(WASHINGTON) — executive order changing the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” “effective immediately” amid the ongoing trade war between the United States and Canada.

“The lake change — ‘Lake of America’ — was something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” said Trump, who was flanked by two large boards that depicted the label “Lake America.”

The president can unilaterally change a geographic name for official U.S. federal government use, like his action via executive order in January of 2025 renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” However, he can’t dictate what other countries or international bodies call it.

In social media posts over the past few days, Trump has repeatedly suggested he would change the name of the lake on the U.S.-Canada border.

The lake’s name change comes amid the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and Canada. Negotiations between the countries broke down over the weekend and a fresh round of 50% U.S. tariffs on some Canadian goods took effect on Saturday, leading Canada to retaliate with a set of its own levies.

“The Canadian officials have treated us very badly. They’re nasty people,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Thursday. “People oftentimes they’ll ask me who’s the worst to deal with on trade, and I said that’s easy, Canada. They are the worst to trade, and they feel entitled, and just we can’t have that.”

When asked by a reporter about what his message is with the name change, the president said he has “no message,” but did criticize Canada. 

“No message, as you know, Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade, very sadly,” Trump said.

Asked why he is focused on doing things like this to America’s allies rather than focusing on other issues, Trump cited his belief that Canada has treated the U.S. “very badly” with regards to trade for many years — an argument he has used as justification for the sweeping tariffs he has imposed upon America’s northern neighbor.

In a statement to ABC News, Ontario premier Doug Ford said of the move, “He can change it to whatever he wants. But it will always be Lake Ontario to all Canadians and the rest of the world!”

Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, agreed with Ford that it will always be known as Lake Ontario and said “Canada is not our enemy.”

“It is our neighbor, our ally, and one of Michigan’s most important economic partners. It is a friendship that no stroke of a pen can erase,” she said in a statement.

Trump suggested other name changes could be ahead.

“If you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean,” Trump said. “So maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them both.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department and FBI said a Chinese government-backed hacking group has for years engaged in targeted attacks against hundreds of entities in the United States including NASA, National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Justice Department, the Department of Energy, the U.S. Senate and the Federal Reserve. 

According to a DOJ statement and an affidavit unsealed Wednesday in federal court in California, a group known as “QTFY” — which includes former members of China’s military — has used its infrastructure to compromise critical infrastructure since 2018 in networks spanning from government agencies, hospitals, telecommunications providers, power companies and defense contractors. 

As part of their efforts to expose and disrupt the group, prosecutors successfully seized three internet domains affiliated with the Chinese company, Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company, and multiple advisories have been issued to companies and other federal agencies so that potential victims of the group can better protect themselves from future attack.

In the seizure warrant, prosecutors say that in September 2024, QTFY hackers “conducted computer intrusions” at three Energy Department laboratories, NIH, an HHS agency as well as an unnamed U.S. security device manufacturer. The group is further alleged to have attempted a hack against NASA in 2019, though court documents do not suggest that the effort was successful.

The court documents do not state clearly the scale of the attacks against several of the other government agencies identified as victims or the group’s level of success in infiltrating specific networks.

“Today’s announcement demonstrates the Justice Department’s steadfast commitment to going on the offensive against cyber threats to the national security,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg in a statement announcing the seizures. “These court-authorized seizures deny PRC-linked hackers access to tools they use to mount online attacks against our Nation’s critical infrastructure.”

The FBI and National Security Agency released an advisory with indicators of QTFY activity. Also, Lumen Technologies’ threat intelligence group, Black Lotus Labs, published a description of QTFY’s tactics, techniques and procedures to help thwart future hacks.

While the U.S. says it has exposed and disrupted this major Chinese cyber-espionage campaign, China’s cyber operations against the United States remain “relentless,” said Javed Ali, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

“China has been using cyber operations against the United States for probably 20 years through a relentless campaign of operations that have involved multiple targets, multiple attack methods, and nothing the U.S. has done to date seems to be deterring this activity because it is it has existed for so long and this goes over multiple administrations here in the United States,” Ali told ABC News.

Whether China is attempting to hack into telecommunications companies, attempting to breach water systems or waging a broader campaign of trade secret theft, China’s actions reveal a clear pattern, Ali said.

“[China] just uses different tools against different targets here in the United States, and they do not appear to be deterred, even when there are disruptions or people get indicted,” Ali, now an associate professor at the University of Michigan Ford School of Public Policy, said. “None of this is stopping China’s strategic efforts of targeting the U.S. with these cyber operations.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge who blocked the most controversial aspect of President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at restricting mail-in ballots — namely, employing the Postal Service as the primary enforcer of mail-voter eligibility — has now lifted that decision following the Supreme Court’s ruling Monday that legal challenges are premature.

The move means there are no longer legal holds on any aspect of Trump’s March 2026 mail-in ballot executive order and that the administration is free to move forward, for now, with its implementation without caveats.

Trump’s executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security to build a federal citizenship list and give it to the states; the Department of Justice to target state officials who give ballots to noncitizens; and the USPS to direct states to abide by certain mail-ballot design and tracking requirements.

Most critically, the order would require states to provide a list of registered eligible voters to USPS for verification and mandate that postal workers only deliver ballots to persons on the list.  

Dozens of Democratic state attorney’s general sued the Trump administration over the USPS directive in April, arguing it is unconstitutional since states — not the federal government — have primary authority for administering elections. 

A separate lawsuit by voting rights advocates challenged the proposed USPS ballot verification scheme.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the states lacked standing to challenge Trump’s order at this stage since nothing had formally impacted how they will administer elections.  

The conservative majority made clear, however, that the decision “does not mean that any measure taken by the government to implement the order will necessarily be lawful. On that score, time will tell.”

The Postal Service this week published its finalized plan with respect to the November election, focusing largely on state ballot design and barcode tracking requirements. Notably, it leaves out or waters down the most controversial aspects envisioned by Trump’s order.

At this time, states are not being asked to provide detailed voter eligibility lists to USPS that include personal identifiable information, including citizenship. The USPS also says outright it “will not play any role in determining voter eligibility, maintaining voter rolls, or counting ballots.”

The Postal Service, however, will soon proceed with directing states to ensure their mail ballots comport with certain design standards — including a barcode — and to provide voter address information to verify delivery. 

Twenty-five states filed a new legal challenge against the Postal Service on Wednesday, alleging it is illegal. 

“It displaces state laws adopted pursuant to each State’s constitutional authority to administer elections, erects new USPS functions and ballot mail constraints that are inconsistent with USPS’s governing statutes, flouts USPS’s procedural requirements, violates the Privacy Act, and cannot be reconciled with federal voting rights law,” they wrote in a lawsuit filed in a Massachusetts District Court. 

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump maintained his firm stance amid the ongoing U.S.-Canada trade war on Wednesday, repeating his claims that Canada is one of “the worst countries” in the world to deal with and that they have taken “advantage” of the U.S. during a radio interview with conservative host Glenn Beck.

“Look, I don’t know how you feel about Canada. They are one of the worst countries in the world to deal with,” Trump said, remarking on negotiating with the Canadians.

Negotiations between Canada and the U.S. broke down over the weekend and a fresh round of 50% U.S. tariffs on some Canadian goods took effect on Saturday, leading Canada to retaliate with a set of its own levies.

“They take advantage of us as though they were a state, and they’re not a state,” Trump added.

The president then mentioned the “good deal” with Canada last week, which fell apart just before the deadline.

“I had a deal that was a pretty good deal, you know, quite good, because they’re afraid that I won’t do any business. In other words, we won’t trade. They don’t have anything that we have to have. OK, we can get by,” Trump said. “I mean, there are a couple of things that would make it a little inconvenient, but we can get them elsewhere. And it’s time to teach Canada you can’t do this anymore.”

On Tuesday, Trump said in a call with CNN that Canada’s claim that the U.S. added more conditions to their agreement in the final hours of negotiations “sounds like” him, seeming to confirm the Canadian position. He later added, according to CNN, that he doesn’t “deny anything” when pressed on whether he denies the Canadians’ claims.

Those comments from Trump contradict what some in his own administration, including Vice President JD Vance, have said about the collapse of the talks. Vance has insisted that it was Canada who was at fault for the talks falling apart, pinning the blame on Canada during a campaign stop in Maine earlier this week, saying they were making “unreasonable last-minute demands.”

During his radio interview on Wednesday, the president also brought up his call this week to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America.” He added that maybe he “wasn’t” joking about it, pointing to the fact that he renamed the Gulf of Mexico as “Gulf of America” last year.

“You saw the Lake Ontario — you know, people thought I was kidding. Maybe I wasn’t because the last one you saw was the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of America,” Trump said.

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