BOSTON — The state Senate is poised to approve a plan to restrict efforts to ban books from public libraries and schools in response to a rise in challenges from parents and conservative groups.
The “free expression” legislation, which cleared the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Thursday with bipartisan support, would make Massachusetts one of a handful of states to effectively outlaw book bans because of “personal, political or doctrinal” views by setting new restrictions on receiving state funding.
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Three lower courts have ruled President Donald Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose worldwide tariffs to be illegal. Now the Supreme Court, with three justices Trump appointed and generally favorable to muscular presidential power, will have the final word.In roughly two dozen emergency appeals, the justices have largely gone along with Trump in temporarily allowing parts of his aggressive second-term agenda to take effect while lawsuits play out.But the case being argued Wednesday is the first in which the court will render a final decision on a Trump policy. The stakes are enormous, both politically and financially.The Republican president has made tariffs a central piece of his economic and foreign policy and has said it would be a “disaster” if the Supreme Court rules against him.Here are some things to know about the tariffs arguments at the Supreme Court:Tariffs are taxes on importsThey are paid by companies that import finished products or parts, and the added cost can be passed on to consumers.Through September, the government has reported collecting $195 billion in revenue generated from the tariffs.The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose tariffs, but Trump has claimed extraordinary power to act without congressional approval by declaring national emergencies under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.In February, he invoked the law to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, saying that the illegal flow of immigrants and drugs across the U.S. border amounted to a national emergency and that the three countries needed to do more to stop it.In April, he imposed worldwide tariffs after declaring the United States’ longstanding trade deficits “a national emergency.”Libertarian-backed businesses and states challenged the tariffs in federal courtChallengers to Trump’s actions won rulings from a specialized trade court, a district judge in Washington and a business-focused appeals court, also in the nation’s capital.Those courts found that Trump could not justify tariffs under the emergency powers law, which doesn’t mention them. But they left the tariffs in place in the meantime.The appeals court relied on major questions, a legal doctrine devised by the Supreme Court that requires Congress to speak clearly on issues of “vast economic and political significance.”The major questions doctrine doomed several Biden policiesConservative majorities struck down three of then-President Joe Biden’s initiatives related to the coronavirus pandemic. The court ended the Democrat’s pause on evictions, blocked a vaccine mandate for large businesses and prevented student loan forgiveness that would have totaled $500 billion over 10 years.In comparison, the stakes in the tariff case are much higher. The taxes are estimated to generate $3 trillion over 10 years.The challengers in the tariffs case have cited writings by the three Trump appointees, Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, in calling on the court to apply similar limitations on a signal Trump policy.Barrett described a babysitter taking children on roller coasters and spending a night in a hotel based on a parent’s encouragement to “make sure the kids have fun.”“In the normal course, permission to spend money on fun authorizes a babysitter to take children to the local ice cream parlor or movie theater, not on a multiday excursion to an out-of-town amusement park,” Barrett wrote in the student loans case. “If a parent were willing to greenlight a trip that big, we would expect much more clarity than a general instruction to ‘make sure the kids have fun.’”Kavanaugh, though, has suggested the court should not apply the same limiting standard to foreign policy and national security issues.A dissenting appellate judge also wrote that Congress purposely gave presidents more latitude to act through the emergency powers law.Some of the businesses that sued also are raising a separate legal argument in an appeal to conservative justices, saying that Congress could not constitutionally delegate its taxing power to the president.The nondelegation principle has not been used in 90 years, since the Supreme Court struck down some New Deal legislation.But Gorsuch authored a dissent in June that would have found the Federal Communications Commission’s universal service fee an unconstitutional delegation. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas joined the dissent.“What happens when Congress, weary of the hard business of legislating and facing strong incentives to pass the buck, cedes its lawmaking power, clearly and unmistakably, to an executive that craves it?” Gorsuch wrote.The justices could act more quickly than usual in issuing a decisionThe court only agreed to hear the case in September, scheduling arguments less than two months later. The quick turnaround, at least by Supreme Court standards, suggests that the court will try to act fast.High-profile cases can take half a year or more to resolve, often because the majority and dissenting opinions go through rounds of revision.But the court can act quickly when deadline pressure dictates. Most recently, the court ruled a week after hearing arguments in the TikTok case, unanimously upholding a law requiring the popular social media app to be banned unless it was sold by its Chinese parent company. Trump has intervened several times to keep the law from taking effect while negotiations continue with China.
WASHINGTON —
Three lower courts have ruled President Donald Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose worldwide tariffs to be illegal. Now the Supreme Court, with three justices Trump appointed and generally favorable to muscular presidential power, will have the final word.
In roughly two dozen emergency appeals, the justices have largely gone along with Trump in temporarily allowing parts of his aggressive second-term agenda to take effect while lawsuits play out.
But the case being argued Wednesday is the first in which the court will render a final decision on a Trump policy. The stakes are enormous, both politically and financially.
The Republican president has made tariffs a central piece of his economic and foreign policy and has said it would be a “disaster” if the Supreme Court rules against him.
Here are some things to know about the tariffs arguments at the Supreme Court:
Tariffs are taxes on imports
They are paid by companies that import finished products or parts, and the added cost can be passed on to consumers.
Through September, the government has reported collecting $195 billion in revenue generated from the tariffs.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose tariffs, but Trump has claimed extraordinary power to act without congressional approval by declaring national emergencies under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
In February, he invoked the law to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, saying that the illegal flow of immigrants and drugs across the U.S. border amounted to a national emergency and that the three countries needed to do more to stop it.
In April, he imposed worldwide tariffs after declaring the United States’ longstanding trade deficits “a national emergency.”
Libertarian-backed businesses and states challenged the tariffs in federal court
Challengers to Trump’s actions won rulings from a specialized trade court, a district judge in Washington and a business-focused appeals court, also in the nation’s capital.
Those courts found that Trump could not justify tariffs under the emergency powers law, which doesn’t mention them. But they left the tariffs in place in the meantime.
The appeals court relied on major questions, a legal doctrine devised by the Supreme Court that requires Congress to speak clearly on issues of “vast economic and political significance.”
The major questions doctrine doomed several Biden policies
Conservative majorities struck down three of then-President Joe Biden’s initiatives related to the coronavirus pandemic. The court ended the Democrat’s pause on evictions, blocked a vaccine mandate for large businesses and prevented student loan forgiveness that would have totaled $500 billion over 10 years.
In comparison, the stakes in the tariff case are much higher. The taxes are estimated to generate $3 trillion over 10 years.
The challengers in the tariffs case have cited writings by the three Trump appointees, Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, in calling on the court to apply similar limitations on a signal Trump policy.
Barrett described a babysitter taking children on roller coasters and spending a night in a hotel based on a parent’s encouragement to “make sure the kids have fun.”
“In the normal course, permission to spend money on fun authorizes a babysitter to take children to the local ice cream parlor or movie theater, not on a multiday excursion to an out-of-town amusement park,” Barrett wrote in the student loans case. “If a parent were willing to greenlight a trip that big, we would expect much more clarity than a general instruction to ‘make sure the kids have fun.’”
Kavanaugh, though, has suggested the court should not apply the same limiting standard to foreign policy and national security issues.
A dissenting appellate judge also wrote that Congress purposely gave presidents more latitude to act through the emergency powers law.
Some of the businesses that sued also are raising a separate legal argument in an appeal to conservative justices, saying that Congress could not constitutionally delegate its taxing power to the president.
The nondelegation principle has not been used in 90 years, since the Supreme Court struck down some New Deal legislation.
But Gorsuch authored a dissent in June that would have found the Federal Communications Commission’s universal service fee an unconstitutional delegation. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas joined the dissent.
“What happens when Congress, weary of the hard business of legislating and facing strong incentives to pass the buck, cedes its lawmaking power, clearly and unmistakably, to an executive that craves it?” Gorsuch wrote.
The justices could act more quickly than usual in issuing a decision
The court only agreed to hear the case in September, scheduling arguments less than two months later. The quick turnaround, at least by Supreme Court standards, suggests that the court will try to act fast.
High-profile cases can take half a year or more to resolve, often because the majority and dissenting opinions go through rounds of revision.
But the court can act quickly when deadline pressure dictates. Most recently, the court ruled a week after hearing arguments in the TikTok case, unanimously upholding a law requiring the popular social media app to be banned unless it was sold by its Chinese parent company. Trump has intervened several times to keep the law from taking effect while negotiations continue with China.
BOSTON — The state Legislature has been hit with another lawsuit over its refusal to open up the books to allow a voter-approved audit of its inner workings.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Middlesex County Superior Court by Republican candidate for lieutenant governor Anne Brensley, who asked a judge to declare a voter-approved law giving State Auditor Diana DiZoglio the power to audit the Legislature constitutional and invalidate an internal state House of Representatives rule on audits.
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At the center of the sprawling legal battle over President Trump’s domestic military deployments is a single word: rebellion.
To justify sending the National Guard to Los Angeles and other cities over the outcry of local leaders, the Trump administration has cited an obscure and little-used law empowering presidents to federalize soldiers to “suppress” a rebellion, or the threat of one.
But the statute does not define the word on which it turns. That’s where Bryan A. Garner comes in.
For decades, Garner has defined the words that make up the law. The landmark legal reference book he edits, Black’s Law Dictionary, is as much a fixture of American courts as black robes, rosewood gavels and brass scales of justice.
The dictionary is Garner’s magnum opus, as essential to attorneys as Gray’s Anatomy is to physicians.
Now, Black’s definition of rebellion is at the center of two critical pending decisions in cases from Portland, Ore., and Chicago — one currently being reheard by the 9th Circuit and the other on the emergency docket at the Supreme Court — that could unleash a flood of armed soldiers into American streets.
That a dictionary could influence a court case at all owes in part to Garner’s seminal book on textualism, a conserative legal doctrine that dictates a page-bound interpretation of the law. His co-author was Antonin Scalia, the late Supreme Court justice whose strict originalist readings of the Constitution paved the way for the court’s recent reversal of precedents on abortion, voting rights and gun laws.
On a recent weekday, the country’s leading legal lexicographer was ensconced among the 4,500 some-odd dictionaries that fill his Dallas home, revising the entry for the adjective “calculated” ahead of Black’s 13th Edition.
But, despite his best efforts not to dwell on the stakes of his work, the noun “rebellion” was never far from his mind.
Federal authorities stand guard at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore., that has been the site of protests against the Trump administration.
(Sean Bascom / Anadolu via Getty Images)
“One of the very first cases citing my book sent a man to his capital punishment,” he explained of an earlier dictionary. “They cited me, the guy was put to death. I was very disturbed by that at first.”
He managed his distress by doubling down on his craft. In its first 100 years, Black’s Law Dictionary was revised and reissued six times. From 1999 to 2024, Garner produced six new editions.
“I work on it virtually every day,” he said.
Most mornings, he rises before dawn, settling behind a desk in one of his three home libraries around 4 a.m. to begin the day’s defining.
That fastidiousness has not stopped the lexical war over his work in recent months, as judges across the country read opposite meanings into “rebellion.”
The Department of Justice and the attorneys general of California, Oregon and Illinois have likewise sparred over the word.
In making their case, virtually all have invoked Black’s definition — one Garner has personally penned for the last 30 years. He began editing the 124-year-old reference book in 1995.
“The word ‘rebellion’ has been stable in its three basic meanings in Black’s since I took over,” he said.
“Ooo! So at some point I added, ‘usually through violence,’” he amended himself.
This change comes from the definition’s first sense: 1. Open, organized, and armed resistance to an established government or ruler; esp., an organized attempt to change the government or leader of a country, usu. through violence.
States have touted this meaning to argue the word rebellion cannot possibly apply to torched Waymos in Los Angeles or naked bicyclists in Portland.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, has leaned on the second and third senses to say the opposite.
The California Department of Justice wrote in its amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the Illinois case that federal authorities argue rebellion means any form of “resistance or opposition to authority or tradition,” including disobeying “a legal command or summons.”
“But it is not remotely plausible to think that Congress intended to adopt that expansive definition,” the state said.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth walks onstage to deliver remarks as part of the Marine Corps’ 250th anniversary celebration at Camp Pendleton on Oct. 18.
(Oliver Contreras / AFP via Getty Images)
Although the scope and the stakes of the rebellion fight make it unique, the debate over definitions is nothing new, experts say.
The use of legal dictionaries to solve judicial problems has surged in recent years, with the rise of Scalia-style textualism and the growing sense in certain segments of the public that judges simply make the law up as they go along.
By 2018, the Supreme Court was citing dictionary definitions in half of its opinions, up dramatically from prior years, according to Mark A. Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School.
Splitting hairs over what makes a rebellion is a new level of absurdity, he said. “This is an unfortunate consequence of the Supreme Court’s obsession with dictionaries.”
“Reducing the meaning of a statute to one (of the many) dictionary definitions is unlikely to give you a useful answer,” he said. “What it gives you is a means of manipulating the definition to achieve the result you want.”
Garner has publicly acknowledged the limits of his work. Ultimately, it’s up to judges to decide cases based on precedents, evidence, and the relevant law. Dictionaries are an adjunct.
Still, he and other textualists see the turn to dictionaries as an important corrective to interpretive excesses of the past.
“The words are law,” Garner said.
Law enforcement officers watch from a ledge of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility as a protester stands outside in an inflatable frog costume on Oct. 21 in Portland, Ore.
(Jenny Kane / Associated Press)
Judges who cite dictionaries are “not ceding power to lexicographers,” he argued, but simply giving appropriate heft to the text enacted by Congress.
Others call the dictionary a fig leaf for the interpretive excesses of jurists bent on reading the law to suit a political agenda.
“Judges don’t want to take personal responsibility for saying ‘Yes, there’s a rebellion’ or ‘no, there isn’t,’ so they say ‘the dictionary made me do it.’” said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law. “No, it didn’t.”
Though he agreed with Black’s definition of rebellion, Segall rejected the idea it could shape jurisprudence: “That’s not how our legal system works,” he said.
The great challenge in the troops cases, legal scholars agree, is that they turn on a vague, century-old text with no relevant case law to help define it.
Unlike past presidents, who invoked the Insurrection Act to combat violent crises, Trump deployed an obscure subsection of the U.S. code to wrest command of National Guard troops from state governors and surge military forces into American cities.
Before Trump deployed troops to L.A. in June, the law had been used only once in its 103-year history.
With little interpretation to oppose it, the Justice Department has wielded its novel reading of the statute to justify the use of federalized troops to support immigration arrests and put down demonstrations.
Administration attorneys say the president’s decision to send soldiers to Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago is “unreviewable” by courts, and that troops can remain in federal service in perpetuity once called up, regardless of how conditions change.
Border Patrol official Greg Bovino marches with federal agents to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on Aug. 14.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Judges have so far rejected these claims. But they have split on the thornier issues of whether community efforts to disrupt immigration enforcement leave Trump “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws” — another trigger for the statute — and if sporadic violence at protests adds up to rebellion.
As of this week, appellate courts also remain sharply divided on the evidence.
On Oct 23, Oregon claimed the Department of Justice inflated the number of federal protective personnel it said were detailed to Portland in response to protests to more than triple its actual size — a mistake the department called an “unintended ambiguity.”
The inflated number was repeatedly cited in oral arguments before the 9th Circuit and more than a dozen times in the court’s Oct. 20 decision allowing the federalization of Oregon’s troops — an order the court reversed Tuesday while it is reviewed.
The 7th Circuit noted similar falsehoods, leading that court to block the Chicago deployment.
“The [U.S. District] court found that all three of the federal government’s declarations from those with firsthand knowledge were unreliable to the extent they omitted material information or were undermined by independent, objective evidence,” the panel wrote in its Oct 11 decision.
A Supreme Court decision expected in that case will probably define Trump’s power to deploy troops throughout the Midwest — and potentially across the country.
For Garner, that decision means more work.
In addition to his dictionaries, he is also the author of numerous other works, including a memoir about his friendship with Scalia. In his spare time, he travels the country teaching legal writing.
The editor credits his prodigious output to strict discipline. As an undergrad at the University of Texas, he swore off weekly Longhorns games and eschewed his beloved Dallas Cowboys to concentrate on writing, a practice he has maintained with Calvinist devotion ever since.
“I haven’t seen a game for the last 46 years,” the lexicographer said, though he makes a biannual exception for the second halves of the Super Bowl and college football’s national championship game.
As for the political football with Black’s “rebellion,” he’s waiting to see how the Illinois Guard case plays out.
“I will be looking very closely at what the Supreme Court says,” Garner said. “If it writes anything about the meaning of the word rebellion, that might well affect the next edition of Black’s Law Dictionary.”
LEWISBURG — Stephanie Balliet discovered her life’s work amid one of the most difficult times in her young life.
Following an assault by a stranger at the age of 12 while attending a sleepover at a friend’s house, Balliet received services from Transitions PA during the ensuing three-year-long court case involving her alleged abuser.
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BEVERLY — A lawsuit brought by parents over the November 2024 Beverly teachers strike is on hold as the state’s Appeals Court decides the fate of a similar case in Newton.
Janelle Donahue, of Beverly, and Erica Kostro, of Quincy, filed the suit on behalf of their children against the Beverly Teachers Association and its president, Andrea Sherman, in Salem Superior Court in June.
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BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey is citing progress with the state’s efforts to crack down on street “takeovers” fueled on social media by drag racing enthusiasts.
On Thursday, Healey announced that state and local enforcement officials have thwarted attempted car “meet ups” in the state over the past week through online investigations that resulted in arrests and hundreds of traffic citations.
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court may help the GOP keep control of the House of Representatives next year by clearing the way for Republican-led states to redraw election districts now held by Black Democrats.
That prospect formed the backdrop on Wednesday as the justices debated the future of the Voting Rights Act in a case from Louisiana.
The Trump administration’s top courtroom attorney urged he justices to rule that partisan politics, not racial fairness, should guide the drawing election districts for Congress and state legislatures.
“This court held that race-based affirmative action in higher education must come to an end,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote in his brief. The same is true, he said, for using the Voting Rights Act to draw legislative districts that are likely to elect a Black or Latino candidate.
Too often, he said, the civil rights law has been “deployed as a form of electoral race-based affirmative action to undo a state’s constitutional pursuit of political ends.”
The court’s conservatives lean in that direction and sought to limit the use of race for drawing district boundaries. But the five-member majority has not struck down the use of race for drawing district lines.
But the Trump administration and Louisiana’s Republican leaders argued that now was the time to do so.
If the court’s conservatives hand down such a ruling in the months ahead, it would permit Republican-led states across the South to redraw the congressional districts of a dozen or more Black Democrats.
“There’s reason for alarm,” said Harvard law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulous. “The consequences for minority representation would likely be devastating. In particular, states with unified Republican governments would have a green light to flip as many Democratic minority-opportunity districts as possible.”
Such a ruling would also upend the Voting Rights Act as it had been understood since the 1980s.
As originally enacted in 1965, the historic measure put the federal government on the side of Blacks in registering to vote and casting ballots.
But in 1982, Republicans and Democrats in Congress took note that these new Black voters were often shut out of electing anyone to office. White lawmakers could draw maps that put whites in the majority in all or nearly all the districts.
Seeking a change, Congress amended the law to allow legal challenges when discrimination results in minority voters having “less opportunity … to elect representatives of their choice.”
In decades after, the Supreme Court and the Justice Department pressed the states, and the South in particular, to draw at least some electoral districts that were likely to elect a Black candidate. These legal challenges turned on evidence that white voters in the state would not support a Black candidate.
But since he joined the court in 1991, Justice Clarence Thomas has argued that drawing districts based on race is unconstitutional and should be prohibited. Justices Samuel A. Alito, Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett dissented with Thomas two years ago when the court by a 5-4 vote approved a second congressional district in Alabama that elected a Black Democrat.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts wrote the opinion. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh cast the deciding fifth vote but also said he was open to the argument that “race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future.”
It has six congressional districts, and about one-third of its population is Black.
Prior to this decade, the New Orleans area elected a Black representative, and in response to a voting right suit, it was ordered to draw a second district where a Black candidate had a good chance to win.
But to protect its leading House Republicans — Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise — the state drew a new elongated district that elected Rep. Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat.
Now the state and the Trump administration argue the court should strike down that district because it was drawn based on race and free the state to replace him with a white Republican.
Last month, in a special election, voters in southern Arizona chose Adelita Grijalva to succeed her late father in Congress.
The outcome in the solidly Democratic district was never in doubt. The final tally wasn’t remotely close.
Grijalva, a Tucson native and former Pima County supervisor, crushed her Republican opponent, 69% to 29%.
The people spoke, loudly and emphatically, and normally that would have been that. Grijalva would have assumed office by now, allowing her to serve her orphaned constituents by filling a House seat that’s been vacant since her father died in March, after representing portions of Arizona for more than 20 years.
And so Grijalva is residing in limbo. Or, rather, at her campaign headquarters in Tucson, since she’s been locked out of her congressional office on Capitol Hill — the one her father used, which now has her name on a plaque outside. She’s been denied entry by Speaker Mike Johnson.
“It’s pretty horrible,” Grijalva said in an interview, “because regardless of whether I have an official office or not, constituents elected me and people are reaching out to me through every social media outlet.
“‘I have a question,’” they tell Grijalva, or “‘I’m afraid I’m going to get fired’ or ‘We need some sort of assistance.’”
House members are scattered across the country during the partial government shutdown and Johnson said he can’t possibly administer the oath of office to Grijalva during a pro forma session, a time when normal business — legislative debate, roll call votes — is not being conducted. “We have to have everybody here,” Johnson said, “and we’ll swear her in.”
But, lo, dear reader, are you sitting down?
It turns out there were two Republican lawmakers elected this year in special elections, each, as it happens from Florida. Both were sworn in the very next day … during pro forma sessions!
But partisanship aside, what possible reason would Johnson have to stall Grijalva’s swearing-in? Here’s a clue: It involves a convicted sex trafficker and former buddy of President Trump, whose foul odor trails him like the reeking carcass of a beached whale.
There was no such list, it announced, and Epstein definitely committed suicide and wasn’t, as the conspiracy-minded suggest, murdered by those wishing to silence him.
Trump, who palled around with Epstein, urged everyone to move along. Naturally, Johnson fell into immediate lockstep. (Bondi, for her part, tap-danced through a contentious Senate hearing last week, repeatedly sidestepping questions about the Epstein-Trump relationship, including whether photos exist of the president alongside “half-naked young women.”)
Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a GOP lawmaker and persistent Trump irritant, and Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna have led the bipartisan effort to force the Justice Department to cough up the government’s unclassified records related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend and fellow sex trafficker.
The discharge petition, overriding the objections of Trump and Johnson and forcing the House to vote on release of the files, needs at least 218 signatures, which constitutes a majority of the 435 members. The petition has been stalled for weeks, just one signature shy of ratification.
Enter Grijalva.
Or not.
Johnson, who may be simply delaying an inevitable House vote to curry Trump’s favor, insists the Epstein matter has “nothing to do with” his refusal to seat Grivalja.
Righto.
And planets don’t revolve around the sun, hot air doesn’t rise and gravity doesn’t bring falling leaves to Earth.
More than 200 Democratic House members have affixed their signatures to the petition, along with four Republicans — Massie and Reps. Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The latter three are all MAGA stalwarts who have bravely broken ranks with Trump to stand up for truth and the victims of Epstein’s ravages.
“Aren’t we all against convicted pedophiles and anyone who enables them?” Greene asked in an interview with Axios.
Most are, one would assume. But apparently not everybody.
ESSEX — When residents attend the Nov. 17 special Town Meeting, they may be voting on several articles now being considered by the Planning Board.
In a posting to its page on the town’s website, www.essexma.org, the Planning Board offers details of the articles it plans to present at fall Town Meeting.
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SALEM — The trial of a wounded North Andover police officer could get underway as early as January, after an Essex County Superior Court judge pushes for the case to be tried sooner rather than later.
Kelsey Fitzsimmons’ lawyer, Timothy Bradl, and state prosecutor James Gubitose agreed to a pretrial assignment conference Nov. 25 to set a trial date after a pretrial conference Tuesday with her lawyer absent from the courtroom.
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If a Superior Court judge has a conflict of interest that potentially benefits Gov. Kelly Ayotte, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office doesn’t want anyone to know about it, according to a notice filed this week in a lawsuit brought by survivors of sexual abuse committed by state employees.
At issue is Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Daniel St. Hilaire’s recent ruling against 1,500 survivors of the Sununu Youth Services Center, formerly called YDC, sex abuse scandal, a ruling that favors Ayotte who is a named defendant.
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The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Sheriff Robert Luna, claiming the department violated county gunowners’ 2nd Amendment rights by delaying thousands of concealed carry permit application decisions for “unreasonable” periods of time.
In a statement, the Justice Department claimed that the Sheriff’s Department “systematically denied thousands of law-abiding Californians their fundamental Second Amendment right to bear arms outside the home — not through outright refusal, but through a deliberate pattern of unconscionable delay.”
The complaint, filed in the Central District of California, the federal court in Los Angeles, cites data provided by the Sheriff’s Department about the more than 8,000 concealed carry permit applications and renewal applications it received between Jan. 2, 2024, and March 31 this year.
During that period, the Justice Department wrote, it took an average of nearly 300 days for the Sheriff’s Department to schedule interviews to approve the applications or “otherwise” advance them.
As a result, of the nearly 4,000 applications for new concealed carry licenses it received during those 15 months, “LASD issued only two licenses.” Two others were denied, the Justice Department said, while the rest remained pending or were withdrawn.
The Sheriff’s Department did not immediately provide comment Monday. In March, when the Trump administration announced its 2nd Amendment investigation, the department said it was “committed to processing all Concealed Carry Weapons [CCW] applications in compliance with state and local laws.”
The department’s statement said it had approved 15,000 applications for concealed carry licenses but that because of “a significant staffing crisis in our CCW Unit” it was “diligenty working through approximately 4,000 active cases.”
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said Monday that the Justice Department was working to safeguard the 2nd Amendment, which “protects the fundamental constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms.”
“Los Angeles County may not like that right, but the Constitution does not allow them to infringe upon it,” Bondi said. “This Department of Justice will continue to fight for the Second Amendment.”
The federal agency’s complaint alleged that the practice of delaying the applications in effect forced gun permit applicants “to abandon their constitutional rights through administrative exhaustion.”
In December 2023, the California Rifle and Pistol Assn. sued the Sheriff’s Department over what it alleged were improper delays and rejections of applications for concealed carry licenses. In January, U.S. District Court Judge Sherilyn P. Garnett ordered the department to reduce delays.
In the new complaint, the Justice Department called on the court to issue a permanent injunction.
Gun rights groups heralded the move by the Trump administration.
“This is a landmark lawsuit in that it’s the first time the Department of Justice has ever filed a case in support of gun owners,” Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to see the federal government step up and defend the Second Amendment rights of citizens and hope this pattern continues around the country.”
BOSTON — A state appeals court has sided with a medical worker and voodoo worshipper who was fired by University of Massachusetts Medical Health Care after her request for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine was rejected.
The ruling, issued Monday by the state Court of Appeals, overturns a Superior Court ruling that rejected a lawsuit filed by Rachelle Jeune against UMass Medical over its denial of a religious exemption in October 2021 as part of her employment as a surgical technician.
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BOSTON — A state appeals court has sided with a medical worker and voodoo worshipper who was fired by University of Massachusetts Medical Health Care after her request for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine was rejected.
The ruling, issued Monday by the state Court of Appeals, overturns a Superior Court ruling that rejected a lawsuit filed by Rachelle Jeune against UMass Medical over its denial of a religious exemption in October 2021 as part of her employment as a surgical technician.
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METHUEN — The city has followed up a “declaration of war” against human trafficking with the investigation of another business and the creation of a task force.
On Monday, city inspectors shut down Eastern Bodywork Therapy, which officials allege is a front for human trafficking. Mayor D.J. Beauregard, who had announced the crackdown on Sunday, said in a press release that the task force would hold both the perpetrators and landlords accountable.
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BOSTON — Massachusetts is among a group of states suing the Trump administration over threats to pull federal sexual education funding from curricula focusing on gender identities.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in the U.S. District Court in Oregon by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell and 16 other Democrats, alleges that new conditions imposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to receive the grant funding violate federal law, the separation of powers and Congress’ spending power.
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BOSTON — The Trump administration can’t block federal disaster relief funding for Massachusetts and other states for refusing to cooperate with immigration crackdowns, a federal judge has ruled.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith in Rhode Island sided with Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell and 22 other Democrats who sued to block a Homeland Security policy tying Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster funding to a state’s willingness to cooperate with immigration enforcement.
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METHUEN — The manager of Beauty Garden Spa on Wallace Street is facing human trafficking charges after a lengthy police investigation.
Suping Zhu, 38, of Flushing, New York, is to be arraigned Monday in Lawrence District Court on charges that include deriving support from prostitution and trafficking person for sexual servitude.
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METHUEN — The manager of Beauty Garden Spa on Wallace Street is facing human trafficking charges after a lengthy police investigation.
Suping Zhu, 38, of Flushing, New York, is to be arraigned Monday in Lawrence District Court on charges that include deriving support from prostitution and trafficking person for sexual servitude.
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