President Trump has never been quiet about his plans to reverse some of the stepped-up civil rights enforcement of his predecessor, Barack Obama, and he's doing that in big ways and small, by proposing to cut some civil rights divisions entirely, cutting funding and staff levels, and putting critics in charge of agencies, among other actions. On Tuesday, The Washington Post focused on a few of the moves, including a proposal in the Labor Department's fiscal 2018 budget to eliminate the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and fold it into the separate Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

The compliance program conducts audits for discriminatory practices among federal contractors, and has done so for decades. As the Post's Juliet Eilperin explains in the video below, that affects about a quarter of the U.S. workforce, and the cut is not yet a done deal:

At the Environmental Protection Agency, new leaders have recommended scrapping the environmental justice program, which helps mitigate oil spills, hazardous leaks, and other environmental threats concentrated in minority areas. The Education Department's Office of Civil Rights faces steep budget and staffing cuts, hampering investigations of discrimination in school districts, and its new director, Candice E. Jackson, wrote a book arguing that attempts to promote diverse student bodies disregard "the very real prices paid by individual people who end up injured by affirmative action."

Trump has similarly suggested he wants to put the Justice Department's civil rights division under the leadership of conservative lawyer Eric Dreiband, who has represented several companies in discrimination lawsuits. The Trump Justice Department has already moved to dismantle challenges to a Texas voter ID law and, with the Education Department, rolled back Obama-era guidance about transgender students and bathrooms.

Trump administration officials insist that they believe in civil rights. "The Trump administration has an unwavering commitment to the civil rights of all Americans," White House spokeswoman Kelly Love told The Washington Post. Vanita Gupta, who led the DOJ's civil rights division until January, disagrees. "They can call it a course correction, but there's little question that it's a rollback of civil rights across the board," she said. You can read more at The Washington Post. Peter Weber

In an off-camera briefing at the White House on Monday, Press Secretary Sean Spicer apparently claimed that President Trump believes other countries, in addition to Russia, might have been involved in hacking the 2016 election:

Trump has long disputed the evidence that the Kremlin was involved in trying to swing the election, claiming during the campaign that "it could be Russia, but it could also be China, it could also be lots of other people. It could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?"

In a weekend interview with Hugh Hewitt, CIA Director Mike Pompeo also dismissed alarming evidence about Russia's involvement in the election. Pompeo said the news that "this election was meddled with by the Russians ... is frankly not particularly original. They've been doing this for an awfully long time. And we are decades into the Russians trying to undermine American democracy. So in some ways, there's no news."

But Politico's Eric Geller called Spicer's statement Monday a "pretty serious allegation." "The White House should explain itself," he said. Jeva Lange

Nintendo announced Monday that it will release a miniature version of its Super Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition this fall. The system, first launched in 1991, will come with two controllers and 21 games, including classics like Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World, and F-ZERO, along with a previously unreleased sequel to Star Fox, Star Fox 2.

This release comes on the heels of last year's mini NES Classic Edition, which was so popular that Nintendo struggled to meet demand. The limited edition gaming system was discontinued before many buyers got their hands on it.

The SNES Classic, which Engadget reports is small enough to fit "in the palm of your hand," will be available Sept. 29 for $79.99. Becca Stanek

If you only have a passing interest in football, you might be forgiven for thinking the Washington Redskins play in Washington state. But if you are the NFL itself, you should probably know better.

Which makes this vanity plate, briefly for sale in the NFL's official online store, absolutely hilarious:

As The Washington Post's Dan Steinberg so calmly puts it: "HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A PLACE CALLED WASHINGTON, D.C.? TURNS OUT IT IS THE CAPITAL OF THIS COUNTRY WEIRD RIGHT? AND IT ISN'T ACTUALLY IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. THERE'S A DIFFERENT TEAM THAT PLAYS IN THAT STATE, AND REDSKINS FANS HATE THAT TEAM. ALSO GO TO GEOGRAPHY CLASS OR WHATEVER."

The Redskins, for whatever it's even worth at this point, play in Maryland. Jeva Lange

On Monday, the American Medical Association slammed the Senate's health-care bill in a scathing letter to Senate leadership. The largest physicians group in the nation declared that it could not support the Better Care Reconciliation Act introduced last week because it "violates" the medical standard of "first, do no harm" on "many levels."

Based on the "combination of smaller subsidies resulting from lower benchmarks and the increased likelihood of waivers of important protections such as required benefits, actuarial value standards, and out of pocket spending limits," the AMA predicted that "low- and middle-income patients" will face "higher costs and greater difficulty in affording care." In particular, the AMA cited concerns about the plan's proposed changes to Medicaid via a formula it declared was "arbitrary and unsustainable" and "extremely difficult and costly to fix."

"We sincerely hope that the Senate will take this opportunity to change the course of the current debate and work to fix problems with the current system," the AMA wrote. "We believe that Congress should be working to increase the number of Americans with access to quality, affordable health insurance instead of pursuing policies that have the opposite effect."

Read the AMA's full letter to Senate leaders below. Becca Stanek

A million suns isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion suns. Physicists from the University of Nebraska's aptly-named Extreme Light Laboratory have just made the brightest light ever produced on Earth, and it is one billion times brighter than the surface of the sun, Phys.org reports.

The super bright laser beam is helping researchers understand how light and matter interact. When light from a regular bulb or the sun strikes a surface, it "scatters," which is what allows us to see. In everyday circumstances, an electron scatters just a couple photons of light at a time, but with the University of Nebraska's laser, almost 1,000 photons scatter at once.

"It's as if things appear differently as you turn up the brightness of the light, which is not something you normally would experience," said the University of Nebraska's Donald Umstadter. "[An object] normally becomes brighter, but otherwise, it looks just like it did with a lower light level. But here, the light is changing [the object's] appearance. The light's coming off at different angles, with different colors, depending on how bright it is."

In one example, the scientists were able to create a high-resolution X-ray of a USB drive, photographing interior details that aren't able to be seen with regular X-rays. Understanding the phenomenon could help scientists find more sophisticated ways to "hunt for tumors or microfractures that elude conventional X-rays, map the molecular landscapes of nanoscopic materials now finding their way into semiconductor technology, or detect increasingly sophisticated threats at security checkpoints," Phys.org writes. "Atomic and molecular physicists could also employ the X-ray as a form of ultrafast camera to capture snapshots of electron motion or chemical reactions."

Read more about the Extreme Light Laboratory and its findings at Phys.org. Jeva Lange

In a statement Monday, President Trump declared the Supreme Court's decision regarding his travel ban a "clear victory for our national security." The Supreme Court on Monday announced that it would review Trump's executive order temporarily banning travel from six majority-Muslim nations in October; in the meantime, it will allow the government to partly implement its ban, though only against people without a "bona fide" connection to the U.S.

Trump claimed in his statement that the court's decision allows his ban to become "largely effective." "Today's ruling allows me to use an important tool for protecting our nation's homeland," Trump said in the statement, noting he only wants people "who can love the United States and all of its citizens, and who will be hardworking and productive."

BuzzFeed News legal editor Chris Geidner reported that it "remains to be seen how big a change this is, given many have connections" to the U.S.

Twice in the statement, Trump lauded the fact that the Supreme Court unanimously agreed to review his ban and to partially reinstate it. However, the decision was actually made per curiam, meaning it was issued in the name of the court rather than by a unanimous consensus from the justices. Becca Stanek

President Trump's super PAC, America First Policies, is singling out a Republican lawmaker for opposing Senate Republicans' plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare. In a Monday morning tweet, the nonprofit, which was started by Trump advisers to back Trump's policies, urged people to pressure Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) to reverse his opposition to the Senate health-care bill. Heller on Friday became the fifth Republican senator to come out against the health-care proposal, declaring "there isn't anything in this bill that would lower premiums."

America First Policies declared Heller should be held "accountable [for] turning on voters" by opposing the proposed ObamaCare replacement plan. Both Heller and one of his staffers were called out by name in the tweet:

This tweet isn't the first time America First Policies has called Heller out by name either: On Friday, the super PAC questioned in a tweet why Heller would "lie to voters" about repealing and replacing ObamaCare. The group claimed Heller is "now with" House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Becca Stanek