Judge blocks Trump’s election executive order, siding with Democrats who called it overreach

US President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington DC, US. (Reuters)
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Updated 13 June 2025
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Judge blocks Trump’s election executive order, siding with Democrats who called it overreach

ATLANTA: A federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to overhaul elections in the US, siding with a group of Democratic state attorneys general who challenged the effort as unconstitutional.
The Republican president’s March 25 executive order sought to compel officials to require documentary proof of citizenship for everyone registering to vote for federal elections, accept only mailed ballots received by Election Day and condition federal election grant funding on states adhering to the new ballot deadline.
The group of attorneys general said the directive “usurps the States’ constitutional power and seeks to amend election law by fiat.” The White House has defended the order as “standing up for free, fair and honest elections” and called proof of citizenship a “commonsense” requirement.


Iran hacking group claims attack on US medical company

Updated 6 sec ago
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Iran hacking group claims attack on US medical company

  • It issued an open warning to what it described as “Zionist leaders and their lobbies,” adding: “This is only the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare.”

WASHINGTON: An Iran-linked hacking group claimed responsibility on Wednesday for a sweeping cyberattack on US medical technology giant Stryker, saying it had wiped more than 200,000 systems and extracted 50 terabytes of data in retaliation for military strikes on Iran.

“Our major cyber operation has been executed with complete success,” Handala said in a statement, describing the attack as retaliation for what it called “the brutal attack on the Minab school” and for “ongoing cyber assaults against the infrastructure of the Axis of Resistance.”

The group said it had shut down Stryker offices in 79 countries and that all extracted data was “now in the hands of the free people of the world.”

It issued an open warning to what it described as “Zionist leaders and their lobbies,” adding: “This is only the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare.”

Founded in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Stryker is a global medical device giant with some 56,000 employees and $25.12 billion in 2025 revenues, making everything from orthopedic implants and surgical instruments to hospital beds and robotic surgery systems.

The Handala group later posted that it had also carried out an attack on Verifone, which specializes in electronic and point-of-sale payments.

The outages began shortly after 0400 GMT on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Windows devices — including laptops and mobile phones connected to Stryker’s networks — were remotely wiped.