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Nov. 1, 2026 11:10 AM PT

JUNEAU, Alaska — A federal judge on Sunday dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses.

Sullivan, an ally of President Trump, faces Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola in one of the country’s most closely watched races, with Senate control at stake. Tuesday’s ranked-choice election also includes two candidates who have done little campaigning, one of whom shares the incumbent’s name.

The lawsuit, filed less than two weeks before the election and with early voting underway, called for an investigation into whether votes for retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan were intended for the senator. The state said the case lacked merit and argued there would be no way to determine that without violating voter privacy.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason wrote in the order that the relief the United States seeks is “infeasible” because many voters have already cast their ballots. She said the cast ballots have been mixed together to the point where they cannot be matched to specific voters.

“More fundamentally, the United States provides no workable plan as to how it proposes to segregate ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan on Election Day and then conduct a court-ordered unspecified ‘investigation’ of those ballots in a manner that would preserve voter secrecy,” she wrote.

Attorneys for the Republican-led state government, Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee argued that the case lacked any legal basis and amounted to interference. The senator and his allies, including Trump, for months have portrayed Dan J. Sullivan as a sham candidate intent on confusing voters and helping Peltola.

In the week before election day, the New York Times reported that Peltola’s campaign was involved in efforts to recruit the challenger Sullivan. Dan J. Sullivan in June, shortly after entering the race, said he’d had no contact with the campaign about running. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

Peltola’s campaign responded by saying the campaign “has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign” — a statement similar to one it released after Dan J. Sullivan launched his bid.

“I am not interested in tricking voters,” she said during a recent campaign event.

State courts, including the Alaska Supreme Court, rejected Republican-backed efforts to block the retired teacher from the August open primary ballot on which he appeared as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation. The senator was listed as Dan S. Sullivan, Republican and incumbent.

Both Sullivans appear the same way on the general election ballot. Peltola placed first in the primary, followed by the senator. Dan J. Sullivan received about 2.5% of the primary vote, but that was enough to finish within the top four and qualify for the Nov. 3 ranked-choice election.

Attorneys for the Alaska Department of Law, led by Republican acting Atty. Gen. Cori Mills, represented state elections officials in the case and asked Gleason, who was appointed by President Obama, to toss the lawsuit. They filed a scathing response to the federal government’s complaint, calling it “meritless.”

Alaska also said the state had taken “significant steps” to distinguish the two Sullivans on the ballot. Voters who still might be confused could ask for help or look up candidate biographies and other information in state-distributed election pamphlets.

Gleason wrote that the administration’s attempt to block certification ran counter to the Constitution, which gives states the authority to run elections. She also cited the Supreme Court’s Purcell principle, which holds that federal courts should generally not change election rules too close to an election.

Alaska’s ranked voting system also offers a solution to possible confusion, the state wrote, allowing voters to rank the Sullivans as first and second choices, if they choose.

“That way, if the voter’s first-ranked Sullivan is eliminated, his vote would transfer to the other Sullivan,” attorneys Rachel Witty, Margaret Paton Walsh and Laura Fox wrote. “The voter’s vote would not ‘be transferred to Peltola’ as the complaint asserts, unless the voter chose to rank Peltola as his next choice instead of the other Sullivan.”

Trump for years has railed against Alaska’s use of ranked-choice voting in general elections. Republican state leaders have said that while they don’t like ranked voting, they want voters to “rank every Republican” candidate on this year’s ballot, especially with a high-stakes governor’s race featuring one Democrat and three Republicans.

On Thursday, the Justice Department escalated a criminal investigation over the same-named candidates on the Alaska ballot, issuing a raft of new grand jury subpoenas, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. The FBI also has begun contacting people who donated to Dan J. Sullivan, some of whom told the AP that the agents were asking if they had been misled about which candidate they were supporting.

Riccardi and Bohrer write for the Associated Press. AP photographer Lindsey Wasson in Anchorage contributed to this report.

Mark Walter is looking to sell the WNBA’s Sparks, taking another step in the dismantling of his sports-team empire, according to people familiar with the matter.

Walter, a co-founder of money management firm Guggenheim Partners, sold the Lakers earlier this year at a $12.5 billion valuation to Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger, but the WNBA team had remained under his ownership. Kushner and Iger later discussed acquiring the Sparks, but they are not among potential buyers, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the talks are private.

Sportico values the team at $400 million. Walter is looking to sell the franchise and a related practice facility for more than $700 million, said one of the people, who wasn’t authorized to speak discussing private dealings. The practice facility, which was constructed for $150 million, is scheduled to open before the start of the 2027 season. The franchise plays in the Crypto.com Arena.

Such a deal would be by far the largest WNBA franchise sale in history. The current record of $300 million is held by Tilman Fertitta, the owner of the Houston Rockets who bought the Connecticut Sun and is in the midst of moving the franchise to Houston.

A spokesperson for Iger and Kushner declined to comment. A spokesperson for TWG Global, Walter’s holding company, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Federal prosecutors have been probing dealings at Walter’s insurance firms, prompting him to reshape his holdings and stirring up deal talks on multiple fronts, including his sports franchises. After selling the Lakers, he sold his stake in Chelsea FC to Clearlake Capital. Walter’s other sports holdings include the Dodgers, the Cadillac Formula One team and the Professional Women’s Hockey League.

Dodgers President Stan Kasten told The Times in August that the team isn’t for sale. “There’s no process that has been started to sell it, period,” he said.

The Sparks finished 16-28 during the WNBA season and have missed the playoffs for six straight seasons. The Sparks were one of the original eight teams when the WNBA was founded in 1997.

Williams, Natarajan and Shaw write for Bloomberg.

Homeland Security targets nine states in a push to identify voting fraud, a move critics denounce as tantamount to voter intimidation.

A United States federal judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to halt operations aimed at finding non-citizen voters in nine states ahead of the midterm elections.

The ruling by US District Court Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin said the investigations likely violate a provision of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits voter intimidation. She further said the DHS may have relied on flawed data in its investigations.

That leads to “an objectively reasonable fear of law enforcement entanglements that intimidates citizens from urging or aiding others in exercising their right to vote”, she wrote.

The order applies to federal efforts targeting California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.

The DHS has publicised what it has described as a push to identify individuals who have committed voter fraud, with some local offices posting photos of agents knocking on the doors of suspects.

The operations come as the administration of US President Donald Trump has sought to highlight instances of voter fraud ahead of the November 3 midterm vote.

While there are recorded instances of fraud in every election cycle, such isolated cases remain exceedingly rare.

There has been no evidence to indicate that non-citizen voters have influenced the outcome of any election at any level in the country.

In a statement following Thursday’s ruling, the DHS maintained that its investigations were aimed at “removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of US citizens”.

“We have no plans to question or investigate people we believe to be US citizens,” it said.

In their lawsuit challenging the DHS’s efforts, the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, along with the Voto Latino Foundation, San Francisco and Santa Clara County, said that some US citizens felt they were wrongly identified and questioned as part of the investigations.

A lawyer representing the groups said it was “clear from the start that DHS built its lists on bad data, never checked how often it was wrong, and recklessly sent agents to people’s homes weeks before an election”.

Benjamin Farley, the supervisory counsel for democracy defense at the National Immigration Law Center, said the ruling sent a strong message about voter intimidation ahead of the midterm vote.

“Yesterday’s decision is a clear rebuke of the government’s efforts to scare voters away from the polls this November and a reminder that all US citizens – regardless of color, place of birth, or the nationality of their family members – have the right to participate in American elections free of intimidation,” he said.

“No armed federal agent is going to stop us from casting our vote.”

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear arguments in a watchdog’s lawsuit seeking public records about trillionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The high court is intervening for a second time in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s case, which seeks access to DOGE records from its operations in the early days of President Trump’s second term. The Trump administration asked the court to hear the case.

Last year, the high court reined in a district court’s order for the government to produce DOGE-related records to CREW. The high court’s conservative majority concluded in June 2025 that U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled too broadly in ordering documents to be turned over to the group.

CREW claims DOGE is a federal agency and therefore is subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The Trump administration argues that DOGE is exempt from FOIA’s requirements as a presidential advisory body.

Cooper ruled in CREW’s favor and ordered expedited processing of the group’s records request. An appeals court panel also sided with CREW.

The Trump administration claims the panel ignored the Supreme Court’s direction to consider separation-of-powers concerns and intruded on the “autonomy and confidentiality” of presidential advisers.

“Subjecting advisory bodies to intrusive discovery triggers the very concerns that Congress sought to avoid by excluding presidential advisory bodies from FOIA’s reach,” Justice Department attorneys wrote.

The administration also says the appeals court impermissibly authorized the plaintiffs to take a sworn deposition of DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason.

CREW says the appeals court fully complied with the Supreme Court’s previous order. The group also asserts that the public has a right to know how DOGE helped the administration carry out a sweeping overhaul of government operations in 2025.

“Undisputed facts in the public record — including the President’s statements — confirmed that (DOGE) was wielding enormous independent authority across the federal government,” its attorneys wrote.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.