States Sue Over Trump Rule Targeting Tipped Workers
On the last day of the Trump presidency, eight states and the District of Columbia filed suit Tuesday over a Department of Labor rule they say will lower wages for tipped workers.
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Trump administration
DC Circuit Rejects Trump Rollback of Power Plant Emission Rules
On the last full day of his presidency, Donald Trump’s yearslong effort to shut down Obama-era clean air protections targeting power plants went up in smoke in the D.C. Circuit.
Read moreInternational Court
Three law faculty and a human rights lawyer filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Friday, claiming that the government’s sanctions against the Office of the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court prevents the plaintiffs from providing legal services to victims of atrocity crimes.
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Crying Fowl
The Audubon of Kansas sued the Trump administration to do fulfill its commitment to a wildlife refuge, where water rights are draining the Rattlesnake Creek sub-basin and making it difficult for threatened and endangered birds to survive.
Read moreSuccession
Colorado sued the Trump administration Friday, claiming the Bureau of Land Management’s approval of a resource management plan is invalid because the bureau’s director — like many Trump appointees — assumed the position unlawfully because he wasn’t next in the line of succession.
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Biden Unveils Plans for Covid Vaccine Blitz
During a Friday speech, President-elect Joe Biden called for more federal involvement in creating vaccination sites, mobile clinics and getting more shots in the arms of frontline workers and people over the age of 65.
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Man Convicted in 3 Killings to Be Last Executed Under Trump
The last federal inmate facing execution before President Donald Trump leaves office was sentenced to death for the killings of three women in a Maryland wildlife refuge, a crime that led to a life sentence for the man who fired the fatal shots.
Read moreExecutions
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the executions of Cory Johnson and Dustin Higgs can proceed. The federal executions are the last two scheduled to occur under the Trump administration.
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Feds Lobby Ninth Circuit to Lift Barrier to Ban on China’s WeChat
An attorney for users of Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat told a Ninth Circuit panel Thursday the Trump administration sought to unlawfully ban the app and should be blocked from ever doing so because it never intended to address purported concerns about Beijing-directed espionage.
Read moreDelisting Gray Wolves
Environmentalists sued the Trump administration Thursday over its plans to remove Endangered Species Act protections from nearly all gray wolves in the lower 48 states, despite scientific evidence the wolves are functionally extinct throughout much of their historic range.
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Watchdog Finds Lack of Planning for Zero-Tolerance Immigration Policy
A government watchdog report released Thursday found Justice Department officials implemented the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, knowing it would lead to family separations, without properly preparing federal agencies and prosecutors.
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Trump Administration Cuts 3.5 Million Acres of Habitat for Endangered Owl
As the sunset of the Trump administration approaches, it continues its rush to undo environmental regulations, announcing Wednesday it will reduce critical habitat for the northern spotted owl by nearly a third.
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US to Block Cotton From China Region Targeted in Crackdown
The U.S. government announced Wednesday that it will halt imports of cotton and tomatoes from the Uighur region of China in its most sweeping action yet to pressure the Communist Party over its campaign against ethnic minorities.
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Trump Appointees Pressure Census for Report on Undocumented
U.S. Census Bureau statisticians are under significant pressure from Trump political appointees to figure out who in the U.S. is in the country illegally, and they’re worried that any such report they produce in the waning days of the Trump administration will be inaccurate, according to the bureau’s watchdog agency.
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US Carries Out Its 1st Execution of Female Inmate Since 1953
A Kansas woman was executed Wednesday for strangling an expectant mother in Missouri and cutting the baby from her womb, the first time in nearly seven decades that the U.S. government has put to death a female inmate.
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Supreme Court Clears Way for Woman’s Execution
The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Justice Department to carry out the first execution of a female death-row inmate in almost seven decades.
Read moreSacred Lands
The tribal group Apache Stronghold sued the United States to prevent the transfer of federal lands to mining interests that would “illegally annihilate” a “Western Apache cultural property known to the Apache since time immemorial as Chi’chil Biłdagoteel.”
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Judge: By Resigning, DeVos Opens Door to Deposition on Student Debt Relief
As a private citizen, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos can no longer avoid answering questions in a class action claiming her policies permanently damaged the finances of student borrowers defrauded by for-profit colleges.
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Justices Reinstate Medication Abortion Rule Lifted During Pandemic
The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted the Trump administration ‘s request to reinstate a rule requiring women to visit a medical center to get an abortion drug, after a lower court lifted the regulation in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Trump Makes Final Trip to Border to Tout Immigration Policies
Escaping the heat of an impending impeachment vote, President Trump traveled to South Texas on Tuesday to tout his administration’s immigration policy reforms against the backdrop of the border wall.
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