order

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order lifting US sanctions on Syria and requesting a review of terrorism designations related to the nation. Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna looks at how the decision aims to facilitate rebuilding post-war Syria.

July 1 (UPI) — The Justice Department is appealing a federal judge’s order striking down a President Donald Trump executive order targeting the law firm of former political opponent Hillary Clinton.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has used his executive orders to attack more than a half-dozen premier law firms, suspending their security clearances, revoking federal contracts and even restricting their access to federal buildings for being associated or linked to people and supporting interests that do not align with the president or his policies.

Several law firms made deals, including preemptive agreements, worth a combined nearly $1 billion in pro bono commitments, while others, including Perkins Coie, have fought back. Critics have accused Trump of using his presidential authority to attack his perceived political opponents and as part of a larger attack on the U.S. justice system.

In March, Trump terminated government contracts and revoked security clearances for Perkins Coie via an executive order that cited the firm’s work for Clinton during the 2016 presidential election — when she ran against him and lost — as the reason for the punitive measure.

In early May, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell struck down the executive order, which she said was unlike any that an American president had issued before.

“Using the powers of the federal government to target lawyers for their representation of clients and avowed progressive employment policies in an overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints, however, is contrary to the Constitution,” she said.

Other, similar rulings have followed, giving victories to Jenner & Block, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey, for a total of four executive orders naming specific law firms being turned aside.

The appeal filed Monday by the Justice Department suggests it will continue to fight for Trump’s executive orders.

“We look forward to presenting our case to the D.C. Circuit and remain committed to ensuring that the unconstitutional Executive Order targeting our firm is never enforced,” Perkins Coie said in a statement.

“In the meantime, we will continue to practice law, as we have for over a century, and remain guided by the same commitments that first compelled us to bring this challenge: to protect our firm, safeguard the interests of our clients and uphold the rule of law.”

Beijing’s remarks come after Ottawa announced it would cease all Canadian operations of the company.

Canada’s request for Chinese surveillance equipment firm Hikvision to close local operations will “damage” bilateral trade, complicating recent efforts to improve ties between the countries, China’s Ministry of Commerce has said.

Beijing’s remarks came on Monday after Canadian Industry Minister Melanie Joly announced last week on the social media platform X that Hikvision Canada Inc had been ordered to cease all operations due to concerns their continuation would be “injurious” to the country’s security.

Her statement on Friday did not provide details on the alleged threat posed by Hikvision products, but said departments and agencies would be prohibited from using them, and that the government is “conducting a review of existing properties to ensure that legacy Hikvision products are not used going forward”.

China’s Commerce Ministry responded by accusing Ottawa of “over-generalising national security”, stating: “China is strongly dissatisfied.”

“This not only undermines the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and affects the confidence of companies from both countries in cooperation, but also disrupts and damages the normal economic and trade cooperation between China and Canada,” the statement read.

“China urges Canada to immediately correct its wrong practices,” it added.

Hangzhou-based Hikvision is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of security cameras and other surveillance products, but it has faced scrutiny abroad for its role in Beijing’s alleged rights abuses against the Muslim minority Uighur population.

The United States included Hikvision in a 2019 blacklist of Chinese entities it said were implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang.

The latest disagreement represents an early test for China-Canada relations after Prime Minister Mark Carney surged to electoral victory in April.

China said in response to the election result that Beijing was willing to improve ties with Ottawa, a relationship rocked in recent years by a range of thorny issues.

The arrest of a senior Chinese telecom executive on a US warrant in Vancouver in December 2018 and Beijing’s retaliatory detention of two Canadians on espionage charges plunged relations into a deep freeze.

Ties were further strained over allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections in 2019 and 2021, charges Beijing has denied.

Joly had said the decision to ban Hikvision had been reached following a “multi-step review” of information provided by the Canadian security and intelligence community.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court Monday again made it harder for Death Row inmates and other criminals to challenge their convictions in a federal court by claiming their constitutional rights were violated by state courts.

The pair of 6-3 rulings, including one in a California case, could speed the pace of executions around the nation. Many inmates have kept their legal cases–and themselves–alive by contesting their convictions in prolonged battles in federal courts.

In one decision, the justices reinstated a death sentence against a Sonoma County man who in 1975 shot and killed his wife. The second ruling involved a Virginia case.

Together, the rulings send a now-familiar message: Convicted criminals should not routinely get a second chance to contest their cases in a federal court.

About 95% of criminal cases nationwide are handled in the state courts. During the 1960s and ‘70s, however, the Supreme Court encouraged federal judges to closely review state cases to make sure that a defendant’s rights under the U.S. Constitution were protected. Inmates took advantage of this protection by filing a petition of habeas corpus to transfer their cases from a state to a federal court.

But under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the high court has stressed the opposite. Federal judges should not casually meddle in state court matters, the conservative majority has said.

The California case concerned whether an inmate should get a second chance to contend that he was unfairly induced to incriminate himself.

The defendant in the case, Owen Duane Nunnemaker, was sentenced to death for the 1975 slaying of his estranged wife, Alice. Nunnemaker went to her home in Sebastopol, Calif., shot her at close range and cut a phone cord to prevent her children from calling for help. She died of her wounds.

He later claimed he loved her, but was temporarily deranged. Prosecutors, however, sent a police psychiatrist to interview Nunnemaker, who found him calm and rational. During the trial, the psychiatrist gave damaging testimony against the defendant, who was convicted and sentenced to death.

In his appeal in state courts, Nunnemaker said his Miranda rights were violated because the psychiatrist never warned him his statements could be used against him. The California appellate courts ruled that it was too late for Nunnemaker to raise this Miranda issue. His lawyer should have objected during the trial, the judges said.

Without giving a reason, the California Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal.

But he fared better in the federal courts. Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit of Court Appeals ruled that Nunnemaker was entitled to a hearing before a federal judge to see whether his constitutional rights had been violated.

The Supreme Court said the 9th Circuit erred in the case, Ylst vs. Nunnemaker, 90-68. The majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, said the federal appeals court should have presumed that the California courts declined to hear Nunnemaker’s appeal for procedural reasons, and the federal courts have no power to second-guess those procedural rules.

In their dissent from the ruling, Justices Harry A. Blackmun, Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens said, “The Court today continues its crusade to erect petty procedural barriers” to raising constitutional claims in the federal courts.

Monday’s other death penalty case ruling was written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, herself a former state judge. She rejected the claim of a Virginia Death Row inmate that his initial appeal of his conviction still should be considered by that state’s court system, even though his lawyer was three days late in filing it.

The case “concerns the respect the federal courts owe the states,” O’Connor said. Because the state rules forbid the consideration of a late appeal, the federal courts must do the same, she said in Coleman vs. Thompson, 89-7662.

Law enforcement spokesmen praised the rulings for upholding valid criminal convictions. The decisions mean that an old legal challenge “cannot be resuscitated by some sympathetic federal judge,” said Charles Hobson of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento. But Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), whose House subcommittee is considering the federal habeas corpus laws, lambasted the court. The decisions “force innocent prisoners to pay the ultimate price for the errors of their lawyers in a state court,” Edwards said.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday put off ruling on a second Black majority congressional district in Louisiana, instead ordering new arguments in the fall.

The case is being closely watched because at arguments in March several of the court’s conservative justices suggested they could vote to throw out the map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act.

The case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing political boundaries in front of a conservative-led court that has been skeptical of considerations of race in public life.

Justice Clarence Thomas noted in a brief dissent from Friday’s order that he would have decided the case now and imposed limits on “race-based redistricting.”

The order keeps alive a fight over political power stemming from the 2020 census halfway to the next one. Two maps were blocked by lower courts, and the Supreme Court intervened twice. Last year, the justices ordered the new map to be used in the 2024 elections, while the legal case proceeded.

The call for new arguments probably means that the district currently represented by Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields probably will remain intact for the 2026 elections because the high court has separately been reluctant to upend districts as elections draw near.

The state has changed its election process to replace its so-called jungle primary with partisan primary elections in the spring, followed by a November showdown between the party nominees.

The change means candidates can start gathering signatures in September to get on the primary ballot for 2026.

The state’s Republican-dominated legislature drew a new congressional map in 2022 to account for population shifts reflected in the 2020 census. But the changes effectively maintained the status quo of five Republican-leaning majority white districts and one Democratic-leaning majority Black district in a state in which Black people make up a third of the population.

Civil rights advocates won a lower-court ruling that the districts likely discriminated against Black voters.

The Supreme Court put the ruling on hold while it took a similar case from Alabama. The justices allowed both states to use congressional maps in the 2022 elections even though both had been ruled likely discriminatory by federal judges.

The high court eventually affirmed the ruling from Alabama, which led to a new map and a second district that could elect a Black lawmaker. The justices returned the Louisiana case to federal court, with the expectation that new maps would be in place for the 2024 elections.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave lawmakers in Louisiana a deadline of early 2024 to draw a new map or face the possibility of a court-imposed map.

The state complied and drew a new map, with two Black majority districts.

But white Louisiana voters claimed in their separate lawsuit challenging the new districts that race was the predominant factor driving the new map. A three-judge court agreed.

Louisiana appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has limited the power of federal district judges to hand down orders that apply nationwide.

By 6-3 vote, the justices said Friday that judges may not issue orders that apply to people beyond those who sued.

“Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch,” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett. And while judges can give full relief to plaintiffs, including groups of people, their injunctions should not be “broader than necessary” to shield those people.

The court’s three liberals dissented.

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Trump administration is trying to defend a blatantly unconstitutional order repealing birthright citizenship.

“The gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the Government makes no attempt to hide it. Yet, shamefully, this Court plays along,” she said.

The procedural ruling is a victory for President Trump and a setback for advocates who seek to block his executive orders.

It prevents a single district judge in Boston or San Francisco from blocking Trump’s policies from taking effect nationwide.

However, it does not decide on the constitutionality of Trump’s plan to limit birthright citizenship.

Three federal district judges—in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington—issued nationwide orders declaring Trump’s plan unconstitutional.

The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, says “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order disagreeing with the traditional understanding and asserting the Constitution does not “extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.”

He said it would be U.S. policy to not recognize citizenship for newborns if the child’s mother or father was “not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”

But in quick succession, judges declared Trump’s order may not be enforced across the nation. They said his proposed restrictions violated the federal law and Supreme Court precedent as well as the plain words of the 14th Amendment.

Rather than challenge those rulings directly, Trump’s lawyers sent an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court with “a modest request.”

Rather than rule on birthright citizenship, they urged the justices to rein in the practice of district judges handing down nationwide orders.

They have “reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current administration,” they said.

The nation’s federal judges — including appointees of presidents of both parties, Donald Trump’s among them — have been the bulwark against Trump’s reign of lawlessness on deportations, spending, federal appointments and more. Repeatedly, lower courts have been standing up for the Constitution and federal law, trying to constrain a president contemptuous of both, at demonstrable danger to themselves. But too often, the administration disregards their orders.

You’d think the Supreme Court — in particular Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the overseer of the judicial branch — would have the lower courts’ backs. But no, as the high court’s conservative majority shamefully showed in a ruling on Monday.

That decision in one of many deportation challenges wasn’t the court’s first such display of deference to a president who doesn’t reciprocate. And, safe bet, it won’t be the last.

The court allowed the Trump administration to at least temporarily continue deporting migrants to countries not their own, unsafe ones at that, with little or no notice and no chance to legally argue that they could face torture or worse. No matter that lives are at stake — the justices blithely lifted an injunction by Judge Brian E. Murphy, of the U.S. District Court in Boston, that had blocked the administration’s slapdash deportations while legal challenges wend through the courts.

In a blistering 19-page dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, marshaled legal arguments, damning examples of Trump administration dissembling and defiance of lower courts, and warnings of more defiance of federal courts from an emboldened president.

In contrast, the ruling from the Supreme Court majority was just one paragraph — unsigned legal mumbo-jumbo, its decision wholly unexplained, as is typical in the cases that the court takes all too frequently on an emergency basis, the aptly named “shadow docket.” (In two other shadow docket rulings in May, Trump was allowed to revoke the legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians, many of whom were here under programs created to protect refugees from violent, impoverished and repressive countries. Why? Who knows?)

What’s all the more maddening about the Supreme Court’s opacity in overriding both Judge Murphy and an appeals court that backed him is that its preliminary support for Trump in this case contradicts the plain language of the justices’ unanimous ruling in April that people subject to deportation “are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal.”

“Fire up the deportation planes,” crowed a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department.

Such callous gloating surely didn’t surprise Sotomayor. Her dissent began, “In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution. In this case, the Government took the opposite approach.” And so did her conservative colleagues.

As Sotomayor wrote, historically the Supreme Court stays a lower court order only “under extraordinary circumstances.” Typically it doesn’t grant relief when, as in this case, both district and appeals courts opposed it. And certainly it doesn’t give the government a W when the record in the case, like this one, is replete with evidence of its misconduct, including openly flouting court orders.

Examples: A judge agreed a Guatemalan gay man would face torture in his home country, yet the man was deported there anyway. The administration violated Judge Murphy’s order when it put six men on a plane to civil-war-torn South Sudan, which the U.S. considers so unsafe that only its most critical personnel remain there. And in a third case, a group was unlawfully bound to Libya before a federal judge was able to halt the flight.

Thus, Sotomayor said, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration “relief from an order it has repeatedly defied” — an order that didn’t prohibit deportations but only required due process in advance.

As she put it, the decision to stay the order was a “gross” abuse of the justices’ discretion. It undermines the rule of law as fully as the Trump administration’s lawlessness, especially given that Americans look to the nation’s highest court as the last word on the law.

“This is not the first time the Court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last,” Sotomayor said. As if on cue, the Supreme Court’s decision was followed on Tuesday by news that underscored just how dangerously misplaced the conservative justices’ deference toward Trump is.

A former Justice Department official, who was fired for truthfully testifying in court that Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia had been wrongly deported to El Salvador, blew the whistle on his former colleagues — all Trump appointees — confirming in a 27-page document that they’d connived to defy court orders. Emil Bove, Trump’s former defense lawyer and now his nominee for a federal appeals court seat, allegedly advised a group of DOJ lawyers in March to tell the courts “f— you” if — when — they tried to stop Trump’s deportations. Bove on Wednesday told the Senate he had “no recollection” of saying that; he might have denied it, as a DOJ associate did to the media, but Bove was under oath.

And the alleged phrase captures the administration’s attitude toward the judiciary, a coequal branch of government, though you’d hardly know it by the justices’ kowtowing to the executive branch. The message, while more profane, matches Trump’s own take on lower-court judges. “The Judges are absolutely out of control,” he posted in May. “Hopefully, the Supreme Court of the United States will put an END to the quagmire.”

For the sake of courageous judges who follow the law, and the rest of us, we can hope otherwise — even if the justices’ early record is mixed at best.

@Jackiekcalmes @jackiecalmes.bsky.social @jkcalmes

BALTIMORE — The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit against federal judges in Maryland over an order that blocks the immediate removal of any detained immigrant who requests a court hearing.

The unusual suit filed Tuesday in Baltimore against the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Maryland and the court’s other judges underscores the administration’s focus on immigration enforcement and ratchets up its fight with the judiciary.

At issue is an order signed by Chief Judge George L. Russell III and filed in May blocking the administration from immediately removing from the U.S. any immigrants who file paperwork with the Maryland federal district court seeking a review of their detention. The order blocks the removal until 4 p.m. on the second business day after the habeas corpus petition is filed.

In its suit, the Trump administration says such an automatic pause on removals violates a Supreme Court ruling and impedes the president’s authority to enforce immigration laws.

“Defendants’ automatic injunction issues whether or not the alien needs or seeks emergency relief, whether or not the court has jurisdiction over the alien’s claims, and no matter how frivolous the alien’s claims may be,” the suit says. “And it does so in the immigration context, thus intruding on core Executive Branch powers.”

The suit names the U.S. and U.S. Department of Homeland Security as plaintiffs.

The Maryland district court had no comment, Chief Deputy Clerk David Ciambruschini said in an email.

The Trump administration has repeatedly clashed with federal judges over its deportation efforts.

One of the Maryland judges named as a defendant in Tuesday’s lawsuit, Paula Xinis, has called the administration’s deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador illegal. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia have asked Xinis to impose fines against the administration for contempt, arguing that it ignored court orders for weeks to return him to the U.S. from El Salvador.

And on the same day the Maryland court issued its order pausing removals, a federal judge in Boston said the White House had violated a court order on deportations to third countries with a flight linked to South Sudan.

A fired Justice Department lawyer said in a whistleblower complaint made public Tuesday that a top official at the agency had suggested the Trump administration might have to ignore court orders as it prepared to deport Venezuelan migrants it accused of being gang members.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said court injunctions “designed to halt” the president’s agenda have undermined his authority since the first hours of his administration.

“The American people elected President Trump to carry out his policy agenda: this pattern of judicial overreach undermines the democratic process and cannot be allowed to stand,” she said in a statement announcing the lawsuit against Maryland’s district court.

The order signed by Russell says it aims to maintain existing conditions and the potential jurisdiction of the court, ensure immigrant petitioners are able to participate in court proceedings and access attorneys and give the government “fulsome opportunity to brief and present arguments in its defense.”

In an amended order, Russell said the court had received an influx of habeas petitions after hours that “resulted in hurried and frustrating hearings in that obtaining clear and concrete information about the location and status of the petitioners is elusive.”

The Trump administration has asked the Maryland judges to recuse themselves from the case. It wants a clerk to have a federal judge from another state hear it.

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press.

June 20 (UPI) — Colombia’s recent entry into the BRICS-backed New Development Bank marks a significant shift in its foreign and economic policy. With the move, President Gustavo Petro’s administration aims to reduce the country’s long-standing reliance on Western financing and attract new investment for strategic infrastructure projects.

“Colombia officially joins the BRICS New Development Bank. This membership opens new financing opportunities for strategic projects and is a key step toward diversifying alliances and strengthening the country’s economy,” the Colombian presidency announced Thursday in a post on X.

Colombia’s membership involves an initial $512 million commitment and makes it the first South American nation to formally join the bank, which is backed by 11 BRICS full members, including China, Russia, India, South Africa and Brazil.

Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia welcomed the announcement, saying the move goes beyond financial strategy and reflects broader national goals. “We continue to pave the way for new opportunities for the country,” she wrote on X.

Beyond access to loans with fewer conditions, the move carries significant symbolic weight. It reflects the Petro administration’s interest in redefining Colombia’s international role, shifting away from the traditional Washington-Bogotá axis to pursue a more independent path aligned with the Global South.

The announcement has sparked both enthusiasm and skepticism among Colombian analysts, who warn of financial risks, geopolitical consequences and the delicate balance Bogotá must maintain with the United States, its primary trading and military partner.

The Petro government has defended the move as a pragmatic step amid global economic volatility and the weakening of the traditional multilateral order.

Officials also see it as an opportunity to advance strategic projects such as the interoceanic railway — an ambitious infrastructure initiative aimed at positioning Colombia as a commercial hub between Asia and the Caribbean.

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry and Finance Ministry officials emphasized that joining the New Development Bank does not signal a break with the Inter-American Development Bank or the International Monetary Fund.

“This is about having more options, not replacing allies,” Finance Minister Ricardo Bonilla said.

Still, reactions in Colombia remain divided. While lawmakers from the ruling coalition praised what they called the country’s “financial emancipation,” opposition groups and business associations raised concerns about the fiscal burden and reputational risks of aligning with a bloc that includes China and Russia.

“Do we want to depend on the yuan or the ruble? What guarantees does a bank dominated by authoritarian regimes offer?” conservative senator and former presidential candidate Enrique Gómez asked.

Colombia has long been one of the United States’ closest allies in the fight against drug trafficking and in supporting the liberal economic model promoted by Washington. Against that backdrop, closer ties with China have raised tensions.

The U.S. State Department has said it will firmly oppose financing for Latin American projects tied to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global investment strategy backed by Beijing that aims to expand its economic influence through critical infrastructure development around the world.

Founded in 2015, the New Development Bank aims to provide financing for infrastructure and sustainable development in emerging economies, with fewer political conditions than the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.

To date, it has approved more than $40 billion in funding for 122 infrastructure projects in sectors such as transportation, clean energy and sanitation.

Mauricio Dubón scored the winning run on a wild pitch in the 10th inning, Jeremy Peña and Isaac Paredes opened the game with home runs, and the Houston Astros beat the Angels 3-2 on Friday night.

Peña led off the 10th with a single that advanced automatic runner Dubón to third. Dubón scored when Hunter Strickland, who hadn’t allowed a run in 14⅔ innings of his first 13 appearances with the Angels, threw a pitch behind the back of Paredes.

Houston closer Josh Hader (5-1) retired the side in order in the ninth and Bennett Sousa retired three straight batters in the 10th for his second save.

Angels starter Yusei Kikuchi gave up home runs to Pena and Paredes for a 2-0 Astros lead in the held the Astros to four hits, striking out nine and walking none, for the rest of his seven-inning start.

Jo Adell trimmed Houston’s lead to 2-1 in the fourth with a 426-foot homer off Astros starter Hunter Brown. Angels rookie Christian Moore, a first-round pick out of Tennessee in 2024, tied it 2-2 with his first major league homer to open the seventh.

Tempers flared in the third when Brown hit Angels shortstop Zach Neto in the elbow with a 95-mph sinker. Both benches and bullpens emptied, but no punches were thrown, and order was quickly restored.

Key moment: Astros center fielder Jake Meyers raced to the gap in left-center to make a spectacular, full-extension diving catch of Adell’s drive with a runner on first base and one out in the bottom of the eighth to preserve a 2-2 tie.

Key stat: The home runs by Peña and Paredes marked the first time in three years the Astros have opened a game with two homers. Jose Altuve and Peña last accomplished the feat on July 24, 2022, at Seattle.

Up next: Astros LHP Brandon Walter (0-0, 1.53 ERA) opposes Angels RHP José Soriano (4-5, 3.54) on Saturday night.

June 20 (UPI) — Former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil on Friday night was freed from federal detention in central Louisiana after a federal judge ordered his release.

In Newark, N.J., U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said that prosecutors didn’t provide a legitimate justification for 104 days of detention since March 8 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Syrian national organized campus protests favoring Hamas while enrolled at Columbia University in New York City, which runs counter to U.S. foreign policy.

Farbiarz, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, said it was “highly, highly unusual” the government still wanted him detained.

“Together, they suggest that there is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish the petitioner – and, of course, that would be unconstitutional,” the judge said.

He was ordered to surrender his passport and travel documents, and restricted to four states and Washington, D.C.

While in detention, Khalil missed the birth of his first child in New York in April, and he was allowed to hold him while in custody in May. His wife is a U.S. citizen.

Just before 8 p.m. CDT, Khalil walked out of the detention center in Jena, La., about 220 miles northwest of New Orleans, with his lawyers and wearing a kaffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.

He said no person “should actually be detained for protesting a genocide,” Khalil said. “Justice will prevail.”

“After more than three months we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” Dr. Noor Abdalla, Mahmoud Khalil’s wife, said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. “We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family, and the community that has supported us since the day he was unjustly taken for speaking out for Palestinian freedom.”

Alina Das, one of Khalil’s lawyers and co-director of New York University’s Immigrant Rights Clinic, said: “The purpose of every step that the government has taken in this case has been to ensure that Mr. Khalil remains locked away until he is deported, as retaliation and punishment for his speech.”

After the birth of his son Deen, he wrote: “During your first moments, I buried my face in my arms and kept my voice low so that the 70 other men sleeping in this concrete room would not see my cloudy eyes or hear my voice catch. I feel suffocated by my rage and the cruelty of a system that deprived your mother and me of sharing this experience. Why do faceless politicians have the power to strip human beings of their divine moments?

“Since that morning, I have come to recognize the look in the eyes of every father in this detention center. I sit here contemplating the immensity of your birth and wonder how many more firsts will be sacrificed to the whims of the US government, which denied me even the chance of furlough to attend your birth.”

He was arrested outside student housing on the campus.

On June 11, Farbiarz ordered Khalil’s release after determining that the government could no longer detain him over the claim he is a threat to the country’s foreign policy.

Then two days later, Trump administration said Khalil could be detained because they said he kept some prior work off his application for permanent residency. The judge allowed the detention to continue.

The Justice Department wanted him detained until an immigration judge could weigh the matter, claiming tFarbiarz does not have jurisdiction.

Farbiarz said it would be a “waste of time” to send the case to an immigration judge who would likely reach his same conclusion.

Other pro-Palestinian activists have also been released as their immigration cases go through the courts.

In April, Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a memo, citing an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The secretary of state can deport noncitizens if the secretary determines their presence in the country would result in “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

The arrest was carried out by the ICE, which is part of Homeland Security.

Khalil, who was born in 1995, grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria and was granted permanent U.S. resident status. H

Some of Blake Lively‘s text messages with friend Taylor Swift could be disclosed in court, in a recent development of the actor’s winding legal battle against her “It Ends With Us” co-star Justin Baldoni.

U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman on Wednesday filed an order denying the “Gossip Girl” alumna’s request to keep her messages with Swift out of litigation, according to legal documents reviewed by The Times. “Given that Lively has represented that Swift had knowledge of complaints or discussions about the working environment on the film, among other issues, the requests for messages with Swift regarding the film and this action are reasonably tailored to discover information that would prove or disprove Lively’s harassment and retaliation claims,” reads the order.

Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios filed a request for production connected to the Lively-Swift texts in February, asking for “‘all documents and communications related to or reflecting Lively’s communications with Taylor Swift” about their 2024 romantic drama and subsequent legal proceedings.

The “It Ends With Us” co-stars have engaged in a legal back-and-forth for months after Lively accused director Baldoni of sexual harassment on the set of the film and accused his team of orchestrating a smear campaign against her in December. The allegations first surfaced in a report from the New York Times. She formally sued Baldoni in federal court on Dec. 31. Baldoni and nine other plaintiffs — including his crisis PR team and executives at Wayfarer Studios — hit back that same day with a $400-million countersuit against Lively and her husband, “Deadpool” star Ryan Reynolds, and a separate defamation complaint against the New York Times.

Liman dismissed Baldoni’s complaints, which failed to meet legal standards, earlier this month. The judge said in his Wednesday order that “Lively’s motion is rooted in the broader concern that the Wayfarer Parties are using demands for communications with Swift not ‘to obtain information relevant to claims and defenses in court, but to prop up a public relations narrative outside of court.’ ”

Wednesday’s order also denied Baldoni’s cross-motion to compel Lively to produce documents connected to the production.

Baldoni’s team subpoenaed Swift earlier this year but eventually withdrew it after the singer and her legal reps dismissed it as an “unwarranted fishing expedition,” according to Variety.

In a statement shared with multiple outlets, a representative for Lively reacted to this week’s order, claiming, “Baldoni’s desire to drag Taylor Swift into this has been constant dating back to August 2024” and is an effort to influence the singer’s fan base. In the past, the devoted league of Swift supporters known as Swifites have banded together to criticize the singer’s high-profile exes and in recent years, rallied against Ticketmaster over allegations of fraud, price-fixing and antitrust violations.

“We will continue to call out Baldoni’s relentless efforts to exploit Ms. Swift’s popularity, which from day one has been nothing more than a distraction from the serious sexual harassment and retaliation accusations he and the Wayfarer parties are facing,” the spokesperson added, according to People.

Representatives for Swift and Baldoni did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

June 17 (UPI) — A federal judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday expanded an order against the State Department’s passport policy to include all applicants who are transgender or nonbinary, saying the “passport policy violates their constitutional right to equal protection of the laws.”

Judge Julia Kobick granted a first preliminary injunction in April, which blocked the State Department’s policy for only six of seven people who originally sued. On Tuesday, the judge expanded it to plaintiffs who were added to the suit, and nearly all trans and nonbinary Americans seeking new passports or changes.

Kobick, an appointee of former President Biden, wrote that the six named plaintiffs and the new class of plaintiffs “face the same injury: they cannot obtain a passport with a sex designation that aligns with their gender identity.”

“The plaintiffs have demonstrated that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the Passport Policy violates their constitutional right to equal protection of the laws and runs afoul of the safeguards of the APA,” Kobick wrote in Tuesday’s opinion, while referring to the Administrative Procedure Act which governs how policies are adopted.

After taking office earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, proclaiming the United States recognizes only two sexes — male and female — and that those sexes “are not changeable.” Trump then ordered government-issued identification documents, including U.S. passports, to reflect a person’s sex at birth.

“We will no longer issue U.S. passports or Consular Reports of Birth Abroad with an X marker,” according the State Department. “We will only issue passports with an M or F sex marker that match the customer’s biological sex at birth.”

Under the Biden administration, passport holders could self-select gender designation, including “unspecified” which was designated by the letter X.

The Trump administration appealed Kobick’s ruling in April. On Tuesday, Kobick wrote that forcing transgender and nonbinary people to choose between two sexes makes them more vulnerable to discrimination.

“Absent preliminary injunctive relief, these plaintiffs may effectively be forced to out themselves as transgender or non-binary every time they present their passport,” Kobick wrote.

The legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts celebrated Tuesday’s ruling and vowed to “continue to fight.”

“This decision acknowledges the immediate and profound negative impact that the Trump administration’s passport policy has on the ability of people across the country to travel for work, school and family,” Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement.

“The Trump administration’s passport policy attacks the foundations of the right to privacy and the freedom for all people to live their lives safely and with dignity,” Rossman added. “We will continue to fight to stop this unlawful policy once and for all.”

Sue Fogwell, a flight attendant with 22 years of experience up in the skies, has revealed the reason why she never orders one particular drink when she is flying

A cabin crew member has shared the one drink she would not order on a plane.

Sue Fogwell, a veteran flight attendant with 22 years in the skies, says that a Bloody Mary is a bad idea on a plane. The cabin crew member told Travel + Leisure that the drink’s sodium level is a recipe for a bad time when up at 30,000 feet.

That is despite the fact that flying tends to leave passengers craving acidity and saltiness due to the extra air pressure—things that tomato juice should be able to deliver in good quantity.

“‘Due to the very high sodium content, I always avoid drinking Mr&Mrs T/bloody mary mix and tomato juice,” Sue said. She avoids the drink because high sodium levels can quickly make passengers feel dehydrated.

READ MORE: EasyJet flight attendants to walk out across Spain on key summer dates

There are other tipples that flight attendants advise avoiding. Jet, who also runs a blog sharing her in-flight experiences, has urged travellers to avoid fizzy drinks during their flights. It’s not the drinks themselves that are the issue, but rather the inconvenience they cause for flight attendants when serving them to passengers.

In her online blog, Jet shared that “soft drinks foam up a lot more when poured out of a can”, which means she has “to sit and wait for the bubbles to fall before I can continue pouring”.

This becomes especially time-consuming when there’s a line of passengers all wanting carbonated drinks, leading her to start pouring, take other orders, and then return to finish off the initial drink servings. And it’s not just about the inconvenience.

The dry cabin environment is another factor to consider, as consuming fizzy drinks or alcohol can worsen dehydration, potentially making you feel quite unwell. Furthermore, the fizziness in these drinks can lead to bloating and indigestion – neither of which are pleasant on a long-haul flight.

So, while your main considerations when ordering mid-flight might usually be cost and whether the hunger or thirst justifies the expense, flight attendants suggest there’s more to think about when choosing your in-flight refreshment.

TikTok’s very own flight attendant influencer, Brodie Capron, known on the platform as @brodie. capron, has recently taken to social media to debunk some common myths about in-flight tap water.

READ MORE: Brits travelling to Spain given alert after virus detected which is ‘almost always fatal’READ MORE: Europe’s most visited museum shuts its doors due to overcrowding fears

The question of whether it’s safe to drink bottled water on planes is a frequent one, particularly with rumours that the onboard water filters are seldom thoroughly cleaned. However, Brodie, who works for Virgin Australia, put these rumours to bed by confirming that their tap water is indeed safe to drink.

She confidently declared: “Is the water safe to drink? Yes, it is. It’s filtered, and it’s clean.”

On the other hand, fellow flight attendant Deja, who shares her insights under the TikTok handle @i. amdejaa, questions the cleanliness of liquids stored on planes.

Her advice to travellers is straightforward: “When you are travelling on an aeroplane please don’t drink coffee or tea,” and she didn’t stop there, adding hot chocolate to the list of drinks to avoid while flying. Deja claims that the “water tanks on the aeroplane are never cleaned, and they are very disgusting”.

June 13 (UPI) — The California National Guard will remain on the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Friday after an appeals court put an order from a federal judge to remove the soldiers on hold only hours after it was decreed.

The fifth night of a curfew in one square mile of downtown Los Angeles began Friday night. Mayor Karen Bass first imposed the curfew for most people beginning Tuesday night after protests against immigration enforcement operations became violent, including property damage.

President Donald Trump federalized thousands of National Guard over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Newsom filed suit against the order, saying it was illegal.

“The court has received the government’s emergency motion for stay pending appeal,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit wrote late Thursday after the Trump administration requested a delay.

“The request for an administrative stay is granted,” the circuit judges continued in a single-page, six-sentence order that stops a temporary restraining order that had President Donald Trump relinquishing control of the state’s National Guard away from California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Trump posted to his Truth Social account Friday: “The appeals court ruled last night that I can use the National Guard to keep our cities, in this case Los Angeles, safe. If I didn’t send the military into Los Angeles, that city would be burning to the ground right now. We saved L.A. Thank you for the decision!!!”

Trump had been stopped, albeit briefly, from the deployment of those troops in the state’s largest city other than protecting federal buildings.

Newsom had filed suit against Trump, who federalized 4,000 members of the Guard and sent them to Los Angeles to stand against demonstrators protesting raids by Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents that began last week.

Newsom, the rightful commander-in-chief of the California National Guard when it is under state control, was not informed or involved with Trump’s action, and filed that suit to strike it down.

U,S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled on the initial filing Thursday, and issued a temporary restraining order that stated Trump’s deployment of the Guard to police the city’s streets likely violated the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which bars federal overreach.

“It is well-established that the police power is one of the quintessential powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment,” Breyer wrote in his ruling.

Breyer, appointed by President Bill Clinton, further added that the “citizens of Los Angeles face a greater harm from the continued unlawful militarization of their city, which not only inflames tensions with protesters, threatening increased hostilities and loss of life, but deprives the state for two months of its own use of thousands of National Guard members to fight fires, combat the fentanyl trade and perform other critical functions.”

The Trump administration appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which put a hold on Breyer’s order until at least Tuesday at noon, and allows the White House to keep the Guard on active patrol in Los Angeles.

Newsom has not publicly commented as of yet on the Ninth Circuit’s stay of Breyer’s order, but California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office issued a statement that called the administrative stay “unnecessary and unwarranted in light of the district court’s extensive reasoning.”

After the district judge’s decision, Newsom posted on X: “The court has ruled. @RealDonaldTrump you must relinquish your authority of the National Guard back to me and back to California.”

ATLANTA — A federal judge on Friday blocked President Trump’s attempt to overhaul elections in the U.S., siding with a group of Democratic state attorneys general who challenged the effort as unconstitutional.

The Republican president’s March 25 executive order sought to compel officials to require documentary proof of citizenship for everyone registering to vote for federal elections, accept only mailed ballots received by Election Day and condition federal election grant funding on states adhering to the new ballot deadline.

The attorneys general said the directive “usurps the States’ constitutional power and seeks to amend election law by fiat.” The White House defended the order as “standing up for free, fair and honest elections” and called proof of citizenship a “commonsense” requirement.

Judge Denise J. Casper of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts said in Friday’s order that the states had a likelihood of success as to their legal challenges.

“The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Casper wrote.

Casper also noted that, when it comes to citizenship, “there is no dispute (nor could there be) that U.S. citizenship is required to vote in federal elections and the federal voter registration forms require attestation of citizenship.”

Casper cited arguments made by the states that the requirements would “burden the States with significant efforts and substantial costs” to update procedures.

The ruling is the second legal setback for Trump’s election order. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., previously blocked parts of the directive, including the proof-of-citizenship requirement for the federal voter registration form.

The order is the culmination of Trump’s longstanding complaints about elections. After his first win in 2016, Trump falsely claimed his popular vote total would have been much higher if not for “millions of people who voted illegally.” Since 2020, Trump has made false claims of widespread voter fraud and manipulation of voting machines to explain his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

He has said his executive order secures elections against illegal voting by noncitizens, though multiple studies and investigations in the states have shown that it’s rare and typically a mistake. Casting a ballot as a noncitizen is already against the law and can result in fines and deportation if convicted.

The order also would require states to exclude any mail-in or absentee ballots received after Election Day and puts states’ federal funding at risk if election officials don’t comply. Currently, 18 states and Puerto Rico accept mailed ballots received after Election Day as long they are postmarked on or before that date, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Oregon and Washington, which conduct their elections almost entirely by mail, filed a separate lawsuit over the ballot deadline, saying the executive order could disenfranchise voters in their states. When the lawsuit was filed, Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs noted that more than 300,000 ballots in the state arrived after Election Day in 2024.

Trump’s order has received praise from the top election officials in some Republican states who say it could inhibit instances of voter fraud and will give them access to federal data to better maintain their voter rolls. But many legal experts say the order exceeds Trump’s power because the Constitution gives states the authority to set the “times, places and manner” of elections, with Congress allowed to set rules for elections to federal office. As Friday’s ruling states, the Constitution makes no provision for presidents to set the rules for elections.

During a hearing earlier this month on the states’ request for a preliminary injunction, lawyers for the states and lawyers for the administration argued over the implications of Trump’s order, whether the changes could be made in time for next year’s midterm elections and how much it would cost the states.

Justice Department lawyer Bridget O’Hickey said during the hearing that the order seeks to provide a single set of rules for certain aspects of election operations rather than having a patchwork of state laws and that any harm to the states is speculation.

O’Hickey also claimed that mailed ballots received after Election Day might somehow be manipulated, suggesting people could retrieve their ballots and alter their votes based on what they see in early results. But all ballots received after Election Day require a postmark showing they were sent on or before that date, and that any ballot with a postmark after Election Day would not count.

Cassidy writes for the Associated Press.

California on Tuesday asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s deployment of both state National Guard forces and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles amid mass protests over sweeping federal immigration enforcement efforts.

The request was filed in the same federal lawsuit the state and California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed Monday, in which they alleged Trump had exceeded his authority and violated the U.S. Constitution by sending military forces into an American city without the request or approval of the state governor or local officials.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, whose office is handling the litigation on behalf of both Newsom and the state, said the restraining order was necessary to bring an immediate stop to the deployments, which local officials have contended are not needed and only adding to tensions sparked by sweeping immigration detentions and arrests in communities with large immigrant communities.

“The President is looking for any pretense to place military forces on American streets to intimidate and quiet those who disagree with him,” Bonta said in a statement Tuesday. “It’s not just immoral — it’s illegal and dangerous.”

Newsom, in his own statement, echoed Bonta, saying the federal government “is now turning the military against American citizens.”

“Sending trained warfighters onto the streets is unprecedented and threatens the very core of our democracy,” Newsom said. “Donald Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President.”

The state’s request Tuesday asked for the restraining order to be granted by 1 p.m. Tuesday “to prevent immediate and irreparable harm” to the state.

Absent such relief, the Trump administration’s “use of the military and the federalized National Guard to patrol communities or otherwise engage in general law enforcement activities creates imminent harm to State Sovereignty, deprives the State of vital resources, escalates tensions and promotes (rather than quells) civil unrest,” the state contended.

The request specifically notes that the use of military forces such as Marines to conduct domestic policing tasks is unlawful, and that Trump administration officials have stated that is how the Marines being deployed to Los Angeles may be used.

“The Marine Corps’ deployment for law enforcement purposes is likewise unlawful. For more than a century, the Posse Comitatus Act has expressly prohibited the use of the active duty armed forces and federalized national guard for civilian law enforcement,” the state’s request states. “And the President and Secretary Hegseth have made clear — publicly and privately — that the Marines are not in Los Angeles to stand outside a federal building.”

At Trump’s direction, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mobilized nearly 2,000 members of the state’s National Guard on Saturday after Trump said L.A. was descending into chaos and federal agents were in danger, then mobilized another 2,000 members on Monday. The Pentagon approved the deployment of 700 U.S. Marines from the base in Twentynine Palms to the city Monday, with the stated mission of protecting federal buildings and agents.

Hegseth said the deployments would last 60 days, and the acting Pentagon budget chief said the cost would be at least $134 million. He told members of the House appropriations defense subcommittee that the length of the deployments was intended to “ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere.”

Local officials have decried acts of violence, property damage and burglaries that have occurred in tandem with the protests, but have also said that Trump administration officials have blown the problems out of proportion and that there is no need for federal forces in the city.

Constitutional scholars and some members of Congress have also questioned the domestic deployment of military forces, especially without the buy-in of local and state officials — calling it a tactic of dictators and authoritarian regimes.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass questioned what Marines would do on the ground, while Police Chief Jim McDonnell said the arrival of military forces in the city without “clear coordination” with local law enforcement “presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us tasked with safeguarding this city.”

Bonta had said Monday that the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution limits federal power around such deployments, that the deployment of National Guard forces to quell protests without Newsom’s consent was “unlawful” and “unprecedented,” and that the deployment of Marines would be “similarly unlawful.”

On Tuesday, he said the state was asking the court to “immediately block the Trump Administration from ordering the military or federalized national guard from patrolling our communities or otherwise engaging in general law enforcement activities beyond federal property.”

WASHINGTON — The governor and the president are talking past each other.

The two men, despite their politics and ambition, have worked together before, through devastating fires and a pandemic. But as immigration raids roil Los Angeles, President Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom cannot even agree on how they left their last conversation, late on Friday evening on the East Coast, as protests picked up around the city.

Aides to Trump told The Times he issued a clear warning: “Get the police in gear.” His patience would last less than 24 hours before he chose a historic path, federalizing the National Guard against the wishes of state and local officials.

The governor, on the other hand, told MSNBC the account is a lie. In their 40-minute call, not once did the president raise the prospect of wresting control over the National Guard from state and local officials.

They have not spoken since, a White House official said.

Trump went even further on Monday, raising the specter of Newsom’s arrest and supplementing the National Guard operation with a historic deployment of active-duty U.S. Marines.

The troop deployment is yet another extraordinary effort to quell simmering demonstrations across Los Angeles, some of which have turned violent, in protest of flash raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in recent days.

‘Subjecting himself to arrest’

Newsom’s government said Monday it would sue the Trump administration over the deployment and issued scathing criticism of Trump’s leadership, calling his Defense secretary a “joke” and the president “unhinged.” But the president and his top advisers responded with an especially pointed threat, suggesting the governor could be arrested for obstruction.

“It is a basic principle in this country that if you break the law, you will face a consequence for that,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Times in an interview. “So if the governor obstructs federal enforcement, or breaks federal laws, then he is subjecting himself to arrest.”

Earlier in the day, Tom Homan, the president’s so-called border czar, said that no one is above the law and that anyone — including the governor — who obstructs immigration enforcement would be subject to charges.

“I would do it if I were Tom,” Trump said, pursing his lips as he appeared to consider the question as he was speaking to reporters on Monday. “I think it’s great.”

“He’s done a terrible job,” Trump continued. “I like Gavin Newsom. He’s a nice guy. But he’s grossly incompetent. Everybody knows.”

The White House is not actively discussing or planning Newsom’s arrest. But Newsom took the threat seriously, vehemently decrying Trump’s remarks as the mark of an authoritarian.

“The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,” Newsom wrote on X.

“It would truly be unprecedented to arrest a governor over a difference in policy between the federal government and a state,” UC Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky said Monday. “Even when Southern governors were obstructing desegregation orders, presidents did not try to have them arrested.”

A backfiring effort at deterrence

Leavitt said that Trump’s initial decision to deploy the Guard was “with the expectation that the deployment of the National Guard would hopefully prevent and deter some of this violence.”

“He told the governor to get it under control and watched again for another full day, 24 hours, where it got worse,” Leavitt said. “The assaults against federal law enforcement upticked, the violence grew, and the president took bold action on Saturday evening to protect federal detention spaces and federal buildings and federal personnel.”

The opposite occurred. The worst violence yet took place on Sunday, with some rioters torching and hurling concrete at police cars, hours after National Guard troops had arrived in L.A. County.

The protests had been largely peaceful throughout Friday and Saturday, with isolated instances of violent activity. Leavitt said that Newsom and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, have “handicapped” the Los Angeles Police Department, “who are trying to do their jobs.”

Local leaders “have refused to allow the local police department to work alongside the feds to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, and to detain and arrest violent criminals who are on the streets of Los Angeles,” she said.

“As for the local law enforcement,” she added, “the president has the utmost respect for the Los Angeles Police Department.”

‘All options on the table’

Leavitt, in a phone call on Monday afternoon, said she would not get ahead of Trump on whether he will invoke the Insurrection Act, a law that allows the president to suspend Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the military from engaging in local law enforcement.

But she took note that, on Monday, the president referred to some of the rioters as insurrectionists, potentially laying the groundwork for an invocation of the law.

“The president is wisely keeping all options on the table, and will do what is necessary to restore law and order in California,” she said. “Federal immigration enforcement operations will continue in the city of Los Angeles, which has been completely overrun by illegal alien criminals that pose a public safety risk and need to be removed from the city.”

The president’s order, directing 2,000 National Guard troops to protect federal buildings in the city, allows for a 60-day deployment. Leavitt would not say how long the operation might last, but suggested it would continue until violence at the protests ends.

“I don’t want to get ahead of the president on any decisions or timelines,” she said. “I can tell you the White House is 100% focused on this. The president wants to solve the problem. And that means creating an environment where citizens, if they wish, are given the space and the right to peacefully protest.”

“And these violent disruptors and insurrectionists, as the president has called them, are not only doing a disservice to law-abiding citizens, but to those who wish to peacefully protest. That’s a fundamental right this administration will always support and protect.”

Wilner reported from Washington, Wick from Los Angeles.

CONCORD, N.H. — President Trump’s administration wants to be dropped from a lawsuit in which two New Hampshire teens are challenging their state’s ban on transgender athletes in girls’ sports and the president’s executive order on the same topic.

Parker Tirrell, 16, and Iris Turmelle, 14, became first to challenge Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order when they added him to their ongoing lawsuit over New Hampshire’s ban in February. A federal judge has ruled that they can try out and play on girls sports teams while the case proceeds.

In a motion filed Friday, attorneys for the government say the teens are trying to “drag the federal government into a lawsuit well under way not because of an imminent injury, but because of a generalized grievance with policies set by the President of the United States.”

Deputy Associate Atty. Gen. Richard Lawson argued that the government has done nothing yet to enforce the executive orders in New Hampshire and may never do so.

“Plaintiffs lack constitutional standing and their stated speculative risk of future injury is not close to imminent and may never become ripe,” wrote Lawson, who asked the judge to dismiss claims against Trump, the Justice and Education departments, and their leaders.

Trump’s executive order gives federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX — which prohibits sexual discrimination in schools — in alignment with the Trump administration’s view of a person’s sex as the gender assigned at birth.

Lawyers for the teens say the order, along with parts of a Jan. 20 executive order that forbids federal money to be used to “promote gender ideology,” subjects the teens and all transgender girls to discrimination in violation of federal equal protection guarantees and their rights under Title IX.

In its response, the government argues that the order does not discriminate based on sex because males and females are not similarly situated when it comes to sports.

Transgender people represent a very small part of the nation’s youth population — about 1.4% of teens ages 13 to 17, or around 300,000 people. But about half of the states have adopted similar measures to New Hampshire’s sports ban, with supporters arguing that allowing transgender girls to play is unfair and dangerous.

In interviews this year, neither New Hampshire teen said they feel they hold any advantage over other players. Tirrell says she’s less muscular than other girls on her soccer team, and Turmelle said she doesn’t see herself as a major athlete.

“To the argument that it’s not fair, I’d just like to point out that I did not get on the softball team,” Turmelle recalled of her tryout last year. “If that wasn’t fair, then I don’t know what you want from me.”

Ramer writes for the Associated Press.

June 7 (UPI) — President Donald Trump is taking aim at drone technology from two directions — boost the U.S. industry and crack down on malicious activity.

Trump on Friday signed executive orders on efforts to spur U.S. production relevant to drone technology, increase U.S. drone security and regulation efforts, and an unleated one to promote design and eventual use of commercial supersonic aircraft.

“Unmanned aircraft systems, otherwise known as drones, offer the potential to enhance public safety as well as cement America’s leadership in global innovation,” an executive order titled Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty read. “But criminals, terrorists, and hostile foreign actors have intensified their weaponization of these technologies, creating new and serious threats to our homeland.

Another order, titled Unleashing American Drone Dominance, declares that “building a strong and secure domestic drone sector is vital to reducing reliance on foreign sources, strengthening critical supply chains and ensuring that the benefits of this technology are delivered to the American people.”

There are more than a million registered drones in the United States, according to the FAA with more than 400,000 commercial drones and more than 350,000 for recreational use.

In a press release, the Commercial Drone Alliance said it has “believed that innovation and security are two sides of the same coin. Outdated regulations have long impeded technological innovation and hindered transparency in our airspace.”

Lisa Ellman, chief executive of the Commercial Drone Alliance, also lauded the executive orders for aiming at both innovation and security simultaneously.

“We fully support the long-overdue steps taken by the Trump administration in these Executive Orders — establishing a framework to scale safe and secure drone operations while enhancing drone security and airspace transparency — to modernize our domestic drone policy and assure American aviation leadership into the next century of flight,” she said in the release.

Drone dangers

Trump has warned that drones have been used to smuggle drugs across borders, and could threaten large public gatherings, such as the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics, both in the United States.

“It is the policy of the United States to ensure control over our national airspace and to protect the public, critical infrastructure, mass gathering events, and military and sensitive government installations and operations from threats posed by the careless or unlawful use of UAS,” the security related order reads.

Chinese-made drones from companies like DJI or Autel are not outright banned, but the Federal Acquisition Security Council has been called on to “publish a Covered Foreign Entity List … identifying companies that pose supply chain risks.”

In 2022, the U.S. Treasury added DJI and seven other companies to its Chinese Military-Industrial Complex list, which indicates some level of national security concern. The includes a ban on U.S.-based companies exporting technology to them.

The majority of drones are estimated to be built in China, The New York Times reported.

The Justice Department and FAA were told to enforce civil and criminal penalties for drone operators who violate laws or airspace restrictions. There will be grants for state and local law enforcement to access drone-detection and tracking equipment.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires all drones weighing more than 0.55 of a pound to be registered, in addition to restricting how high they can be flown without authorization.

The Justice Department and FAA were told to more robustly enforce civil and criminal penalties for drone operators who violate laws or airspace restrictions. Grant programs are planned for state and local law enforcement to access drone-detection and tracking equipment., the order also indicates

Drone industry growth

In his first term, Trump sought to increase the use of drones and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been directed to promote exports of U.S.-made drones, in addition to federal agencies being ordered to prioritize purchases of them.

“The United States must accelerate the safe commercialization of drone technologies and fully integrate UAS into the National Airspace System,” the order reads. “The time has come to accelerate testing and to enable routine drone operations, scale up domestic production, and expand the export of trusted, American-manufactured drone technologies to global markets.”

The order directs the FAA to allow commercial users and public safety officials not to fly drones beyond their range of sight, meaning that a user must be able to see the drone they are operating.

“Building a strong and secure domestic drone sector is vital to reducing reliance on foreign sources, strengthening critical supply chains, and ensuring that the benefits of this technology are delivered to the American people,” the order says.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy was directed to initiate artificial intelligence tools to assist in and expedite the review of a UAS waiver application, and the Transportation Department was told to develop an Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Pilot Program to accelerate the deployment of safe and lawful eVTOL operations in the United States.

Supersonic flight

An additional executive order titled “Leading the World in Supersonic Flight” seeks to promise planes that travel at supersonic speeds, which are greater than the speed of sound at approximately 768 mph at sea level, or Mach 1.

“The United States stands at the threshold of a bold new chapter in aerospace innovation,” the order reads. “For more than 50 years, outdated and overly restrictive regulations have grounded the promise of supersonic flight over land, stifling American ingenuity, weakening our global competitiveness, and ceding leadership to foreign adversaries.”

The order noted that “advances in aerospace engineering, materials science, and noise reduction now make supersonic flight not just possible, but safe, sustainable, and commercially viable.”

The order repeals regulations prohibiting cross-country supersonic flights, which for decades have precluded nonmilitary air travel over land at faster-than-sound speeds.

The Concorde was manufactured from 1965 to 1979, but are no longer flown by airlines, however, Boom Supersonic and NASA are currently developing new supersonic passenger jets.