Chief Justice Roberts sides with Trump Administration on foreign aid
Conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts last night gave the Trump Administration a victory when he ruled that it temporarily did not have to abide by rulings of a federal judge and a federal appeals court and restart foreign aid that it and Elon Musk had killed. Roberts ordered a temporary stay to the lower court order requiring the administration to release about $2 billion in U.S. Aid for International Development (USAID) funds by midnight last night. Roberts told the groups that had sued to keep USAID alive to submit their arguments by noon on Friday after which the court will decide whether to permanently rule against the decisions made by the lower courts.
Actor Gene Hackman, his wife and dog, found dead
Two-time Academy Award winner Gene Hackman, his wife and their dog were found dead in their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The local sheriff’s department said there were no indications of foul play, but the cause of their deaths was not immediately reported. Hackman is remembered for numerous movie roles including in “Bonnie and Clyde,” “The French Connection,” for which he won his first Oscar, “Unforgiven,” for which he won his second Oscar, “Hoosiers,” “The Birdcage,” “Mississippi Burning,” and as villain Lex Luthor in “Superman.” Gene Hackman was 95 years old.
Trump nominees vague on whether officials must follow court orders
Two people who Donald Trump nominated for high-level positions in the Department of Justice (DOJ) appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday in a hearing on their nominations. Under questioning, they did not give absolute answers to whether they and public officials in general must abide by court orders. Aaron Reitz, who has been nominated to head DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy, claimed there is no hard and fast rule about whether public officials need to follow every court order. D. John Sauer, who was nominated to be Solicitor General, called a question about following court orders to be a hypothetical and said he didn’t want to speak about hypotheticals.
Department of Veterans Affairs pauses cuts in health programs for veterans
An estimated $2 billion in cuts to health programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs ordered by Elon Musk and the Trump Administration has been put on hold. The Associated Press reported that it had a list of all 875 contracts that had been ordered to be dropped and found they affect every area from screening for cancer to treatment for exposure to toxic materials. The Washington Post reported that the reversal came after Congressional Democrats put pressure on the agency not to take actions that would interfere with medical care and other services for veterans.
White House blocks news media from covering Trump’s cabinet meeting
The White House blocked an Associated Press photographer and reporters from the Reuters news agency, HuffPost and the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel from covering President Trump’s first cabinet meeting at the White House yesterday. HuffPost said that what the White House did is a clear violation of freedom of the press and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Trump White House has been increasingly preventing news coverage by news media whose coverage it does not like, while allowing increased access to right-leaning news organizations and bloggers.
Measles outbreak claims a life in Texas
The measles outbreak in Texas has claimed the life of a child, who was not vaccinated. There have been 124 cases so far spread across nine Texas counties, affecting people who were not vaccinated. About 20 patients have had to be hospitalized to receive treatment for respiratory distress. At a White House cabinet meeting, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. incorrectly said that the people were hospitalized only so that they could be quarantined, failing to state that they were so sick that without prompt medical treatment they would likely die. He also wrongly stated that measles outbreaks like the one in Texas are routine in the U.S. The death of the child was the first death from measles in the U.S. in 10 years.
