#legal-challenges

#legal-challenges

FinCEN clearly has the authority to regulate persons involved in real estate transactions, requiring them to establish a BSA compliance program and file suspicious activity reports.

This year hasn't been quiet. The headlines have been loud. The pressure constant. The noise relentless. And through all of it, you've remained exactly the man I met ten years ago - and the man I married two years ago: steady, grounded in your convictions, unshakeable when it matters most.

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."

On Wednesday, a federal agent shot and killed 37-year-old Minneapolis resident and US citizen Renee Nicole Good in her car during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation. Having already deployed 2,000 agents to Minnesota, DHS reportedly planned this week to send 1,000 more. "There are now more ICE agents in Minnesota than there are combined in Minneapolis police force and St. Paul police force," Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar said on Friday. "So they are outnumbering our own local police officers out on the streets."

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.