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  • Penn State Scandal Fast Facts | CNN

    Penn State Scandal Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the Penn State sexual abuse scandal. On November 4, 2011, a grand jury report was released containing testimony that former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky sexually abused eight young boys over a period of at least 15 years. Officials at Penn State purportedly failed to notify law enforcement after learning about some of these incidents. On December 7, 2011, the number of victims increased to 10. Sandusky was found guilty in 2012.

    Included is a timeline of accusations, lists of the charges against Sandusky, a list of involved parties, a post grand jury report timeline, information about The Second Mile charity and Sandusky with links to the grand jury investigation.

    Jerry Sandusky

    Birth date: January 26, 1944

    Birth place: Washington, Pennsylvania

    Birth name: Gerald Arthur Sandusky

    Marriage: Dorothy “Dottie” (Gross) Sandusky (1966-present)

    Children: (all adopted) E.J., Kara, Jon, Jeff, Ray and Matt. The Sanduskys also fostered several children.

    Occupation: Assistant football coach at Penn State for 32 years before his retirement, including 23 years as defensive coordinator.

    Initially founded by Sandusky in 1977 as a group foster home for troubled boys, but grew into a non-profit organization that “helps young people to achieve their potential as individuals and community members.”

    May 25, 2012 – The Second Mile requests court approval in Centre County, Pennsylvania, to transfer its programs to Arrow Child & Family Ministries and shut down.

    August 27, 2012 – The Second Mile requests a stay in their petition to transfer its programs to Arrow Child & Family Ministries saying, “this action will allow any pending or future claims filed by Sandusky’s victims to be resolved before key programs or assets are considered for transfer.”

    March 2016 – After years of dismantling and distributing assets to Arrow Child & Family Ministries and any remaining funds to the Pennsylvania Attorney General to hold in escrow, the organization is dissolved.

    Source: Grand Jury Report

    1994-1997 – Sandusky engages in inappropriate conduct with different boys he met separately through The Second Mile program.

    1998 – Penn State police and the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare investigate an incident in which the mother of an 11-year-old boy reported that Sandusky showered with her son.

    1998 – Psychologist Alycia Chambers tells Penn State police that Sandusky acted the way a pedophile might in her assessment of a case in which the mother of a young boy reported that Sandusky showered with her son and may have had inappropriate contact with him. A second psychologist, John Seasock, reported he found no indication of child abuse.

    June 1, 1998 – In an interview, Sandusky admits to showering naked with the boy, saying it was wrong and promising not to do it again. The district attorney advises investigators that no charges will be filed, and the university police chief instructs that the case be closed.

    June 1999 – Sandusky retires from Penn State after coaching there for 32 years, but receives emeritus status, with full access to the campus and football facilities.

    2000 – James Calhoun, a janitor at Penn State, tells his supervisor and another janitor that he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in the Lasch Building showers. No one reports the incident to university officials or law enforcement.

    March 2, 2002 – Graduate Assistant Mike McQueary tells Coach Joe Paterno that on March 1, he witnessed Sandusky sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy in the Lasch Building showers. On May 7, 2012, prosecutors file court documents to change the date of the assault to on or around February 9, 2001.

    March 3, 2002 – Paterno reports the incident to Athletic Director Tim Curley. Later, McQueary meets with Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz. McQueary testifies that he told Curley and Schultz that he saw Sandusky and the boy engage in anal sex; Curley and Schultz testify they were not told of any such allegation. No law enforcement investigation is launched.

    2005 or 2006 – Sandusky befriends another Second Mile participant whose allegations would form the foundation of the multi-year grand jury investigation.

    2006 or 2007 – Sandusky begins to spend more time with the boy, taking him to sporting events and giving him gifts. During this period, Sandusky performs oral sex on the boy more than 20 times and the boy performs oral sex on him once.

    2008 – The boy breaks off contact with Sandusky. Later, his mother calls the boy’s high school to report her son had been sexually assaulted and the principal bans Sandusky from campus and reports the incident to police. The ensuing investigation reveals 118 calls from Sandusky’s home and cell phone numbers to the boy’s home.

    November 2008 – Sandusky informs The Second Mile that he is under investigation. He is removed from all program activities involving children, according to the group.

    November 4, 2011 – The grand jury report is released.

    November 5, 2011 – Sandusky is arraigned on 40 criminal counts. He is released on $100,000 bail. Curley and Schultz are each charged with one count of felony perjury and one count of failure to report abuse allegations.

    November 7, 2011 – Curley and Schultz are both arraigned and resign from their positions.

    November 9, 2011 – Paterno announces that he intends to retire at the end of the 2011 football season. Hours later, university trustees announce that President Graham Spanier and Coach Paterno are fired, effective immediately.

    November 11, 2011 – McQueary, now a Penn State receivers’ coach, is placed on indefinite administrative leave.

    November 14, 2011 – In a phone interview with NBC’s Bob Costas, Sandusky states that he is “innocent” of the charges and claims that the only thing he did wrong was “showering with those kids.”

    November 15, 2011 – The Morning Call reports that in a November 8, 2011, email to a former classmate, McQueary says he did stop the 2002 assault he witnessed and talked with police about it.

    November 16, 2011 – Representatives of Penn State’s campus police and State College police say they have no record of having received any report from McQueary about his having witnessed the rape of a boy by Sandusky.

    November 16, 2011 – A new judge is assigned to the Sandusky case after it is discovered that Leslie Dutchcot, the judge who freed Sandusky on $100,000 bail, volunteered at The Second Mile charity.

    November 21, 2011 – It is announced that former FBI Director Louis Freeh will lead an independent inquiry for Penn State into the school’s response to allegations of child sex abuse.

    November 22, 2011 – The Patriot-News reports that Children and Youth Services in Pennsylvania has two open cases of child sex abuse against Sandusky. The cases were reported less than two months ago and are in the initial stages of investigation.

    November 22, 2011 – The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts announces that all Centre County Common Pleas Court judges have recused themselves from the Sandusky case. This is to avoid any conflicts of interest due to connections with Sandusky, The Second Mile charity, or Penn State.

    November 30, 2011 – The first lawsuit is filed on behalf of a person listed in the complaint as “John Doe,” who says he was 10 years-old when he met Sandusky through The Second Mile charity. His attorneys say Sandusky sexually abused the victim “over one hundred times” and threatened to harm the victim and his family if he alerted anyone to the abuse.

    December 2, 2011 – A victim’s attorneys say they have reached a settlement with The Second Mile that allows it to stay in operation but requires it to obtain court approval before transferring assets or closing.

    December 3, 2011 – In an interview with The New York Times, Sandusky says, “If I say, ‘No, I’m not attracted to young boys,’ that’s not the truth. Because I’m attracted to young people – boys, girls – I …” His lawyer speaks up at that point to note that Sandusky is not “sexually” attracted to them.

    December 7, 2011 – Sandusky is arrested on additional child rape charges, which raises the number of victims from eight to 10 people. He is charged with four counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and two counts of unlawful contact with a minor. He also faces one new count of indecent assault and two counts of endangering a child’s welfare, in addition to a single new count of indecent assault and two counts of corruption of minors.

    December 8, 2011 – Sandusky is released on $250,000 bail. He is placed under house arrest and is required to wear an electronic monitoring device. He is also restricted from contacting the victims and possible witnesses, and he must be supervised during any interactions with minors.

    December 13, 2011 – Sandusky enters a plea of not guilty and waives his right to a preliminary hearing.

    December 16, 2011 – A hearing is held for Curley and Schultz. McQueary testifies he told university officials that he saw Sandusky possibly sexually assaulting a boy in 2002. Following the testimony, the judge rules that the perjury case against Curley and Schultz will go to trial. The incident is later said to have happened in 2001.

    January 13, 2012 – Curley and Schultz enter pleas of not guilty for their failure to report child sex abuse.

    January 22, 2012 – Paterno dies at the age of 85.

    February 14, 2012 – Penn State says that the Sandusky case has cost the university $3.2 million thus far in combined legal, consultant and public relations fees.

    June 11, 2012 – The Sandusky trial begins. On June 22, Sandusky is found guilty on 45 counts after jurors deliberate for almost 21 hours. His bail is immediately revoked, and he is taken to jail.

    June 30, 2012 – McQueary’s contract as assistant football coach ends.

    July 12, 2012 – Freeh announces the findings of the investigation into Penn State’s actions concerning Sandusky. The report accuses the former leaders at Penn State of showing “total and consistent disregard” for child sex abuse victims, while covering up the attacks of a longtime sexual predator.

    July 23, 2012 – The NCAA announces a $60 million fine against Penn State and bans the team from the postseason for four years. Additionally, the school must vacate all wins from 1998-2011 and will lose 20 football scholarships a year for four seasons.
    – The Big Ten Conference rules that Penn State’s share of bowl revenues for the next four seasons – roughly $13 million will be donated to charities working to prevent child abuse.

    August 24, 2012 – “Victim 1” files a lawsuit against Penn State.

    September 20, 2012 – Penn State hires Feinberg Rozen LLP (headed by Kenneth Feinberg who oversaw the 9/11 and BP oil spill victim funds).

    October 2, 2012 – McQueary files a whistleblower lawsuit against Penn State.

    October 8, 2012 – An audio statement from Sandusky airs in which he protests his innocence and says he is falsely accused.

    October 9, 2012 – Sandusky is sentenced to no less than 30 years and no more than 60 years in prison. During the hearing, Sandusky is designated a violent sexual offender.

    October 15, 2012 – Plaintiff “John Doe,” a 21-year-old male, files a lawsuit against Sandusky, Penn State, The Second Mile, Spanier, Curley and Schultz. Doe alleges that he would not have been assaulted by Sandusky if officials, who were aware he was molesting boys, had not covered up his misconduct.

    November 1, 2012 – The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania files eight charges against former Penn State President Spanier. The charges include perjury and endangering the welfare of a child. Former university Vice President Schultz and former Athletic Director Curley face the same charges, according to Attorney General Linda Kelly.

    November 15, 2012 – The Middle States Commission on Higher Education lifts its warning and reaffirms Penn State’s accreditation.

    January 30, 2013 – Judge John M. Cleland denies Sandusky’s appeal for a new trial.

    July 30, 2013 – A judge rules that Spanier, Curley and Schultz will face trial on obstruction of justice and other charges.

    August 26, 2013 – Attorneys announce Sandusky’s adopted son and six other victims have finalized settlement agreements.

    October 2, 2013 – The Superior Court of Pennsylvania denies Sandusky’s appeal.

    October 28, 2013 – Penn State announces it has reached settlements with 26 victims of Sandusky. The amount paid by the university totals $59.7 million.

    April 2, 2014 – The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania also denies Sandusky’s appeal.

    September 8, 2014 – NCAA ends Penn State’s postseason ban and scholarship limits. The $60 million fine and the 13 years of vacated wins for Paterno remain in place.

    January 16, 2015 – The NCAA agrees to restore 111 of Paterno’s wins as part of a settlement of the lawsuit brought by State Senator Jake Corman and Treasurer Rob McCord. Also, as part of the settlement, Penn State agrees to commit $60 million to the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse.

    December 23, 2015 – A spokeswoman for the State of Pennsylvania employee retirement system says Sandusky will receive $211,000 in back payments and his regular pension payments will resume. This is the result of a November 13 court ruling that reversed a 2012 decision to terminate Sandusky’s pension under a state law that allows the termination of pensions of public employees convicted of a “disqualifying crime.” The judge said in his ruling that Sandusky was not employed at the time of the crimes he was convicted of committing.

    January 22, 2016 – A three-judge panel reverses the obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges against Spanier, Curley and Schultz, and the perjury charges against Spanier and Curley.

    May 4, 2016 – A new allegation purports Paterno knew that his assistant coach Sandusky was sexually abusing a child as early as 1976, according to a new court filing. The ongoing lawsuit, filed in 2013, seeks to determine whether Penn State or its insurance policy is liable for paying Sandusky’s victims. At least 30 men were involved in a civil settlement with Penn State, and the number of victims could be higher.

    May 6, 2016 – CNN reports the story of another alleged victim who explains how he was a troubled young kid in 1971 when Sandusky raped him in a Penn State bathroom. He says his complaint about it was ignored by Paterno.

    July 12, 2016 – Newly unsealed court documents allege that Paterno knew about Sandusky’s abuse and that he dismissed a victim’s complaint.

    August 12, 2016 – In a bid for a new trial, Sandusky testifies at a post-conviction hearing claiming his lawyers bungled his 2012 trial. On the stand, Sandusky describes what he said as bad media and legal advice given to him by his former lawyer, Joseph Amendola.

    November 3, 2016 – The Department of Education fines Penn State $2.4 million for violating the Clery Act, a law that requires universities to report crime on campuses. It’s the largest fine in the history of the act.

    March 13, 2017 – Curley and Schultz plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of children in exchange for the dismissal of felony charges.

    March 24, 2017 – Spanier is found guilty on one misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child. Spanier was acquitted of more serious allegations, including conspiracy charges and a felony count of child endangerment.

    June 2, 2017 – Spanier and two other former administrators are sentenced to jail terms for failing to report a 2001 allegation that Sandusky was molesting young boys. Spanier whose total sentence is four to 12 months incarceration, will be on probation for two years and must pay a $7,500 fine, according to Joe Grace, a spokesman for Pennsylvania’s attorney general’s office.

    – Curley is sentenced to seven to 23 months’ incarceration and two years’ probation, Grace said. He will serve three months in jail followed by house arrest and pay a $5,000 fine.

    – Schultz is sentenced to six to 23 months’ incarceration and two years’ probation. He will serve two months in jail, followed by house arrest and pay a $5,000 fine, according to Grace.

    January 9, 2018 – Penn State reports that the total amount of settlement awards paid to Sandusky’s victims is now over $109 million.

    February 5, 2019 – In response to an appeal for a new trial that also questions the validity of mandatory minimum sentencing, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania orders Sandusky to be re-sentenced. The request for a new trial is denied.

    April 30, 2019 – US Magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick vacates Spanier’s 2017 conviction for endangering the welfare of a child. Spanier was set to be sentenced on the one count conviction, instead, the court ordered the conviction be vacated because it was based on a criminal statute that did not go into effect until after the conduct in question. The state has 90 days to retry him, according to court documents. The following month, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro appeals the judge’s decision to throw out the conviction.

    November 22, 2019 – Sandusky is resentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison, the same penalty that was previously overturned. The initial sentence of at least 30 years in prison was overturned by the Pennsylvania Superior Court, which found that mandatory minimum sentences were illegally imposed.

    March 26, 2020 – The US Office for Civil Rights finds that Penn State failed to protect students who filed sexual harassment complaints. OCR completed the compliance review after it was initially launched in 2014, and found that the University violated Title IX for several years, in various ways. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announces that the US Department of Education and the university have entered into a resolution agreement that compels Penn State to address deficiencies in their complaint process, reporting policy requirements, record keeping, and training of staff, university police and other persons who work with students.

    December 1, 2020 – Spanier’s conviction is restored by a federal appeals court.

    May 26, 2021 – A judge rules that Spanier will start his two month prison sentence on July 9. Spanier reports to jail early and is released on August 4 after serving 58 days.

    Sandusky Verdict

    Victim 1
    Count 1 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
    Count 2 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
    Count 3 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Felony 3)
    Count 4 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
    Count 5 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 6 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

    Victim 2
    Count 7 – not guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
    Count 8 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
    Count 9 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
    Count 10 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 11 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

    Victim 3
    Count 12 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
    Count 13 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 3)
    Count 14 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 15 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

    Victim 4
    Count 16 – ****DROPPED****: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
    Count 17 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
    Count 18 – ****DROPPED*****: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
    Count 19 – ****DROPPED*****: Aggravated Indecent Assault (Felony 2)
    Count 20 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
    Count 21 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
    Count 22 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 23 – guilty” Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

    Victim 5
    Count 24 – not guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 25 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 3)
    Count 26 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 27 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

    Victim 6
    Count 28 – not guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 29 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 3)
    Count 30 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 31 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

    Victim 7
    Count 32 – guilty: Criminal Attempt to Commit Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
    Count 33 – ****DROPPED****: WITHDRAWN BY PROSECUTORS (unlawful contact with minors)
    Count 34 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 35 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

    Victim 8
    Count 36 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
    Count 37 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
    Count 38 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
    Count 39 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 40 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

    (Due to 2nd indictment, counts start over with Victims 9 and 10)

    Victim 9
    Count 1 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
    Count 2 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
    Count 3 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Felony 3)
    Count 4 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
    Count 5 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 6 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

    Victim 10
    Count 7 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
    Count 8 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
    Count 9 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 10 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
    Count 11 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
    Count 12 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

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  • Roe v. Wade Fast Facts | CNN

    Roe v. Wade Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the US Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade.

    1971 – The case is filed by Norma McCorvey, known in court documents as Jane Roe, against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, who enforced a Texas law that prohibited abortion, except to save a woman’s life.

    January 22, 1973 – The US Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, affirms the legality of a woman’s right to have an abortion under the Fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. The court held that a woman’s right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy (recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut) protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision gave a woman the right to an abortion during the entirety of the pregnancy and defined different levels of state interest for regulating abortion in the second and third trimesters.

    The ruling affected laws in 46 states.

    Full-text opinions by the justices can be viewed here.

    1971 – The Supreme Court agrees to hear the case filed by Roe against Wade, who was enforcing the Texas abortion law that had been declared unconstitutional in an earlier federal district court case. Wade was ignoring the legal ruling and both sides appealed.

    December 13, 1971 – The case is argued before the US Supreme Court.

    October 11, 1972 – The case is reargued before the US Supreme Court.

    January 22, 1973 – The US Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, affirms the legality of a woman’s right to have an abortion under the Fourteenth amendment to the Constitution.

    June 17, 2003 – McCorvey (Roe) files a motion with the federal district court in Dallas to have the case overturned and asks the court to consider new evidence that abortion hurts women. Included are 1,000 affidavits from women who say they regret their abortions.

    September 14, 2004 – A three-judge panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans dismisses McCorvey’s motion to have the case overturned, according to the Court’s clerk.

    May 2, 2022 – In a stunning breach of Supreme Court confidentiality and secrecy, Politico has obtained what it calls a draft of a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that would overturn Roe v. Wade’s holding of a federal constitutional right to an abortion. The opinion in the case is not expected to be published until late June. The court confirms the authenticity of the document on May 3, but stresses it is not the final decision.

    June 24, 2022 – The Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade with a 6-3 decision, holding that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion. 

    Norma McCorvey – Texas resident who sought to obtain an abortion. Texas law prohibited abortions except to save the pregnant mother’s life. McCorvey was pregnant when she became the lead plaintiff in the case. She gave up the baby for adoption.

    McCorvey has since come forward and spoken against abortion. In 1997, McCorvey started Roe No More, an anti-abortion outreach organization that was dissolved in 2008. McCorvey died on February 18, 2017. In the 2020 documentary “AKA Jane Roe,” prior to her death in 2017, McCorvey told the film’s director that she hadn’t changed her mind about abortion but became an anti-abortion activist because she was being paid.

    Henry Wade – district attorney of Dallas County from 1951 to 1987. McCorvey sued him because he enforced a law that prohibited abortion, except to save a woman’s life. He died on March 1, 2001.

    Sarah Weddington – Lawyer for McCorvey.

    Linda Coffee – Lawyer for McCorvey.

    Jay Floyd – Argued the case for Texas the first time.

    Robert C. Flowers – Reargued the case for Texas.

    Majority: Harry A. Blackmun (for The Court), William J. Brennan, Lewis F. Powell Jr., Thurgood Marshall

    Concurring: Warren Burger, William Orville Douglas, Potter Stewart

    Dissenting: William H. Rehnquist, Byron White

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  • Jacob Zuma Fast Facts | CNN

    Jacob Zuma Fast Facts | CNN

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    Here’s a look at the life of Jacob Zuma, former president of South Africa. Zuma survived at least half a dozen no-confidence votes during his presidency.

    Birth date: April 12, 1942

    Birth place: Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa

    Birth name: Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma

    Father: Gcinamazwi Zuma, police officer

    Mother: Nobhekisisa Bessie, domestic worker

    Marriages: Bongi Ngema (2012-present); Thobeka Stacy Mabhija (2010-present); Nompumelelo Ntuli (2008-present); Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini (1982-1998, divorced); Kate Mantsho Zuma (1976-2000, her death); Gertrude Sizakele Khumalo Zuma (1973-present)

    Children: Reportedly has more than 20 children

    ANC Work and Exile

    1958 – Joins the African National Congress (ANC).

    1962 – Becomes a member of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military arm of the ANC.

    1963 – Arrested with other Spear of the Nation members and convicted of conspiring to overthrow the South African government. Zuma spends 10 years in prison on Robben Island.

    1975 – Flees South Africa and lives in exile for 15 years in Swaziland, Mozambique, Zambia and several other African countries, while continuing his work with the ANC.

    February 1990 – President F. W. de Klerk lifts the ban on the ANC and other opposition groups. Zuma returns to South Africa.

    ANC Leadership and Corruption Charges

    1990 – At the ANC’s first Regional Congress in KwaZulu-Natal province, Zuma is elected chairperson of the Southern Natal region and takes a leading role in fighting violence in the region. This results in peace accords between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party.

    December 1994 – Is elected as the national chairperson of the ANC.

    1997-2007 – Deputy president of the ANC.

    October 1998 – Receives the Nelson Mandela Award for Outstanding Leadership.

    1999-2005 – Deputy president of South Africa.

    June 2, 2005 – A South African court finds businessman Schabir Shaik guilty of bribing Zuma between 1995 and 2002.

    June 14, 2005 – President Thabo Mbeki fires Zuma over his alleged involvement in the Shaik bribery scandal.

    December 6, 2005 – Charged with raping a young female family friend; he claims the sex was consensual. He is acquitted on May 8, 2006.

    September 5, 2006 – Brought to trial and charged with corruption for allegedly accepting bribes from French arms company Thint Holdings. On September 20, the charges are dismissed by the court after numerous extensions by prosecutors to build the state’s case.

    2007-2017 – President of the ANC.

    December 28, 2007 – New corruption charges are brought against Zuma, along with counts of racketeering and money laundering. The corruption charges are tossed by the court in September 2008.

    May 1, 2008 – Named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People.

    January 12, 2009 – The Supreme Court of Appeal overturns the lower court ruling that threw out corruption charges against Zuma, stating that the ruling was riddled with errors. This new ruling means that the National Prosecuting Authority can press new charges against Zuma.

    April 6, 2009 – Prosecutors drop all corruption charges against Zuma.

    Presidency and Resignation

    April 26, 2009 – The ANC wins a majority of votes in South African elections, ensuring that Zuma will be the country’s next president.

    May 9, 2009 – Inaugurated as president.

    February 2010 – Zuma admits to fathering a child out of wedlock with the daughter of the head of South Africa’s World Cup organizing committee.

    December 2010 – Zuma files a $700,000 defamation lawsuit over a 2008 political cartoon which portrays him raping a female figure symbolizing justice.

    March 20, 2012 – The Supreme Court of Appeal rules that the Democratic Alliance (an opposition party) can challenge a previous court’s decision to drop corruption charges against Zuma.

    May 7, 2014 – Zuma secures a second term as president, with the ANC winning a majority of votes.

    March 31, 2016 – The South African Constitutional Court rules that Zuma defied the constitution when he used 246 million rand ($15 million) in state funds to upgrade his private home. The court says Zuma must repay money spent on renovations unrelated to security.

    April 29, 2016 – A South African court rules that prosecutors acted “irrationally” when they decided to drop more than 700 corruption and fraud charges against Zuma in 2009. The court says the decision should be set aside and reviewed. It remains up to prosecutors whether to reinstate the charges.

    November 2, 2016 – A report containing corruption allegations against Zuma is published. The 355-page “State of Capture” report contains allegations, and in some instances evidence, of cronyism, questionable business deals and ministerial appointments, and other possible large-scale corruption at the very top of government. Zuma denies any wrongdoing.

    November 10, 2016 – Zuma avoids a vote of no-confidence in parliament, with 214 votes against the motion, 126 for and 58 abstentions. It’s the third time Zuma has faced such a vote in less than a year. The Democratic Alliance brought the motion of no confidence to parliament in an attempt to remove the president amid charges of corruption.

    November 29, 2016 – Members of the ANC say that Zuma will not step down as president, despite calls from people within his own party to resign.

    August 8, 2017 – A motion of no-confidence in Zuma is defeated, 198 votes to 177.

    October 13, 2017 – South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal upholds an April 2016 ruling by the High Court to reinstate corruption charges against Zuma.

    February 13, 2018 – The ANC announces a “recall” of Zuma, demanding that he resign. He resigns the next day.

    Charges and Prison Sentence

    March 16, 2018 – South Africa’s national prosecuting authority announces that Zuma will be charged with 16 counts of corruption, money laundering and racketeering.

    February 4, 2020 – A South African judge issues Zuma an arrest warrant after he fails to appear to face charges in his long-running corruption case.

    February 2021 – A South African inquiry into corruption during Zuma’s time in power is seeking the former president’s imprisonment for two years, after he defied a summons and court order to appear and give evidence. In an application in the constitutional court seen by Reuters, the “state capture” inquiry is seeking an order that Zuma is guilty of contempt of court. Zuma has denied wrongdoing and refuses to cooperate with the inquiry.

    June 29, 2021 – South Africa’s highest court finds Zuma guilty of contempt of court and sentences him to 15 months in prison. On July 3, the court agrees to hear Zuma’s application for a review of their decision. In the application, Zuma and his lawyers claim that the 15-month prison sentence threatens his life and that the constitutional court’s decision is unfair.

    July 4, 2021 – At a press conference at his homestead in Nkandla, Zuma likens his treatment to Apartheid-era detention without trial, saying, “Things like detention without trial should never again see the light of day in South Africa. The struggle for a free South Africa was a struggle for justice that everyone was treated equally before the law.”

    July 7, 2021 – Zuma hands himself over to police to begin serving his 15-month prison sentence for contempt of court.

    August 6, 2021 – Is admitted to an outside hospital where he undergoes surgeries for an undisclosed ailment, according to prison authorities.

    September 5, 2021 – The government’s correctional services department says Zuma has been released from prison on medical parole due to ill health.

    December 15, 2021 – The Gauteng High Court in South Africa rules that the decision to place Zuma on medical parole was unlawful and that Zuma needs to be returned into custody to serve the remainder of his sentence. Zuma appeals and remains on parole.

    October 7, 2022 – South Africa’s Correctional Services department announces Zuma has been released from the correctional services system.

    November 21, 2022 – South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal rules Zuma should return to prison, saying the decision to release Zuma on medical parole was unlawful.

    August 11, 2023 – Zuma is returned to prison to comply with a ruling that his release on ill health was unlawful – but is freed after just an hour under a remission process to address overcrowding in jail.

    January 29, 2024 – The ANC announces it has suspended Zuma’s membership. In December 2023, Zuma announced his support for a rival political party.

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  • Samuel Alito Fast Facts | CNN

    Samuel Alito Fast Facts | CNN

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    Here’s a look at the life of US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

    Birth date: April 1, 1950

    Birth place: Trenton, New Jersey

    Birth name: Samuel Anthony Alito Jr.

    Father: Samuel Alito, a teacher

    Mother: Rose (Fradusco) Alito, a teacher

    Marriage: Martha-Ann (Bomgardner) Alito (1985-present)

    Children: Philip and Laura

    Education: Princeton University, A.B., 1972; Yale University, J.D., 1975

    Nicknamed “Scalito” as his views resemble those of the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

    Argued 12 cases before the Supreme Court, the first in 1982.

    1976-1977 – Law clerk to Leonard I. Garth, judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

    1977-1981 – Assistant US attorney for the District of New Jersey.

    1981-1985 – Assistant to the US solicitor general.

    1985-1987 – Deputy assistant to the US attorney general.

    1987-1990 – Named by President Ronald Reagan as the US attorney for the District of New Jersey.

    February 20, 1990 – Nominated by President George H.W. Bush to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

    April 27, 1990 – Confirmed unanimously by the Senate on a voice vote.

    April 30, 1990-2006 – Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Newark, New Jersey.

    1991 – Is the only dissenting voice in a Third Circuit ruling striking down a Pennsylvania law that required women to notify their husbands if they planned to get an abortion.

    1993 – Agrees with the majority that an Iranian woman seeking asylum could establish eligibility by showing that she has an abhorrence with her country’s “gender specific laws and repressive social norms,” or because of a belief in feminism or membership in a feminist group.

    1999 – Writes the opinion in a case that says a Christmas display on city property does not violate separation of church and state doctrines because it included a large plastic Santa Claus as well as a Menorah and a banner hailing diversity.

    2001 – Agrees with the majority that strikes down a public school district’s anti-harassment policy, saying the policy – which included non-vulgar, non-school-sponsored speech – violated the First Amendment.

    October 31, 2005 – President George W. Bush nominates Alito to be Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s replacement on the Supreme Court.

    January 31, 2006 – Alito is confirmed as an associate justice to the Supreme Court. The US Senate votes 58-42. He is immediately sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts.

    February 1, 2006 – Sworn in as a Supreme Court justice a second time in a ceremony at the White House.

    May 29, 2007 – In a 5-4 ruling, the court dismisses a pay discrimination lawsuit, with Alito writing for the majority. The original suit was filed by a female worker, Lilly Ledbetter against her employer, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. She claimed that she was underpaid due to gender discrimination. In the opinion, Alito writes that Ledbetter filed the claim after the federally-mandated 180-day time window, concluding that the “filing deadline protects employers from the burden of defending claims arising from employment decisions long past.”

    January 28, 2010 – During a State of the Union address by President Barack Obama, Alito is seen mouthing the words “not true” in response to the president’s criticism of the court’s 5-4 ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which removed long-established legal limits on campaign spending by corporations and unions.

    March 2, 2011 – Alito is the sole dissenter in the free speech case involving Westboro Baptist Church. In an 8-1 decision, the court rules that the First Amendment allows the church to carry out anti-gay protests, even at military funerals. Westboro had been sued by the family of a fallen Marine whose funeral was disrupted by church protesters. In his dissent, Alito writes, “Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case.”

    June 25, 2013 – Writes the majority opinion in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl where the question is, can an unwed non-custodial parent block an adoption using the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act. The court ruled, 5-4, in favor of the adoptive parents ruling that the ICWA did not apply when the parent had never had physical or legal custody of the child.

    June 30, 2014 – Writes the majority opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, with the court ruling 5-4 that family-owned corporations can be exempt from a federal mandate requiring the inclusion of contraception coverage in employee health plans based on religious objections.

    June 27, 2018 – The court issues a 5-4 ruling striking down an Illinois law requiring non-union public sector workers to pay fees for collective bargaining. The opinion, written by Alito, reads, “It is hard to estimate how many billions of dollars have been taken from nonmembers and transferred to public sector unions in violation of the First Amendment. Those unconstitutional exactions cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely.”

    February 1, 2019 – Alito temporarily blocks a Louisiana abortion law from going into effect, filing an order that says the justices need more time to review the filings in the case against a measure restricting access to clinics.

    November 25, 2019 – Writes the sole dissent in the court’s denial of National Review’s defamation suit petition. Climate scientist Michael Mann sued the conservative magazine in 2012 after two columnists wrote about his work and the “Hockey Stick” curve graph illustrating the rise in average global temperatures, accusing him of “misconduct” and data “manipulation.” Alito writes that the case brings up First Amendment concerns “that go to the very heart of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and freedom of the press: the protection afforded to journalists and others who use harsh language in criticizing opposing advocacy on one of the most important public issues of the day. If the Court is serious about protecting freedom of expression, we should grant review.”

    June 24, 2022 – The Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, holding that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion. In his majority opinion, Alito says “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”

    November 28, 2022 – In a letter, the Supreme Court legal counsel says there is no evidence that Alito violated ethics standards, in response to questions from congressional Democrats about allegations that Alito revealed the outcome of a 2014 decision before it was released.

    July 28, 2023 – Alito agrees to temporarily freeze a lower court order that bars the US government from regulating so-called ghost guns – untraceable homemade weapons – as firearms under federal law.

    October 6, 2023 – Alito freezes a lower court ruling that blocked the Biden administration from regulating so-called ghost guns.

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  • Notable US Supreme Court Decisions Fast Facts | CNN

    Notable US Supreme Court Decisions Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at some of the most important cases decided by the US Supreme Court since 1789.

    1803 – Marbury v. Madison
    This decision established the system of checks and balances and the power of the Supreme Court within the federal government.

    Situation: Federalist William Marbury and many others were appointed to positions by outgoing President John Adams. The appointments were not finalized before the new Secretary of State James Madison took office, and Madison chose not to honor them. Marbury and the others invoked an Act of Congress and sued to get their appointed positions.

    The Court decided against Marbury 6-0.

    Historical significance: Chief Justice John Marshall wrote, “An act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void.” It was the first time the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a law that had been passed by Congress.

    1857 – Dred Scott v. Sandford
    This decision established that slaves were not citizens of the United States and were not protected under the US Constitution.

    Situation: Dred Scott and his wife Harriet sued for their freedom in Missouri, a slave state, after having lived with their owner, an Army surgeon, in the free Territory of Wisconsin.

    The Court decided against Scott 7-2.

    Historical significance: The decision overturned the Missouri Compromise, where Congress had prohibited slavery in the territories. The Dred Scott decision was overturned later with the adoption of the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in 1865 and the 14th Amendment in 1868, granting citizenship to all born in the United States.

    1896 – Plessy v. Ferguson
    This decision established the rule of segregation, separate but equal.

    Situation: While attempting to test the constitutionality of the Separate Car Law in Louisiana, Homer Plessy, a man of 1/8 African descent, sat in the train car for whites instead of the blacks-only train car and was arrested.

    The Court decided against Plessy 7-1.

    Historical significance: Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote, “The argument also assumes that social prejudice may be overcome by legislation and that equal rights cannot be secured except by an enforced commingling of the two races… if the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.” The Court gave merit to the “Jim Crow” system. Plessy was overturned by the Brown v. Board of Education decision. In January 2022 Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards granted a posthumous pardon to Homer Plessy. The pardon comes after the Louisiana Board of Pardons voted unanimously in November 2021 in favor of a pardon for Plessy, who died in his 60s in 1925.

    1954 – Brown v. Board of Education
    This decision overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and granted equal protection under the law.

    Situation: Segregation of the public school systems in the United States was addressed when cases in Kansas, South Carolina, Delaware and Virginia were all decided together under Brown v. Board of Education. Third-grader Linda Brown was denied admission to the white school a few blocks from her home and was forced to attend the blacks-only school a mile away.

    The Court decided in favor of Brown unanimously.

    Historical significance: Racial segregation violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

    1963 – Gideon v. Wainwright
    This decision guarantees the right to counsel.

    Situation: Clarence Earl Gideon was forced to defend himself when he requested a lawyer from a Florida court and was refused. He was convicted and sentenced to five years for breaking and entering.

    The Court decided in favor of Gideon unanimously.

    Historical significance: Ensures the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee to counsel is applicable to the states through the 14th Amendment’s due process clause.

    1964 – New York Times v. Sullivan
    This decision upheld the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

    Situation: The New York Times and four African-American ministers were sued for libel by Montgomery, Alabama, police commissioner L.B. Sullivan. Sullivan claimed a full-page ad in the Times discussing the arrest of Martin Luther King Jr., and his efforts toward voter registration and integration in Montgomery were defamatory against him. Alabama’s libel law did not require Sullivan to prove harm since the ad did contain factual errors. He was awarded $500,000.

    The Court decided against Sullivan unanimously.

    Historical significance: The First Amendment protects free speech and publication of all statements about public officials made without actual malice.

    1966 – Miranda v. Arizona
    The decision established the rights of suspects against self-incrimination.

    Situation: Ernesto Miranda was convicted of rape and kidnapping after he confessed, while in police custody, without benefit of counsel or knowledge of his constitutional right to remain silent.

    The court decided in favor of Miranda 5-4.

    Historical significance: Upon arrest and/or questioning, all suspects are given some form of their constitutional rights – “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”

    1973 – Roe v. Wade
    This decision expanded privacy rights to include a woman’s right to choose pregnancy or abortion.

    Situation: “Jane Roe” (Norma McCorvey), single and living in Texas, did not want to continue her third pregnancy. Under Texas law, she could not legally obtain an abortion.

    The Court decided in favor of Roe 7-2.

    Historical significance: Abortion is legal in all 50 states. Women have the right to choose between pregnancy and abortion.

    1974 – United States v. Nixon
    This decision established that executive privilege is neither absolute nor unqualified.

    Situation: President Richard Nixon’s taped conversations from 1971 onward were the object of subpoenas by both the special prosecutor and those under indictment in the Watergate scandal. The president claimed immunity from subpoena under executive privilege.

    The Court decided against Nixon 8-0.

    Historical significance: The president is not above the law. After the Court ruled on July 24, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned on August 8.

    1978 – Regents of the U. of California v. Bakke
    This decision ruled that race cannot be the only factor in college admissions.

    Situation: Allan Bakke had twice applied for and was denied admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. Bakke was white, male and 35 years old. He claimed under California’s affirmative action plan, minorities with lower grades and test scores were admitted to the medical school when he was not, therefore his denial of admission was based solely on race.

    The Court decided in Bakke’s favor, 5-4.

    Historical significance: Affirmative action is approved by the Court and schools may use race as an admissions factor. However, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment works both ways in the case of affirmative action; race cannot be the only factor in the admissions process.

    2012 – National Federation of Independent Business et al v. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services et al

    Situation: The constitutionality of the sweeping health care reform law championed by President Barack Obama.

    The Court voted 5-4 in favor of upholding the Affordable Care Act.

    Historical significance: The ruling upholds the law’s central provision – a requirement that all people have health insurance or pay a penalty.

    2013 – United States v. Windsor
    This decision ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined the term “marriage” under federal law as a “legal union between one man and one woman” deprived same-sex couples who are legally married under state laws of their Fifth Amendment rights to equal protection under federal law.

    Situation: Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer were married in Toronto in 2007. Their marriage was recognized by New York state, where they lived. Upon Spyer’s death in 2009, Windsor was forced to pay $363,000 in estate taxes, because their marriage was not recognized by federal law.

    The court voted 5-4 in favor of Windsor.

    Historical significance: The court strikes down section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, ruling that legally married same-sex couples are entitled to federal benefits.

    2015 – King et al, v. Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al

    Situation: This case was about determining whether or not the portion of the Affordable Care Act which says subsidies would be available only to those who purchase insurance on exchanges “established by the state” referred to the individual states.

    The Court ruled 6-3 in favor of upholding the Affordable Care Act subsidies.

    Historical significance: The court rules that the Affordable Care Act federal tax credits for eligible Americans are available in all 50 states, regardless of whether the states have their own health care exchanges.

    2015 – Obergefell et al, v. Hodges, Director, Ohio Department of Health, et al.

    Situation: Multiple lower courts had struck down state same-sex marriage bans. There were 37 states allowing gay marriage before the issue went to the Supreme Court.

    The Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Obergefell et al.

    Historical significance: The court rules that states cannot ban same-sex marriage and must recognize lawful marriages performed out of state.

    2016 – Fisher v. University of Texas

    Situation: Abigail Fisher sued the University of Texas after her admission application was rejected in 2008. She claimed it was because she is white and that she was being treated differently than some less-qualified minority students who were accepted. In 2013 the Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts for further review.

    The Court ruled 4-3 in favor of the University of Texas. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case, presumably because she dealt with it in her previous job as solicitor general.

    Historical Significance: The court rules that taking race into consideration as one factor of admission is constitutional.

    2020 – Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia

    Situation: Gerald Bostock filed a lawsuit against Clayton County for discrimination based on his sexual orientation after he was terminated for “conduct unbecoming of its employees,” shortly after he began participating in a gay softball league. Two other consolidated cases were also argued on the same day.

    The 6-3 opinion in favor of the plaintiff, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, states that being fired “merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII” of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    Historical Significance: Federal anti-bias law now protects people who face job loss and/or discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

    2022 – Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

    Situation: Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, passed in 2018 and which greatly restricts abortion after 15 weeks, is blocked by two federal courts, holding that it is in direct violation of Supreme Court precedent legalizing abortion nationwide prior to viability, which can occur at around 23-24 weeks of pregnancy, and that in an “unbroken line dating to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion cases have established (and affirmed and re-affirmed) a woman’s right to choose an abortion before viability.” The court said states may “regulate abortion procedures prior to viability” so long as they do not ban abortion. “The law at issue is a ban,” the court held. 

    Mississippi appeals the decision to the Supreme Court.

    The 6-3 opinion in favor of the plaintiff, written by Justice Samuel Alito states that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start…Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

    In a joint dissenting opinion, Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan heavily criticized the majority, closing: “With sorrow – for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection – we dissent.”

    Historical Significance: The ruling overturns Roe v. Wade and there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion, leaving abortion rights to be determined by states.

    1944 – Korematsu v. United States – The Court ruled Executive Order 9066, internment of Japanese citizens during World War II, is legal, 6-3 for the United States.

    1961 – Mapp v. Ohio – “Fruit of the poisonous tree,” evidence obtained through an illegal search, cannot be used at trial, 6-3 for Mapp.

    1967 – Loving v. Virginia – Prohibition against interracial marriage was ruled unconstitutional, 9-0 for Loving.

    1968 – Terry v. Ohio – Stop and frisk, under certain circumstances, does not violate the Constitution. The Court upholds Terry’s conviction and rules 8-1 that it is not unconstitutional for police to stop and frisk individuals without probable cause for an arrest if they have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has or is about to occur.

    2008 – District of Columbia v. Heller – The Second Amendment does protect the individual’s right to bear arms, 5-4 for Heller.

    2010 – Citizens United v. FEC – The Court rules corporations can contribute to PACs under the First Amendment’s right to free speech, 5-4 for Citizens United.

    2023 – Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard together with Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina – Colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration as a specific basis in admissions. The majority opinion, written by Justice John Roberts, claims the court is not expressly overturning prior cases authorizing race-based affirmative action and suggests that how race has affected an applicant’s life can still be part of how their application is considered.

    2024 – Donald J. Trump v. Norma Anderson, et al – The Court rules former President Donald Trump should appear on the ballot in Colorado in a decision that follows months of debate over whether Trump violated the “insurrectionist clause” included in the 14th Amendment.

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  • Sandy Hook School Shootings Fast Facts | CNN

    Sandy Hook School Shootings Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. On December 14, 2012, six adults and 20 children were killed by Adam Lanza, who had earlier killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, in their home.

    Birth date: April 22, 1992

    Death date: December 14, 2012

    Birth place: Kingston, New Hampshire

    Birth name: Adam Lanza

    Father: Peter Lanza, an accountant

    Mother: Nancy (Champion) Lanza

    Lanza’s parents were divorced in September 2009.

    A 2014 report by the Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate described Lanza as a young man with deteriorating mental health who had a fascination with mass shootings.

    Weapons found at the scene were legally purchased by Nancy Lanza.

    Lanza used a Bushmaster Model XM15-E2S rifle during the shooting spree. Three weapons were found next to his body; the semiautomatic .223-caliber rifle made by Bushmaster, and two handguns. An Izhmash Saiga-12, 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun was found in his car.

    December 14, 2012 – At an unknown time, 20-year-old Adam Lanza kills his mother Nancy, 52, with a .22 caliber Savage Mark II rifle. Lanza then drives his mother’s car to Sandy Hook Elementary, about five miles away.

    At approximately 9:30 a.m., Lanza arrives at Sandy Hook Elementary, a school with about 700 students. The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, had installed a new security system that required every visitor to ring the front entrance’s doorbell for admittance. Lanza shoots his way through the entrance.

    Hochsprung and school psychologist Mary Sherlach step out to the hall to see what is going on, and are followed by Vice Principal Natalie Hammond. Hochsprung and Sherlach are killed, and Hammond is injured.

    The first 911 calls to police are made at approximately 9:30 a.m. Police and first responders arrive approximately five minutes later.

    Lanza enters the classroom of substitute teacher Lauren Rousseau. Lanza kills 14 children as well as Rousseau and a teacher’s aide.

    He then enters the classroom of teacher Victoria Soto. Six children in the room, as well as Soto and a teacher’s aide, are killed. Lanza dies by suicide in the same classroom, ending the rampage in less than 11 minutes.

    At about 3:15 p.m., an emotional President Barack Obama gives a televised address, “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.” He orders flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House and other federal buildings.

    December 15, 2012 – Connecticut State Police release the names of the victims: six adult women and 12 girls and eight boys, all ages six and seven.

    December 16, 2012 – Obama visits with the relatives of those who were killed. He also attends an interfaith vigil. “We can’t tolerate this anymore,” he says. “These tragedies must end, and to end them we must change.”

    December 17, 2012 – Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy announces a statewide moment of silence on December 21. He also requests that bells be tolled 26 times in memory of the victims.

    December 18, 2012 – Newtown Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson announces Sandy Hook students will remain out of school until January. At that time, they will be taught in a converted middle school.

    January 8, 2013 – Malloy announces the names of the people who will serve on the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, to review current policy and make recommendations on public safety, mental health and violence prevention policies.

    March 2013 – A new police report reveals Lanza possessed a list of 500 of the world’s most notorious mass murderers, and was trying to rack up the greatest number of kills in history.

    November 25, 2013 – Connecticut state officials release a report closing the investigation into the shooting and confirm that Lanza had no assistance and was the only shooter.

    December 4, 2013 – Audio recordings of the 911 calls from Sandy Hook Elementary are released.

    December 27, 2013 – The final report on the investigation into the shooting is released.

    November 21, 2014 – The Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate, as directed by the State Child Fatality Review Panel, releases a report profiling Lanza’s developmental and educational history. The report notes “missed opportunities” by Lanza’s mother, the school district and multiple health care providers. It identifies “warning signs, red flags, or other lessons” that could be learned.

    December 15, 2014 – The families of nine children killed, along with one teacher who survived the attack, file a wrongful death suit against the manufacturers and distributors of the Bushmaster rifle, as well as the retail store and dealer who sold the firearm used in the shooting.

    March 6, 2015 – The final report of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission is released.

    December 17, 2015 – In a final agreement, 16 plaintiffs will share in a $1.5 million settlement against the estate of Nancy Lanza. The plaintiffs are from eight separate lawsuits filed in early 2015.

    April 14, 2016 – A superior court judge rules that the wrongful death suit against gun manufacturers can proceed. The judge denies a motion to dismiss the case on the basis that firearms companies have limited liability when their products are used by criminals, according to a federal law passed in 2005.

    October 14, 2016 – Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis dismisses a lawsuit that families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims had filed against a gun manufacturer, invoking a federal statute known as PLCAA, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The law prohibits lawsuits against gun manufacturers and distributors if their firearms were used in the commission of a criminal act.

    November 15, 2016 – The Sandy Hook families file an appeal, asking the Connecticut Supreme Court to consider their case against the gun manufacturer.

    March 14, 2019 – The Connecticut Supreme Court rules that the families of the Sandy Hook victims can go forward with their lawsuit against Remington, which makes the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle used in the shooting.

    April 5, 2019 – Remington files an appeal with the US Supreme Court, asking the high court to decide on the state’s interpretation of a federal statute that grants gun manufacturers immunity from any lawsuit related to injuries that result from criminal misuse of their product.

    November 12, 2019 – The US Supreme Court declines to take up the Remington appeal.

    July 27, 2021 – Remington offers nearly $33 million to nine families of victims killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in a proposed lawsuit settlement.

    November 15, 2021 – The families suing InfoWars founder Alex Jones win a case against him after a judge rules that Jones, and the entities owned by him, are liable by default in the defamation case against them. Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis cites the defendants’ “willful noncompliance” with the discovery process as her core reasoning behind the ruling. The case stems from past claims that the 2012 mass shooting was staged. Jones has since acknowledged that the shooting was real.

    February 15, 2022 – A settlement is reached between the nine families of victims killed and the now-bankrupt Remington and its four insurers, according to court records. The plaintiffs’ attorneys say the $73 million settlement also includes “thousands of pages of internal company documents that prove Remington’s wrongdoing and carry important lessons for helping to prevent future mass shootings.”

    August 4, 2022 – A jury decides that Jones will have to pay Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, the parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim, a little more than $4 million in compensatory damages.

    October 12, 2022 – A Connecticut jury decides Jones should pay eight family members of Sandy Hook shooting victims and one first responder $965 million in compensatory damages caused by his lies regarding the shooting. On November 10, a Connecticut judge orders Jones to pay an additional $473 million in punitive damages.

    November 13, 2022 – The Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial, designed by Dan Affleck and Ben Waldo, is unveiled publicly in Newtown, Connecticut.

    October 19, 2023 – A federal bankruptcy judge rules that bankruptcy proceedings will not shield Jones from more than $1.1 billion in damages he owes the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims.

    November 22, 2023 – In a court document, the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims offer Jones a “path out of bankruptcy” if he pays them a “small fraction” of the more than $1 billion he owes in damages, which could help resolve the bankruptcy cases of both Jones and Free Speech Systems. The families suggest Jones pay at least $85 million over 10 years — $8.5 million per year for a decade, in addition to half of any annual income over $9 million, “with a proportionate reduction of liabilities for each year of full payment.”

    The Victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School

    Allison Wyatt, 6
    Ana Marquez-Greene, 6
    Anne Marie Murphy, 52 (Teacher)
    Avielle Richman, 6
    Benjamin Wheeler, 6
    Caroline Previdi, 6
    Catherine Hubbard, 6
    Charlotte Bacon, 6
    Chase Kowalski, 7
    Daniel Barden, 7
    Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, 47 (Principal)
    Dylan Hockley, 6
    Emilie Parker, 6
    Grace McDonnell, 7
    Jack Pinto, 6
    James Mattioli, 6
    Jesse Lewis, 6
    Jessica Rekos, 6
    Josephine Gay, 7
    Lauren Rousseau, 30 (Teacher)
    Madeleine Hsu, 6
    Mary Sherlach, 56 (Psychologist)
    Noah Pozner, 6
    Olivia Engel, 6
    Rachel D’Avino, 29, (Therapist)
    Victoria Soto, 27 (Teacher)

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  • Supreme Court declines to revisit landmark libel ruling, though Clarence Thomas wants to reconsider the decision | CNN Politics

    Supreme Court declines to revisit landmark libel ruling, though Clarence Thomas wants to reconsider the decision | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to revisit the landmark First Amendment decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, rebuffing a request to take another look at decades-old precedent that created a higher bar for public figures to claim libel in civil suits.

    The media world has for years relied on the unanimous decision in the 1964 case to fend off costly defamation lawsuits brought by public figures. The ruling established the requirement that public figures show “actual malice” before they can succeed in a libel dispute.

    Despite being a mainstay in US media law, the Sullivan decision has increasingly come under fire by conservatives both inside and outside the court, including Justice Clarence Thomas, who said on Tuesday that he still wanted to revisit Sullivan at some point.

    “In an appropriate case, however, we should reconsider New York Times and our other decisions displacing state defamation law,” Thomas wrote in a brief concurrence to the court’s decision not to take up the case. He said that the case, Don Blankenship v. NBC Universal, LLC, was a poor vehicle to reconsider Sullivan.

    Just a few months ago, the conservative justice attacked the ruling in Sullivan in a fiery dissent in which he called it “flawed.” Thomas issued other public critiques of Sullivan in recent years, including in 2019, when he wrote that the ruling and “the Court’s decisions extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law.”

    The case at hand concerns Don Blankenship, a former coal baron who was convicted of a federal conspiracy offense related to a deadly 2010 explosion at a mine he ran, in what was one of the worst US mine disasters in decades. His sentence of a year in prison was one day less than a felony sentence.

    “Blankenship himself admits this was a highly unusual sentence for a misdemeanor offense; he notes that he was the only inmate at his prison who was not serving a sentence for a felony conviction,” according to a lower-court opinion in the case.

    During his unsuccessful 2018 US Senate campaign in West Virginia, a number of media organizations erroneously reported that he was a convicted felon, even though his conspiracy offense was classified as a misdemeanor.

    Blankenship sued a slew of news outlets for the error, alleging defamation and false light invasion of privacy. Lower courts ruled against him, finding that the outlets did not make the statements with actual malice, the standard required by Sullivan.

    Attorneys for Blankenship told the justices in court papers that the “damage was irreparable” since no felon has ever been elected to the Senate, and urged them to overturn the Sullivan decision.

    “The actual malice standard poses a clear and present danger to our democracy,” they wrote. “New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and its progeny grant the press a license to publish defamatory falsehoods that misinform voters, manipulate elections, intensify polarization, and incite unrest.”

    Attorneys for the media outlets urged the justices not to take up the case, arguing that it’s “as poor a vehicle as one could imagine to consider” questions related to Sullivan’s holding because, they said, the reporting mistakes were honest ones.

    “There is good reason why the actual malice standard of New York Times has been embraced for so long and so often,” the media organizations told the justices. “At its essence, the standard protects ‘erroneous statements honestly made.’ While it permits recovery for falsehoods uttered with knowledge of falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth, it provides the ‘breathing space’ required for ‘free debate.’ A free people engaged in self-government deserves no less.”

    Just last year the court declined to revisit Sullivan in a case brought by a not-for-profit Christian ministry against the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    At the time, Thomas dissented from the court’s refusal to take up the case.

    “I would grant certiorari in this case to revisit the ‘actual malice’ standard,” he wrote. “This case is one of many showing how New York Times and its progeny have allowed media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.’”

    In 2021, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch also questioned the decision in Sullivan, writing in a dissent when the court decided not to take up a defamation case that the 1964 ruling should be revisited in part because it “has come to leave far more people without redress than anyone could have predicted.”

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  • Redistricting fights in these 10 states could determine which party controls the US House | CNN Politics

    Redistricting fights in these 10 states could determine which party controls the US House | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Around the country, politicians are waging high-stakes battles over new congressional lines that could influence which party controls the US House of Representatives after the 2024 election.

    In North Carolina, the Republicans who control the state legislature have crafted a map that could help them flip at least three seats. Democrats, meanwhile, could pick up seats in legal skirmishes now playing out in New York, Louisiana, Georgia and other states.

    In all, the fate of anywhere from 14 to 18 House seats across nearly a dozen states could turn on the results of these fights. Republicans currently hold just a five-seat edge in the US House. That razor-edge majority has been underscored in recent weeks by the GOP’s chaotic struggle to elect a new speaker.

    “Given that the majority is so narrow, every outcome matters to the fight for House control in 2024,” said David Wasserman, who follows redistricting closely as senior editor and elections analyst for The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.

    And with fewer competitive districts that swing between the political parties, Wasserman added, “every line change is almost existential.”

    Experts say several other factors have helped lead to the slew of consequential – and unresolved – redistricting disputes, just months before the first primaries of the 2024 cycle.

    They include pandemic-related delays in completing the 2020 census – the once-a-decade population count that kicks off congressional and state legislative redistricting – as well as a 2019 Supreme Court ruling that threw decisions about partisan gerrymandering back to state courts.

    In addition, some litigation had been frozen in place until the US Supreme Court’s surprise ruling in June, which found that a Republican-crafted redistricting plan in Alabama disadvantaged Black voters in the state and was in violation of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.

    That decision “is functionally reanimating all of these dormant cases,” said Adam Kincaid, the president and executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which supports the GOP’s redistricting efforts.

    Kincaid said it’s too soon to tell whether Republicans or Democrats will emerge with the advantage by Election Day 2024. In his view, either party could gain or lose only about two seats over redistricting.

    In many of the closely watched states where action is pending, just a single seat hangs in the balance, with two notable exceptions: North Carolina and New York, where multiple seats are at stake. Republicans control the map-drawing in the Tar Heel State, while the job could fall to Democrats in New York, potentially canceling out each party’s gains.

    “Democrats kind of need to run the table in the rest of these states” to gain any edge, said Nick Seabrook, a political scientist at the University of North Florida and the author of the 2022 book “One Person, One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering in America.”

    Here’s a state-by-state look at recent and upcoming redistricting disputes that could shape the 2024 race for control of the US House:

    In one of the cycle’s highest-profile redistricting cases, a three-judge panel in Alabama approved a map that creates a second congressional district with a substantial Black population. Before the court action, Alabama – which is 27% Black – had only one Black-majority congressional district out of seven seats.

    The fight over the map went all the way to the Supreme Court – which issued a surprise ruling, affirming a lower-court opinion that ordered Alabama to include a second Black-majority district or “something quite close to it.” Under the map that will be in place for the 2024 election, the state’s 2nd District now loops into Mobile to create a seat where nearly half the population is Black.

    The high court’s 5-4 decision in June saw two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, side with the three liberals to uphold the lower-court ruling. Their action kept intact a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act: that it’s illegal to draw maps that effectively keep Black voters from electing a candidate of their choice.

    The ruling has reverberated around the country and could affect the outcome of similar court cases underway in Louisiana and Georgia that center on whether Republican-drawn maps improperly diluted Black political power in those states.

    Given that Black voters in Alabama have traditionally backed Democrats, the party now stands a better chance of winning the newly reconfigured district and sending to of its members to Congress after next year’s elections.

    The new map – approved in recent days by the lower-court judges – also could result in two Black US House members from Alabama serving together for the first time in state history.

    A state judge in September struck down congressional lines for northern Florida that had been championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, ruling that the Republican governor’s map had improperly diluted Black voting power.

    This case, unlike the Alabama fight decided by the US Supreme Court, centers on provisions in the state constitution.

    The judge concluded that the congressional boundaries – which essentially dismantled a seat once held by Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, that connected Black communities across a northern reach of the Florida – violated the state’s Fair Districts amendments, enacted by voters. One amendment specifically bars the state from drawing a district that diminishes the ability of racial minorities “to elect representatives of their choice.”

    Arguments before an appeals court are slated for later this month, with litigants seeking a decision by late November. The case is expected to land before the all-Republican state Supreme Court, where DeSantis appointees hold most seats.

    A separate federal case – which argues that the map violates the US Constitution – is pending.

    But observers say the outcome of the state litigation is more likely than the federal case to determine whether Florida lawmakers must restore the North Florida district, given the state constitution’s especially strong protections for the voting rights of racial minorities and the lower burden of proof required to establish that those rights were abridged.

    A redistricting case now before a federal judge could create a more competitive seat for Democrats in the Atlanta suburbs.

    The plaintiffs challenging the congressional map drawn by Georgia Republicans argue that the increasingly diverse population in the Peach State should result in an additional Black-majority district, this one in the western Atlanta metro area. A trial in the case recently concluded and awaits a final ruling by US District Judge Steve Jones.

    In 2022, Jones preliminarily ruled that some parts of the Republicans’ redistricting plan likely violated federal law but allowed the map to be used in that year’s midterm elections.

    A separate federal case in Georgia challenges the congressional map on constitutional grounds and is slated to go to trial next month.

    Currently, Republicans hold nine of the 14 seats in Georgia’s congressional delegation. Black people make up a majority, or close to it, in four districts, including three in the Atlanta area.

    The Kentucky Supreme Court could soon decide whether a map drawn by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature amounts to what Democrats assert is an “extreme partisan” gerrymander in violation of the state’s constitution.

    Much of the case focuses on disputes over state legislative maps, but the congressional lines also are at stake, with critics saying lawmakers moved Kentucky’s capital city – Democratic-leaning Frankfort – out of the 6th Congressional District and into an oddly shaped – and solidly Republican – 1st District to help shore up Republican odds of holding the 6th District.

    The 6th District, represented by GOP Rep. Andy Barr, was one of the more competitive seats in Kentucky under its previous lines. (Democrat Amy McGrath came within 3 points of beating Barr in 2018; last year, Barr won a sixth term under the new lines by 29 points.)

    A lower-court judge already has ruled that the Republican-drawn map does not violate the state’s constitution.

    The Supreme Court’s decision in Alabama could pave the way for a new congressional map in Louisiana ahead of the 2024 election, but the case has quickly become mired in appeals.

    Although Black people make up roughly a third of the state’s population, Louisiana has just one Black lawmaker in its six-member congressional delegation.

    A federal judge threw out the state’s Republican-drawn map in 2022, saying it likely violated the Voting Rights Act. Republican officials in the state appealed to the US Supreme Court, which put the lower-court ruling on hold until it decided the Alabama case, which it did in June this year.

    Once the high court weighed in on the Alabama case, the legal skirmishes again lurched to life in Louisiana.

    Louisiana Republicans have filed an appeal with the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals and successfully halted a district court hearing to discuss imposing a new, court-ordered map.

    On Thursday, the US Supreme Court declined to allow the federal district judge to move forward with discussions about drawing a new map while the appeal advances through the courts.

    GOP state officials say, among other things, that they are seeking time to redraw the map themselves. Critics of the state’s original map argue that Republicans are using legal maneuvers to delay a new redistricting plan, which could result in a second Democratic-leaning seat.

    Legal battles that drag on risk judges invoking the so-called Purcell Principle, a doctrine that limits changing voting procedures and boundaries too close to Election Day to guard against voter confusion.

    “Some of the reason it becomes too late is because, in many of these cases, the state is prolonging the litigation … and buying more time with an illegal map,” said Kareem Crayton, senior director for voting and representation at the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice.

    Republicans in New Mexico say the congressional lines drawn by the Democrats who control state government amount to an illegal gerrymander under the state’s constitution.

    At stake: a swing district along the US border with Mexico. If Republicans prevail, the seat – now held by a Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez – could become more favorable to Republicans.

    A state judge recently upheld the map drawn by Democrats, but the New Mexico Supreme Court is expected to review that order on appeal.

    Republicans flipped four US House seats in New York in the 2022 midterm elections, victories that helped secure their party’s majority in the chamber.

    Current legal fights in the Empire State over redistricting, however, could erase those gains.

    A state court judge oversaw last year’s process of drawing the current map following a long legal battle and the inability of New York’s bipartisan redistricting commission to agree on new lines. But Democrats scored a court victory earlier this year when a state appellate court ruled that the redistricting commission should draw new lines.

    Republicans have appealed that decision, and oral arguments are set for mid-November before New York’s Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. The commission’s map-making also is on hold.

    If Democrats prevail, it could make it easier for their party to pick up as many as six seats now held by Republicans.

    North Carolina’s legislature, where Republicans hold a supermajority, has drawn new congressional lines that observers say could prove a windfall for the GOP and boost the party’s chances of retaining its House majority next year.

    The state’s current House delegation is split 7-7 between Democrats and Republicans.

    A map that state lawmakers recently approved puts three House Democrats in what one expert called “almost impossible to win” districts.

    The affected Democrats are Reps. Jeff Jackson, who currently represents a Charlotte-area district; Wiley Nickel, who holds a Raleigh-area seat; and Kathy Manning, who represents Greensboro and other parts of north-central North Carolina.

    A fourth Democrat, Rep. Don Davis, saw his district retooled to become more friendly toward Republicans while remaining competitive for both parties.

    State-level gains in the 2022 midterm elections have given the GOP new sway over redistricting in this swing state. Last year, Republicans flipped North Carolina’s Supreme Court, whose members are chosen in partisan elections. The new GOP majority on the court this year tossed out a 2022 ruling by the then-Democratic leaning court against partisan gerrymandering.

    A map that had been created after the Democratic-led high court’s ruling resulted in the current even split in the state’s House delegation.

    Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper does not have veto power over redistricting legislation.

    A redistricting case pending before the US Supreme Court centers on the future of a Charleston-area seat held by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who made headlines recently for joining House GOP hard-liners in voting to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

    Earlier this year, a three-judge panel concluded that lines for the coastal 1st Congressional District, as drawn by state GOP lawmakers, amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

    The Republican lawmakers appealed to the US Supreme Court. And, during oral arguments earlier this month, several justices in the court’s conservative majority expressed skepticism that South Carolina officials had engaged in an improper racial gerrymander and seemed inclined to reinstate the lawmakers’ map.

    The state Supreme Court, in a case it heard in July, is considering whether it even has the authority to weigh in on map-drawing decisions by the GOP-controlled state legislature.

    Republican state officials argue that the court’s power over redistricting decisions is limited.

    Advocacy groups and a handful of voters are challenging a congressional map that further carved up Democratic-leaning Salt Lake County between four decidedly Republican districts.

    Doing so, the plaintiffs argued in their lawsuit, “takes a slice of Salt Lake County and grafts it onto large swaths of the rest of Utah,” allowing Republican voters in rural areas and smaller cities far away from Salt Lake to “dictate the outcome of elections.”

    Redistricting fights over congressional maps are ongoing in several other states – ranging from Texas to Tennessee – but those cases might not be resolved in time to affect next year’s elections.

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  • Federal court strikes down Alabama congressional map after legislature snubbed Supreme Court | CNN Politics

    Federal court strikes down Alabama congressional map after legislature snubbed Supreme Court | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal court blocked a newly drawn Alabama congressional map on Tuesday because it didn’t create a second majority-Black district as the Supreme Court had ordered earlier this year.

    In a unanimous decision from a three-judge panel, which had overseen the case before it reached the Supreme Court, the judges wrote that they were “disturbed” by Alabama’s actions in the case.

    The state had snubbed the Supreme Court’s order – a surprise 5-4 decision in June – that the maps should be redrawn. White voters currently make up the majority in six of the state’s seven congressional districts, although 27% of the state’s population is Black.

    “We are deeply troubled that the State enacted a map that the State readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires,” wrote the judges, two of whom were appointed by former President Donald Trump.

    Alabama officials on Tuesday filed notice that they are appealing the ruling.

    “While we are disappointed in today’s decision, we strongly believe that the Legislature’s map complies with the Voting Rights Act and the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court,” the office of Alabama Attorney General Steven Marshall said in a statement. “We intend to promptly seek review from the Supreme Court to ensure that the State can use its lawful congressional districts in 2024 and beyond.”

    Alabama officials also asked the three-judge court to freeze its opinion invalidating the congressional map but said they will formally ask the Supreme Court for a stay on Thursday.

    This redistricting battle – and separate, pending litigation over congressional maps in states such as Georgia and Florida – could determine which party controls the US House of Representatives after next year’s elections. Republicans currently hold a razor-thin majority in the chamber.

    The three federal judges overseeing the Alabama case on Tuesday ordered a special master to submit three proposed maps that would create a second Black-majority district by September 25.

    The panel wrote that it was “not aware of any other case” in which a state legislature had responded to being ordered to a draw map with a second majority-minority district by creating one that the state itself admitted didn’t create the required district.

    “The law requires the creation of an additional district that affords Black Alabamians, like everyone else, a fair and reasonable opportunity to elect candidates of their choice,” and Alabama’s new map, they wrote, “plainly fails to do so.”

    JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, which has been fighting the case, praised the ruling: “Elected officials ignored their responsibilities and chose to violate our democracy. We hope the court’s special master helps steward a process that ensures a fair map that Black Alabamians and our state deserve.”

    This summer, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, had affirmed an earlier decision by the three-judge panel and ordered the state to redraw congressional maps to include a second majority-Black district or “something quite close to it.”

    The Supreme Court’s surprise decision in Alabama – coming after the right-leaning high court has chipped away at other parts of the Voting Rights Act in recent years – has given fresh hope to voting rights activists and Democrats that they could prevail in challenges to other maps they view as discriminating against minorities.

    But the new map approved by Alabama’s Republican-dominated legislature – and signed into law by GOP Gov. Kay Ivey – in July created only one majority-Black district and boosted the share of Black voters in a second district from roughly 30% to nearly 40%.

    The pending cases center on whether GOP state legislators drew congressional maps after the 2020 census that weakened the power of Black voters in violation of Section 2 of the historic Voting Rights Act.

    Republicans control all statewide offices in Alabama and all but one congressional seat. The single Black-majority congressional district is represented by Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, the state’s first Black woman elected to Congress.

    Alabama officials have argued that the map as redrawn by state lawmakers was aimed at maintaining traditional guidelines for congressional redistricting, such as keeping together communities of interest. And they have signaled that they hope to sway one of the Supreme Court justices who sided with the majority in June.

    The state’s briefs before the three-judge panel referenced a concurring opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh – one of the two conservatives who sided with the liberal justices on the high court to vote against the original Alabama map – that questioned whether “race-based redistricting” can “extend indefinitely into the future.”

    The lower-court judges weren’t convinced by the state’s arguments.

    They wrote that after reviewing the concurrence, as well as a part of the Supreme Court’s ruling which Kavanaugh didn’t join, “We do not understand either of those writings as undermining any aspect of the Supreme Court’s affirmance; if they did, the Court would not have affirmed the injunction.”

    The judges also rejected Alabama’s argument that drawing a second Black-majority district would unconstitutionally constitute “affirmative action in redistricting.”

    “Unlike affirmative action in the admissions programs the Supreme Court analyzed in [this year’s affirmative action case], which was expressly aimed at achieving balanced racial outcomes in the makeup of the universities’ student bodies, the Voting Rights Act guarantees only ‘equality of opportunity, not a guarantee of electoral success for minority-preferred candidates of whatever race,’” the panel wrote.

    “The Voting Rights Act does not provide a leg up for Black voters – it merely prevents them from being kept down with regard to what is arguably the most ‘fundamental political right,’ in that it is ‘preservative of all rights’ – the right to vote.”

    Earlier, in a letter to state lawmakers, Marshall had argued that a separate Supreme Court ruling in June – after the high court’s Alabama redistricting decision came down – that ended affirmative action in college admissions meant that using a map in which “race predominates” would open up the state to claims that it was violating the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Judge rejects Mark Meadows’ bid to move Georgia election interference case to federal court | CNN Politics

    Judge rejects Mark Meadows’ bid to move Georgia election interference case to federal court | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge on Friday rejected former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ bid to move his Georgia criminal case to federal court, a significant setback for Meadows and a troubling sign for former President Donald Trump.

    US District Judge Steve Jones found that the allegations against Meadows contained in the Fulton County district attorney’s indictment on election subversion charges were largely “related to political activities” and not to Meadows’ role as White House chief of staff.

    “The evidence before the Court overwhelmingly suggests that Meadows was not acting in his scope of executive branch duties during most of the Overt Acts alleged,” wrote Jones, a Barack Obama appointee.

    The Friday ruling has significant implications for the former president and his 18 co-defendants in the Fulton County district attorney’s sprawling racketeering case, though the judge said the ruling did not apply to the other defendants. Meadows was the first of five defendants who already filed motions to move the case to federal court – and Trump is expected to do so, too.

    Meadows unsuccessfully argued that his case, now playing out in Georgia state court, should be moved because the allegations in the indictment were connected to his official duties as White House chief of staff. His lawyers wanted the case in federal court so they could try to get it dismissed altogether, invoking federal immunity extended to certain individuals who are prosecuted or sued for conduct tied to their US government roles.

    The judge’s decision could set the tone for the other defendants also trying to move their cases. It’s an ominous sign for the defendants who are hoping to invoke the same federal immunity protections.

    The judge explicitly stated in his ruling that he is not offering any opinion about Fulton County’s underlying criminal case against Meadows, who has pleaded not guilty.

    Jones wrote in the decision that Meadows had not met even the “‘quite low’ threshold for removal” to federal court, because his activities for the Trump campaign were outside the scope of his federal role as White House chief of staff.

    “The Court finds that the color of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff did not include working with or working for the Trump campaign, except for simply coordinating the President’s schedule, traveling with the President to his campaign events, and redirecting communications to the campaign,” Jones wrote. “Thus, consistent with his testimony and the federal statutes and regulations, engaging in political activities is exceeds the outer limits of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff.”

    The Hatch Act, which prohibits federal officials from engaging in political activity as part of their official duties, was “helpful in defining the outer limits of the scope the White House Chief of Staff’s authority,” the judge said.

    “These prohibitions on executive branch employees (including the White House Chief of Staff) reinforce the Court’s conclusion that Meadows has not shown how his actions relate to the scope of his federal executive branch office. Federal officer removal is thereby inapposite,” the judge wrote in the decision.

    Meadows on Friday swiftly appealed the ruling to the US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

    The indictment identifies eight overt acts Meadows allegedly took in furtherance of the scheme to overturn the 2020 election results. Meadows argued that these actions were part of his federal duties – and thus, the case should be moved to federal court – but Jones disagreed.

    “The Court finds insufficient evidence to establish that the gravamen, or a heavy majority of overt acts alleged against Meadows relate to his role as White House Chief of Staff,” Jones wrote, adding that “Meadows failed to provide sufficient evidence that these actions related to any legitimate purpose of the executive branch.”

    One of Meadows’ most critical actions was his participation in Trump’s phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in early January 2021, when Trump infamously prodded Raffensperger to “find” enough votes for him to overcome Joe Biden’s margin of victory.

    Jones ruled that this phone call “was made regarding private litigation brought by President and his campaign” and was “therefore outside Meadows’ federal role as an executive branch officer.”

    Meadows other actions in late 2020, including contacts with state lawmakers that Trump hoped would help him undermine the election results, also weren’t tied to his government role, Jones concluded.

    “The Court finds that the underlying substance of those meetings and calls were related to political activities and not to the scope of Meadows’s federal office,” the judge wrote.

    The ruling is also a personal blow to Meadows, who took a significant risk by testifying about the removal bid at a recent hearing, where he was questioned under oath by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ team. Prosecutors could potentially use his testimony against him in future proceedings.

    After the charges against Trump and his 18 co-defendants were filed, the former president’s lawyers signaled they intended to try to move Trump’s case to federal court, just as Trump had unsuccessfully sought to do in his New York criminal case. Trump’s lawyers told the judge overseeing the state case on Thursday that he may seek to move the case to federal court, but they haven’t filed the legal motions yet.

    Trump has 30 days from the time he entered his not-guilty plea to file to move his case.

    CNN has reached out to lawyers for Meadows and Trump for comment.

    In addition to Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, the former Trump administration DOJ official, and three Georgia GOP officials who served as Trump’s fake electors have also filed to move their cases to federal court. Former Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer and former GOP Coffee County Chairwoman Cathy Latham have a joint hearing scheduled on September 20, while the third fake elector seeking federal removal – Shawn Still, a Georgia state senator – has a hearing on September 18.

    While Meadows’ motion was rejected, Shafer, Still and Latham have made a slightly different argument: They say they acted as fake electors at Trump’s direction. But unlike Meadows, who worked in the White House in 2020, the fake electors have a more tenuous link to the federal government, as nominees to serve as real electors for Trump if he won Georgia, who would’ve participated in the federally mandated Electoral College process.

    In his decision Friday, Jones noted that his ruling regarding Meadows “does not, at this time, have any effect on” the other defendants who are also trying to move their case to federal court. Those motions are still pending before Jones, and evidentiary hearings are scheduled for later this month.

    “The Court will assess these Defendants’ arguments and evidence following the forthcoming hearings…. independent of its conclusion” in the Meadows case, Jones wrote.

    There are several reasons why it would be advantageous for Meadows and the other defendants to move their cases to federal court. In addition to making immunity claims under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, a federal trial would likely have a jury pool more sympathetic to Trump and his co-defendants.

    While the state courthouse for this case is based in deep-blue Fulton County, the federal court district that includes Fulton also contains the more-Republican northern part of the state.

    At his hearing last month, Meadows surprisingly took the stand trying to help move his case to federal court, testifying for more than three hours about what happened in the White House after the 2020 election.

    Meadows tried to argue that all of his work as the president’s top adviser fit into his role as chief of staff – even when it spilled into politics.

    “It’s still part of my job to make sure that the president is safe and secure and able to perform his job. And that’s what I was doing,” Meadows said, later adding, “serving the president of the United States and … it takes on all kinds of forms.”

    But the Fulton County prosecutors peppered Meadows with questions about how his official job involved things like setting up phone calls involving campaign lawyers, such as Trump’s infamous January 2021 phone call Raffensperger.

    Jones concluded that some of Meadows’ high-stakes testimony on the witness stand was lacking – and even used some of it against him in the ruling.

    “When questioned about the scope of his authority, Meadows was unable to explain the limits of his authority, other than his inability to stump for the President or work on behalf of the campaign,” Jones wrote, saying he would give Meadows’ testimony on that topic “less weight” than the other evidence.

    Jones also cited Meadows’ acknowledgment that the lawyers he included in the phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state were working for Trump or his campaign – not the government.

    Fulton County prosecutors also subpoenaed Raffensperger to testify at Meadows’ hearing, where Raffensperger said plainly there was no role for the federal government in certifying Georgia’s elections.

    “It was a campaign call,” Raffensperger testified.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Appeals court says Biden admin likely violated First Amendment but narrows order blocking officials from communicating with social media companies | CNN Politics

    Appeals court says Biden admin likely violated First Amendment but narrows order blocking officials from communicating with social media companies | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal appeals court on Friday said the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment in some of its communications with social media companies, but also narrowed a lower court judge’s order on the matter.

    The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that certain administration officials – namely in the White House, the surgeon general, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – likely “coerced or significantly encouraged social media platforms to moderate content” in violation of the First Amendment in its efforts to combat Covid-19 disinformation.

    But the three-judge panel said the preliminary injunction issued by US District Judge Terry Doughty in July, which ordered some Biden administration agencies and top officials not to communicate with social media companies about certain content, was “both vague and broader than necessary to remedy the Plaintiffs’ injuries, as shown at this preliminary juncture.”

    The Biden administration had previously argued in the lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general claiming unconstitutional censorship that channels with social media companies must stay open so that the federal government can help protect the public from threats to election security, Covid-19 misinformation and other dangers.

    In briefs submitted earlier this summer, the administration wrote, “There is a categorical, well-settled distinction between persuasion and coercion,” adding that Doughty had “equated legitimate efforts at persuasion with illicit efforts to coerce.”

    The 5th Circuit left in place part of the injunction that barred certain Biden administration officials from “threatening, pressuring, or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech.”

    “But,” the appeals court said, “those terms could also capture otherwise legal speech. So, the injunction’s language must be further tailored to exclusively target illegal conduct and provide the officials with additional guidance or instruction on what behavior is prohibited.”

    The appeals court reversed several aspects of Doughty’s sweeping order, concluding that those pieces of it risked blocking the federal government “from engaging in legal conduct.”

    The 5th circuit left the order, which had been temporarily blocked earlier in the summer, on pause for 10 days so that the case can be appealed to the Supreme Court.

    The opinion was handed down jointly by Circuit Judges Edith Clement, Jennifer Walker Elrod and Don Willett – all appointees of Republican presidents.

    The conservative appeals court sided with many of the arguments put forward by the plaintiffs, which included private individuals as well Missouri and Louisiana, but also narrowed the injunction’s scope so that it only applied to the White House, the surgeon general, the CDC and the FBI. Doughty had included other agencies in his July order.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • A moment of reckoning for gerrymandering | CNN Politics

    A moment of reckoning for gerrymandering | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Americans’ reckoning with their own democracy extends beyond the looming presidential election to a much more local level.

    There are new details about how the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court issued its most unexpected decision of the past year and threw out Alabama’s congressional map, part of a secret negotiation between Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Read that incredible behind-the-scenes reporting from CNN’s Joan Biskupic.

    Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, the inverse is occurring – lawmakers who enjoy a majority thanks to gerrymandered state-level districts are keen on throwing out a liberal state Supreme Court justice even though she took the bench last month after being elected to a 10-year term.

    State and federal courts are hearing challenges to maps across the country, which could have a major impact on the coming election and help determine who controls Congress.

    Also this week:

    • A federal court has also thrown into question the congressional map drawn by Republicans that helped them gain seats in Florida.
    • There’s a trial over congressional maps underway in Georgia.

    The selective drawing of legislative district maps during periods of redistricting after the US census every 10 years – colloquially known as gerrymandering – is a practice that has been the subject of political and court fights for most of the country’s history. The Supreme Court has said partisan gerrymandering done for political reasons is not its concern, but this year it reaffirmed that racial gerrymandering that keeps minorities shut out of the power structure is not allowed.

    An endless series of adjustments has sought to address the issue of gerrymandering. These have ranged from major legislation like the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s to the adoption of nonpartisan or independent redistricting commissions in recent decades. The Congressional Research Service has a list of which states, many on the West Coast, have tried to de-politicize the process.

    But lawmakers in multiple states continue to work hard to protect their party control, a battle that is being fought on multiple fronts.

    Republicans in Alabama, for instance, unhappy with the Supreme Court’s decision this summer, essentially ignored the court by drawing a map that did not include an additional majority-Black district as the justices demanded. A federal court sent the state back to the drawing board again this week with the rebuke that it was “disturbed” by Alabama’s actions.

    Alabama argued that creating a second majority-Black district would be a sort of “affirmative action.”

    But the three-judge panel that threw out the map rejected that idea.

    “The Voting Rights Act does not provide a leg up for Black voters – it merely prevents them from being kept down with regard to what is arguably the most ‘fundamental political right,’ in that it is ‘preservative of all rights’ – the right to vote.” Read more from CNN’s Fredreka Schouten and Ethan Cohen.

    Alabama plans to appeal to the US Supreme Court again with an eye to changing Kavanaugh’s mind.

    Gerrymandered lawmakers target anti-gerrymander judge

    In Wisconsin, a Marquette University Law School review of data tells the story of how partisan gerrymandering – the kind the Supreme Court doesn’t concern itself with – makes it virtually impossible for Democrats to win the state’s assembly. When Gov. Tony Evers narrowly won statewide in 2018, he got 49.6%, or about half of the vote. But because of how the state’s legislative maps were drawn, the Republican then-Gov. Scott Walker got a majority in 63 of the state’s 99 assembly districts, just two fewer than in 2014, when Walker won a majority of votes in 2014.

    It is lawmakers elected from Republican-friendly maps who now want to remove the liberal state Supreme Court justice, Janet Protasiewicz, from office in part for her opposition to the maps. Read more from CNN’s Eric Bradner.

    North Carolina’s new Supreme Court overturns gerrymandering ruling

    North Carolina Republicans tried to cut the state courts out of the federal redistricting and elections process altogether by pushing a fringe legal theory known as the “independent state legislature theory.” The US Supreme Court rejected that argument, which could have upended how federal elections are contested in a consequential decision earlier this year.

    But North Carolina Republicans seem likely to ultimately get the map they want. Republicans gained a majority on the state’s Supreme Court this year, and the court has ruled it has no authority to oversee partisan gerrymandering.

    There are many more legal fights over congressional maps underway. The US Supreme Court in June also allowed for the Louisiana congressional map to be redrawn to allow for another majority-Black district.

    From CNN’s report on the Louisiana decision by Tierney Sneed: “Louisiana state officials were sued last year for a congressional map – passed by the Republican legislature over Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ veto – that made only one of its six districts majority Black, despite the 2020 census showing that the state’s population is 33% Black.”

    Congressional maps are in question in many states, including Georgia, where there is a trial underway in Atlanta.

    Kentucky’s Supreme Court is set to hear arguments later this month about whether gerrymandered maps violate the state’s constitution.

    On the flip side, Democrats are trying to get more friendly maps in New York, where a court-drawn map led them to lose congressional seats in 2022.

    One way to view these court decisions is that the US Supreme Court allowing or insisting that maps in Alabama or Louisiana be redrawn could have a real impact on who controls Congress after the 2024 election. Republicans hold a tiny five-seat majority.

    Another way to view these court decisions is that when the US Supreme Court allowed the GOP-drawn maps to be used in these states in the 2022 election, it helped Republicans gain that slim majority.

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  • Federal judge again declares Obama-era DACA program unlawful | CNN Politics

    Federal judge again declares Obama-era DACA program unlawful | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge in Texas ruled Wednesday that a regulation intended to preserve the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is unlawful, delivering a major blow to the Biden administration.

    Last year, the administration moved to preserve the program – which protects undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children – and released a rule to codify the policy into a federal regulation.

    But in a Wednesday filing, Judge Andrew Hanen, of the Southern District of Texas, maintained that DACA is unlawful and argued the rule violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that governs how agencies make regulations. The order doesn’t impact current beneficiaries of the program.

    “To be clear, neither this order nor the accompanying supplemental injunction requires the (Department of Homeland Security) or the Department of Justice to take any immigration, deportation, or criminal action against any DACA recipient, applicant, or any other individual that would otherwise not be taken,” Hanen wrote.

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Wednesday evening that the administration is “deeply disappointed” by the ruling.

    “During this Administration, hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients have been able to live and work lawfully in our country without fear of deportation,” Jean-Pierre wrote. “As we have long maintained, we disagree with the District Court’s conclusion that DACA is unlawful, and will continue to defend this critical policy from legal challenges.”

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas condemned the ruling in a statement but affirmed that the department will continue to process renewals for current DACA recipients.

    The Department of Justice declined to comment.

    DACA, created in 2012, was intended to provide temporary reprieve to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, a group often described as “Dreamers,” and allow them to live and work in the US. Many of them are now adults. There were 578,680 immigrants enrolled in DACA as of the end of March, according to government data.

    The Biden administration released a rule last year to “preserve and fortify” DACA, largely maintaining the criteria for the program. In January, nine Republican-led states asked Hanen to block the rule.

    Hanen’s ruling comes after a federal appeals court largely upheld his previous ruling finding DACA unlawful. That ruling blocked the government from approving new applications for the program but allowed it to continue for current enrollees while the case was litigated. That remains the case today.

    In his Wednesday ruling, Hanen cited the ongoing legal fight over the program and put the onus on Congress.

    “Litigation revolving around the legality of DACA, in one form or another, has existed for nearly a decade. While sympathetic to the predicament of DACA recipients and their families, this Court has expressed its concerns about the legality of the program for some time. The solution for these deficiencies lies with the legislature, not the executive or judicial branches,” Hanen wrote.

    Immigrant advocates have repeatedly urged Congress to provide protections to DACA recipients, but those attempts have fallen short.

    Democrats and Republicans have been sympathetic to the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children, many of whom were under the age of 10. But the give and take between Democrats and Republicans over “Dreamers” has made it difficult to achieve a bipartisan compromise.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Major Supreme Court cases to watch in the new term | CNN Politics

    Major Supreme Court cases to watch in the new term | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Looking at an upcoming Supreme Court term from the vantage point of the first Monday in October rarely tells the full story of what lies ahead, but the docket already includes major cases concerning the intersection between the First Amendment and social media, gun rights, racial gerrymandering and the power of the executive branch when it comes to regulation.

    The court will still determine if it will hear oral arguments on issues such as medication abortion and transgender rights, not to mention the possibility of a flurry of emergency requests related to the 2024 election.

    Here are some of the key cases on which the court will hear oral arguments this term:

    After the Supreme Court issued a major decision last year expanding gun rights nationwide, lower courts began reconsidering hundreds of firearms regulations across the country under the new standard crafted by Justice Clarence Thomas that a gun law passes legal muster only if it is rooted in history and tradition.

    On the heels of that decision, a federal appeals court invalidated a federal law that bars an individual who is subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm. That law, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, “is an outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted.”

    The Biden administration has appealed, saying the ruling “threatens grave harms for victims of domestic violence.”

    In 2019, nearly two-thirds of domestic homicides in the United States were committed with a gun, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.

    Lawyers for Zackey Rahimi, a man who was prosecuted under the law in 2020 after a violent altercation with his girlfriend, have urged the justices to let the lower court opinion stand, arguing in part that there is no law from the founding era comparable to the statute at hand.

    Racial gerrymandering: South Carolina congressional maps

    Justices will consider a congressional redistricting plan drawn by South Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature in the wake of the 2020 census. Critics say it was designed with discriminatory purpose and amounts to an illegal racial gerrymander.

    The case focuses the court’s attention once again on the issue of race and map drawing and comes after the court ordered Alabama to redraw the state’s congressional map last term to account for the fact that the state is 27% black. The decision, penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, surprised liberals who feared the court was going to make it harder for minorities to challenge maps under Section 2 of the historic Voting Rights Act.

    In the latest case, the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and a Black voter named Taiwan Scott, are challenging the state’s congressional District 1 that is located along the southeastern coast and is anchored in Charleston County. Although the district consistently elected Republicans from 1980 to 2016, in 2018 a Democrat was elected in a political upset, though a Republican recaptured the seat in 2020.

    The person who devised the map has testified that he was instructed to make the district “more Republican leaning,” but that he did not consider race. He did, however, acknowledge that he examined racial data after drafting each version and that the Black voting age population of the district was likely viewed during the drafting process.

    A three-judge district court panel struck down the plan in January, saying that race had been the predominant motivating factor. “To achieve a target of 17% African American population,” the court said, “Charleston County was racially gerrymandered and over 30,000 African Americans were removed from their home district.”

    Expert explains why Justice Thomas’ gifts from wealthy friends are problematic

    In the latest attack against the so-called administrative state, the justices are considering whether to overturn decades old precedent to scale back the power of federal agencies, impacting how the government tackles issues such as climate change, immigration, labor conditions and public health.

    At issue is an appeal from herring fishermen in the Atlantic who say the National Marine Fisheries Service does not have the authority to require them to pay the salaries of government monitors who ride aboard the fishing vessels.

    In agreeing to hear the case, the justices signaled they will reconsider a 1984 decision – Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council – that sets forward factors to determine when courts should defer to a government agency’s interpretation of the law. First, they examine a statute to see if Congress’ intent is clear. It if is – then the matter is settled. But if there is ambiguity – the court defers to the agency’s expertise.

    Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that the agency was acting within the scope of its authority under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and said the fishermen are not responsible for all the costs. The regulation was put in place to combat overfishing of the fisheries off the coasts of the US.

    Representing the fishermen, former Solicitor General Paul Clement argues that the government exceeded its authority and needs direct and clear congressional authorization to make such a demand. “The ‘net effect’ of Chevron,” Clement said, is that it “incentives a dynamic where Congress does far less than the Framers anticipated, and the executive branch is left to do far more by deciding controversial issues via regulatory fiat”

    For the second time in recent years, the court is taking aim at a watchdog agency created to combat unfair and deceptive practices against consumers, in a case that could deal a fatal blow to the future of the agency and send reverberations throughout the financial services industry.

    At the center of the case at hand is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – an independent agency set up in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown that works to monitor the practices of lenders, debt collectors and credit rating agencies.

    Congress chose to fund the CFPB from outside the annual appropriations process to ensure its independence. As such, the agency receives its funding each year from the earnings of the Federal Reserve System. But the conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals held last year that the funding scheme violates the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution, that, the court said “ensures Congress’ “exclusive power over the federal purse.”

    According to the CFPB, the agency has obtained more than $18.9 billion in ordered relief, including restitution and canceled debts, for more than 195 million consumers, and more than $4.1 billion in penalties, in actions brought by the agency against financial institutions and individuals that have broken federal consumer financial protection laws.

    A handful of other agencies have similar funding schemes including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

    Three years ago, the Supreme Court limited the independence of the CFPB by invalidating its leadership structure. A 5-4 court held that the structure violated the separation of powers because the president was restricted from removing the director, even if they had policy disagreements.

    Agency regulatory authority: Securities and Exchange Commission

    The justices are looking at the in-house enforcement proceedings of the US Securities and Exchange Commission in another case that invites the conservative majority to pare back the regulatory authority of federal agencies.

    The court’s decision could impact whether the SEC and other agencies can conduct enforcement proceedings in-house, using administrative courts staffed with agency employees, or whether such actions must be brought in federal court.

    On one side are critics of such agency courts who argue that they allow federal employees to serve as prosecutors, judges and jury, issuing rulings that could particularly hurt small businesses. On the other side are those who point out that several agencies, including the Social Security Administration, have such internal proceedings because the topics are often complex and the agency has more expertise than a federal judge.

    The case arose in 2013 after the SEC brought an enforcement action against George Jarkesy, who had established two hedge funds with his advisory firm, Patriot28, for securities fraud.

    The 5th Circuit ruled that the SEC’s proceedings deprive individuals of their Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury. In addition, the court said that Congress had improperly delegated legislative power to the SEC, which gave the agency unconstrained authority at times to choose the in-house administrative proceeding rather than filing suit in district court.

    In December, the court will examine the historic multibillion-dollar Purdue Pharma bankruptcy settlement with several states that would ultimately offer the Sackler family broad protection from OxyContin-related civil claims.

    Until recently, Purdue was controlled by the Sackler family, who withdrew billions of dollars from the company before it filed for bankruptcy. The family has now agreed to contribute up to $6 billion to Purdue’s reorganization fund on the condition that the Sacklers receive a release from civil liability.

    The Biden administration, representing the US Trustee, the executive branch agency that monitors the administration of bankruptcy cases, has called the plan “exceptional and unprecedented” in court papers, noting that lower courts have divided on when parties can be released from liability for actions that caused societal harm.

    “The plan’s release ‘absolutely, unconditionally, irrevocably, fully, finally, forever and permanently releases’ the Sacklers from every conceivable type of opioid-related civil claim – even claims based on fraud and other forms of willful misconduct that could not be discharged if the Sacklers filed for bankruptcy in their individual capacities,” Prelogar argued in court papers.

    For the second year running, the justices will leap into the online moderation debate and decide whether states can essentially control how social media companies operate.

    If upheld, laws from Florida and Texas could open the door to more state legislation requiring platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok to treat content in specific ways within certain jurisdictions – and potentially expose the companies to more content moderation lawsuits.

    It could also make it harder for platforms to remove what they determine is misinformation, hate speech or other offensive material.

    “These cases could completely reshape the digital public sphere. The question of what limits the First Amendment imposes on legislatures’ ability to regulate social media is immensely important – for speech, and for democracy as well,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, in a statement.

    “It’s difficult to think of any other recent First Amendment cases in which the stakes were so high,” Jaffer added.

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  • Federal appeals court extends limits on Biden administration communications with social media companies to top US cybersecurity agency | CNN Business

    Federal appeals court extends limits on Biden administration communications with social media companies to top US cybersecurity agency | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A federal appeals court has expanded the scope of a ruling that limits the Biden administration’s communications with social media companies, saying it now also applies to a top US cybersecurity agency.

    The ruling last month from the conservative 5th Circuit US Court of Appeals severely limits the ability of the White House, the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI to communicate with social media companies about content related to Covid-19 and elections that the government views as misinformation.

    The preliminary injunction had been on pause and a recent procedural snafu over a request from the plaintiffs in the case to broaden its scope led the court on Tuesday to withdraw its earlier opinion and issue a new one that now includes the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. That agency is charged with protecting non-military networks from hacking and other homeland security threats.

    Similar to the ruling last month, in which the appeals court said the federal government had “likely violated the First Amendment” when it leaned on platforms to moderate some content, the new ruling says CISA violates the Constitution.

    “CISA used its frequent interactions with social media platforms to push them to adopt more restrictive policies on censoring election-related speech,” the three-judge panel wrote.

    “The platforms’ censorship decisions were made under policies that CISA has pressured them into adopting and based on CISA’s determination of the veracity of the flagged information,” they continued. “Thus, CISA likely significantly encouraged the platforms’ content-moderation decisions and thereby violated the First Amendment.”

    The plaintiffs in the suit, which include Missouri and Louisiana’s attorneys general, as well as several individual plaintiffs, had also asked the court to expand the scope in other ways, including by making it apply to some State Department officials. But the court’s new ruling was only modified to add CISA as an enjoined entity.

    The judges said they were pausing their new injunction for 10 days, and the Biden administration has the option of asking the Supreme Court to issue a more lasting pause on the modified ruling.

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  • Federal judge rules Oregon gun law doesn’t violate Second Amendment | CNN Politics

    Federal judge rules Oregon gun law doesn’t violate Second Amendment | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge in Oregon ruled on Friday that a new state gun law does not violate the US Constitution, keeping one of the toughest gun laws in the country in place.

    US District Court Judge Karin Immergut ruled that Ballot Measure 114’s restrictions on large-capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are constitutional because these magazines are “not commonly used for self-defense, and are therefore not protected by the Second Amendment.”

    “Even if LCMs are protected by the Second Amendment, BM 114’s restrictions are consistent with this Nation’s history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety,” the ruling said.

    The law strengthens background checks and prohibits the sale and transfer of ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds. It also closes the “Charleston Loophole,” which allows gun purchases to move forward by default after three days even if a background check has not been completed. The law also requires state police to complete background checks on individuals before a gun sale or transfer is made.

    Since passing in November, the measure has faced a number of legal challenges, with the NRA’s legislative action arm lamenting it as “the nation’s most extreme gun control Initiative.”

    But Immergut’s ruling maintains that while the Second Amendment does protect against “bearable arms” as listed in the US Constitution, large-capacity magazines are a “subset of magazines” – and therefore, not considered a bearable arm.

    “Magazines are an accessory to firearms, rather than a specific type of firearm,” Immergut said. “At the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification through to the late nineteenth century, firearm accessories like cartridge boxes – which held ammunition but, unlike modern magazines, did not feed the ammunition into firearms – were not considered ‘arms’ but instead were considered ‘accouterments,’” the ruling said.

    The measure is one of several gun control laws that passed in 2022, the second-highest year for mass shootings in the United States on record.

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  • Supreme Court rejects Texas and Louisiana challenge to Biden deportation priorities | CNN Politics

    Supreme Court rejects Texas and Louisiana challenge to Biden deportation priorities | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling on Friday, revived the Biden administration’s immigration guidelines that prioritize which noncitizens to deport, dismissing a challenge from two Republican state attorneys general who argued the policies conflicted with immigration law.

    The court said the states, Texas and Louisiana, did not have the “standing,” or the legal right, to sue in the first place in a decision that will further clarify when a state can challenge a federal policy in court going forward.

    The ruling is a major victory for President Joe Biden and the White House, who have consistently argued the need to prioritize who they detain and deport given limited resources. By ruling against the states, the court tightened the rules concerning when states may challenge federal policies with which they disagree. The Biden administration policy was put on pause by a federal judge nearly two years ago and the Supreme Court declined to lift that hold last year.

    Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote Friday’s majority opinion in the case.

    “In sum, the states have brought an extraordinarily unusual lawsuit,” Kavanaugh wrote, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “They want a federal court to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policies so as to make more arrests. Federal courts have not traditionally entertained that kind of lawsuit; indeed, the States cite no precedent for a lawsuit like this.”

    Kavanaugh said that the executive branch has traditional discretion over whether to take enforcement actions under federal law. He said that if the court were to allow the states to bring the lawsuit at hand, it would “entail expansive judicial direction” of the executive’s arrest policy and would open the door to more lawsuits from states that think the executive is not doing enough to enforce the law in other areas such as drug and gun regulation and obstruction of justice laws.

    “We decline to start the Federal Judiciary down that uncharted path,” Kavanaugh said.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the administration welcomes the court’s ruling and that his department looks forward to using the immigration guidelines.

    The guidelines “enable DHS to most effectively accomplish its law enforcement mission with the authorities and resources provided by Congress,” Mayorkas said.

    Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, wrote a concurring an opinion that concluded that the states also lacked standing, but for different reasons than the majority opinion. Justice Samuel Alito dissented.

    At the heart of the dispute was a September 2021 memo from Mayorkas that laid out priorities for the apprehension and removal of certain non-citizens, reversing efforts by former President Donald Trump to increase deportations.

    In his memo, Mayorkas stated that there are approximately 11 million undocumented or otherwise removable non-citizens in the country and that the United States does not have the ability to apprehend and seek to remove all of them. As such, the Department of Homeland Security sought to prioritize those who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.  

    Kavanaugh’s opinion stressed that the standing doctrine “helps safeguard the Judiciary’s proper – and properly limited – role in our constitutional system.” He said that by ensuring a party has standing to sue, “federal courts prevent the judicial process from being used to usurp the powers of the political branches.”

    The majority did not address the underlying question of whether the administration had the authority to implement the policy.

    “We take no position on whether the executive branch here is complying with its legal obligations under §1226(c) and §1231(a)(2),” Kavanaugh wrote, referring to the relevant immigration statutes. “We hold only that the federal courts are not the proper forum to resolve this dispute.”

    Kavanaugh pointed out that five presidential administrations have determined that resource constraints necessitated prioritization in making immigration arrests.

    In his sole dissent, Alito wrote that this “sweeping executive power endorsed by today’s decision may at first be warmly received by champions of a strong Presidential power, but if presidents can expand their powers as far as they can manage in a test of strength with Congress, presumably Congress can cut executive power as much as it can manage by wielding the formidable weapons at its disposal.”

    “That is not what the Constitution envisions,” he wrote.

    Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst who filed an amicus brief in the immigration case, noted that Friday’s ruling was the second decision within the last week in which the court “held that red states lacked standing to challenge a federal policy – perhaps a signal of dissatisfaction with how liberally lower courts, especially the Fifth Circuit, have permitted these challenges to go forward.”

    “And it’s the second in the last two years in which it has reversed a nationwide injunction against a Biden immigration policy in a suit brought by Texas,” Vladeck said. “When states are the right plaintiffs to challenge federal policies is also one of the central issues before the court in the challenges to Biden’s student loan program – in which the court is expected to rule next week.”

    Kavanaugh’s opinion emphasized that, in “holding that Texas and Louisiana lack standing, we do not suggest that federal courts may never entertain cases involving the executive branch’s alleged failure to make more arrests or bring more prosecutions.”

    In court, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar stressed that Congress has never provided the funds to detain everyone, prompting different administrations to consider how to prioritize limited funds. She noted that the executive branch retains the authority to focus its “limited resources” on non-citizens who are higher priorities for removal and warned that if the states were to prevail, it would “scramble” immigration enforcement on the ground, leading to a totally unmanageable landscape. She said the states’ view in the case was a “senseless” way to run an immigration system.

    “I think that that is bad for the executive branch. I think it’s bad for the American public and I think it’s bad for Article Three courts,” she said.  

    The guidelines call for an assessment of the “totality of the facts and circumstances” instead of the development of a bright-line rule. The government lists aggravating factors weighing in favor of an enforcement action, including the gravity of the offense and the use of a firearm, but it also lists mitigating factors that include the age of the immigrant. 

    Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone, representing Texas and Louisiana, argued that the administration lacked the authority to issue the memo because it conflicts with existing federal law. He accused the government of treating immigration law in the area as “discretionary” and not “mandatory” and argued that the executive branch lacks the authority to “disregard” Congress’ instruction.

    “The states prove their standing at trial based on harms well recognized,” Stone said, emphasizing the costs incurred when the government “violates federal law.”

    A district court judge blocked the guidelines nationwide. “Using the words ‘discretion’ and ‘prioritization’ the executive branch claims the authority to suspend statutory mandates,” ruled Judge Drew Tipton, a Trump appointee on the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas. “The law does not sanction this approach.” 

    A federal appeals court declined to issue a stay of the decision, prompting the Biden administration to ask the Supreme Court for emergency relief last July. A 5-4 court ruled against the administration, allowing the lower court’s decision to remain in effect while the legal challenge played out.

    Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined her three liberal colleagues in dissent without providing any explanation for her vote.  

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Alabama death row inmate cannot be executed due to intellectual disability, appeals court rules | CNN

    Alabama death row inmate cannot be executed due to intellectual disability, appeals court rules | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    An appeals court has ruled the state of Alabama cannot execute man with an intellectual disability who was sentenced to death for murdering a man in 1997, upholding a lower court’s decision.

    The US Eleventh Court of Appeals’ decision on Friday means that 53-year-old Joseph Clifton Smith cannot be executed unless the decision is overturned by the US Supreme Court.

    In a statement released after the appeals court decision, Amanda Priest, communications director for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, said, “Smith’s IQ scores have consistently placed his IQ above that of someone who is intellectually disabled. The Attorney General thinks his death sentence was both just and constitutional.”

    “The Attorney General disagrees with the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling, and will seek review from the United States Supreme Court,” the statement concluded

    In 2021, a US District Court judge ruled that due to his intellectual disability, Smith could not “constitutionally be executed,” and vacated his death sentence.

    The judge referenced the district court’s finding that Smith’s “intellectual and adaptive functioning issues clearly arose before he was 18 years of age,” according to the 2021 appeals court ruling, which agreed with the lower court.

    Smith confessed to murdering Durk Van Dam, whose body was found “in an isolated area near his pick-up truck” in Mobile County in southwest Alabama, according to the court’s Friday ruling. Smith “offered two conflicting versions of the crime,” the ruling says – first admitting he watched Van Dam’s murder and then saying he participated but didn’t intend to kill the man.

    The case went to trial and the jury found Smith guilty, the order states. During his sentencing proceedings, Smith’s mother and sister testified that his father was “an abusive alcoholic,” according to the ruling.

    Smith had struggled in school since as early as the first grade, the order says, which led to his teacher labeling him as an “underachiever” before he underwent an “intellectual evaluation,” which gave him an IQ score of 75, the court said. When he was in fourth grade, Smith was tested again and placed in a learning-disability class – at the same time as his parents were going through a divorce, the court said.

    “After that placement, Smith developed an unpredictable temper and often fought with classmates. His behavior became so troublesome that his school placed him in an ‘emotionally conflicted classroom,’” the ruling states.

    Smith then failed the seventh and eighth grades before dropping out of school entirely, the ruling says, and he then spent “much of the next fifteen years in prison” for burglary and receiving stolen property.

    One of the witnesses in Smith’s evidentiary hearing held by the district court to determine whether he has an intellectual disability was Dr. Daniel Reschly, a certified school psychologist, the ruling says.

    The court ultimately determined that Smith “has significant deficits in social/interpersonal skills, self-direction, independent home living, and functional academics,” the ruling says.

    In its conclusion, the appeals court wrote: “We hold that the district court did not clearly err in finding that Smith is intellectually disabled and, as a result, that his sentence violates the Eighth Amendment. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment vacating Smith’s death sentence.”

    “This case is an example of why process is so important in habeas cases and why we should not rush to enforce death sentences—the only form of punishment that can’t be undone,” the office of Smith’s federal public defender said in a statement after the appeals court decision.

    “Originally, this same District Court denied Mr. Smith the opportunity to be heard, and it was an Eleventh Circuit decision that allowed a hearing that created this avenue for relief,” the statement said.

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  • Federal judge says insurers no longer have to provide some preventive care services, including cancer and heart screenings, at no cost | CNN Politics

    Federal judge says insurers no longer have to provide some preventive care services, including cancer and heart screenings, at no cost | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge in Texas said Thursday that some Affordable Care Act mandates cannot be enforced nationwide, including those that require insurers to cover a wide array of preventive care services at no cost to the patient, including some cancer, heart and STD screenings, and tobacco programs.

    In the new ruling, US District Judge Reed O’Connor struck down the recommendations that have been issued by the US Preventive Services Task Force, which is tasked with determining some of the preventive care treatments that Obamacare requires to be covered.

    The decision applies to task force recommendations issued on or after March 23, 2010 – the day the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. While the group had recommended various preventive services prior to that date, nearly all have since been updated or expanded.

    O’Connor’s ruling comes after the judge had already said that the task force’s recommendations violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. The judge also deemed unlawful the ACA requirement that insurers and employers offer plans that cover HIV-prevention measures such as PrEP for free.

    Other preventive care mandates under the ACA remain in effect.

    The full extent of the ruling’s impact and when its effects could be felt are unclear.

    It is likely the case will be appealed, and the Justice Department has the option to ask that O’Connor’s ruling be put on pause while the appeal is litigated.

    The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment, nor did the US Department of Health and Human Services.

    White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre called the case “yet another attack on the Affordable Care Act” and said that DOJ and HHS were reviewing Thursday’s ruling.

    The decision, in a case brought by employers and individuals in Texas, represents the latest legal affront to the landmark 2010 health care law. It is unclear what immediate practical effect O’Connor’s new ruling will have for those with job-based and Affordable Care Act policies because insurance companies will likely continue no-cost coverage for the remainder of the contracts even though the Obamacare requirements in question have been blocked. Contracts often last one calendar year.

    O’Connor’s Thursday ruling is expected to kick off a new phase of the legal battle over Obamacare’s preventive care measures. The judge rejected other claims that the ACA’s foes brought against the law – including challenges to the entities that determine no-cost coverage mandates for vaccines, an assortment of women’s health preventive care treatments, and services for infants and children. It’s possible that the plaintiffs appeal those aspects of O’Connor’s handling of the case, which could put at risk coverage requirements for additional preventive services at no cost.

    A lawyer for the challengers did not respond to CNN’s inquiry about Thursday’s decision.

    O’Connor is a George W. Bush-appointee who sits in the Northern District of Texas and who has issued anti-Obamacare rulings in major challenges to the law in the past. An appeal of the current case would head to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, perhaps the most conservative federal appeals court in the country.

    While the case does not pose the existential threat to the Affordable Care Act that previous legal challenges did, legal experts say that O’Connor’s ruling nonetheless puts in jeopardy the access some Americans will have to a whole host of preventive treatments.

    “We lose a huge chunk of preventive services because health plans can now impose costs,” said Andrew Twinamatsiko, associate director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. “People who are sensitive to cost will go without, mostly poor people and marginalized communities.”

    Thursday’s ruling, if left standing, could have significant consequences for Americans nationwide by limiting access to key preventive services aimed at early detection of diseases, including lung and colorectal cancer, depression and hypertension.

    Some of the US Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendations – including lung and skin cancer screenings, the use of statins to prevent cardiovascular disease and the offer of PrEP for those at high risk of HIV – were issued after the ACA’s enactment.

    Certain older recommendations have been updated with new provisions, such as screening adults ages 45 to 49 for colorectal cancer.

    “It would effectively lock in place coverage of evidence-based prevention with no cost sharing from 13 years ago,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

    Some of the cost-sharing for these preventive services can be substantial. PrEP, for instance, can cost up to $20,000 a year, plus lab and provider charges, according to Kaiser.

    In an earlier ruling, the judge upheld certain free preventive services for children, such as autism and vision screenings and well-baby visits, and for women, such as mammograms, well-woman visits and breastfeeding support programs.

    O’Connor also upheld the mandate that provides immunizations at no charge for the flu, hepatitis, measles, shingles and chickenpox.

    These services are recommended by the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

    Insurers will have to continue to cover preventive and wellness services since they are one of the Affordable Care Act’s required essential health benefits. But under O’Connor’s ruling, they could require patients to pick up part of the tab.

    Insurers’ trade associations stressed there would be no immediate disruption to coverage.

    “It is vitally important for patients to know that their care and coverage will not change because of today’s court decision,” said David Merritt, senior vice president of policy and advocacy for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. “Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies strongly encourage their members to continue to access these services to promote their continued well-being. We will continue to monitor further developments in the courts.”

    More than 150 million people with private insurance can receive preventive services without cost-sharing under the Affordable Care Act, according to a 2022 report published by HHS.

    Overall, about 60% of the 173 million people enrolled in private health coverage used at least one of the ACA’s no-cost preventive services in 2018 prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a recent Kaiser analysis. These include some services that will continue to be available at no charge under the judge’s ruling.

    The most commonly received preventive care includes vaccinations, not including Covid-19 vaccines, well-woman and well-child visits, and screenings for heart disease, cervical cancer, diabetes and breast cancer, according to Kaiser. The most commonly used preventive services will continue to be covered at no cost.

    Studies have shown the Obamacare mandate prompted an uptake in preventive services and narrowed care disparities in communities of color.

    “There’s plenty of evidence that people responded to this incentive and started using preventive care more often,” said Paul Shafer, assistant professor of health policy at Boston University.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • South Korean court grants gay couple health benefits in landmark ruling | CNN

    South Korean court grants gay couple health benefits in landmark ruling | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    A South Korean court on Tuesday ruled in favor of a same-sex couple seeking equal health benefits, overturning a lower court’s earlier decision in a ruling hailed by supporters and activists as the first recognition of the legal rights of such couples.

    The plaintiff, So Seong-wook, had previously been registered as a “spousal dependent” for state health insurance coverage, under the government-affiliated National Health Insurance Service (NHIS), according to his lawyer Park Han-hee.

    But the NHIS revoked So’s rights as a dependent and imposed premium payments after realizing he was in a same-sex relationship, Park told reporters after Tuesday’s hearing.

    South Korea does not legally recognize same-sex marriage.

    So and his partner sued the NHIS in 2021 citing discrimination, but lost in a lower court. They appealed the decision, with South Korea’s High Court ruling in their favor on Tuesday.

    The NHIS now has two weeks to appeal against the High Court’s decision.

    “After the first trial, despite the loss, I said that our love won, is winning and will win. And today demonstrates more clearly that our love has won and is winning,” So said Tuesday. “I’m really happy that through this ruling, the world will be more aware of the inequality that my husband and I, as well as other sexual minorities in South Korea, have gone through.”

    LGBTQ organizations and supporters around the world also celebrated the decision.

    Korean advocacy group Gagoonet, which includes the law firm representing So and his partner, congratulated the couple in a statement Tuesday, saying it welcomed “the first ruling where the judiciary recognized the equal rights of same-sex couples.”

    Amnesty International also praised the ruling, with its East Asia Researcher Boram Jang saying it “moves South Korea closer to achieving marriage equality” and “offers hope that prejudice can be overcome.”

    However, Jang added, the country has a long way to go. For instance, it has no anti-discrimination law despite years of campaigning and multiple draft legislation proposals.

    South Korea has also drawn international criticism for its military penal code, which makes sexual activity between men punishable by up to two years in prison. In past years, dozens have been arrested in what critics have called a “gay witch-hunt.”

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