* Reuters…

A coalition of mostly Democratic-led states asked a federal judge on Thursday to block the Department of Homeland Security from withholding certain disaster-related funds until states adopt ‌election administration practices favored by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration. […]

DHS announced on July 10 that it would withhold 20% of Federal Emergency Management Agency grant awards meant to help states prepare for potential terrorist attacks and other threats until those states submit plans to use equipment that accepts hand-marked paper ⁠ballots rather than electronic voting systems that use bar codes and QR codes to count votes.

The restrictions involve more than $1 billion in grant money.

DHS said states also would have to manually audit at least 5% of ballots cast, reconcile the number of voters who participated in each federal election with the number of votes cast and compare their voter rolls to a DHS database to make sure no non-U.S. citizens were improperly registered to vote. […]

In their lawsuit, the states — led by Rhode Island, California, Illinois and New Jersey — said the administration’s plans to condition the funds on election changes exceeded the federal government’s authority. The U.S. Constitution assigns states the role of administering federal elections.

Illinois receives more than $40 million annually through the Homeland Security Grant Program, according to Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office.

* Banking Dive…

Twenty state attorneys general want regulators to put the kibosh on two deals in which high-cost nonbank lenders seek to buy banks, deals the attorneys general say incentivize predatory lending and leave consumers vulnerable to harm.

In a letter to the heads of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Federal Reserve, attorneys general led by Kwame Raoul of Illinois called attention to high-cost lender Opportunity Financial’s $130 million purchase of an Arizona bank and high-cost lender Enova’s $369 million purchase of Grasshopper Bank.

State attorneys general have historically detected dangers to the financial system before the harm came to fruition, including subprime mortgages before the 2008 financial crisis, they noted.

“Now, we sound the alarm again,” they wrote.

* Press release…

Attorney General Kwame Raoul today, as part of a coalition of 19 attorneys general, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), challenging its rule that would weaken regulations designed to phase out the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in commercial equipment.

HFCs are chemicals used for refrigeration and cooling that are potent drivers of climate change, trapping up to 10,000 times more heat in the atmosphere than the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. HFCs are among the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions both in the United States and around the world. The EPA’s new rule rolls back existing deadlines for industry to move from using HFCs to new types of refrigerants with a much smaller warming effect. The change undermines the EPA’s preexisting regulations under the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 (AIM Act), which were designed to phase out HFCs by approximately 85% by 2036. […]

If allowed to move forward, the rule will increase HFC emissions, accelerating the damage already threatening our planet from climate change. For example, climate change makes floods in Illinois more intense and more frequent, such as severe flooding in August 2025 that damaged over 5,500 homes in the Chicagoland area.

By undermining the parallel reduction in HFC supply and demand, the rule also threatens to cause shortages and price spikes in the HFC market that could be passed on to consumers.

* Press release…

Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced investigators, analysts and prosecutors in his office’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) were recognized on Friday by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for their work during Operation Fentanyl Free America. As part of the operation, the Attorney General’s office charged a Cook County physician and his pharmacist who received over $1 million in fraudulent Medicaid and Medicare payments for care and prescriptions they did not render to Medicaid and Medicare patients.

Special Agent in Charge of the DEA’s Chicago field office Todd C. Smith recognized investigators Cathy Barbour, Tara Campbell, Anthony Pekar and Mike Suspenzi; analysts Angela Hospelhorn, Kendall Maida and Stephanie Negrin; and prosecutors Dan Duffy and Steve Krueger for their work on a case against Mohammed Khamis and Amro Abdel-Fattah. In November 2025, Raoul’s office charged Khamis, 56, of River Forest, with six counts of theft, one count of money laundering, one count of managed health care fraud, one count of vendor fraud and two counts of forgery. Raoul’s office filed additional conspiracy charges in June 2026.

Also in June, Raoul’s office charged Abdel-Fattah, 45, of Lombard, with theft over $1 million, conspiracy, defrauding a health plan over $10,000 and forgery. Both cases are pending.

* More…

* Press release | AG Raoul challenges Trump administration’s proposal to cut Medicaid payments to healthcare providers: Attorney General Kwame Raoul today joined a coalition of 14 attorneys general in opposing a proposed rule by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that would severely limit an important tool used by state Medicaid programs to increase access to care. State-directed payments and supplemental payments under fee-for-service Medicaid – referred to in the letter as Healthcare Affordability Payments – help states support hospitals and other healthcare providers, including those serving rural, urban and underserved communities where Medicaid payments often fall short of the cost of providing care. The proposed rule, intended to implement the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would sharply restrict these payments beyond what Congress authorized and fails to consider the devastating harms to patients and providers that will flow from further Medicaid cuts.

* Press release | AG Raoul calls on congress to extend Haitian TPS: In a letter to congressional leaders, Attorney General Raoul and the coalition called on Congress to pass H.R. 1689/S.4814, which would extend TPS protections for Haiti. The coalition also asked Congress to pass legislation that would provide judicial oversight of TPS decisions and establish a pathway to permanent residency for TPS holders. The coalition’s letter comes in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Mullin v. Doe, which upheld the termination of TPS for Haitians and Syrians while laying the groundwork for the revocation of TPS protections for other countries without any form of judicial oversight or review.

* Press release | AG Raoul opposes EPA’s rollback of PFAS limits in drinking water: Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 17 attorneys general, today filed comments opposing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed rollback on drinking water regulations for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of widely used toxic chemicals that do not naturally break down in the environment, more commonly known as PFAS or “forever chemicals.” The rollback means public drinking water systems will not be required by federal law to test for PFAS, report on their presence in public drinking water or treat drinking water to remove these chemicals so people do not consume them.