Federal prosecutors to focus on issue despite court backing constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship. Plus: Greek priest whose metal music has become cult smashGood morning.The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, has said federal prosecutors and law enforcement officers will focus on combating so-called “birth tourism” – which involves tourists, temporary visitors, or undocumented immigrants traveling to the US primarily to give birth and and secure birthright citizenship for their children.What did Blanche say? “There’s other things … the federal government can do in the visa process, and the application process, to try to minimize or limit the opportunity of folks coming here not to visit, and not to do what they’re saying they’re doing on the tourist visa, but just to have a baby that can then be a US citizen. What we have to do as Department of Justice is make sure our agents … and the FBI are focused on stopping that.” Continue reading...
President made more than $1bn from crypto businesses last year while federal government oversaw regulation. Plus, giant seal causes havoc in Tasmania – but locals love himDon’t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning.Donald Trump has raked in more than $1bn from his crypto businesses since returning to the White House, according to financial disclosures, making him substantially richer and ringing alarm bells over a conflict of interest.Where else is Trump getting money from? The US president made millions last year from selling Trump-branded bibles, sneakers and other small items in another unprecedented move for the presidency. In the Trump-branded watches category alone, the president earned $4.7m. Trump also racked up tens of millions from fees and licensing deals in a flurry of new hotel, resort and condo deals overseas. Many of those countries were at the same time negotiating with the US over tariffs, military aid and other important matters. Continue reading...
Barstool Sports founder and owner Dave Portnoy expressed concerns over the rise of socialism across the country, as numerous left-wing candidates continue to win their primary elections. Portnoy, who has become more outspoken about politics recently, said Thursday on Fox & Friends that he does not understand how people can support these candidates because a […]
The path toward undoing the conservative Supreme Court's destructive rulings after the term of President Donald Trump will be arduous, and as one legal scholar argued for the New York Times, it will require three things to be in place.The Supreme Court has released a new batch of highly contentious rulings favorable to the Trump administration to close out its 2026 term, continuing the conservative-majority court's longstanding trend. This week alone, the court rubber-stamped Trump's authority to fire the heads of independent federal agencies at will, a major democratic setback, and let states keep in place laws that forbid transgender women and girls from competing in women's sports.Writing for the Times on Tuesday, Kate Shaw, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, argued that the Supreme Court has, with the former ruling, "all but laid waste" to the separation of powers in the federal government. "With its decision Monday in Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority has fully embraced the unitary executive theory — the view, popular among Donald Trump’s loyalists, that presidents have unrestrained authority over the executive branch," Shaw wrote. "With this decision, the court has fundamentally reshaped the federal government and handed us an executive branch on steroids. Combine the Supreme Court’s radicalism in this case with the revanchist, overreaching second presidency of Mr. Trump, and the separation of powers as we have known it has been all but laid to waste."In order to reverse the damage done by the John Roberts court to the constitutional order, Shaw further argued that three things will be needed: "Democratic control of both the House and Senate, and Supreme Court reform." The first two points, she explained, would be needed, "Given how congressional Republicans have coddled Mr. Trump" throughout his second term, making it unlikely they would "ready a list of reforms intended to rein in an out-of-control executive branch, and to reassert legislative primacy" once he leaves office."What could that court reform look like? It could mean provisions stripping the Supreme Court of the power to hear challenges to certain newly enacted laws, or legislating supermajority voting requirements so that only a showing of unanimity or close to it can justify invalidating certain laws," Shaw continued. "It could also include statutorily creating additional Supreme Court seats, then moving quickly to fill them with jurists who will not pursue the current court’s apparent goal of boundless power for both the president and itself."She concluded: "Pairing an agenda for responding to the pathologies displayed in this presidency with an agenda for Supreme Court reform will ensure that the limits of our political imagination and political will can be far broader than what the current six-justice majority will allow."
Decision overturns decades of precedent curbing executive power. Plus how one man survived eight days lost in the Pacific Good morning. Yesterday the US supreme court handed Donald Trump – and all future presidents – the power to fire leaders of independent agencies or commissions, overturning 90 years of court precedent curbing executive power.While Trump celebrated the ruling on Truth Social as a “big win”, labor advocates, unions, and consumer advocacy groups criticized the decision on the case, Trump v Slaughter, and warned of the long-term impact on democracy in the US. Rebecca Slaughter, the federal trade commissioner fired last March, said she was “profoundly disappointed about today’s decision”. Our columnist, Moira Donegan, says the court’s verdict has again undermined the power of Congress.What have lawyers said about the verdict? Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown law professor, wrote: “There’s no sugar-coating [it]. It’s an enormously important ruling. It’s a huge win for Trump/the executive. And it’s going to have massive ramifications for the functioning of the government long after Trump is gone.”What other decisions did the court make? The supreme court sided against national Republicans and Trump’s administration to allow mail-in ballots that arrive after election day to be counted, upholding the law in more than a dozen states. It also ruled that law enforcement’s use of sprawling warrants that sweep up smartphone location data requires privacy protections under the fourth amendment, in a boost to critics who view their use as an unconstitutional dragnet.How did Trump and Carroll react? The US president wrote on Truth Social: “Surprisingly, the supreme court declined to ‘review’ a Fake Case brought against me”. Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, also issued a statement in response to the decision, saying: “Today’s supreme court decision affirms once and for all the jury’s unanimous verdict that President Donald J Trump sexually assaulted and defamed E Jean Carroll.” Continue reading...
New York City mayor says Democratic candidates he endorsed speak to people struggling to make ends meet. Plus the best pictures from weekend Pride events across the USDon’t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning. The New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, said on Sunday that he and a slew of Democratic socialist allies who prevailed in recent primary elections were carrying a “national message” to struggling working Americans hungry for a new kind of politics “coast to coast”. His endorsed candidates won Democratic nominations in three races for New York congressional seats, as well as for five state legislature positions in Albany.He said collectively they were carrying a “New Deal understanding” of Democratic politics to Congress and on to the “national stage”. It spoke, he said, to Americans feeling exhaustion at struggling to make ends meet “every single day”. Mamdani said: “We don’t have to nationalize that message. That is a national message – it’s a national crisis.”How did other members of the Democratic party react? Fifteen self-labelled “moderate” Democrats in the US House signed an open letter that, though it did not mention Mamdani or his endorsed allies, was clearly targeted at them. “We are capitalist, not socialist,” they said. “We are mainstream, not extreme. We are proud, not ashamed, of America.”Who is affected by the supreme court decision? Thursday’s ruling is set to affect an estimated 350,000 Haitian and 6,000 Syrian immigrants who now face detention or deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers as protections end. The US first provided temporary protected status (TPS) to Haitians after a devastating earthquake in 2010, and to Syrians after their country descended into civil war in 2012. Continue reading...
