that we trust in the locker room," Harper said.

Transfers make quick impressions

Oftentimes, there’s a bit of a growing phase for transfers to find their roles within a new team. Harper, while not targeting a high quantity of transfers, found a few that fit that have made early impressions on Missouri’s culture.

Early in the summer, Indiana transfer Nevaeh Caffey and Michigan transfer McKenzie Mathurin were on the floor, fighting for the ball in a drill. That play stuck out to Hodge as one that exhibited the competitive nature of Missouri’s roster.

“One of the biggest things in women’s basketball is how to get some energy going,” Mathurin said. “Charges, offensive rebounds, obviously defensive rebounds. I'm just a very aggressive player, so I love going after the ball. However we got to get the ball, I'm gonna do it.”

Tanyuel Welch, a fifth-year transfer from Arizona, joins Caffey and Mathurin as the last of three transfers on Missouri’s roster. All three could contend for a spot in the starting lineup, given Missouri’s need for ball-handling alongside Slaughter.

More importantly, though, all three seem to be well-acclimated to the program.

“Those three transfers, in my opinion, set the tone in the first week of practice this summer,” Harper said.

A looming beginning

Harper’s Tigers started the 2025-26 season with a scare, falling to Maryville (DIII) in a 90-84 overtime shock in a preseason exhibition. They then eked out wins over Central Arkansas and Tulane in its first two regular-season contests before going 2-2 in a four-game stretch against Arkansas State, Kansas, Southern Illinois and Troy.

With a difficult SEC schedule awaiting, it’s important for Missouri to get off to a good start in nonconference play this go-around.

“That first exhibition game is all about putting on the uniform and playing under the lights, and I assume we're going to have some players that are going to be nervous as cats,” Harper said.

While the Tigers open the season with five consecutive games against mid-major opponents, the later portion of their nonconference schedule holds challenges against Kansas State, Florida State and Illinois. Conference play begins Dec. 31 against Mississippi State.

Adversity awaits, and Missouri has to be ready for it.

“I think, right now, nothing's been hard. Okay, conditioning's hard, practices are hard, but you haven't lost a game,” Harper said. “Somebody hasn't been pulled out of the lineup. Somebody hasn't not played. None of those really hard things have happened yet. But from everything that we've seen thus far, this is a team that wants to attack adversity.”

Missouri will begin its season with an exhibition game against Lincoln at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 29, followed by its regular-season opener against Howard at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 2, both of which will be at Mizzou Arena.

(The Center Square) - Advocates and legal analysts are divided on the potential outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court's pivotal climate change case. 

Justices on the nation’s highest court heard arguments Monday in Suncor v. Boulder, a case over whether lawsuits can move forward against energy companies potentially seeking billions of dollars in damages over alleged contributions to climate change.

Justice Samuel Alito recused himself from consideration in the case, in the midst of mounting scrutiny over his financial investments and ties to various energy companies.

Chief Justice John Roberts posed several difficult questions to parties represented in the case. He repeatedly asked lawyers for Suncor Energy whether federal law preempted states in climate litigation. 

Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, told The Center Square she believed Roberts had a deep understanding of the case through his questioning of Boulder County’s claims. Roberts questioned the structure of the county’s arguments in the case, and he suggested that the court was attempting to reduce emissions by regulating an energy company's typical conduct.

“That told me the chief justice knows the deal,” Severino told The Center Square. “He sees what is really going on behind the scenes here.”

Several advocates in favor of Boulder County gathered for a demonstration outside the high court. Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union for Concerned Scientists, blamed the actions of Suncor and ExxonMobil for contributing to climate change and natural disasters in Colorado and around the world.

“The world is in danger of increasingly severe climate impacts,” Goldman said. “The worst harms are being imposed by communities that have contributed the least to the climate crisis.”

Goldman argued that energy companies were aware of contributions to climate change and did not step in appropriately.

Severino said Boulder should not have an outsized authority to regulate emissions across the country and the world. She said the litigation is an attempt to give Boulder extraordinary authority in the climate case.

“They want it to look like a regular tort claim,” Severino said. “This isn’t normally how tort law works, and it's definitely a stretch, particularly the idea of causation, to argue that Suncor’s energy production that they are selling around the world can somehow be traced to particular harms that are happening in Colorado.”

Christopher Mills, the founder of law firm Spero Law, highlighted the chief justice’s question toward lawyers for Boulder County about similar lawsuits taking place based on the court’s end result.

“Presumably if you prevail the next day, a municipality in every single state will file a lawsuit,” Roberts said during oral arguments.

Kevin Russell, a lawyer for Boulder County, acknowledged a flurry of lawsuits could come from the high court’s decision. 

“Potentially hundreds of different lawsuits over imposing overlapping liability based on events occurring outside all of the relevant municipalities or states,” Mills told The Center Square. “It’s hard to think that’s an acceptable state of affairs.”

Former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee also spoke in front of the high court on Monday. He said the Boulder case is an opportunity to make energy companies pay for damages in court.

Inslee argued that Congress did not preempt state and local governments from seeking relief due to climate change.

“We should not allow this court to go ‘presto, change-o’ and pull preemption out of nothing,” Inslee said. “There is nothing in the U.S. Congress to say they wanted to take away this right from Americans.”

Inslee said the high court’s case is primarily focused on allowing individuals to have an opportunity in court against energy companies. However, Severino said state and local governments behind the lawsuits are seeking to draw out legal processes against energy companies in order to harm the industry.

“You incentivize the parties to have to settle and pay out because the cost of continuing the litigation is simply so astronomical,” Severino said. “The day in court is not free, and it is absolutely part of a strategy to make energy companies pay a practical carbon tax, even if it's not an official one.”

Inslee argued that courts must take on responsibility to mitigate the effects of climate change. He said the executive branch and Congress have not done enough to regulate the industry. 

"At this very moment, the executive and the Congress is doing everything humanely possible to destroy our ability to deal with this deception and this fraud," Inslee said. 

Phil Goldberg, special counsel for the Manufacturers' Accountability Project, said he was glad to see justices on the high court recognize the sweeping consequences in the case and hopes for an outcome in favor of Suncor Energy.

“The justices recognized that the claims in this case go far beyond conduct in any one state, which is why this lawsuit is inherently about interstate and global emissions,” Goldberg said in a statement to The Center Square. “We are hopeful that the Court’s focus on the fundamental problems with climate liability will lead it to clarify that the governance of interstate climate emissions belongs with federal policymakers, not state courts.”

(The Center Square) – The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative opened public comment Monday on the future of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement without asking what tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods have cost American importers or consumers.

Tariffs now in place will cost the average U.S. household about $820 this year, according to Tax Foundation estimates. About 16% of that, roughly $130 per household, is attributable to tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, Alex Durante, a senior economist at the Tax Foundation, told The Center Square.

The federal government has estimated who pays for the tariffs but not what they cost, and the administration has not provided a figure. USTR did not respond to questions sent Monday morning about whether it has produced one or why tariff costs were left out of the comment request. The White House, asked in August whether the administration had produced an estimate of the tariffs' cost to the average household, responded to other questions and did not address that one.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in February that foreign exporters absorb 5% of tariff costs and that U.S. consumers ultimately bear the remaining 95% through higher prices, including from domestic producers that raise prices as import competition falls. In May, CBO told Congress that more recent evidence indicated the share absorbed by foreign exporters may have risen to 10% to 15% by the end of 2025. The agency has not translated either estimate into a dollar figure for households, and has published none specific to Canadian and Mexican goods.

"I am not aware of any federal estimates," Durante said.

The notice asks the public to comment on five subjects: how the agreement is operating, whether Canada and Mexico are complying with it, what actions the United States should take, the investment climate and economic security.

The review follows the administration's decision in July not to renew the agreement. The United States "did not agree to renew the USMCA in its current form," U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a July 1 statement, after the pact's Free Trade Commission met virtually. The agreement remains in force and now faces a review every year. It terminates July 1, 2036, unless all three countries confirm they wish to continue it.

Written comments and requests to testify are due Jan. 12, 2027, through dockets USTR-2026-0595 and USTR-2026-0596 on the agency's comment portal. USTR has not set a date or location for the public hearing.

About $124 billion in imports from Mexico are covered by tariffs imposed under Section 301 and Section 232 this year, Durante said, with the rest exempt under the agreement. About 73% of U.S. imports from Canada and 75% from Mexico still enter duty-free under USMCA.

The United States imposes a 50% tariff on about $22 billion in Canadian imports under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, according to the Tax Foundation. Section 232 tariffs cover about $407 billion in autos and auto parts and about $320 billion in steel, aluminum and copper imported from all countries. A Section 301 tariff of 10% to 12.5% on 60 trading partners took effect July 24, the day a 10% global tariff imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 expired. Canada and Mexico are both subject to the 10% rate.

Existing USMCA provisions remain in force, David Gantz, Will Clayton Fellow in Trade and International Economics at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, told The Center Square. The annual reviews continue until the three countries agree on a 16-year extension or the agreement expires, he said, and nothing prevents them from negotiating in the meantime. Talks between the United States and Mexico are ongoing.

The annual cycle creates uncertainty for investors, Caleb Petitt, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, told The Center Square. A horizon that shrinks every year makes it harder for investors to expect that the policy environment when they put money in will still hold when the investment pays off, he said.

Still, Petitt said, an annual review is better than the agreement collapsing. Under the annual cycle, he said, "it is relatively easy for longer, more stable arrangements to be made."

Greer told the House Ways and Means Committee in April that the administration had reviewed six years of data on the agreement. "We don't think we're in a position to rubber-stamp the deal," he said. "We now have six years of data, and we see problems."

The comment period closes Jan. 12, and the cost question is not among the five USTR is asking.

(Legal Newsline) — When the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments starting Monday in a high-profile case testing whether state and local governments can sue oil companies over climate change, the lawyer at the podium won’t be from the county or city governments that brought the case but from a private firm working on a contingency-fee basis.

The case — Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County — is just one in a wave of lawsuits working their way through state and federal courts around the country being steered by private lawyers who have a huge financial stake in the outcome. Many of those attorneys stand to make hundreds of millions —even billions of dollars — in fees if the legal theories they promoted to their government clients are successful.

Sher Edling is at the forefront of these firms.

Going as far back as 2018, the San Francisco firm has recruited a number of states and localities to sue the oil and gas industry over global warming under theories that include public nuisance and violations of consumer-protection laws. Sher Edling and other firms portray this as a no-risk proposition for local taxpayers because they only get paid a contingency fee if they win. In the meantime, charities associated with the Rockefeller Foundation have provided more than $5 million in assistance to Sher Edling.

The firm also has been at the center of controversy surrounding attempts to influence the science presented to courts without disclosing its involvement climate litigation.

The most recent example is a July 2026 report from the National Academies of Science, which purports to link climate change directly to specific weather events, prepared in association with Michael Burger, who is Of Counsel to Sher Edling. Burger also was involved in the creation of a climate chapter for the Federal Judicial Center science manual. That chapter was later pulled from the manual.

According to a Manufacturers’ Accountability Project report from 2019 titled Beyond the Courtroom, the theory of bringing tobacco-style litigation against the energy industry started with the Global Warming Legal Action Project, formed in 2001 by environmental attorney Matt Pawa. The group’s four main goals, stated in a 2018 publication, were to “apply a tort law approach to global warming,” serve as a forum for sharing litigation strategy, “educate members of the bar and the general public” regarding “potential liability for global warming” and using the courts to combat global warming and promote clean energy.

Pawa likely made millions of dollars earlier in his career representing New Hampshire and Vermont in lawsuits over MTBE, an additive the federal government required oil companies to put in gasoline to reduce air pollution but which contaminated water supplies when it leaked out of underground tanks. The New Hampshire suit yielded $272 million in verdicts and $35 million in contingency fees for Pawa and lawyers at Sher Leff, a predecessor to Sher Edling. Vermont’s suit, crippled by statute of limitations problems, settled for $3.8 million.

The nonprofit group Protect the Public’s Trust, through public records requests, obtained contracts between Sher Edling and the states of Maine, Massachusetts and Minnesota and local governments such as Anne Arundel County, Maryland; Charleston, South Carolina; Washington, D.C.; and New York City.

The fee arrangements in some of the agreements produced suggest potential compensation amounting to tens of millions of dollars.

Minnesota’s 2020 engagement of Sher Edling, for instance, provides for contingency fees of 16.67% on the first $150 million recovered and 7.5% for amounts after that.

The City of Charleston agreed to a contingency fee schedule of 25% on recoveries up to $100 million, plus 15% on amounts between $100 million and $150 million, plus 7.5% on amounts greater than $150 million.

Maine’s agreement with the firms Sher Edling LLP, Hausfeld LLP, and DiCello Levitt LLP provides for different fee schedules depending on whether the state collects before or after discovery – 10% on the first $150 million in damages and 2.5% thereafter if the damages are collected before discovery and 16.67% on the first $150 million and 7.5% thereafter on damages collected after discovery.

The District of Columbia – which engaged both Sher Edling and Tycko & Zavareei – provides a 12% contingency fee, though it places caps of $25 million, $45 million, and $65 million depending on whether recovery is made before discovery, after discovery starts but before trial, or after trial starts.

New York City redacted details about its fee arrangement with Sher Edling other than to disclose that the firm will be paid on a contingency basis and that, if a settlement is reached with any of the defendants that includes equitable relief, Sher Edling will be awarded fees based on both the monetary award plus “the Then-Present Value of any In-Kind Recovery to be made to City pursuant to a Settlement.” The City and Sher Edling agreed to “use their best efforts to agree on the value of equitable relief obtained.”

Massachusetts has a more traditional approach in paying their outside counsel, who are dubbed “Special Assistant Attorneys General.” If the Commonwealth’s recovery is at least four times the value of total attorneys’ fees accrued, Sher Edling will receive their full fees and costs. If the recovery is less than that amount, the firm will be paid 25% of the amount received.

Anne Arundel County refused to disclose its fee arrangement with Sher Edling.

Boulder’s case is being prosecuted by a team of environmental public interest and private law firms. Earthrights International, a tax-exempt charitable organization that bills itself as “a team of community leaders, campaigners and legal strategists who challenge powerful corporations, governments and financial institutions that violate people’s rights and destroy our planet for profit” is lead counsel working pro bono on the case.

Earthrights’ most recent tax return shows 2024 revenues of over $10.5 million – the most recent data available – up significantly from the $3.9 million reported in 2020.

Earthrights may be working for free, but the Boulder team includes other counsel, at least some of whom are not. Singleton Schreiber LLP, Russell & Woofter LLC, David Bookbinder and Marco Simons also represent Boulder.

According to Boulder County’s webpage describing their lawsuit, the private firms are entitled to up to 20% of any award in the case.

The county boasts that this fee arrangement “prioritize[s] spending taxpayer dollars in a cost-conscious manner.” But Boulder County has a narrow definition of taxes not shared by one of its lawyers. A goal of these climate cases is not only to put the alleged costs of climate change on the oil and gas industry but to raise the cost of their products for consumers, which Bookbinder acknowledged publicly at a Federalist Society program last year.

“Essentially, the tort liability is an indirect carbon tax,” Bookbinder said. “You sue an oil company, an oil company is liable, the oil company then passes that liability on to the people who are buying its products. In some sense, it is the most efficient way — the people who buy those products are now going to be paying for the cost imposed by those products.”

(The Center Square) – Four days into fiscal year 2027, Congress is already behind schedule on funding the government for the next 12 months.

Lawmakers punted the Oct. 1 government shutdown deadline to Dec. 11 by passing a continuing resolution. Yet neither the House nor Senate made any progress during September on the 12 annual appropriations bills, none of which have passed both chambers and only three of which have passed the House.

While the House would normally be in session this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., released his chamber two weeks early — despite protests from members who wanted to tackle AI safety legislation and advance a second Epstein files discharge petition.

The Senate has also left town, despite failing to approve the three House-passed government funding bills and send them to the president’s desk or even bring them to the floor for consideration.

Congress is in recess until after the midterm elections, leaving lawmakers extraordinarily little time when they return to finish the fiscal year 2027 appropriations process.

It is also unclear how election outcomes could influence appropriations negotiations, which have imploded multiple times during the 119th Congress, resulting in record-long government shutdowns.

Though Congress is supposed to renew and update funding levels for all federal agencies via 12 annual appropriations bills, it rarely does so on schedule.

Lawmakers usually pass at least a short-term funding stopgap to buy more time, sometimes passing multiple stopgaps to cover an entire year, as they did for fiscal year 2025.

(The Center Square) – Despite pointed questions from some of the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative justices challenging the oil companies in Suncor v. Boulder, Republican attorneys general following Monday’s arguments said they came away optimistic about the case’s direction.

“We were confident coming in. I feel even better having heard the whole argument, particularly if you listen to Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh’s line of questioning,” said Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, speaking to reporters Monday afternoon. “Frankly, he feels like this is a fairly straightforward case.”

The Supreme Court chose the consequential climate case to open oral arguments for its 2026-27 term. Boulder County and the city of Boulder sued Exxon Mobil Corp. and Suncor Energy in 2018 under Colorado law, alleging the companies knowingly contributed to climate change through their production, promotion and sale of fossil fuels while concealing or misrepresenting their alleged dangers to the public. Boulder sought damages for harms it attributed to climate change, including wildfires, flooding and extreme weather affecting local residents and property.

The oil companies pushed back, arguing that because Boulder attributes its alleged injuries to global greenhouse gas emissions, federal law preempts the claims and prevents them from proceeding under Colorado law. The Colorado Supreme Court rejected that argument without ruling on the merits of Boulder’s underlying claims, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review that decision.

During Monday’s arguments, Justice Elena Kagan compared Boulder’s lawsuit to earlier litigation against tobacco companies and opioid manufacturers.

“In multiple respects, this suit appears to be based on the old 1990s tobacco suits that were brought by states and local governments basically saying that big tobacco had made representations, misrepresentations, which had caused people to … overuse the product, causing harm to those governments,” Kagan said.

Kagan described the opioid litigation that followed as a second chapter and the climate lawsuits as a potential third.

Kavanaugh pushed back on the comparison, pointing instead to Supreme Court precedent concerning interstate pollution.

“I thought the answer was that this Court has consistently said that air and water pollution are different in our federal enclaves,” Kavanaugh said.

Marshall led a 26-state amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to take the case. Utah Attorney General Derek Brown, who also signed the brief, attended Monday’s arguments.

“Ultimately it comes down to the real issue of — they call it the sovereignty concept — of whether one state can impose their will on another state,” Brown said.

Brown argued that allowing states to impose liability for harms attributed to global emissions could force energy companies to absorb additional costs or change their practices nationwide, effectively imposing the consequences of one state’s policies on consumers in others.

“They’re imposing what’s in effect an energy tax on other states,” Brown said. “My state is right next to Colorado, and it would have an impact on my state, even though we didn’t get a vote.”

Like Marshall, Brown said he was optimistic about how the court would ultimately rule, citing questions like one from Chief Justice John Roberts about the practical implications if municipalities across the country brought similar lawsuits.

“Do we all of a sudden have this whole slew of lawsuits in which all 50 states are trying to impose burdens on the other 50 states?” Brown asked rhetorically, expanding on the concerns raised by Roberts’ questioning. “In effect, that’s why states joined the Union hundreds of years ago, because states had been imposing burdens on the other states. So we gave up that right in exchange for a uniform system.”

Roberts, Barrett and Gorsuch also posed challenging questions to the oil companies, however, pressing them on the scope and consequences of their argument that federal law preempts Boulder’s claims.

“There are a lot of familiar situations where conduct outside of a state has broad effects from other states … and yet we allow state courts in a particular state to bring litigation that affects that,” Roberts said. “I guess I'm not quite sure what makes this situation different from those, all those other ones, where we've allowed them to proceed in state court.”

The case could have implications far beyond Boulder. Dozens of similar climate lawsuits have been filed across the country, and the Supreme Court’s ruling could affect whether such cases can proceed under state law.

(The Center Square) – U.S. Sen. John Fetterman joined most of his Democratic colleagues in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin expressing concern about its actions ahead of the midterm election. 

“We write to warn you against continued activities at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that seek to undermine the Constitutional authority of both Congress and states to administer elections and defy the directions of federal courts,” the senators wrote in a joint letter in late September. “As Secretary of Homeland Security, you have promoted the President’s conspiracy theories about our elections, pressured states to participate in illegal activities, and explicitly threatened to reduce grant funding and initiate criminal investigations for those states that do not comply with the Administration’s demands.”

The senators were critical of Mullin for not publicly affirming that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, or Customs and Border Protection, CBP, personnel would not be sent to the polls by DHS, despite “federal law barring their presence.”

The senators also criticized the decision made by DHS to deploy Homeland Security Investigation, HSI, agents to nine states, including Pennsylvania, for a “coordinated criminal voter fraud surge initiative.” Fetterman and over 30 of his Democratic senators say this move was made without “verifiable evidence of widespread noncitizen voter fraud.”

“Your actions as Secretary are intentionally undermining Americans’ trust in the 2026 midterm elections and appear to purposefully disenfranchise eligible voters,” Fetterman and the other senators wrote. “Taken together, these actions amount to an illegal attempt to federalize the administration of the upcoming midterm elections.”

The senators laid out a timeline of events, dating back to March 2025, of instances they believed caused concern. 

They argue that Mullin, at the direction of Trump, “have endeavored to coerce states into divulging sensitive voter roll information, raising serious concerns about how that information will be stored and used.” 

In making this argument, the senators referenced an executive order signed by Trump which required DHS to compare state voter registration lists against federal immigration databases, followed by an overhaul of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, SAVE, program. 

“Even though the Supreme Court has allowed you to use the SAVE program for now, we remind you of the requirement of the National Voter Registration Act, 52 U. S. C. §20507(c)(2)(A) that bars any systematic removal of ineligible voters within 90 days of Election Day,” Fetterman and his colleagues wrote. 

In July, Mullin claimed that 250,000 non-citizens were registered to vote in four states. Pennsylvania was one of those states. 

The senators took issue with Mullin's claim, citing pushback from various administration officials in those states, and specifically noted a review by Nevada officials that showed the initial numbers were inflated. 

“These states did not agree to give you their sensitive state voter roll information and judges in each state dismissed the Department of Justice’s efforts to access that information,” the senators wrote. “Moreover, elections experts have challenged the legitimacy of these numbers.” 

“Considering the inaccuracies in SSA’s citizenship categorizations and the questions surrounding how you obtained the voter roll information needed to analyze this data, we cannot trust the numbers as reported,” they continued. 

The senators also objected to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, adding new terms and conditions for Urban Area Security Initiative and State Homeland Security Grant Program awards, noting a portion of those grants are spent on enhancing election security. 

“DHS’s continued interference with FEMA’s grants puts FEMA’s mission at risk, slows down the administration of grants, and ultimately hurts communities,” Fetterman and his colleagues wrote. 

The senators then highlighted a whistleblower who is alleging federal agents may have violated laws and DHS policies as a result of the new “Unlawful Voter Initiative.”

“The 2026 midterm elections are already underway. Your unsubstantiated allegations of noncitizen voter fraud, public recitation of unreliable data, and unwarranted conditioning of continued grant funding for state election security measures on compliance with politically motivated requests for voter data appear to be calculated efforts to undermine confidence in our elections and risks wrongly disenfranchising voters,” the senators wrote. 

Fetterman and his colleagues end the letter by saying that they are “deeply troubled” by the actions taken by Mullin, DHS, and the Trump administration. 

“As such, we demand that you immediately cease the aforementioned activities and provide us with all information underpinning the allegations made in your July 17, 2026, letter regarding non-citizens registered to vote, rescind Information Bulletin Nos. 569 and 569(a), release all withheld funds to the states without further delay, and provide information about the “Unlawful Voter Initiative,” they wrote at the conclusion of the letter. 

In a statement to The Center Square, a DHS spokesperson responded to the letter, pushing back on several claims made by Fetterman and his colleagues. 

“ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” a DHS spokesperson told The Center Square on Monday. “ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action.”

In March during his confirmation hearing, according to The Associated Press, Mullin downplayed concerns about ICE agents being used to interfere with election administration, although he said that agents had a right to conduct immigration enforcement activities at sites related to election administration. 

“I don't understand what the concern is about enforcement of immigration at polling places anyways because honestly if you're not a citizen you shouldn't be voting anyways so technically there shouldn't be illegals at the polling spot,” Mullin said. “The only reason why my officers would be there is if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation.”

On Monday, DHS also described the assertion that their department was attempting to “exert more federal control over elections heading into the November midterms” as ‘totally false.’” 

“DHS is fulfilling our obligation to protect election infrastructure under existing statutory authority so that our elections are fair, honest, and accurate,” a DHS spokesperson told The Center Square on Monday. “DHS and DOJ are laser focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and preventing the dilution of the votes of U.S. citizens. ONLY Americans should elect American leaders.

“Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: we will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences — including criminal charges and deportation,” DHS added. 

A FEMA spokesperson also objected to the letter from Fetterman and his fellow Democrats, claiming that “partisan pushback is nothing new.” 

“We fully expected opposition to common-sense measures designed to protect election security and safeguard the integrity of American democracy,” a FEMA spokesperson told The Center Square. “Election security is national security, and protecting our critical infrastructure remains a top priority for the Trump Administration. Concerns over voting processes, data security, and registration practices have made it clear that action is required. This year, states must take critical, common-sense steps to protect U.S. elections before receiving their full Homeland Security Grant Program awards. These new requirements will preserve election integrity.”

Fetterman’s office, in a press release last week, said that the state’s senior senator has been “unequivocally clear that our elections are absolutely secure, fair, and accurate.” He has also joined his colleagues in other joint letters over election security throughout 2026, including efforts to protect voting by mail.

During an appearance at the Texas Tribune Festival, Fetterman lauded that the “best examples of vote-by-mail come from red states,” while adding that “if the only time you criticize voting is if it means you lost, that means it’s impossible to take that seriously.”

Fetterman isn’t the only Democrat in a statewide office in Pennsylvania sounding the alarm about the perceived motive of efforts by the Trump administration ahead of the 2026 election. 

CNN reported in late September that the DOJ is planning to surge election monitors all across the country. Gov. Josh Shapiro, at a campaign event in Philadelphia with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, responded to a question if he was worried about the Trump administration’s actions for Election Day. 

“Well, I'm always worried about Donald Trump and his enablers trying to undermine people's right to vote,” Shapiro responded.

Shapiro noted that in 2020, while he was serving as the state’s attorney general, 43 lawsuits filed by the Trump administration over election integrity were dismissed.

“We're prepared again in court, and we're also prepared should they try and bring personnel into certain communities, particularly minority communities, to try and intimidate people, make it harder for people to vote, or make them worried about showing up to vote,” Shapiro said. “I'm not going to get into the specifics, but we have great coordination with our Pennsylvania National Guard, with the Pennsylvania State Police, the local law enforcement, and we will do everything in our power to stop Donald Trump from interfering with this election and ensure that whether you vote by mail or you vote in person, you will have access to the ballot box, and it will be protected.”