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      Supreme Court Blocks Mexico’s Suit Against U.S. Gunmakers

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      The case focused on whether the Mexican government could legally sue U.S. manufacturers over claims that they shared blame for violence by drug cartels.The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the Mexican government cannot sue U.S. gun manufacturers to hold them responsible for violence committed by drug cartels.In a unanimous decision by Justice Elena Kagan, the court held that a lawsuit by the Mexican government was barred by U.S. legislation that insulates gun makers from liability. Mexico, she wrote, had not plausibly argued that American gun manufacturers had aided and abetted in unlawful gun sales to Mexican drug traffickers.Mexico had argued that the gun industry’s production and sale of arms in the United States had helped fuel and supply drug cartels, harming the Mexican government. Mexican government lawyers also claimed the companies were aware that some of their guns were illegally trafficked, and that the country should therefore be allowed to sue.During an oral argument in early March, a majority of the justices appeared skeptical that Mexico could prove a direct link between gunmakers and cartel violence. Several justices appeared persuaded that a 2005 law shielding gun makers and distributors from most domestic lawsuits over injuries caused by firearms could also apply to the case brought by the Mexican government.The case began in 2021, when Mexico filed a lawsuit against a number of American gun makers and one distributor, arguing that they shared blame for drug cartel violence. The country asked them for $10 billion in damages.In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the Mexican government alleged that the gun industry’s actions had burdened the nation’s police, military and judicial system. Mexico also argued that the U.S. gun industry had been negligent in marketing, distributing and selling high-capacity guns.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supreme Court Backs Catholic Charity Denied Exemption in Tax Case

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      The Wisconsin Supreme Court had ruled that the group’s activities in serving the state’s poor were not religious enough to qualify for the exemption.The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that a Catholic charity in Wisconsin was entitled to a tax exemption that had been denied by a state court on the ground that its activities were not primarily religious.The Wisconsin Supreme Court had ruled that the group’s activities were “primarily charitable and secular” and that it did not “attempt to imbue program participants with the Catholic faith.” Indeed, the state court said, the group employed and served people of all religions.That meant, the state court found, that the group should be denied the tax exemption even as it accepted the charity’s contention that its services were “based on Gospel values and the principles of the Catholic social teachings.”The case was one of three concerning religion heard by the justices this term, and it extended a remarkable winning streak at the court for religious people and groups.Another case, about whether parents in Maryland have a religious right to withdraw their children from classes when books with gay and transgender themes are discussed, will be decided in the coming weeks.In the third case, the justices deadlocked in May by a 4-to-4 vote over whether a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma passed constitutional muster, letting stand a state court ruling against the school but setting no national precedent.The Wisconsin case, Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission, No. 24-154, concerned a state law that exempts religious groups from state unemployment taxes so long as they are “operated primarily for religious purposes.”Catholic Charities Bureau, the social ministry of the Catholic Diocese in Superior, Wis., has said its mission is to provide “services to the poor and disadvantaged as an expression of the social ministry of the Catholic Church.” But state officials determined that the charity did not qualify for the exemption because it “provides essentially secular services and engages in activities that are not religious per se.”When the case was argued in March, a lawyer for the state acknowledged that the charity would qualify for the exemption if it were part of the church rather than a separate corporation. But he said there must be principles that separate religious institutions from others. More

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      Supreme Court Unanimously Rules for Straight Woman in Workplace Discrimination Suit

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      The justices rejected an appeals court’s requirement that members of majority groups meet a heightened standard to win employment discrimination cases.The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled in favor of a straight woman who twice lost positions to gay workers, saying an appeals court had been wrong to require her to meet a heightened burden in seeking to prove workplace discrimination because she was a member of a majority group.The decision came two years after the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions programs in higher education and amid the Trump administration’s fierce efforts to root out programs that promote diversity and could make it easier for white people, men and other members of majority groups to pursue claims of employment discrimination.The standards for proving workplace discrimination under a federal civil rights law, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote for the court, “does not vary based on whether or not the plaintiff is a member of a majority group.”The case was brought by Marlean A. Ames, who had worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services, which oversees parts of the state’s juvenile corrections system. After a decade there, in 2014 she became the administrator of a program addressing prison rape. Five years later, she applied for a promotion.Her supervisors turned her down, saying she lacked vision and leadership skills. They eventually gave the position to a gay woman who had been at the department for a shorter time and, unlike Ms. Ames, lacked a college degree.Not long after denying her the new position, her supervisors removed her from her existing job, telling her that they had concerns about her leadership and offering her a demotion that came with a substantial pay cut. She was replaced by a gay man with less seniority.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Justice Dept. Drops Biden-Era Push to Obtain Peter Navarro’s Emails

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      The department’s move is one of many recent actions taken to dismiss criminal and civil actions against Trump allies such as Mr. Navarro, the president’s trade adviser.The Justice Department has abruptly dropped its effort to force Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser, to turn over hundreds of his emails dating to the first Trump administration to the National Archives, according to a court filing on Tuesday.The decision to drop the civil lawsuit was disclosed in a one-page notice filed in Federal District Court in the District of Columbia. The department offered no explanation for the move, but it is one of many recent actions it has taken to dismiss criminal and civil actions taken against Trump allies.Mr. Navarro, 75, had long resisted the government’s request that he give the archives emails from his personal ProtonMail account relating to his role as a White House adviser, as required by the Presidential Records Act.Defiance is Mr. Navarro’s default. He served about four months in the geriatric unit of a federal prison in Miami after refusing to comply with a subpoena to appear before a congressional committee investigating his false claims about the 2020 election.In 2022, the Biden Justice Department sued Mr. Navarro, one of the main architects of Mr. Trump’s second-term tariff policy, to retrieve the communications. The lawsuit charged him with “wrongfully retaining presidential records that are the property of the United States, and which constitute part of the permanent historical record of the prior administration.”The lawsuit accused Mr. Navarro of using his private email account to conduct public work, including an effort to influence the White House response to the pandemic. Those emails were needed to preserve the historical record, officials at the archives said.Mr. Navarro unsuccessfully petitioned the Supreme Court to dismiss the suit last year.A federal magistrate judge earlier reviewed about 900 messages, determining that more than 500 were not presidential records. He ordered additional hearings to decide how many of the remaining 350-plus emails needed to be turned over to the government.Mr. Navarro’s lawyer did not immediately return a request for comment.Stanley Woodward, who represented Mr. Navarro in both his civil and criminal cases, recused himself after Mr. Trump appointed him in April to serve as associate attorney general. More

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      Trump Aides Insist That Tariffs Will Remain, Even After Court Ruling

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      One official said that the president is unlikely to delay his initial 90-day pause on some of his highest rates.President Trump’s top economic advisers stressed on Sunday that they would not be deterred by a recent court decision that declared many of the administration’s tariffs to be illegal, as they pointed out a variety of additional authorities that the White House could invoke as it looks to pressure China and others into negotiations.They also signaled that Mr. Trump had no plans to extend an original 90-day pause on some of his steepest tariff rates, raising the odds that those duties — the mere announcement of which had roiled markets — could take effect as planned in July.“Rest assured, tariffs are not going away,” Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”Asked about the future of the president’s so-called reciprocal tariffs, first announced and quickly suspended in April, Mr. Lutnick added, “I don’t see today that an extension is coming.”The president’s tariff strategy entered uncharted political and legal territory last week after a federal trade court ruled that Mr. Trump had misused an emergency economic powers law in trying to wage a global trade war.The decision would have put a quick halt to those duties, which form the centerpiece of the president’s strategy of pressuring other countries into trade talks. But an appeals court soon granted the government a brief administrative pause to sort out arguments in the case, which is expected to reach the Supreme Court.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump, Bashing the Federalist Society, Asserts Autonomy on Judge Picks

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      The president has grown increasingly angry at court rulings blocking parts of his agenda, including by judges he appointed.President Trump appears to be declaring independence from outside constraints on how he nominates judges, signaling that he is looking for loyalists who will uphold his agenda and denouncing the conservative legal network that helped him remake the federal judiciary in his first term.Late Thursday, after a ruling struck down his tariffs on most imported goods, Mr. Trump attacked the Federalist Society, leaders of which heavily influenced his selection of judges during his first presidency.“I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations,” Mr. Trump asserted on social media. “This is something that cannot be forgotten!”Hours earlier Thursday, the Justice Department severely undercut the traditional role of the American Bar Association in vetting judicial nominees. A day before, Mr. Trump picked a loyalist who has no deep ties to the conservative legal movement for a life-tenured appeals court seat, explaining that his pick could be counted on to rule in ways aligned with his agenda.Together, the moves suggest that Mr. Trump may be pivoting toward greater personal involvement and a more idiosyncratic process for selecting future nominees. Such a shift would fit with his second-term pattern of steamrolling the guardrails that sometimes constrained how he exercised power during his first presidency.But it could also give pause to judges who may be weighing taking senior status, giving Mr. Trump an opportunity to fill their seats. Conservatives have been eyeing in particular the seats of the Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas, who will turn 77 next month, and Samuel A. Alito, 75.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration, for Now, to End Biden-Era Migrant Program

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      The Trump administration had asked the court to allow it to end deportation protections for more than 500,000 people facing dire humanitarian crises in their home countries.The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration, for now, to revoke a Biden-era humanitarian program intended to give temporary residency to more than 500,000 immigrants from countries facing war and political turmoil.The court’s order was unsigned and provided no reasoning, which is typical when the justices rule on emergency applications.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented, saying the majority had not given enough consideration to “the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”The ruling, which exposes some migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti to possible deportation, is the latest in a series of emergency orders by the justices in recent weeks responding to a flurry of applications asking the court to weigh in on the administration’s attempts to unwind Biden-era immigration policies.Friday’s ruling focused on former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s expansion of a legal mechanism for immigration called humanitarian parole, in which migrants from countries facing instability are allowed to enter the United States and quickly secure work authorization, provided they have a private sponsor to take responsibility for them.Earlier this month, the justices allowed the Trump administration to remove deportation protections from nearly 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants who had been allowed to remain in the United States under a program known as Temporary Protected Status.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supreme Court Curbs Scope of Environmental Reviews

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      The question for the justices was whether an agency had complied with a federal law by issuing a 3,600-page report on the impact of a proposed railway in Utah.The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that a federal agency had done enough to consider the environmental impact of a proposed 88-mile railway in Utah. The ruling limits the scope of environmental reviews required by federal law in all sorts of settings.The proposed railway would connect oil fields in the Uinta Basin in northeast Utah to a national rail network that runs next to the Colorado River and then to refineries on the Gulf Coast.“An agency may weigh environmental consequences as the agency reasonably sees fit,” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote for five justices. The court’s three liberal members agreed with the decision’s bottom line but on narrower grounds. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch was recused.The Surface Transportation Board, a federal agency that regulates rail transportation, approved the Utah project in 2021 after conducting a review that yielded a 3,600-page report. Environmental groups and a Colorado county sued, saying the report had not taken account of some ways in which the railway could do harm to the environment.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled for the challengers.The environmental impact statements required by a 1970 federal law, the National Environmental Policy Act, can be quite elaborate. Paul D. Clement, a lawyer representing seven Utah counties that support the project, told the justices when the case was argued in December that the law was “the single most litigated environmental statute.”He added that the board had acted responsibly.“It consulted with dozens of agencies, considered every proximate effect and ordered 91 mitigation measures,” he said, referring to measures intended to, among other things, dampen noise pollution and protect wildlife. “Eighty-eight miles of track should not require more than 3,600 pages of environmental analysis.”William M. Jay, a lawyer for the challengers, said at the argument that the report did not consider all the reasonably foreseeable results of the project, like oil spills and sparks that can cause wildfires, as required by the federal law.The case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colo., No. 23-975, was argued before an eight-member court after Justice Gorsuch recused himself, apparently over concerns that his ties to Philip F. Anschutz gave rise to a conflict of interest. Neither Mr. Anschutz, a billionaire and Republican donor, nor his companies are parties to the case, and the letter announcing Justice Gorsuch’s recusal gave no reasons.But the proposed railway could benefit companies in which Mr. Anschutz has an interest. Justice Gorsuch represented Mr. Anschutz and his companies as a lawyer, benefited from his support when he was being considered for a seat on an appeals court and once served as a keynote speaker at an annual party at his ranch. More