Today's briefing, ranked.

A federal judge in Boston is hearing arguments Thursday on whether to extend a block against the U.S. Postal Service implementing new mail-voting rules tied to President Trump's executive order, just as North Carolina begins the first full-scale shipment of midterm mail ballots. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani had previously imposed a 14-day temporary restraining order, which expires next week, and is now deciding whether to issue a longer-lasting preliminary injunction.

This is the second round in a legal fight that has already reached the Supreme Court. In June, Talwani blocked the administration from implementing similar changes for the November election, but the high court ruled that decision premature since the Postal Service hadn't yet published formal regulations. The agency published those rules just before the ruling came down, prompting Democrats and voting rights groups to refile suit, arguing the president lacks constitutional authority to set election procedures — a power reserved for states and Congress.

Election officials say they simply cannot comply with the new requirements, which include Postal Service approval of ballot envelope designs and a state-run online portal for voter lists that still isn't operational. A whistleblower report made public this week warns that under the new rule, an entire batch of ballots — even one containing tens of thousands of legitimate votes — could be discarded if a single bar code registers an error during physical delivery to a post office.

The stakes are immediate: some Wisconsin municipalities already sent ballots this week, and Friday marks the broader kickoff of mail voting nationally. With administration officials calling the changes minor and legal, and state election offices warning of logistical chaos, the case appears headed back to the Supreme Court regardless of Thursday's outcome.

The Treasury Department proposed a new rule Thursday that would revoke tax-exempt status from private schools and colleges that provide students targeted assistance based on race, a move that could affect up to 18,000 institutions nationwide. If finalized, the rule would take effect after May 2027 and explicitly states that race-based admissions preferences, scholarships, and facilities benefits would be "incompatible" with continued tax-exempt status.

The proposal is the latest step in the Trump administration's campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion policies, using Civil Rights-era law to argue such programs discriminate against white and Asian American students. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said rebranding race-based preferences as "equitable" or "inclusive" doesn't change what he called their discriminatory nature. Many universities have already shuttered or renamed DEI offices under previous pressure from the White House.

Legal precedent for this kind of action is rare. The most notable case dates to the 1970s, when Bob Jones University lost its tax-exempt status over a ban on interracial dating, a decision the Supreme Court upheld. The school regained the exemption in 2017 after ending the policy. Harvard University faced a similar threat last year during a separate standoff with the administration, arguing there was no legal basis for revoking its exemption and that doing so would force cuts to financial aid and research funding.

The move carries major financial stakes for affected institutions, which have been exempt from many taxes for over a century as a public good, saving many schools millions annually. IRS Commissioner Frank Bisignano said schools that continue "discriminatory practices" should expect to lose the exemption, while the Justice Department has separately opened investigations into several medical schools over alleged race-based admissions favoritism.

A federal judge in Virginia ordered Google to restructure the system underlying its digital advertising monopoly on Wednesday but declined to force the breakup sought by the Justice Department. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema's initial two-page ruling marks the second time in a year Google has avoided a major structural breakup, following a similar outcome last September in the company's search-monopoly case. The full opinion detailing specific remedies will stay sealed for 14 days.

The decision follows a 2023 antitrust lawsuit that resulted in a 2024 ruling that Google's ad-tech operations constitute an illegal monopoly. The Justice Department had pushed to force Google to sell parts of the technology powering a system that generates a significant share of the company's roughly $400 billion in annual ad revenue, warning that keeping the technology intact would let Google keep manipulating algorithms in ways "too difficult to detect." Google countered that breaking up the complex ad network would harm publishers and consumers who rely on it.

Reaction split sharply along expected lines. Google's Lee-Anne Mulholland called the ruling a win for small businesses, while critics like Tech Oversight Project's Sacha Haworth blasted the outcome as inconsistent given the monopoly finding. Investors, however, appear largely unfazed: Alphabet's stock has surged 45% since the search-case ruling came down, adding roughly $1.3 trillion in shareholder value, suggesting markets view this ruling similarly as a manageable setback rather than a serious threat to Google's business model.

The conflict between the U.S. and Iran escalated sharply this week after American strikes killed civilians at a wedding celebration in southern Iran, which Tehran called a "war crime," prompting Iranian missile and drone retaliation against U.S. targets in Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq and Bahrain. Iranian officials said the wedding strike killed four people, including two children, while separate strikes elsewhere in the country killed at least 18 people total, according to Iran's health minister, with 108 injured. U.S. Central Command said it "never targets civilians" and is reviewing the reports.

The violence has also spread into commercial shipping lanes. Saudi Arabia confirmed that an Iranian attack on its supertanker Sidr killed two Filipino sailors as the vessel transited the Strait of Hormuz Monday night; a South Korean-owned tanker was reportedly struck in a similar incident around the same time. Iran has not directly addressed the Saudi allegation, instead claiming two tankers caught fire after hitting mines while using an "unauthorized route" through the strait. The strait normally carries roughly a fifth of global oil and gas shipments but has been effectively closed since fighting began in February.

U.S. strikes this week reportedly targeted Iranian air defense sites, radar systems and maritime assets, following what Centcom described as recent Iranian attempts to attack American forces and commercial shipping. A brief U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement reached in June collapsed within weeks after shipping attacks resumed and the U.S. reinstated a blockade on Iranian ports.

Financial markets are registering the strain. U.S. crude prices have jumped 11% this week alone, with Brent crude near $97 a barrel Thursday, adding to inflationary pressure just as the 10-year Treasury yield hit its highest level since 2023. The escalation also complicates an already tense economic backdrop ahead of Friday's closely watched August employment report.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned this week that the world has entered a "danger zone of extreme weather" as a potentially record-breaking El Niño intensifies. The World Meteorological Organization said the event could become the strongest in more than 70 years and persist until at least February 2027, with sea surface temperatures in the Pacific's key monitoring region already more than 2 degrees Celsius above average and potentially climbing toward 4 degrees.

El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern that shifts global weather by allowing warm Pacific water to spread eastward, typically triggering drought in some regions and intensified storms or flooding in others. Scientists say this event's unusual strength, layered atop human-driven climate change, is raising particular concern for vulnerable communities and marine ecosystems, including Australia's coastal waters, which have already suffered repeated marine heatwaves in recent years.

The WMO says it has launched a major mobilization effort to push extreme-weather forecasts tied to El Niño out to as many at-risk communities as possible, and some governments have strengthened early warning systems and pre-positioned medical aid. Still, officials and scientists interviewed by the BBC expressed significant concern given the event's unprecedented scale, warning of potential disruptions to trade, agriculture and disaster response systems worldwide well into 2027.