Liberal justices dissent in newest main US supreme court docket choice
Per my final submit, the supreme court docket has dominated 6-3 in a choice might embolden crimson states throughout the nation to successfully “defund” Deliberate Parenthood.
The court docket’s three liberal justices dissented from the choice, which overturned a decrease court docket’s ruling barring Republican-governed South Carolina from terminating regional affiliate Deliberate Parenthood South Atlantic’s participation within the state’s Medicaid program as a result of the group offers abortions.
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Right here’s the clip of defence secretary Pete Hegseth’s assaults on the media this morning over their reporting on early intelligence on the US strikes in Iran.
Hegseth accused the media of “spinning” leaked data in protection of the evaluation – which discovered that American strikes on Iran’s nuclear websites didn’t do as a lot harm as has been claimed by the Trump administration – and advised journalists in regards to the tales he thinks they need to be writing, together with “how arduous it’s to fly a aircraft for 36 hours”.
Pete Hegseth assaults media over reporting of US strikes in Iran – videoShare
Up to date at 12.12 EDT
The US Justice Division is launching an investigation into the College of California system, accusing the schools of participating in a “sample or apply of discrimination primarily based on race and intercourse.”
In accordance with a DOJ press launch, the college system’s plan to rent various workers “probably runs afoul of federal regulation.” The DOJ accuses the college system of getting race and sex-based employment quotas.
This comes because the Trump administration continues to analyze universities nationwide for quite a lot of causes, together with for allegations of anti-semitism.
In accordance with a letter written by Harmeet Dhillon the assistant lawyer basic for the DOJ’s civil rights division, the College of California might have engaged in Title VII discrimination with the practices.
“I’ve approved a full investigation to find out whether or not the College of California is engaged in a sample or apply of discrimination,” Dhillon writes within the letter.
Dhillon is a former Republican Get together official and was nominated by Trump in December to serve in her present place.
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Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated right now that Trump “exaggerated” the impression of US strikes on Iranian nuclear websites.
Throughout his first televised look for the reason that launch of the Israel-Iran struggle, Khamenei stated the US strikes had completed “nothing vital” to the nation’s nuclear infrastructure, AFP studies. Earlier right now, in a submit on X, his account stated that Iran “delivered a heavy slap to the US’s face.”
The Israel-Iran battle escalated when Israel started launching bombs at Iran, which then retaliated by hanging again. The US joined the struggle final weekend, when it struck nuclear websites in Iran.
“The American president exaggerated occasions in uncommon methods, and it turned out that he wanted this exaggeration,” Khamenei stated throughout his televised speech.
Reporting from the Guardian on Tuesday revealed that an early Protection Intelligence Company report discovered the US strikes doubtless didn’t destroy two of the websites and will have solely set again the nuclear program by a couple of months.
US secretary of protection Pete Hegseth gave a press briefing on Thursday, saying the US’s assault was “devastating,” apparently contradicting early findings from US intelligence.
For extra on these developments, go to the Guardian’s Center East weblog, masking all developments as they occur.
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The US supreme court docket’s three liberal justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – dissented from the bulk in right now’s ruling that paves the best way for South Carolina (the place the case emerged from) and different states to kick Deliberate Parenthood out of its Medicaid program over its standing as a reproductive healthcare supplier that features abortion companies.
In her dissent, Jackson argued that Thursday’s ruling not solely undercuts the rights of Medicaid beneficiaries, but additionally participates in a “challenge of stymying one of many nation’s nice civil rights legal guidelines” by hollowing out the Civil Rights Act of 1871, which strengthens individuals’s skill to go to court docket when a state violates their federal rights.
“Immediately’s choice is prone to lead to tangible hurt to actual individuals,” Jackson wrote. “At a minimal, it’ll deprive Medicaid recipients in South Carolina of their solely significant manner of implementing a proper that Congress has expressly granted to them. And, extra concretely, it’ll strip these South Carolinians—and numerous different Medicaid recipients across the nation—of a deeply private freedom: the ‘skill to resolve who treats us at our most weak’.”
The case, Medina v Deliberate Parenthood South Atlantic, facilities round a 2018 government order from South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, that blocked clinics that present abortions from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. Medicaid is the US authorities’s primary medical health insurance program for low-income individuals. About 80 million individuals depend on it.
Supreme Court docket Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks to the 2025 Supreme Court docket Fellows Program, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, on the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. {Photograph}: Jacquelyn Martin/APShareJoanna Walters
There’s some debate amongst supreme-court watchers as as to whether the birthright citizenship case, Trump v CASA, will probably be introduced tomorrow with the opposite instances from the principle season.
It technically doesn’t need to be introduced tomorrow however observers are leaning in direction of the notion that it is going to be.
It’s essentially the most intently watched remaining case. On condition that the conservative justices acquired their manner within the transgender healthcare case and right now’s Deliberate Parenthood ruling, liberals have trigger for concern.
However, in actual fact, throughout oral arguments in Could, the bench took difficulty with Donald Trump’s try and sidestep the structure to restrict birthright citizenship, a case that, whereas technically about immigration, might reshape presidential energy and the position of federal courts.
Many predict that the US president’s plan is prone to be, in the end, struck down, because it straight contradicts the 14th modification, which grants citizenship to “all individuals born or naturalized in the US”.
Right here’s our explainer from final month.
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Supreme court docket’s last opinions of the time period approaching Friday
The supreme court docket will difficulty the ultimate opinions of its time period on Friday, the Related Press studies.
Chief Justice John Roberts made the courtroom announcement on Thursday. Six instances stay to be determined, together with whether or not Donald Trump’s government order on birthright citizenship can take impact wherever in the US.
Different remaining instances embody whether or not Maryland dad and mom with spiritual objections can take away their kids from classes utilizing LGBTQ storybooks and a battle over a second majority Black congressional district in Louisiana.
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Up to date at 10.54 EDT
JB Pritzker publicizes reelection marketing campaign for third time period as Illinois governor
JB Pritzker has launched his reelection marketing campaign for a 3rd time period as Democratic governor of Illinois, amid hypothesis of a future run for larger workplace.
In a video posted on X, he stated:
Donald Trump’s made clear he’ll cease at nothing to get his manner. I’m not about to face by and let him tear down all we’re constructing in Illinois.
I’m working for reelection to guard our progress and proceed fixing the issues we face. I really like this state, and it’s the consideration of my life to function your Governor – to assist lead by means of essentially the most difficult of instances and rejoice essentially the most joyful ones collectively.
I’m prepared for the battle forward.
Pritzker has served as governor within the deep-blue state since 2018 and is extensively seen as a doable 2028 presidential contender, having positioned himself as one of the crucial vocal critics of Trump within the Democratic social gathering.
In an announcement asserting his re-election bid, his marketing campaign stated:
Due to the Governor’s management, Illinois stays an emblem of hope and freedom as we face down Donald Trump’s assaults, with abortion rights and civil rights enshrined into regulation and protections for our LGBTQ and immigrant communities stronger than ever earlier than.
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Up to date at 10.50 EDT
Liberal justices dissent in newest main US supreme court docket choice
Per my final submit, the supreme court docket has dominated 6-3 in a choice might embolden crimson states throughout the nation to successfully “defund” Deliberate Parenthood.
The court docket’s three liberal justices dissented from the choice, which overturned a decrease court docket’s ruling barring Republican-governed South Carolina from terminating regional affiliate Deliberate Parenthood South Atlantic’s participation within the state’s Medicaid program as a result of the group offers abortions.
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Up to date at 10.31 EDT
Supreme court docket paves manner for South Carolina to defund Deliberate Parenthood
Carter Sherman
The US supreme court docket has paved the best way for South Carolina to kick Deliberate Parenthood out of its Medicaid program over its standing as an abortion supplier, in a choice that would embolden crimson states throughout the nation to successfully “defund” the reproductive healthcare group.
The case, Medina v Deliberate Parenthood South Atlantic, facilities round a 2018 government order from South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, that blocked clinics that present abortions from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. “Fee of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any objective, ends in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the precise to life,” McMaster stated on the time, regardless that the reimbursements couldn’t be used for abortions. Abortions are additionally now banned in South Carolina after six weeks of being pregnant.
Deliberate Parenthood South Atlantic, a Deliberate Parenthood affiliate that operates two clinics in South Carolina, and Julie Edwards, a affected person who sought contraception, sued over McMaster’s order, arguing that it flew within the face of a federal provision often called the “free alternative of supplier” clause. That provision ensures that individuals insured by Medicaid, the federal government medical health insurance program for individuals with low earnings or different eligibilities, can freely select their very own suppliers so long as they settle for this system and are certified to supply care. Decrease courts have repeatedly sided with Deliberate Parenthood South Atlantic and Edwards, protecting McMaster’s order from taking impact.
The case in entrance of the supreme court docket didn’t straight take care of the query of whether or not South Carolina might legally take away Deliberate Parenthood from Medicaid. As a substitute, the justices have been requested to weigh in on a extremely technical query: Do Medicaid beneficiaries have the precise to sue in the event that they consider their proper to a free alternative of supplier has been violated?
South Carolina, which was represented within the case by the highly effective rightwing group Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that beneficiaries couldn’t sue and that the free alternative of supplier clause lacked “clear rights-creating language”, as ADF senior counsel John Bursch put it in oral arguments.
These technicalities cloaked the possibly sweeping penalties of the case. If individuals can’t sue once they consider a state is violating Medicaid, it’s far tougher to cease states from discriminating towards controversial care, reminiscent of abortion, Nicole Huberfeld, a well being regulation professor at Boston College’s College of Public Well being, advised the Guardian forward of oral arguments.
The South Carolina case was additionally a part of a longstanding effort by anti-abortion activists, together with ADF, to “defund” Planned Parenthood by slicing it out of Medicaid. Of the two.4 million individuals handled at Deliberate Parenthood every year, virtually half use Medicaid.
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Up to date at 10.31 EDT
Iran moved uranium from Fordow earlier than US strikes, EU capitals consider – FT
Opposite to that, the Monetary Occasions is reporting that European capitals consider Iran’s extremely enriched uranium stockpile stays largely intact following US strikes on its primary nuclear websites.
The newspaper, citing two individuals briefed on preliminary intelligence assessments, stated European capitals consider Iran’s stockpile of 408 kilogram of uranium enriched near weapons-grade ranges was not concentrated in Fordow, one in every of its two primary enrichment websites, on the time of final weekend’s assault.
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Trump says nothing taken out of facility at Iran nuclear website forward of US bombing
Trump has claimed that nothing was taken out of the power on the Iranian nuclear website struck by the US final weekend, as his administration continues its marketing campaign to insist that the strikes have been more practical than early intelligence has discovered.
The president wrote on Reality Social minutes in the past, with out offering proof:
The vehicles and small vehicles on the website have been these of concrete employees making an attempt to cowl up the highest of the shafts. Nothing was taken out of facility. Would take too lengthy, too harmful, and really heavy and arduous to maneuver!
We simply heard comparable from protection secretary Pete Hegseth who stated he was unaware of any intelligence suggesting Iran had moved any of its extremely enriched uranium to defend it from US strikes on its nuclear program.
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Up to date at 09.32 EDT
Hegseth ends the briefing by reiterating that the assault was “devastating” and “historic, setting again the Iranian nuclear program untold variety of years”.
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