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USA Today
15-07-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
SCOTUS lets Trump fire hundreds of Education Department workers, dismantle the agency
On Tuesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent Maureen Groppe discusses the high court's move to let President Donald Trump fire hundreds of workers from the Education Department and continue other efforts to dismantle the agency. A coalition of states is suing the Trump administration to restore billions of dollars in federal education funding. USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers breaks down Trump's decision to send Ukraine weapons through NATO. Plus, Senate pressure builds to sanction Russia. Some Trump loyalists are underwhelmed and upset with what's been delivered about Jeffrey Epstein. The MLB All-Star Game is tonight! Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Taylor Wilson: Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Tuesday, July 15th, 2025. This is USA TODAY's The Excerpt. Today what a Supreme Court decision means for the future of the Education Department, plus Trump's latest approach to Ukraine and how some in his inner circle are upset with what's been delivered about Jeffrey Epstein. ♦ The Supreme Court is letting President Donald Trump fire hundreds of Education Department workers and dismantle the agency. I discussed with USA TODAY's Supreme Court correspondent, Maureen Groppe. Maureen, always a pleasure having you on. How are you? Maureen Groppe: I'm good. Thanks for having me on. Taylor Wilson: Thanks for joining me. What did the court decide and how did the majority argue here? Maureen Groppe: So the Supreme Court lifted a lower court's order that had required the administration to rehire hundreds of Education Department employees and had stopped the administration from transferring some of the Education Department functions to other agencies. The majority did not give an explanation for why it disagreed with those decisions that were made by both a federal district judge and were backed up by an appeals court and said it was just a very short order lifting those decisions. Taylor Wilson: Well, this is an ideologically divided court on this. What did we hear from the dissenters? Maureen Groppe: So the three justices who were appointed by Democratic presidents, they opposed this order. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote 19 pages explaining why. The gist of it is that she said that the majority of justices are allowing Trump to repeal laws that Congress passed creating the Education Department, allowing him to do that by firing all the employees who are needed to carry out the functions that Congress required the Education Department to undertake. And she said her colleagues are either naive to think that that is not what's happening or they are willfully looking the other way to allow it to happen. Taylor Wilson: All right. And what did we previously seen from the lower courts on this issue, Maureen? Maureen Groppe: So this started with a federal judge in Massachusetts who said that the White House decision to fire more than 1300 workers is preventing the government from effectively implementing programs and services that they're legally required by Congress to do. She said changes that magnitude have to be approved by Congress before the administration can do them. And the US Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Boston, they agreed with that federal judge and they said the administration hadn't provided any evidence to dispute that these firings were having a destabilizing effect on the Education Department. Taylor Wilson: Trump is clearly trying to fulfill his campaign promise to end the Education Department, Maureen. What are his practical goals here? How would this work? Maureen Groppe: He directed the Education Secretary to, as he put it, "facilitate the closure of the Department of Education." And the education Secretary previously announced that about half the workforce would be cut through a combination of layoffs and buyouts. And the administration also wants to move functions to other places, such as having these small business administration take over student loans and move special education services to the Department of Health and Human Services. Taylor Wilson: This decision came a week after the court allowed the administration to move forward with staffing cuts at a number of agencies. What's next, Maureen? Maureen Groppe: So the groups in states that are challenging these cuts, they can continue to do so. What the decisions mean, however, is that the layoffs can move forward for the time being. So it's possible that once these challenges eventually come back to the Supreme Court, the court could decide that the layoffs went too far. But even if it does do that, it could be difficult at that point to restore the agencies to the level they were at before they were gutted. Taylor Wilson: Maureen Groppe covers the Supreme Court for USA TODAY. Thank you, Maureen. Maureen Groppe: Thanks for having me. ♦ Taylor Wilson: In other education news, a coalition of states is suing the Trump administration to restore billions of dollars in federal education funding, including money for after school and summer learning programs. The group of Democratic Attorneys General representing 24 states in the District of Columbia, filed the lawsuit yesterday in a federal court in Rhode Island. In the complaint, the top lawyers in several blue states say the funding pause is unconstitutional and ask the court to restore the money in their states immediately. Since the Education Department's decision two weeks ago to withhold the funds which have been available to schools annually without interruption for decades, many districts nationwide have found themselves in financial uncertainty. You can read more with a link in today's show notes. ♦ President Trump has announced new weapons to Ukraine through NATO. I spoke with USA TODAY White House correspondent, Francesca Chambers, to learn more. Thanks for joining me, Francesca. Francesca Chambers: Thanks Taylor. Always pleasure. Taylor Wilson: All right, starting here. What did the president announce for sending weapons through NATO? Francesca Chambers: The president said that the United States would make the weapons, however now European countries would pay for them. The President said that Patriot missile systems that Ukraine was expected to receive would come from European countries, and then what the United States would do was backfill those countries' supplies. Taylor Wilson: Just on a practical level, Francesca, what will this functionally mean for Ukraine's ability now to fight back against Russia? Francesca Chambers: This is seen as critical for Ukraine. You may recall that Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had asked President Trump for the ability of Ukraine to be able to buy these types of weapons and air defense systems from the United States. This is something that President Trump said that he was considering before. And then of course, we heard from him last week that he was going to remove a temporary pause that the Pentagon had put in place on some weapons shipments to Ukraine. But to have him sit with the NATO Secretary General yesterday and say that he was now going to be doing this for Ukraine was seen by experts and those watching this closely as a major turning point in the discussion. Taylor Wilson: All right. You mentioned NATO Secretary General. I mean, what role did NATO leader, Mark Rutte, have in making this happen? Francesca Chambers: Taylor, he's relatively new to the role. He became NATO Secretary General in October, not too long before Donald Trump took office, and he's seen as a mediator between President Trump and other NATO nations. Listeners might recall that last month at the NATO summit in the Netherlands, Mark Rutte was the one who called Trump daddy and said that sometimes he has to use tough language. That pertained to President Trump's salty language about the fighting between Israel and Iran. But as you saw yesterday at the White House, Taylor, his closeness with President Trump has helped him to bring the US leader closer to positions that Europe wants. Taylor Wilson: Well, as for Trump this week, he's also threatening related new secondary tariffs. Francesca, what has he said specifically on that point? Francesca Chambers: The President has been under pressure from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to put sanctions on Russia and to cut off financial revenue that it gets from its exports of oil and gas and also uranium. Now, that is something that's covered in a Senate bill that GOP leaders had said that they were trying to bring to the floor of both the Senate and the House, but President Trump said yesterday as he was sitting next to Rutte, that he would put severe tariffs on Russia and secondary tariffs on countries that do business with Moscow. Taylor Wilson: So senators have their own plans for terrorists or countries that do business with Russia as well, right? Francesca Chambers: Right. And that bill is now in limbo with the Senate majority leader saying that Trump appears to have plans of his own. He said to reporters yesterday evening that, "If at some point the President concludes that it makes sense and adds value and leverage that he needs in those negotiations to move on the bill, then we'll do it. We'll be ready to go." Taylor Wilson: All right. Francesca Chambers covers the White House for USA TODAY. Thank you, Francesca. Francesca Chambers: Thank you, Taylor. ♦ Taylor Wilson: For years, members of President Trump's inner circle have called on federal officials to release their files on Jeffrey Epstein. Since he took office, Trump administration officials have moved that campaign forward, suggesting new names from Epstein's purported client list and new accountability were in store. But many who were eagerly awaiting the administration's next steps are now disappointed what has been delivered. In a memo this month, the Justice Department and FBI said their systematic review of documents related to Epstein revealed no incriminating client list. After his team made such concrete promises, the report was tough for many Trump loyalists to swallow. Some of the president's strongest supporters were in uproar. You can read more about some of that friction and a timeline of what's been said with the link in today's show notes. ♦ The Major League Baseball All-Star Game will be held tonight in Atlanta. The game finally lands in Georgia after initially being yanked in 2021, following the state's passage of controversial laws. It comes after catcher, Cal Raleigh, won the Home Run Derby last night. You can follow along with USA TODAY Sports. ♦ Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods. If you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back tomorrow with more of the Excerpt from USA TODAY.
USA Today
01-07-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Senate plods along as Republicans negotiate key parts of Trump's bill
On Tuesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: The Senate early this morning was still voting and negotiating on President Donald Trump's bill on tax cuts, Medicaid and more. USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent Maureen Groppe discusses the court's move to hear a GOP challenge to a campaign spending limit. The Justice Department sues Los Angeles to end 'sanctuary' immigration policies. Trump penned a handwritten note to Fed Chair Jerome Powell demanding lower interest rates. The man accused of killing four University of Idaho students in 2022 has accepted a plea deal in the case. USA TODAY National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise tells us how some plastic bag bans appear to be working. Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Taylor Wilson: Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Tuesday, July 1st, 2025. This is USA TODAY's The Excerpt. Today Republicans continue to negotiate key parts of Trump's bill, plus the Supreme Court takes on campaign spending, and some plastic bag bans appear to be working. The Senate was still voting and negotiating early this morning on President Donald Trump's sweeping bill on tax cuts, Medicaid, and border security, after a marathon weekend of debate and political maneuvering. But the results still was not certain. 17 long hours after they began, Republican senators were trying to resolve disagreements over policies that would impact Medicaid, green energy tax credits, and carve outs to protect food stamps in Alaska and Hawaii, before bringing them up for a vote. Republicans hold a 53 to 47 majority and face United Democratic opposition, and the defection of at least two of their members. If the Senate approves the bill, it heads back to the house where votes are scheduled to begin tomorrow. Trump last night pushed GOP senators to pass the bill while attacking his biggest campaign contributor and former Doge leader, Elon Musk, over his opposition. He can read more about that and stay up with all the latest on ♦ The Supreme Court will hear a major GOP challenge to a campaign spending limit. I spoke with USA TODAY Supreme Court correspondent Maureen Groppe to learn more. Hello, Maureen. Maureen Groppe: Hello. Taylor Wilson: So starting here, how is the court planning on taking up the regulation of money and politics? Maureen Groppe: Well, the court agreed to hear a challenge from Republicans to federal limits on how much political parties can spend on advertising and other communication in coordination with a candidate. One thing that's unusual about this case is the Justice Department whose job it is to defend the laws, told the Supreme Court it was unable to do so in this case. So that means the Supreme Court will appoint someone else to defend the limits as the Republicans argue to the court in oral arguments next term, why these limits should no longer be in place. Taylor Wilson: So Maureen, just functionally speaking, who really are the major players here? Maureen Groppe: This case was initiated by Vice President JD Vance when he was a senator in Ohio, along with former Congressman Steve Shabbat, and with the campaign arms of House and Senate Republicans. Taylor Wilson: And you touched on this a bit, but just in terms of how we got to this point, what some of the things that listeners should know about? Maureen Groppe: The Republicans asked the Supreme Court to get involved after they lost in the lower courts. The last court to hear this, the six US Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Cincinnati, they said their hands were tied by a Supreme Court decision in 2001 that upheld these limits. And the Appeals Court said only the Supreme Court can overrule that decision. Taylor Wilson: Well, it seemed to grab a lot of headlines yesterday when it made news. What are the broader implications here, Maureen? Maureen Groppe: If the Supreme Court sides with Republicans, that could help political parties push back against the role that Super PACs have come to play in the campaign finance system, which some say has weakened political parties. Right now the parties are significantly regulated in how much they can work with their candidates while wealthy individuals can spend tens of millions of dollars through Super PACs. And we saw that in the last presidential election when Elon Musk contributed more than $238 million to a super PAC that was supporting President Trump. Taylor Wilson: All right, folks can read more with a link in today's show notes. Maureen Groppe covers the Supreme Court for USA TODAY. Thank you, Maureen. Maureen Groppe: Thanks for having me. ♦ Taylor Wilson: The Justice Department filed a lawsuit yesterday against the city of Los Angeles to end policies that restrict cooperation with President Donald Trump's enforcement of immigration laws. The suit comes after sometimes violent protests in Los Angeles earlier in the month against federal immigration and customs enforcement officials, which led Trump to mobilize the National Guard. It's the latest move to challenge so-called sanctuary policies where a state or local law enforcement do not collaborate with ICE, which the Trump administration contends are unlawful. The department has also sued New York state and filed criminal charges against a Wisconsin judge over immigration enforcement. It also sued federal judges in Maryland last week for blocking deportation orders. ♦ President Trump is publicizing a handwritten note he sent to Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell that comes as part of his months long campaign to pressure Powell to lower interest rates. In the note shared on Trump's social media app, Truth Social, he wrote, "You are as usual too late." The Fed last month held interest rates steady at a range between four and a quarter and four and a half percent for a fourth straight meeting, despite Trump's public lobbying for a lower rate. Powell told members of the House Financial Services Committee last week that the Fed plans to assess the effects of Trump's tariffs on inflation before lowering rates. ♦ The man accused of killing four University of Idaho students has accepted a plea deal in the case that would spare him from the death penalty. The Idaho Statesman and Fox News reported, 30-year-old Bryan Kohberger is charged in the murders of Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. The four were found stabbed to death in their rental house close to the University of Idaho campus in November of 2022. Kohberger was arrested the following month and previously pleaded not guilty to first degree murder charges. According to ABC News, citing a letter sent to victim's family members informing them of the plea deal, Kohberger agreed to plead guilty to all counts in the killings of the four students. ABC News reported that Kohberger agreed to four consecutive life sentences and waived his right to appeal. The letter according to ABC News said prosecutors expect Kohberger to be sentenced in late July if a guilty plea is entered as planned at a hearing tomorrow. His trial was expected to start on August 18th. ♦ Some plastic bag bans appear to be working. I talked through some of our recent studies findings with USA TODAY National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise. Thanks for having on Beth. Elizabeth Weise: Happy to be here. Taylor Wilson: All right, so some good news. What did this research find about plastic bag bans? Elizabeth Weise: So this is something any of us who live anywhere where there are bans on plastic bags, where they charge you for them, have long wondered, "Do they really work?" And it turns out some researchers did the research, they actually found a wonderful natural experiment, and it does work. In fact, in places where plastic bag policies are in place, they see a between 25% and almost 50% reduction in the amount of plastic bags on shorelines. And here we're talking about those disposable thin film plastic bags that you'd often get your groceries in when you go to the grocery store. Taylor Wilson: Well, I know not all plastic bag bans are created equal. I mean, what type of restrictions on plastic bags are most effective according to this research? And are there types that don't seem to have as much of an impact though? Elizabeth Weise: So there are basically three ways. The most common is to just have a generalized ban. Though one variant of that Which is actually pretty common is that the really thin plastic bags, the kind that just blow in the wind, are banned, but they can give you thicker plastic bags, which the theory is that you're going to reuse them, but the truth is, unfortunately, most people don't. And then the third is that they charge you for a bag. Usually it's between five to 10 cents. In San Francisco where I live, it's 25 cents, but that's really high. Taylor Wilson: What is the most effective, just the all-out ban? Elizabeth Weise: No, surprisingly, the most absolutely protective, if you want to lower the amount of plastic bags in the environment, is to charge for them, because that gives people an economic incentive to actually use something else, generally speaking, a reusable bag. And the worst possible way to do it is to say that you are banning the really thin film plastic bags, but you're going to let people use the thick ones. And they contain a lot more plastic, and so you end up with more plastic on shorelines than you do if you just allow those thin plastic bags. Taylor Wilson: In terms of the methodology here, listeners might be curious, how did researchers come to these conclusions we're talking about? Elizabeth Weise: Yeah, that was brilliant. So people kept thinking, "Well, how do we know if these things work?" And these researchers realized that if you have kids, you've probably done this, if you live anywhere near water, there's this group, The Ocean Conservancy, and they sponsor tens of thousands of beach, river, and lake cleanups every year. So you get a bunch of people together, it's your boy scout group, your girl scout group, your local community group, a bunch of high schoolers, and you go and you pick up trash on the shore. They looked at, it was like 45,000 of these shore cleanups. So Ocean Conservatory has this app called Clean Swell that allows these cleanup groups to actually record how trash they're collecting and what they're seeing. And so these scientists realized they could crowdsource that. This is all citizen scientist data, but it's 45,000 shoreline cleanups. And they looked at places that have had shoreline cleanups, so that told them how much plastic and other trash is there on the shorelines. They mapped that to the zip code data of where those cleanups were, and then they mapped that to where they knew that there were some sort of plastic bag regulation in place. And by that, over time, I mean this all goes back to 2016 to 2023, they were able to see, does having one of these policies in place affect how much trash people were finding, did it change after one of these policies went into effect, and depending on which policy a given area had, did that affect how much plastic they were finding? Taylor Wilson: We all know that plastic bags are bad for the environment, but really what is that issue here? What's at stake and why are they just such an environmental nuisance? Elizabeth Weise: The problem, and especially those, the really thin-film plastic bags, is they're really light. I mean, and that's good because they use less plastic, but they blow everywhere and they kind of bounce around the landscape. They often end up in waterways. They unfortunately, for a marine animal, they look like food. You kind of see this clump of white stuff floating in the water, and to a lot of things that looks like food, and so they eat them, there's all these dreadful reports, they find fish and marine mammals and turtles where they're starving to death because their stomachs are full of plastic. But the other thing is they can entangle the animals. Then of course plastic doesn't compost, but it does break down into smaller and smaller pieces, and then those smaller pieces of plastic end up in the environment, they end up in the fish, we eat the fish, they end up in our bodies. And then there's a whole nother bunch of stories I've written about how we've got all this microplastic in the environment and in us. Taylor Wilson: All right, this is another interesting piece from you, Beth. Folks can find it with a link in today's show notes. Elizabeth Weise is a national correspondent with USA TODAY. Thanks, Beth. Elizabeth Weise: Great. Happy to be here, as always. ♦ Taylor Wilson: Thanks for listening to the Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods, and as always, you can email us at I'm Taylor Wilson, I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
USA Today
01-07-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Supreme Court wraps term with decisions on birthright citizenship and more
On Saturday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent Maureen Groppe recaps the final day of the high court's term. We discuss decisions ranging from birthright citizenship to Obamacare, LGBTQ+ books in public schools and more. Undocumented immigrants face massive fines under a new Trump rule. President Donald Trump says the U.S. will end trade talks with Canada. California Gov. Gavin Newsom sues Fox News for defamation. Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Saturday, June 28th, 2025. This is USA TODAY's The Excerpt. Today we put the Supreme Court's busy end to its term in context, plus millions of people living illegally in the United States are facing stiff new fines. And California's governor sues Fox News. The Supreme Court handed down a slew of decisions to wrap up its term yesterday. I spoke with USA TODAY Supreme Court correspondent Maureen Groppe to break them down. Thanks for hopping on. Maureen Groppe: Hey, thanks for having me. Taylor Wilson: Let's start with the court's move to lift temporary blocks on President Donald Trump's order ending birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the country temporarily or without legal authorization. What are the implications here, Maureen? Maureen Groppe: It's a little unclear right now. The majority of the court said that the judges who had put the president's policies on hold everywhere in the nation, that they overstep their authority and they need to try to narrow the holes, but we don't know exactly how that's going to happen. And the court also left open other ways that those who are challenging the policy can try to do so. And in fact, the challengers already filed a class action suit to try to protect people while the president's policy is being challenged in court. Taylor Wilson: I mean, on that note, Maureen, 14th Amendment advocates are worried here. We've heard Oregon's Attorney General say that the state's fight on this issue is not over. So really what is next? Where do we go? Maureen Groppe: So the states who are fighting this, and they're not the only ones fighting it, immigrant rights groups are as well, but the states that are fighting this, they're going to continue to look for ways to keep the President's policy on hold while they continue to challenge the legality of what he's doing. And we could see some action on that in the next few months. So what the court did yesterday did not at all look at whether the president's policy is constitutional, and that's something that's going to be coming before them in the next few months, so probably when they come back after their summer break. Taylor Wilson: I know President Donald Trump has had some comments after this decision. How did the president react? Maureen Groppe: He was quite happy. His direct quote was very happy and he said the Constitution has been brought back. Although again, I will point out that the Supreme Court, their decision did not say anything about the constitutionality of his policy, but it does have broader implications beyond this particular policy. It's going to make it harder in general for people to challenge Trump's policies. It puts restrictions on how judges can put these temporary blocks on policies as they're being challenged. Taylor Wilson: All right. Meanwhile, justices ruled against a conservative challenge to an Obamacare provision that forces health insurers to cover certain medicines and services. Maureen, what exactly was at stake here and what does this decision functionally mean? Maureen Groppe: Yeah, so this was about some cancer screenings, HIV prevention medications, some medication to prevent heart disease. These preventive care services that under the Affordable Care Act that health insurers have to cover as part of what you get for your premium, they can't charge copays or deductibles on those. And the challenge was whether the group of experts who recommend what services should be covered without extra cost, whether that task force had so much power that the experts should have been appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. And the Supreme Court said they were not. So that means that this task force can continue to make these recommendations, but in doing so, and that Supreme Court's decision saying that there's sufficient control by the Health and Human Services' secretary over this task force, that means that the secretary could have more influence now over these recommendations. And the current secretary may want to revisit some of the things. That's something that health experts are looking at to see, does Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who has made some changes to vaccine policy, whether he's going to also want to get involved in these preventive care services? Taylor Wilson: All right. Well, the court also made a decision on LGBTQ plus books in school. Maureen, we've talked about this here on the show before. Who did they side with on this? Maureen Groppe: They sided with the parents. The parents in the Maryland school district who said they had religious objections to these books being used in the elementary school classes, and they wanted their children to be able to be excused from class when the books were being read. The school initially agreed to do that, but then found it was too difficult to administer the absences and figure out what else to do with alternate instruction for the students who were being excused from class. So they stopped allowing opt-outs and the parents sued and the Supreme Court sided with them and said they should be allowed opt-out. That it's a burden on their religious rights if they don't have the ability to remove their kids from the classroom when these books are being read. Taylor Wilson: Let's shift to Texas now. There's a law requiring pornographic websites verify users are at least 18 years of age there. How did this move through the courts and who is pitted against each other on this issue? Maureen Groppe: This case was about the First Amendment rights of adults versus the real interest that states have to try to protect minors, keep minors from accessing this explicit information online. The lower courts, the first judge that looked at this thought that this did burden adults First Amendment rights, but then the appeals court said it didn't, and the Supreme Court also found that it was not too much of a burden on adults to have this age requirement. The concern among the challengers was that having to upload identifying information to prove that they are over-rating that that information on a website might get hacked, might get leaked, its sensitive information. And they thought that there were other ways that Texas could try to limit minors access to these websites without requiring adults to have to upload identifying information about themselves. Taylor Wilson: Well, Maureen, the court also weighed in on a conservative challenge to a phone and internet subsidy program. What did they decide and who are the winners and losers in this case? Maureen Groppe: Yeah, so this challenge was about whether Congress was giving away too much authority to a federal agency to decide how much money, what kind of fees to put on telecommunications carriers. That money that's raised to those fees goes to subsidize phone and internet and rural areas for libraries and things like that. The conservative challengers said that it was essentially an unconstitutional tax because it's a tax and Congress has to decide what the tax is. The Federal Communications Commission shouldn't get to be the one to decide how much should be raised and then spent on this program. But in a six three decision with three of the court's conservatives joining the court's three liberals, they said that Congress had put enough restrictions on this program when they set it up that they did not give away too much of their authority and this program can continue to operate. Taylor Wilson: All right. Well, this was clearly a massive day for the court. Maureen, stepping back a bit, what's your biggest takeaway from this flurry of decisions we saw yesterday? Maureen Groppe: Most of the attention going into this was what the court was going to do about the birthright citizenship changes as well as what implications that would have for challenging other Trump policies. And it ended up being a big win for Trump. And this is the second year in a row that the Supreme Court has ended its term with a big win for Trump. Last year, the big decision that they handed down on their last day was won on presidential immunity. The court gave presidents broad immunity for their official acts as president, and that helped ensure that Trump did not have to face a trial before the election for attempting to overturn his election loss before. One of the things that tends to happen in the final decisions is you see a lot more ideological splits. The chief justice often likes to say that most of the cases that they're citing during the year are unanimous, or at least a lot of them are unanimous. But it's at the end of the term where you see the court breaking down more along ideological lines. And we saw that yesterday with the six conservatives on one side and the three liberals on the other in the Trump case, the birthright citizenship case. Also on the case about Texas's age verification law for porn sites and on the case about the books in the schools that the parents objected to. But we also got two decisions that were six three splits, but in a different way. So in those two cases, the one about the challenge to Obamacare and the challenge to the internet subsidy program, there you had three of the courts conservatives, Justice Barrett, the Chief Justice and Justice Kavanaugh, they joined with the three liberals in rejecting those conservative challenges. So that's another interesting six three split that we've been seeing from the court this term. Taylor Wilson: That's a good explainer. So, Maureen, what does all this mean for next term? Maureen Groppe: We are probably going to be seeing more cases about Trump. So the cases that have been a lot of hundreds of challenges to Trump's policies moving through the court system. Right now, the challenges that have gotten to the court have been at a preliminary level, and we're going to see more of those. Even though the court is not in session over the summer, they will continue to take action on emergency appeals, and those are decisions that they take without the oral arguments and as much briefings, and they often don't say much. Their opinions are very limited on those, but you can expect them to be making decisions about various challenges to Trump's actions over the summer. And then next term, we could see them taking up some of those challenges more fully and ruling on the underlying legal issues, not just on whether his policies can stay in place while they're being challenged. Taylor Wilson: All right, Maureen Groppe covers the Supreme Court for USA TODAY. Maureen, I thank you. I hope you can rest up here at some point. Thanks so much. Maureen Groppe: Thanks for having me. ♦ Taylor Wilson: Millions of people living illegally in the United States are facing stiff new fines from the Trump administration as the White House pressures migrants to self-deport to their birth countries. A newly issued rule allows federal immigration authorities to find people up to $500 for illegally crossing the border and a thousand dollars per day for not leaving the United States if ordered to do so. The measure also allows a $10,000 fine for people who said they would leave voluntarily but have not. Crossing the border illegally or overstaying a visa is typically considered a civil violation, and the White House said the fines reflect the administration's efforts to reduce illegal immigration. Federal law has long given authorities the power to impose such fines. Though they were rarely issued until the first Trump administration, and even then only rarely because officials found the process cumbersome. Previously issuing the fines required federal agents to either personally serve the notice upon a person by certified mail or to their attorney, and people had the right to contest it after being given a thirty-day warning that the fine was coming. The new rule gives people 15 days to appeal. Former President Joe Biden had halted the fines during his term. ♦ Taylor Wilson: President Trump says the US will immediately terminate trade talks with Canada and hit the country with a new tariff rate in the next week. He cited in a post on truth social, a decision by Canada to leave in place its digital services tax on American companies, which he cast as a direct and blatant attack on the United States. The announcement came after a White House news conference where Trump presented an ambiguous timeline for reciprocal tariffs. He put on most other nations to go into effect. Trump introduced the tariffs in April and then paused them, and if no further action is taken, they will resume on July 9th. Trump's administration was separately working on deals with Canada, Mexico, and China, and the trade relationship between Canada and the US appeared to be improving prior to the announcement. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's office responded to Trump's announcement by saying the Canadian government will continue to engage in these complex negotiations with the United States in the best interest of Canadian workers and businesses. ♦ Taylor Wilson: California Governor Gavin Newsom has accused Fox News of defamation in a $787 million lawsuit saying it intentionally misled viewers during immigration enforcement protests in his state. The filing yesterday brought in a Delaware federal court says Fox News reporters and hosts incorrectly reported what President Trump said and edited video of Trump's comments to make it appear that Newsom lied about when the two men spoke during the events. In a statement, Fox dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous. Filings in the case repeatedly referenced the $787 million settlement that Fox agreed to in 2023 with Dominion, a voting machine company after the news network repeated Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen using their equipment. You can read more with a link in today's show notes. ♦ Taylor Wilson: True crime is more popular than ever, but some say it's long overdue for a moral reckoning. Kate Winkler Dawson: I think we're at a real inflection point with our audiences because my audiences are mostly women, a lot of them are survivors, they're all advocates, and we have a lot of content creators on the other hand, who are not policed by anyone. Taylor Wilson: Author and journalism Professor Kate Winkler Dawson joins my colleague Dana Taylor, to unpack the ethics of true crime and what responsible storytelling really looks like. You can find that episode right here tomorrow morning beginning at five AM Eastern Time. And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. As always, you can also email us at podcasts@ I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back Monday with more The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
USA Today
03-06-2025
- Health
- USA Today
Suspect charged with federal hate crime in Boulder attack
Suspect charged with federal hate crime in Boulder attack | The Excerpt On Tuesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: A 45-year-old suspect has been charged with a federal hate crime in the attack on a Colorado pro-Israel protest. Russia and Ukraine hold peace talks after Ukraine's recent drone strikes. USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent Maureen Groppe takes a look at the high court's move to take up a challenge to a grace period for mail-in ballots. A new study has found a link between chronic cannabis use and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. USA TODAY National Immigration and Border Reporter Lauren Villagran tells us about volunteers who search for migrant remains along the U.S.-Mexico border. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to podcasts@ Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Taylor Wilson: Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today we're learning more about the suspect in the Boulder attack. Plus the Supreme Court takes up a challenge to a grace period for mail-in ballots, and how volunteers search for bodies along the southern border. ♦ The man accused of setting 12 people on fire at a pro-Israel protest has been charged with a federal hate crime. He told investigators he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished all of them were dead. According to an FBI affidavit released yesterday. 45-year-old Mohammed Sabry Soliman is accused of attacking a demonstration with a makeshift flamethrower and firebombs while shouting, "Free Palestine." Injuries to victims range from minor to serious. According to an affidavit, the suspect told investigators he planned the attack for a year and waited for his daughter to graduate before carrying it out. A judge has set bond at $10 million. Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff said the suspect overstayed a tourist visa issued in 2022. You can read more with the link in today's show notes. ♦ During peace talks yesterday, Russia told Ukraine that it would only agree to end the war if Ukraine concedes large amounts of territory and agrees to limits on the size of its army, according to a memorandum reported by Russian media. It's the latest refusal out of Moscow to compromise on its war goals. Negotiations in Turkey came after Ukraine destroyed dozens of enemy bombers over the weekend using drones smuggled deep into Russia. It was the most damaging Ukrainian attack on Russia in the three years since Moscow invaded. ♦ The Supreme Court will decide if a challenge to an Illinois grace period for mail-in ballots can proceed. I spoke with USA TODAY's Supreme Court correspondent Maureen Groppe to learn more. Hello, Maureen. Maureen Groppe: Hello. Taylor Wilson: All right, so what is this challenge, Maureen, and what will the Supreme Court now be deciding? Maureen Groppe: This case is about Illinois law that lets mail-in ballots be counted if they are postmarked on or before the day of the election and received within two weeks. The court isn't deciding whether that grace period is allowed, which Republicans say it's not. Instead, they're deciding whether a congressman as Republican congressman Michael Bost has what is called standing to even bring this challenge into court to have the lawsuit proceed. Taylor Wilson: Well, how did this play out in the lower courts, Maureen? Maureen Groppe: Well, the lower court said that the congressman can't bring the case because he hadn't shown he had been sufficiently harmed by the law. He said he's harmed because he has to spend campaign funds to contest any objectionable ballots that come in after election day. So he says that's an extra cost to his campaign that he wouldn't have if there was no grace period. But the Chicago-based Seventh US Circuit Court of Appeals, they dismissed that argument. One of the judges said it was speculative at best that later ballots could cause him to lose an election, and the judge noted that this congressman won by 75% in the most recent election before this decision came out. But one of the three appeals court judges who ruled on this lawsuit said he would have let it proceed. Taylor Wilson: Well, you know Republicans have been pushing back and even trying to end this practice in a variety of other ways. How so, Maureen? Maureen Groppe: They've been challenging state laws individually, like in this suit, and in Mississippi. And recently President Trump issued an executive order that, among other things, would prevent such grace periods. His executive order does a lot of things about election law, but this is one of the things that it would do, but that order is also being challenged in court. Taylor Wilson: All right, and really what's the potential broader impact of a SCOTUS decision here? Maureen Groppe: Well, the broader impact for the specific legal question that the Supreme Court agreed to hear is how hard it should be for a candidate to be able to challenge election law. What do they have to show, what kind of harms do they have to show to let them challenge an election rule that they don't agree with? And in the appeal to the court trying to give them reasons for why they should take this case, the lawyers for the Congressmen said the court needed to hear this because there's this growing trend of courts limiting candidate's ability to challenge electoral rules. Taylor Wilson: All right, we are smarter on all things Supreme Court anytime you stop by. Thanks Maureen. Maureen Groppe: Thanks for having me. ♦ Taylor Wilson: A new study has found a link between chronic cannabis use, including in edible form, and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease that's comparable to the effects of smoking tobacco. The study is the latest to associate cannabis with negative health impacts and was conducted by researchers at the University of California San Francisco, who analyzed the cardiovascular health of 55 people who consumed cannabis at least three times a week for at least a year. They found vascular function was reduced by about half when compared with those who did not consume cannabis regularly. They also showed signs of increased risk for premature heart disease researchers found similar to tobacco smokers. Those included in the study were tested to ensure they do not smoke tobacco or vape and were not frequently exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke. You can read more of the study's findings with a link in today's show notes. ♦ At the southern border a group of volunteers has a grim task, to find the remains of migrants who had passed away in the desert. I spoke with USA TODAY National Immigration and Border Reporter Lauren Villagran for more. Thanks for joining me as always, Lauren. Lauren Villagran: Thanks, Taylor. Taylor Wilson: So I want to hear about these volunteers and their work here in a second, but just first, how many migrants, Lauren, die along the border, especially in this part of the El Paso sector? Lauren Villagran: So Taylor, for the past two years, we don't actually know what the death toll has been, border-wide, California to Texas. What we do know is in El Paso sector, which is a 264-mile area stretching from West Texas through New Mexico, last year, 176 remains of likely migrants were found in the desert area here. The year before it was 149. But Taylor, just five or six years ago, that number was in the single digits. Taylor Wilson: So how do folks often die along the border, Lauren? What are some of the causes and why is this part of the border so deadly? Lauren Villagran: People will have different opinions about this, but what is certain is that as the United States has hardened its borderline as border security has become more intense and the border fencing higher. For example, in much of the border now it's 30 feet high, migrants are more easily injured. Specifically in this area, though, Taylor, the desert outside of El Paso is hot. It's very hot in the summer, but it wasn't at Arizona levels, we don't see temperatures like north of 110 degrees. But the last two years we've had extreme summer temperatures, more triple-digit days than ever before. And during this period, the past two years, there was a massive wave of migration. So that meant that more people were trying to make the risky and often deadly illegal crossing. Taylor Wilson: Well, Lauren, for this piece, I know you spoke with some volunteers who are working out in the desert to find human remains. What did you hear from them and the work they're doing? Lauren Villagran: So it should be said that to start, it is the responsibility of federal, state, and local authorities to investigate and find bodies. But this desert, even though it is near the urban footprint, can at times be vast. This particular New Mexico based group called Battalion Search and Rescue, run by James Holman and Abbey Carpenter is fashioned after other groups like it in Arizona and California where volunteers have rallied to search for missing migrants and often turn up migrant remains. Here in southern New Mexico, this group goes out once a month, combs through the desert, looking for any remains that may have been left behind. Or in a best case scenario, migrants who might be lost or missing. Unfortunately, in recent months they've often turned up bones. Taylor Wilson: Such a trying work. What happens with the remains once they find them, Lauren? Lauren Villagran: These volunteers fill out paperwork noting the precise location of the remains that they have found. They tie brightly colored tape to desert brush and they phone it in to local law enforcement. The volunteers are not authorized to touch or collect the bones. So the ball really lies with the state, both the office of the medical investigator in New Mexico and local law enforcement like the Doña Ana County Sheriff to go out and collect the remains that are still there in the desert. Taylor Wilson: These folks, who are they, Lauren? What prompted them to get involved with this type of work? And I'm also curious what they say about the impact on them and what they've come away with after it. Lauren Villagran: Yeah, so for example, Abbey Carpenter is a retired college administrator. She used to teach English as a second language classes in Arizona. And when she went on her first search, she told me it was a really emotional moment in which she recalled hearing about the journeys of her students, migrants who did survive the dangerous journey through the desert, who now live and work in the United States and in seeing the piles of clothes that you sometimes find in the desert, Taylor, pants and shirts and abandoned things left behind, she told me she really saw the journeys of her former students. I know that some of those who got involved here had recently learned about the uptick in migrant deaths. And what's harrowing about it, Taylor, is that the number 176 is the number of bodies that were found. But as these volunteers tell me, every time they go to look, they often find a new site, which means that there could be more remains out in the desert that remain undiscovered. Taylor Wilson: Wow. Well, as for customs and border protection, you mentioned this Missing Migrant Program that they created back in 2017. It's been renamed the Missing Alien Program here under the latest Trump administration. What can you tell us about that program and its potential impact amid all this? Lauren Villagran: US Border Patrol agents are frequently the first to come upon remains or migrants obviously in distress. So this was a program that is run by US Border Patrol that tries to work to connect family members to their consulates and the possibility of remains. Of course, when you really dial it back, whenever there is an enforcement measure, you're going to see migrants take additional risks and that's also in part what's contributed to the rising death toll. Taylor Wilson: All right, folks can find the full version of this story with the link in today's show notes. Lauren Villagran covers the border and immigration for USA TODAY. Thanks, Lauren. Lauren Villagran: Thanks, Taylor. ♦ Taylor Wilson: Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. If you have any comments or questions, you can email us at podcasts@ I'm Taylor Wilson and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
SCOTUS news: Creation of nation's first religious charter school blocked
WASHINGTON − A divided Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the creation of the nation's first religious charter school, a major case about the separation of church and state. The court split 4-4 over whether to allow the school, leaving in place the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision that a religious charter school would violate the Constitution. Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in the decision. A "religious charter school" refers to a concept where a publicly funded charter school would explicitly incorporate religious instruction, doctrine, or practices into its curriculum and operations. While private religious schools exist and can receive some indirect public benefits through voucher programs (where parents choose a school), the direct public funding and operation of a school that teaches religion as truth, within the charter school framework, is largely prohibited and faces significant legal and constitutional hurdles. Maureen Groppe, USA Today, contributed to this story. This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: SCOTUS opinions: Religious charter schools blocked
