bid

The government has commissioned UK Sport to conduct an “initial strategic assessment” into a potential bid for the north of England to host the Olympics and Paralympics in the 2040s.

It said the funding agency would examine whether the UK could host the Games for the first time since London 2012, along with potential cost, socio-economic benefit and any bid’s chance of success.

“For too long we have been told the Olympics is simply too big and too important to be hosted in the north”, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told BBC Sport.

“Not any more. It’s time the Olympics came north and we showed what we can offer to the world.

“We know that we can pull off the most incredible, not just bid, but Olympics. So we’re kick-starting that with a phase-one study about the investment, the resources, the infrastructure, the transport that we’re going to need.”

The findings of UK Sport’s study will determine whether to proceed with a more detailed “technical feasibility study”, with a final decision on any bid resting with the British Olympic Association (BOA).

Motherwell insist they have received no approach for manager Jens Berthel Askou amid reports, external linking the Dane with French Ligue 1 side Toulouse.

Berthel Askou has made an extraordinary impact at Fir Park since taking charge last summer, with his side on the fringes of the Scottish Premiership for a time and on the brink of securing European football.

Before arriving in Scotland, the 43-year-old Dane was assistant at FC Copenhagen and has had spells at clubs in his homeland, Sweden and the Faroe Islands.

He had been linked with Celtic and it is now been reported that he is attracting interest from mid-table Ligue 1 side Toulouse, with their head coach Carles Martínez Novell leaving at the end of the season.

May 8 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s first domestically designed 3,000-ton submarine has completed a long-distance Pacific deployment as Seoul seeks to strengthen its bid for Canada’s next-generation submarine procurement program.

The South Korean Navy said the Dosan Ahn Chang-ho departed Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii on Friday with two Canadian Navy submarine personnel aboard and is scheduled to arrive at Esquimalt Harbor in Victoria, British Columbia, in late May.

The submarine left Jinhae Naval Base on March 25 and traveled through Guam and Hawaii before heading toward Canada.

The deployment is seen as a major test of the submarine’s endurance, reliability and operational performance, as South Korean shipbuilders compete for Canada’s submarine project, estimated at about $42 billion.

The Dosan Ahn Chang-ho is expected to travel up to about 18,600 miles round trip, much of it independently. Defense officials say the mission is intended to demonstrate the submarine’s long-range capabilities, quiet operation, onboard living conditions and air-independent propulsion system.

Two Canadian Navy personnel, Maj. Britany Bourgeois and Petty Officer Jake Dixon, joined the submarine for the final leg from Hawaii to Canada.

The submarine is expected to take part in joint training with the Canadian Navy after arriving in late May. The exercises are expected to focus on anti-submarine warfare and interoperability.

Canadian officials are expected to assess whether the South Korean submarine meets key requirements for long-range patrols and operations near Arctic waters.

The Dosan Ahn Chang-ho will later participate in the U.S.-led Rim of the Pacific exercise, known as RIMPAC 2026, alongside South Korea’s next-generation Aegis destroyer Jeongjo the Great.

South Korea’s participation is expected to highlight its growing ability to operate with U.S. and allied naval forces in complex maritime environments.

Canada’s submarine procurement program calls for the acquisition of 12 submarines. South Korean shipbuilders Hanwha Ocean and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries are competing against Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems for the contract.

Defense analysts say the Pacific deployment gives South Korea an opportunity to demonstrate proven operational capabilities directly to Canadian officials rather than relying only on written proposals or technical specifications.

The Dosan Ahn Chang-ho is the lead vessel of South Korea’s KSS-III Batch-I class. The submarine has an underwater displacement of about 3,700 tons, is 83.5 meters long and was designed and built in South Korea.

South Korean defense officials say the deployment marks a milestone for the country’s submarine program and reflects the expansion of the Navy’s operating range from coastal waters to the open ocean.

If South Korea wins the Canadian contract, it would mark the largest single defense export deal in the country’s history.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260508010001855

The UK government says it is in “discussions about supporting potential bids” for the Olympics and Paralympics in the 2040s.

It added that “initial work examining whether the UK could host the Games for the first time since London 2012 will assess key factors such as potential cost, socio-economic benefit and [the] chance of success”.

Ministers say they are also considering whether to support bids to stage golf’s Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup in the 2030s.

The last time the two team competitions were staged in the UK was in 2014 and 2019 respectively, both at Gleneagles in Scotland.

In recent months there has been growing momentum behind a possible attempt to bring the Olympics back to the UK for a fourth time.

Last year London mayor Sadiq Khan said he wanted the city to bid for the 2040 Games.

With Los Angeles in the US and Brisbane, Australia hosting the 2028 and 2032 Games respectively, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is yet to choose cities to stage the events in 2036 and beyond.

In December, the chair of funding agency UK Sport told BBC Sport a bid “has to be an aspiration”, suggesting Liverpool and Manchester could be co-hosts.

In February, a group of political leaders urged the government to ensure any future bid would be based in the north of England, saying there was a “compelling” case for it to host the event.

The Ryder Cup takes place every two years with 24 of the best players from Europe and the USA going head-to-head over three days in matchplay competition. The two continents take it in turns to host the event.

In March, it was revealed that Bolton is bidding to host the Ryder Cup in 2035. If successful it would be the first time in more than 30 years that the event is staged in England.

Last year England Golf urged the government to underwrite its bid to stage the Solheim Cup – a contest between the leading female golfers of Europe and the US – in the country for the first time.

As part of a new ‘sporting events framework’, the government says it will look to make it a criminal offence to resell tickets for specific major sporting events without authorisation such as Euro 2028, claiming it “will make it easier to bid for, secure and deliver major sporting events”.

England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland are hosting Euro 2028, while the UK is the sole bidder to host the 2035 Women’s World Cup.

In November, the government announced legislation to outlaw the sale of tickets to sports events at inflated prices – but it did not apply to football.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority sounded ready Wednesday to rule that the Trump administration may end the temporary protection that has been granted to more than 1.3 million immigrants from troubled countries.

Congress in 1990 authorized Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for noncitizens who could not safely return home because their native country was wracked by war, violence or natural disasters. If those people passed a strict background check, they could stay and work legally in this country.

But President Trump came to office believing too many immigrants had been granted permission to enter and stay indefinitely.

Last year, his Department of Homeland Security moved to cancel the temporary humanitarian protection for immigrants from 13 countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, Syria, Honduras and Nicaragua. Court challenges on behalf of Haitians and Syrians were consolidated into a single case, Mullin vs. Doe, which the justices heard Wednesday.

Immigrant-rights advocates challenged those decisions as political and unjustified, and they won orders from federal judges that blocked the cancellations.

But Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court arguing the judges had overstepped their authority. They pointed to a provision in the 1990 law that bars “judicial review” of the government’s decision to end temporary protection for a particular country.

The justices ruled for the administration and set aside the lower court rulings in a series of 6-3 orders.

Faced with criticism over its brief and unexplained orders, the justices agreed to hear arguments on the TPS issue on the last day of oral arguments for this term.

But the ideological divide appeared to be unchanged.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said Congress had prohibited “judicial micromanagement” of these decisions, and none of six conservatives disagreed.

UCLA law professor Ahilan T. Arulanantham, representing several thousand Syrians, said the Homeland Security secretary had failed to consult the State Department, which says it is unsafe to travel there.

He said the government “reads the statute like it’s a blank check … to give the secretary the power to expel people who have done nothing wrong.”

Chicago attorney Geoffrey Pipoply, representing more than 350,000 Haitians, said the cancellations were driven by “the president’s racial animus toward non-white immigrants.”

The court’s three liberals argued the administration failed to follow the procedural steps required under the law. But that argument failed to gain traction.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett and her husband adopted two children from Haiti who are citizens. Like most of the conservatives, she asked few questions during the argument.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will hear arguments this week over whether the Trump administration may revoke temporary protected status for about 350,000 Haitian and 6,100 Syrian immigrants.

TPS allows people who are already in the United States to legally reside and work here if they are unable to safely return to their home country because of a sudden emergency such as war or a natural disaster. The humanitarian program, enacted by Congress in 1990, has since been used by Republican and Democratic administrations alike.

Since President Trump returned to office last year, his administration has terminated such protections for immigrants from 13 countries. Court challenges on behalf of Haitians and Syrians have been consolidated into a single case, Mullin vs. Doe, which the justices will hear Wednesday.

The high court’s ruling could eventually have sweeping repercussions for all 1.3 million immigrants from the 17 countries that were designated for TPS at the start of this administration. That’s because the federal government is arguing that decisions regarding the program are almost entirely immune from review by courts.

“Temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from activist judges legislating from the bench,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, who did not provide their name, wrote in response to a request for comment.

Lower courts have repeatedly deemed the administration’s actions improper.

“We’re seeing clear gamesmanship from government to insulate all TPS decision-making from any oversight,” said Emi MacLean, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, who is counsel in the case for Syrians and in other cases challenging five of the terminations. “They’ve created a farce of a process to justify the ends that they sought, which was to strip humanitarian protections from over a million people.”

In the Trump administration’s appeal, Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer argued that Congress gave the Homeland Security secretary the power to grant or end the temporary protected status for troubled countries and barred judges from intervening.

He pointed to a provision that says: “There is no judicial review of any determination of the [secretary] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state.”

Citing this hands-off provision, Trump’s lawyers won brief emergency orders last year that allowed the administration to strip legal protections from about 600,000 Venezuelans. In that case, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had quickly reversed an extension granted by the Biden administration three days before Trump was sworn in.

The circumstances surrounding the Syria and Haiti cases are different. Advocates for the immigrants argue that the administration failed to conduct the required process to properly evaluate each country’s conditions.

They point to emails in July from a Homeland Security official to a State Department official. The Homeland Security official listed TPS designations coming up for review — Syria, South Sudan, Myanmar and Ethiopia. In response, the State Department official wrote: “I confirm that State has no foreign policy concerns with ending these TPS designations.”

State Department travel advisories for both countries warn people against traveling to either because of the risk of terrorism, kidnapping and widespread violence. U.S. citizens are advised to prepare a will.

For Syria, the advisory cites active armed conflict since 2011. For Haiti, it says the country has been under a national state of emergency since March 2024.

But Federal Register notices announcing the terminations said country conditions had sufficiently improved. The notice for Syria, for example, says “the Secretary has determined that, while some sporadic and episodic violence occurs in Syria, the situation no longer meets the criteria for an ongoing armed conflict that poses a serious threat to the personal safety of returning Syrian nationals.”

If the government loses, Homeland Security officials would have to reevaluate the TPS decisions in consultation with the State Department and make a decision based entirely on the country conditions themselves.

The government could start over, in that case, and still find that TPS is no longer warranted — if the process bears that out.

In a friend-of-the-court brief led by immigration law scholars at Georgetown and Temple universities, they explained that before TPS existed, similar forms of humanitarian relief were determined by the executive branch “without reference to any statutory criteria or constraints, and with little if any explanation for why nationals of certain countries received protection while others did not.”

With TPS in 1990, Congress sought to end that “unfettered discretion,” they wrote. Instead, the statute requires the Homeland Security secretary to terminate TPS if the review finds that conditions justifying the designation no longer exist. Otherwise, the law states, it “is extended.”

“The point of the TPS statute was to depoliticize humanitarian decisions,” said MacLean, the ACLU attorney. “Secretary Noem in all of her TPS decisions has completely undermined that fundamental goal.”

Ahilan Arulanantham, who is arguing for the Syria case on Wednesday, added that if the government wins, “it also means they could probably grant TPS to countries that don’t deserve it.” Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA, has represented the National TPS Alliance in separate litigation during this administration and Trump’s first.

Top Homeland Security and State Department officials from the George W. Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations filed a brief arguing that the Trump administration’s terminations of TPS for Syria and Haiti were “not based on evidence and sharply departed from past inter-agency practices.”

Haiti was originally designated for TPS in 2010 after a massive earthquake devastated the country and redesignated because of subsequent natural disasters and gang violence. In November, Noem announced that she would terminate TPS for Haiti, effective Feb. 3. She wrote in the Federal Register that “there are no extraordinary and temporary conditions in Haiti” that prevent Haitians from safely returning.

But even if there were, she continued, “termination of Temporary Protected Status of Haiti is still required because it is contrary to the national interest of the United States.”

The Homeland Security spokesperson said TPS for Haiti “was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.”

Syria, meanwhile, “has been a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades,” the spokesperson wrote, “and it is contrary to our national interest to allow Syrians to remain in our country.”

In the Federal Register notice for Syria, Noem added that maintaining its TPS designation would “complicate the administration’s broader diplomatic engagement with Syria’s transitional government” by undermining peace-building efforts.

The Supreme Court will take up the question of whether the Homeland Security secretary can use national interest as a reason to revoke TPS. Attorneys for the TPS holders believe any decision to revoke TPS must come down to the country conditions alone.

Syria and Haiti are among the countries for which the Trump administration has also paused processing all immigration benefits. If their TPS protections expire, those immigrants would become vulnerable to detention and deportation even if they are eligible for other forms of relief.

U.S. Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer argued that Congress gave the Homeland Security secretary the power to grant or end the temporary protected status for troubled countries and barred judges from intervening.

(Aaron Schwartz / Getty Images)

Attorneys for the TPS holders say the terminations were also driven by racial animus. They point to various statements by Trump over the years, including his false claim that Haitians were eating the pets of people in Springfield, Ohio, that they “probably have AIDS” and that Haiti is among the “shithole countries” from which he would permanently pause migration.

Among those affected is a 35-year-old Haitian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2000 and is raising her four U.S. citizen children in a Southern state. The woman requested to be identified by her middle and last initials, B.B., out of concern for her immigration case.

After graduating high school, B.B. got into nursing school but couldn’t attend because she didn’t qualify for financial aid. She said later getting TPS allowed her to become a certified nursing assistant, and she now works as a medical coordinator while owning a nail salon and three real estate properties.

Though B.B.’s TPS remains active because of the court proceedings, her driver’s license expired Feb. 3 and she has since had to rely on friends and rideshares to get around while repeatedly requesting a renewal.

She said she worries most about her children. If she were deported back to Haiti, she said, she would leave them in the U.S. for their own safety.

“It’s like planning your death,” she said. “I’m 35 and I already have a will — not because I’m going to die but because of the situation.”

On a call with reporters, attorneys and advocates, a Syrian man said he earned his master’s degree in the U.S. and now works in the healthcare industry. The man, who was identified by a pseudonym, said he and his wife are afraid of what their future will look like.

“TPS gave us something we had not had in years: a place to settle and a moment to grieve,” he said, later adding that “telling Syrians to go back right now is not a policy — it’s abandonment.”

Among the public, there is broad support for TPS and other humanitarian programs. According to a poll conducted last month by the firm Equis Research, 68% of Latino and 65% of non-Latino voters support fighting to give back legal protection to those who have lost their temporary protected status or asylum protections as a result of the current administration’s actions.

Earlier this month, the House voted in favor of a bill that would require new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to redesignate Haiti for TPS. Among those who crossed the political aisle to support it were 10 Republicans and Rep. Kevin Kiley, an independent from Rocklin, Calif., who caucuses with Republicans. The measure faces an uphill battle in the Senate.

In an interview with The Times, Kiley said his vote was about common sense and being humane.

“It’s particularly dangerous for people that would be returning where the gangs that are ravaging the country are just lying in wait outside the airport in Port-au-Prince,” he said, referring to the Haitian capital.

And because most won’t return willingly, Kiley added, “really all you’d be doing is removing work authorization from 350,000-some people who are going to mostly remain in the country, who will not be able to work anymore and may end up being more reliant on public assistance in states where they’re eligible.”

At the same time, Kiley said, the TPS system hasn’t worked as intended because most so-called temporary designations drag on.

“The system needs to be reformed,” he said. “But that’s all separate and apart from what we do with the folks who were already given this designation.”

Times staff writer David G. Savage in Washington contributed to this report.

As many as a dozen letters — including one from the NBA — were submitted by the attorney for Aspiration Partners co-founder Joe Sanberg ahead of his sentencing Monday in an effort to persuade the judge to trim the 17 years prosecutors have requested for each of the two counts of fraud.

Sanberg pleaded guilty in October to the federal charges of conspiring to bilk investors out of $248 million for portraying the now-defunct Aspiration as a “socially-conscious and sustainable banking services and investment products” firm.

Another letter was also submitted, however, and it wasn’t intended to assist Sanberg.

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer’s attorney David N. Kelley of O’Melveny and Myers wrote that Ballmer was defrauded of a $60-million investment in Aspiration and that the harm to his reputation is “immeasurable.”

The five-page Victim Impact Statement concludes: “Mr. Ballmer’s losses are not measured solely, or even primarily, on a balance sheet. They are measured in the reputational damage that will take years to remediate, and in the chilling effect on future endeavors intended to do good at scale.

“We ask the court to impose a sentence that accounts for those harms, promotes respect for the law, and deters those who would seek to appropriate the reputations of others to advance fraudulent aims.”

The letter states that the Clippers lost out on a $300 million sponsorship agreement with Sanberg in exchange for the team to wear Aspiration jerseys patches. Also lost was about $20 million the Clippers paid for carbon offset purchases and the $60 million Ballmer invested in the company.

Ballmer, a former long-time CEO of Microsoft, accused Sanberg of targeting him for his well-known interest in environmental sustainability and exaggerating their relationship to convince others to invest in the fraudulent company. In the letter, Ballmer says he met Sanberg only once.

Ballmer was added in November as a defendant in an existing civil lawsuit against Sanberg and several others associated with Aspiration. Ballmer and the other defendants are accused by 11 investors in Aspiration of fraud and aiding and abetting fraud, with the plaintiffs seeking at least $50 million in damages.

The letter dismisses the allegations in the lawsuit as “nonsense,” stating Ballmer was added as a defendant because of his “visibility and resources,” and reiterates that Ballmer himself is a victim of fraud. The action has damaged his reputation, the letter states, “and has further linked Mr. Ballmer to Sanberg’s fraud in the eyes of the public.”

The letter to the court, however, makes no mention of the $28-million contract Clippers star Kawhi Leonard signed with Aspiration for endorsement and marketing work. Players are allowed to have separate endorsement and other business deals, but at issue is whether the Clippers participated in arranging the side deal beyond simply introducing Aspiration executives to Leonard.

Leonard has addressed the accusations only once, denying wrongdoing and saying, “I understand the full contract and services that I had to do. Like I said, I don’t deal with conspiracies or the click-bait analysts or journalism that’s going on.”

The arrangement could be considered circumventing the NBA salary cap, a serious violation of league rules. Ballmer steadfastly denies arranging the deal between Aspiration and Leonard, who by all accounts performed no duties for Aspiration.

The NBA is investigating the complicated relationships between Ballmer, Leonard and Aspiration. One of the letters submitted by Sanberg’s attorney to the judge is from the law firm conducting the probe, and it states that the disgraced executive provided documentation and information helpful to the NBA investigation during two in-person interviews.

“In all our dealings with Mr. Sanberg, both directly and through his counsel, he provided information that was consistent with our review of contemporaneous documents and other evidence,” wrote Dave Anders of Wachtell Lipton. “Mr. Sanberg’s cooperation substantially assisted our investigation, including our ability to develop a more complete understanding of key events.”

Eventually the ledger will include the results of the NBA investigation into the allegations against Ballmer and Leonard. And that finding might impact the reputation of both more than Sanberg’s fraudulent dealings.

April 23 (UPI) — Senate Republicans have again blocked the Democrats from curbing President Donald Trump‘s ability to wage war with Iran, as negotiators try to find a diplomatic end to the conflict during the fragile cease-fire.

The Senate voted 51-46 on Wednesday afternoon against Sen. Tammy Baldwin‘s War Powers Resolution, the fifth time since March 4 that the Senate has voted against directing the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran until authorized by Congress.

As with previous votes, Wednesday’s was mostly along party lines with Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky again voting with his Democratic colleagues, and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania again voting with the Republicans.

“This entire war has been unnecessary, illegal and unwise. And we need to put a check on this president before it gets even worse,” Baldwin said from the Senate floor on Wednesday.

“Unfortunately, the president has shown us that he did not have a plan after day one. The president said the war would be over in a matter of days; we are coming up on the two-month mark with no real end in sight. And over the course of 50-plus days we have seen nothing short of a disaster.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a veteran, vowed in a statement that the Democrats will continue to do all in their power to end the war.

“It’s infuriating that Senate Republicans keep shirking their oaths and giving Donald Trump the green light to plunge our nation even deeper into his war of choice, further endangering our troops abroad and surging prices at home,” she said.

“This wanna-be dictator keeps breaking every single promise he’s made to the American people who are sick and tired of watching Republicans duck their responsibility to stop this chaos.”

The war began Feb. 28 with the United States and Israel attacking Iran.

Since then, 13 Americans have been killed. At least 3,646 people have been killed in Iran, according to HRANA.

Gas prices have surged as Iran has restricted access to the important Strait of Hormuz energy transportation route, and the United States is enforcing a blockade of Iran’s ports, cutting it off from sea-based trade.

The vote was held as a two-week cease-fire was to end before President Donald Trump announced an indefinite extension amid negotiations. On Wednesday, Iran’s military claimed to have seized two cargo ships in the conflict over the waterway.

Since the war began, Democrats have been seeking to rein in Trump’s war powers, arguing the ongoing war with Iran violates the Constitution, which mandates that only Congress has the power to declare war.

Democrats in the Senate have pledged to use their powers to force weekly debates on the war as well as weekly votes, forcing Republicans to repeatedly and publicly state their position on the conflict.

The vote was held less than a week before the 60-day limit of the war passes. On April 28, the War Powers Act will compel Trump to seek congressional authorization for the war.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has said that Trump should have sought Congress’ authorization, and appears to be leading Republican efforts to draft legislation for the continuation of the use of military force as that deadline comes.

“My focus is on the safety of America’s armed forces and the American civilians who are on the ground in the Middle East,” she said in a statement in early March, just days after the war began.

“At this point, we have little choice but to continue the military operation to degrade and destroy Iran’s capability for nuclear weapons.”

Ruling is latest loss for Trump administration, which has sought access to state voter data ahead of the US midterms.

A federal judge in the United States has dismissed a Department of Justice lawsuit seeking to access voter data from Rhode Island.

The decision on Friday was the latest loss for the administration of President Donald Trump, which has sought to access voter data in dozens of states across the country.

In the ruling, US District Court Judge Mary McElroy sided with election officials and civil rights groups, writing that the Justice Department does not have the authority “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here”.

Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore praised the ruling in a statement afterwards.

“The executive branch seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states,” Amore wrote.

“But the power of our democratic republic, built on three, coequal branches of government, is clearer than ever before.”

The Justice Department has sued at least 30 states for their voter information, maintaining it needs the information to secure election security. State officials have said that turning over the data raises an array of privacy concerns.

Under the US Constitution, state officials administer elections. Only Congress can pass laws related to how states oversee voting.

But Trump has sought to transform election administration, claiming that voting has been marred by widespread fraud.

In particular, Trump has continued to maintain that the 2020 election, in which he lost to former President Joe Biden, was “stolen”.

No evidence has ever been put forward to support the claims.

Federal judges have rejected attempts in California, Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon to force the states to hand over voter files to the federal government. At least 12 states, however, have willingly provided or pledged to provide voter information to the Trump administration.

The push for voter information is one of several actions that have raised concerns over how the Trump administration will approach the midterm elections in November, which will decide the makeup of the US Congress.

He is currently calling on Republicans to pass the so-called SAVE America Act, a bill that would create higher documentation standards for voters to prove their citizenship when registering to vote and casting ballots.

The majority of Republican lawmakers have embraced Trump’s claim that the law is needed to prevent non-citizens from registering to vote, despite studies showing that instances of voter fraud are glancingly rare.

Critics say the measure would risk disenfranchising millions of voters, particularly those who have legally changed their names, which is a common practice in US marriages.

Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, has arrived in Iran for high-level talks aimed at reviving negotiations between Tehran and the United States. The visit comes as Iran warns it could halt trade across key waterways if a US naval blockade on its ports continues.