Erin Patterson found guilty of all counts in Australia mushroom murders case
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The Guardian
15 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Canadian police seize largest ever weapons cache in terrorism inquiry
Police in Canada have arrested and charged four people, including active military members, who they allege were 'planning to create anti-government militia' and to 'forcibly take possession of land' in the province of Quebec. The scope of material uncovered by police, including explosives and assault rifles, marks the largest weapons cache ever seized as part of terrorism investigation. On Tuesday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police charged Marc-Aurèle Chabot, 24, of Quebec City, Simon Angers-Audet, 24, of Neuville, and Raphaël Lagacé, 25, of Quebec City, alleging the group took actions to facilitate terrorist activity. 'The three accused were planning to create anti-government militia. To achieve this, they took part in military-style training, as well as shooting, ambush, survival and navigation exercises. They also conducted a scouting operation,' the RCMP said in a statement. A fourth individual, Matthew Forbes, 33, of Pont-Rouge, has been charged with possession of firearms, prohibited devices and explosives. The four have not yet entered pleas. The RCMP said they conducted searches in January 2024 in the province of Quebec, where they discovered 16 explosive devices, 83 firearms, 11,000 rounds of ammunition and other military equipment – 18 months before the arrests were made. Police said the investigation was led by Quebec's RCMP-led Integrated National Security Enforcement Team squad, with help from local police. Other than describing the men as wanting to create an 'anti-government militia', investigators have not described the motivating ideology and nor did they reveal what the men were alleged to have identified as a target in their attempt to 'forcibly take possession of land in the Québec City area'. The RCMP also released images of handguns, assault rifles, vests and ammunition seized by officers. 'This is the largest cache of equipment and weapons and explosive devices that have ever been found in a terrorist incident, by a long shot, in Canada,' said Jessica Davis, a former intelligence analyst at Canada's spy agency and the president of Insight Threat Intelligence, a consultancy. 'I would probably put it in one of the top caches of disrupted plots around the world, particularly in Nato countries. It's huge and we don't know what they were planning on doing with that – but that was a lot of military equipment and devices.' The RCMP also posted images of an accused's social media profile that included images 'with the aim of recruiting new members to the anti-government militia'. Davis said that over the last two decades, most of the terror attacks in Canada have been perpetrated by ideologically motivated violent extremism. 'We're not talking about al-Qaida and Islamic State. We're talking about anti-Muslim, 'Incel' or anti-government extremists. And I think that's one of those things that Canadians don't necessarily understand. The Islamic State makes the news, but it's really this other type of terrorism that's the real problem in this country.' The four men were due to appear in a Quebec court on Tuesday. None of the charges have been tested in court.
The Guardian
29 minutes ago
- The Guardian
US supreme court clears way for Trump officials to resume mass government firings
The US supreme court has cleared the way for Donald Trump's administration to resume plans for mass firings of federal workers that critics warn could threaten critical government services. Extending a winning streak for the US president, the justices on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that had frozen sweeping federal layoffs known as 'reductions in force' while litigation in the case proceeds. The decision could result in hundreds of thousands of job losses at the departments of agriculture, commerce, health and human services, state, treasury, veterans affairs and other agencies. Democrats condemned the ruling. Antjuan Seawright, a party strategist, said: 'I'm disappointed but I'm not shocked or surprised. This rightwing activist court has proven ruling after ruling, time after time, that they are going to sing the songs and dance to the tune of Trumpism. A lot of this is just implementation of what we saw previewed in Project 2025.' Project 2025, a plan drawn up by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank, set out a blueprint for downsizing government. Trump has claimed that voters gave him a mandate for the effort and he tapped billionaire ally Elon Musk to lead the charge through the 'department of government efficiency', or Doge, though Musk has since departed. In February, Trump announced 'a critical transformation of the federal bureaucracy' in an executive order directing agencies to prepare for a government overhaul aimed at significantly reducing the workforce and gutting offices. In its brief unsigned order on Tuesday, the supreme court said Trump's administration was 'likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order' and a memorandum implementing his order were lawful. The court said it was not assessing the legality of any specific plans for layoffs at federal agencies. Liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole member of the nine-person court to publicly dissent from the decision, which overturns San Francisco-based district judge Susan Illston's 22 May ruling. Jackson wrote that Illston's 'temporary, practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was no match for this court's demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this president's legally dubious actions in an emergency posture'. She also described her colleagues as making the 'wrong decision at the wrong moment, especially given what little this Court knows about what is actually happening on the ground'. Illston had argued in her ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority in ordering the downsizing, siding with a group of unions, non-profits and local governments that challenged the administration. 'As history demonstrates, the president may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,' she wrote. The judge blocked the agencies from carrying out mass layoffs and limited their ability to cut or overhaul federal programmes. Illston also ordered the reinstatement of workers who had lost their jobs, though she delayed implementing this portion of her ruling while the appeals process plays out. Illston's ruling was the broadest of its kind against the government overhaul pursued by Trump and Doge. Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programmes or have been placed on leave. The administration had previously challenged Illston's order at the San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals but lost in a 2-1 ruling on 30 May. That prompted the justice department to make an emergency request to the supreme court, contending that controlling the personnel of federal agencies 'lies at the heartland' of the president's executive branch authority. The plaintiffs had urged the supreme court to deny the justice department's request. Allowing the Trump administration to move forward with its 'breakneck reorganization', they wrote, would mean that 'programs, offices and functions across the federal government will be abolished, agencies will be radically downsized from what Congress authorized, critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will lose their jobs'. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion The supreme court's rejection of that argument on Tuesday was welcomed by Trump allies. Pam Bondi, the attorney general, posted on the X social media platform: 'Today, the Supreme Court stopped lawless lower courts from restricting President Trump's authority over federal personnel – another Supreme Court victory thanks to @thejusticedept attorneys. Now, federal agencies can become more efficient than ever before. The state department wrote on X: 'Today's near unanimous decision from the Supreme Court further confirms that the law was on our side throughout this entire process. We will continue to move forward with our historic reorganization plan at the State Department, as announced earlier this year. This is yet another testament to President Trump's dedication to following through on an America First agenda.' In recent months the supreme court has sided with Trump in some major cases that were acted upon on an emergency basis since he returned to office in January. It cleared the way for Trump's administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harms they could face. In two cases, it let the administration end temporary legal status previously granted on humanitarian grounds to hundreds of thousands of migrants. It also allowed Trump to implement his ban on transgender people in the US military, blocked a judge's order for the administration to rehire thousands of fired employees and twice sided with Doge. In addition, the court curbed the power of federal judges to impose nationwide rulings impeding presidential policies. On Tuesday the Democracy Forward coalition condemned the supreme court for intervening in what it called Trump's unlawful reorganisation of the federal government. It said in a statement: 'Today's decision has dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy. 'This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution.'
Reuters
34 minutes ago
- Reuters
Supreme Court lets Trump resume plans for mass federal layoffs
WASHINGTON, July 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way on Tuesday for President Donald Trump's administration to resume its plans to carry out mass job cuts and the restructuring of agencies, elements of his campaign to downsize and reshape the federal government. In Trump's latest victory at the top U.S. judicial body, the justices lifted San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Susan Illston's May 22 order that blocked large-scale federal layoffs called "reductions in force" affecting potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs, while litigation in the case proceeds. Workforce reductions were planned at the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, State, Treasury, Veterans Affairs and more than a dozen other agencies. The Supreme Court in recent months has sided with Trump in several cases that were acted upon on an emergency basis since he returned to office in January including clearing the way for implementation of some of his hardline immigration policies. In addition, Trump last week claimed the biggest legislative win of his second presidential term with congressional passage of a massive package of tax and spending cuts. The court, in a brief unsigned order on Tuesday, said Trump's administration was "likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order" and a memorandum implementing his order were lawful. The court said it was not assessing the legality of any specific plans for layoffs at federal agencies. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole member of the nine-person court to publicly dissent from the decision. Jackson wrote that Illston's "temporary, practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was no match for this court's demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this president's legally dubious actions in an emergency posture." Trump in February announced "a critical transformation of the federal bureaucracy" in an executive order directing agencies to prepare for a government overhaul aimed at significantly reducing the federal workforce and gutting offices and programs opposed by his administration. A group of unions, non-profits and local governments that sued to block the administration's mass layoffs said Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling "dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy." "This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution," the plaintiffs said in a statement, adding that they would "continue to fight on behalf of the communities we represent." U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi welcomed the court's action. "Today, the Supreme Court stopped lawless lower courts from restricting President Trump's authority over federal personnel," Bondi wrote on social media. "Now, federal agencies can become more efficient than ever before." Illston had ruled that Trump exceeded his authority in ordering the government downsizing. "As history demonstrates, the president may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress," Illston wrote. The judge's ruling was the broadest of its kind against the government overhaul being pursued by Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, a key player in the Republican president's drive to slash the federal workforce. Formerly spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk, DOGE has sought to eliminate federal jobs, shrink and reshape the U.S. government and root out what they see as wasteful spending. Musk formally ended his government work on May 30 and subsequently had a public falling out with Trump. The judge blocked the agencies from carrying out mass layoffs and limited their ability to cut or overhaul federal programs. Illston also ordered the reinstatement of workers who had lost their jobs, though she delayed implementing this portion of her ruling while the appeals process plays out. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling on May 30 denied the administration's request to halt the judge's ruling. That prompted the Justice Department's June 2 emergency request to the Supreme Court to halt Illston's order. "The Constitution does not erect a presumption against presidential control of agency staffing, and the president does not need special permission from Congress to exercise core Article II powers," the Justice Department told the court, referring to the constitution's section delineating presidential authority. Allowing the Trump administration to move forward with its "breakneck reorganization," the plaintiffs told the court, would mean that "programs, offices and functions across the federal government will be abolished, agencies will be radically downsized from what Congress authorized, critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will lose their jobs." The Supreme Court in recent months has let Trump's administration resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harms they could face and end temporary legal status previously granted on humanitarian grounds to hundreds of thousands of migrants. In addition, it has allowed Trump to implement his ban on transgender people in the U.S. military, blocked a judge's order for the administration to rehire thousands of fired employees, twice sided with DOGE and curbed the power of federal judges to impose nationwide rulings impeding presidential policies.
