US appeals court will not lift limits on Associated Press access to White House
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit kept in place a June 6 decision by a divided three-judge panel that the administration could legally restrict access to the AP to news events in the Oval Office and other locations controlled by the White House, including Air Force One.
The D.C. Circuit order denied, opens new tab the AP's request that it review the matter, setting up a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Associated Press in a statement on Tuesday said it was disappointed by the court's decision and will remain focused on free speech rights as the case continues.
"As we've said throughout, the press and the public have a fundamental right to speak freely without government retaliation," the AP said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
In a lawsuit filed in February, the AP argued that the limitations on its access imposed by the administration violated the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections against government abridgment of free speech.
Trump in January signed an executive order officially directing federal agencies to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The AP sued after the White House restricted its access over its decision not to use "Gulf of America" in its news reports.
The AP Stylebook states that the Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. AP said that as a global news agency, it will refer to the body of water by its longstanding name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.
Reuters and the AP both issued statements denouncing the access restrictions, which put wire services in a larger rotation with about 30 other newspaper and print outlets. Other media customers, including local news outlets with no presence in Washington, rely on real-time reports by the wire services of presidential statements, as do global financial markets.
The Trump administration has said the president has absolute discretion over media access to the White House.
The AP won a key order in the trial court when U.S. District Judge Treevor McFadden, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, decided that if the White House opens its doors to some journalists it cannot exclude others based on their viewpoints, citing the First Amendment.
The D.C. Circuit panel in its 2-1 ruling in June paused McFadden's order. The two judges in the majority, Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, were appointed by Trump during his first term in office. The dissenting judge, Cornelia Pillard, is an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
8 minutes ago
- Reuters
US-funded contraceptives for poor nations to be burned in France, sources say
July 23 (Reuters) - U.S.-funded contraceptives worth nearly $10 million are being sent to France from Belgium to be incinerated, after Washington rejected offers from the United Nations and family planning organisations to buy or ship the supplies to poor nations, two sources told Reuters. The supplies have been stuck for months in a warehouse in Geel, a city in the Belgian province of Antwerp, following President Donald Trump's decision to freeze U.S. foreign aid in January. They comprise contraceptive implants and pills as well as intrauterine devices to help prevent unwanted pregnancies, according to seven sources and a screengrab shared by an eighth source confirming the planned destruction. The U.S. government will spend $160,000 to incinerate the stocks at a facility in France that handles medical waste, according to four of the sources with knowledge of the matter, following Trump's decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment on the negotiations to save the contraceptives from destruction or the plans to incinerate them. U.S. lawmakers have introduced two bills this month to prevent the destruction of the supplies but aid groups say the bills are unlikely to be passed in time to stop the incineration. The Belgian foreign ministry said Brussels had held talks with U.S. authorities and "explored all possible options to prevent the destruction, including temporary relocation." "Despite these efforts, and with full respect for our partners, no viable alternative could be secured. Nevertheless, Belgium continues to actively seek solutions to avoid this regrettable outcome," it said in a statement shared with Reuters on Tuesday. "Sexual and reproductive health must not be subject to ideological constraints," it added. The supplies, worth $9.7 million, are due to expire between April 2027 and September 2031, according to an internal document listing the warehouse stocks and verified by three sources. Sarah Shaw, Associate Director of Advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, told Reuters the non-profit organisation had volunteered to pay for the supplies to be repackaged without USAID branding and shipped to countries in need, but the offer was declined by the U.S. government. "MSI offered to pay for repackaging, shipping and import duties but they were not open to that... We were told that the U.S. government would only sell the supplies at the full market value," said Shaw. She did not elaborate on how much the NGO was prepared to pay, but said she felt the rejection was based on the Trump's administration's more restrictive stance on abortion and family planning. "This is clearly not about saving money. It feels more like an ideological assault on reproductive rights, and one that is already harming women." She added that many countries in sub-Saharan Africa had relied on USAID for access to contraception and that the aid cuts would lead to a rise in unsafe abortions. The United Nations' sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, also offered to buy the contraceptives outright, three sources told Reuters, without disclosing the financial terms of the proposal. However, negotiations broke down, a source with knowledge of the talks said, in part due to a lack of response from the U.S. government. UNFPA declined to comment. One of the sources with knowledge of the issue said that the Trump administration was acting in accordance with the Mexico City policy, an anti-abortion pact in which Trump reinstated U.S. participation in January. The pact forbids the U.S. government from contributing to or working with organisations providing funding or supplies that offer access to abortions. The source said there was no way for the U.S. government to ensure that UNFPA would not share the contraceptives with groups offering abortions, violating the Mexico City policy. The source also said the matter was complicated by the fact that the contraceptives in Belgium were embossed with the USAID trademark and Washington did not want any USAID-branded supplies to be rerouted elsewhere. UNFPA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the concerns raised by the source. MSI, which says on its website that it fights for a future where everyone can access contraception and abortion, accused the State Department earlier this month of being "hellbent on destroying life-saving medical supplies, incurring additional costs for the U.S. taxpayer in the process." The State Department declined to comment. Abortion is a divisive issue in U.S. politics and was a major issue in the 2024 election won by Trump. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to eliminate a nationwide right to abortion, leaving abortion laws to each of the 50 states. One of the two sources who told Reuters the stocks of contraceptives were being trucked to France said it would likely take dozens of truckloads and at least two weeks to move the supplies out of the Geel warehouse, with a third source also confirming the scale of the operation. The French government did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Chemonics, the contractor managing the supply chain for USAID's family planning programme, declined to comment on the plans to destroy the supplies. An internal USAID memo, sent in April, said a large quantity of contraceptives was being kept in warehouses and they should be "immediately transferred to another entity to prevent waste or additional costs".
Reuters
31 minutes ago
- Reuters
Blaming Trump, Equinor books a $955 million US offshore wind writedown
OSLO, July 23 (Reuters) - Norway's Equinor ( opens new tab booked on Wednesday a $955 million impairment on an offshore wind project in the United States, citing U.S. tariffs and the uncertainty of the U.S. regulatory environment under President Donald Trump. Hopes the industry had harboured that projects in the United States would revive the sector were dashed on Trump's first day back in office in January when he suspended offshore wind leases. Then in April, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum shut down Equinor's Empire Wind development in New York state. He later lifted the stop-work order on the project. For Equinor, however, the damage has been done. On Wednesday, it reported its net operating income for the second quarter fell due to having to book a near-billion dollar impairment on its U.S. offshore wind projects. Equinor CFO Torgrim Reitan said a combination of tariffs, the U.S. administration changing its mind on developing offshore wind, and the removal of tax credits had affected the value of the group's large onshore terminal in South Brooklyn, built to serve offshore wind farm installations. "(The impairment) is driven by regulatory changes in the U.S., particularly related to that investment tax credits have been taken away for new developments. You also have tariffs, and there's also a presidential order stopping permitting of new offshore wind projects," Reitan told Reuters. "It is those new offshore wind projects that drive the impairment, because we have a terminal, the South Brooklyn Marine terminal, where we had assumed two more developments than our own Empire Wind to pay for that. That is now unlikely." Out of the $955 million impairment, $763 million is related to Empire Wind 1 and its South Brooklyn Marine Terminal project, with the remainder related to the lease of the Empire Wind 2 farm, the company said. Equinor, majority-owned by the Norwegian state, had won a federal lease for Empire Wind in 2017 under Trump's first administration and secured approval for its investment plans in 2023 during former President Joe Biden's time in the White House. Tariffs, including on steel, had increased costs on the project by $300 million, Reitan said. Equinor would still receive tax credits for the first phase of Empire Wind, but not for the second one. "Without investment tax credits and without a government that wants it to happen, we are not going to invest in it," said Reitan. The global offshore wind market, once touted by governments as a cornerstone of efforts to cut carbon emissions, has faltered under escalating costs and logistical setbacks. The total book value after the latest impairments was $2.3 billion, Equinor said on Wednesday. With a planned installed capacity of 810 megawatts, Empire Wind 1 could generate enough electricity to power half a million homes a year and was expected to begin operating in 2027. Equinor on Wednesday also reported a decline in core second-quarter results, as expected, due to lower oil prices.
The Independent
37 minutes ago
- The Independent
Flurry of trade deals offers relief for some Asian countries, while others wait
Donald Trump has announced trade deals with Japan and a handful of other Asian countries that will relieve some pressure on companies and consumers from sharply higher tariffs on their exports to the United States. A deal with China is under negotiation, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying an Aug. 12 deadline might be postponed again to allow more time for talks. Steep tariffs on U.S. imports of steel and aluminum remain, however, and many other countries, including South Korea and Thailand, have yet to clinch agreements. Overall, economists say the tariffs inevitably will dent growth in Asia and the world. The deals reached so far, ahead of Trump's Aug. 1 deadline Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced a deal Wednesday that will impose 15% tariffs on U.S. imports from Japan, down from Trump's proposed 25% 'reciprocal' tariffs. It was a huge relief for automakers like Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda, whose shares jumped by double digits in Tokyo. Trump also announced trade deals with the Philippines and Indonesia. After meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., Trump said the import tax on products from his country would be subject to a 19% tariff, down just 1% from the earlier threat of a 20% tariff. Indonesia also will face a 19% tariff, down from the 32% rate Trump had recently said would apply, and it committed to eliminating nearly all of its trade barriers for imports of American goods. Earlier, Trump announced that Vietnam's exports would face a 20% tariff, with double that rate for goods transshipped from China, though there has been no formal announcement. Talks with China may be extended Negotiations with China are subject to an Aug. 12 deadline, but it's likely to be extended, Bessent told Fox Business on Tuesday. He said the two sides were due to hold another round of talks, this time in Sweden, early next week. Meanwhile, Trump said a trip to China may happen soon, hinting at efforts to stabilize U.S.-China trade relations. A preliminary agreement announced in June paved the way for China to lift some restrictions on its exports of rare earths, minerals critical for high technology and other manufacturing. In May, the U.S. agreed to drop Trump's 145% tariff rate on Chinese goods to 30% for 90 days, while China agreed to lower its 125% rate on U.S. goods to 10%. The reprieve allowed companies more time to rush to try to beat the potentially higher tariffs, giving a boost to Chinese exports and alleviating some of the pressure on its manufacturing sector. But prolonged uncertainty over what Trump might do has left companies wary about committing to further investment in China. No deals yet for South Korea and other Asian countries Pressure is mounting on some countries in Asia and elsewhere as the Aug. 1 deadline for striking deals approaches. Trump sent letters, posted on Truth Social, outlining higher tariffs some countries will face if they fail to reach agreements. He said they'd face even higher tariffs if they retaliate by raising their own import duties. South Korea's is set at 25%. Imports from Myanmar and Laos would be taxed at 40%, Cambodia and Thailand at 36%, Serbia and Bangladesh at 35%, South Africa and Bosnia and Herzegovina at 30% and Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Tunisia at 25%. Nearly every country has faced a minimum 10% levy on goods entering the U.S. since April, on top of other sectoral levies. Economists expect tariffs to sap growth even with trade deals Even after Trump has pulled back from the harshest of his threatened tariffs, the onslaught of uncertainty and higher costs for both manufacturers and consumers has raised risks for the regional and global economy. Economists have been downgrading their estimates for growth in 2025 and beyond. The Asian Development Bank said Wednesday it had cut its growth estimate for economies in developing Asia and the Pacific to 4.7% in 2025 and 4.6% in 2026, down 0.2 percentage points and 0.1 percentage points. The outlook for the region could be further dimmed by an escalation of tariffs and trade friction, it said. 'Other risks include conflicts and geopolitical tensions that could disrupt global supply chains and raise energy prices,' as well as a deterioration in China's ailing property market. Economists at AMRO were less optimistic, expecting growth for Southeast Asia and other major economies in Asia at 3.8% in 2025 and 3.6% next year. While countries in the region have moved to protect their economies from Trump's trade shock, they face significant uncertainties, said AMRO's chief economist, Dong He. 'Uneven progress in tariff negotiations and the potential expansion of tariffs to additional products could further disrupt trade activities and weigh on growth for the region,' he said.
