#legal-challenges

#legal-challenges

The Supreme Court's ruling against his signature tariff policy just days before the speech underscored just how quickly Trump's most brazen and signature actions could disintegrate amid a mountain of legal challenges.

By MATTHEW DALY WASHINGTON (AP) - The Trump administration on Thursday revoked a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the most aggressive move by the president to roll back climate regulations. The rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency rescinds a 2009 government declaration, issued by the Obama administration, known as the endangerment finding that determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.

What the hospital did: Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego announced last month that it would be closing its Center for Gender-Affirming Care and would no longer provide gender-affirming care to people under the age of 19. This came after the presidential administration pledged to end grants and cut Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements to hospitals that provide trans health care.

Up to 1,500 active-duty troops in Alaska are on standby for possible deployment to Minnesota, a U.S. official informed NPR. This comes as the Trump administration has escalated pressure on the state, including threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act to suppress protests happening in Minneapolis. Anti-ICE protesters continued to take to the streets over the weekend, even as temperatures plummeted.

"When she was in junior high and participating on the other gender sports team in cross-country and track and starting to understand who she was, she wasn't fully there," Norcross recalled. "Her saying, 'I'm participating on the girls team,' and the joy and acceptance that was there was amazing."

MTA et al v. Duffy et al The big enchilada, the main event, the linchpin in this whole damn thing. When U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to New York demanding that it cease tolling drivers headed into lower Manhattan, Gov. Hochul declared, "The cameras are staying on," and the MTA sued in federal court [ PDF]. In this case, as in many others, the federal government has been playing the role of Keystone Kops, stepping on one rake after another.

A second jazz band has pulled out of performing at the controversially renamed Trump-Kennedy center in Washington DC, giving just two days notice before their New Year's Eve gig was set to take place. The Cookers, described as a Grammy-nominated, all-star septet of legendary post-bop jazz musicians, have not given an explicit reason for their decision but in a statement posted on their website said: Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unveiled a series of proposals Thursday that would increase restrictions on care for transgender Americans, including puberty blockers, surgeries, and hormone therapy. Beyond these regulations, HHS said it would cut off federal Medicaid funding to hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to transgender children aged 18 and under. In a statement Thursday, Campbell harshly criticized the proposed rules, which would also exclude people with gender identity disorders from certain discrimination protections surrounding HHS-funded programs.

Moscow shows no sign of wanting peace. It actively threatens other countries too, including Britain. Ukraine is running out of money. Yet 184bn worth of Russian assets remain frozen in Europe, notably in Belgium. That money should therefore be mobilised to fund Ukraine. To many, this would be the enactment of a clear and present duty, proof positive that Europe can still be a heavy hitter.

The first year of the second Trump administration has already seen new heights in unlawful efforts to cut off access to information (and to punish newsrooms for doing their job). From unconstitutionally booting the Associated Press from the Oval Office because of its editorial stance, to creating unlawful press access policies at the Pentagon, the administration is desperately seeking to choke coverage it doesn't like. The currents shaping these efforts are only likely to intensify in 2026.

Florida's governor has designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a foreign terrorist organisation. Ron DeSantis posted his executive order to list the United States-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy group on social media on Monday. The move follows a similar declaration by the Republican governor of Texas last month. CAIR has rejected the labelling by both states and mounted legal challenges.

the White House released the text of a sprawling executive order allegedly designed to ensure the integrity of U.S. elections. It demanded that states share their voter rolls with federal officials; mandated onerous proof-of-citizenship rules for people registering to vote (rules which didn't include drivers' licenses as valid forms of ID for this purpose); threatened local and state officials who didn't cooperate with this power grab with legal sanctions; and ostensibly outlawed the counting of any mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

It will probably come as no surprise: Consumers have paid up to 55 percent of the tariffs imposed by Trump, according to a Goldman Sachs report released in mid-October. And that number could go higher still: The New York Times reported that even some companies that initially absorbed costs instead of passing them on to consumers are now looking for ways to boost profits that tariffs ate into.

Control seems like it will come down to two districts in Maricopa County, Arizona. ICE agents and National Guardsmen have been deployed there since that summer, ostensibly in response to criminal immigrants, though crime has been dropping for several years. The county is almost one-third Hispanic or Latino. Voting-rights advocates say the armed presence has depressed turnout, but nonetheless, the races are close.

I'd be allowed to do whatever I want. The courts wouldn't get involved,

As the federal government shutdown drags on, the Trump administration has doubled down on a tactic of dubious legality that it has been pursuing since January: cancelling federal funding for already congressionally approved projects in blue cities and states. Back in the summer, the administration pulled $4 billion from the California high speed rail project. It followed up a month later by withdrawing another $175 million from the project.

To understand the threat to democracy, and how it might be stopped, I spoke with experts on election administration, constitutional law, and law enforcement. Many of them are people I have known to be cautious, sober, and not prone to hyperbole. Yet they used words like nightmare and warned that Americans need to be ready for really wild stuff. They described a system under attack and reaching a breaking point.