2nd

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide if “habitual drug users” lose their gun rights under the 2nd Amendment.

The Trump administration is defending a federal gun control law dating to 1968 and challenging the rulings of two conservative appeals court that struck down the ban on gun possession by any “unlawful user” of illegal drugs, including marijuana.

Trump’s lawyers say this limit on gun rights comports with early American history when “common drunkards” were prohibited from having guns.

And they argue this “modest, modern” limit make sense because well-armed drug addicts “present unique dangers to society — especially because they pose a grave risk of armed, hostile encounters with police officers while impaired.”

The government says the ban applies only to addicts and “habitual users of illegal drugs,” not to all those who have used drugs on occasion or in the past.

Under this interpretation, the law “imposes a limited, inherently temporary restriction — one which the individual can remove at any time simply by ceasing his unlawful drug use,” the administration’s attorneys told the court.

The appeal noted that California and 31 other states have laws restricting gun possession by drug users and drug addicts, all of which could be nullified by a broad reading of the 2nd Amendment

The court said it will hear the case of a Texas man and a Pakistani native who came under investigation by the FBI for allegedly working with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

When agents with warrant searched the home of Ali Denali Hemani, they found a Glock pistol, 60 grams of marijuana, and 4.7 grams of cocaine. He told the agents he used marijuana about every other day.

He was charged with violating the federal gun control law, but the 5th Circuit Court in New Orleans ruled this ban on gun possession violates the 2nd Amendment unless the defendant was under the influence of drugs when he was arrested.

The 8th Circuit Court based in St. Louis adopted a similar view that gun ban for drug users is unconstitutional.

The Trump administration asked the justices to hear the case of U.S. vs. Hemani and to reverse the two lower courts. Arguments are likely to be heard in January.

Last year, the justices rejected a gun rights claim in another case from Texas and ruled that a man charged with domestic violence can lose his rights to have firearms.

Historically, people who “threaten physical harm to others” have lost their legal rights to guns, Chief Justice John G. Roberts said in an 8-1 decision.

THE dad of a missing schoolboy – who vanished 18 years ago – has revealed how cops initially pointed the finger at him before coming up with a bizarre second theory.

Kevin Gosden claims he was told by investigators Andrew, 14, could have become a jihadi fighter and fled the UK due to some books he’d checked out from the library for a school project.

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Andrew vanished without a trace after skipping school and taking a train from his hometown of Doncaster to London on September 14 2007.

Weeks later, detectives were able to track down CCTV showing the teenager in King’s Cross station – but from there the trail has run cold.

In December 2021, two men were arrested on suspicion of kidnap and human trafficking, but police confirmed no further action was being taken in September 2023.

Dad Kevin has told The Sun how in the early weeks of the investigation, officers put the family through “traumatising” questioning in which he claims the finger was pointed at him for possible murder.

“They only wanted to get hold of the station CCTV to prove he wasn’t buried in the back garden,” Kevin said. 

Asked if cops ever directly accused him of killing Andrew, he added: “That was their assumption. They’re really good at inventing stories.”

At one point Kevin and wife Glenys went to a meeting with investigators in which it was proposed their son may have become a jihadi – which refers to armed militant Islamic movements that seek to establish states based on Islamic principles.

Kevin said: “They came up with some really bizarre ideas. 

“He’d taken out some books from the library about Islam and they’d come up with the idea that perhaps he was joining some sort of jihadi group. 

“We had this meeting and got back in the car – we looked at each other and said ‘is that the most ridiculous thing you’ve heard in your life?’ 

“He was doing a school project.” 

Kevin said the jihadi theory was an example of “this horrible spiral, that was entirely unhelpful and non-productive”. 

He said it was extremely frustrating dealing with cops in the early weeks and months of the investigation.

“They’d come up with something insanely unlikely, that it was laughable,” he explained. “It really wasn’t good in 2007, at the beginning.”

He felt such lines of enquiry seemed to be distracting from following more obvious leads and when detectives finally did try to track down CCTV, much of the footage had already been wiped.

Investigators questioned both of Andrew’s parents, and older sister Charlotte prior to releasing the station video, a month after the disappearance.

Describing his own interrogation, Kevin said: “I did get the good cop bad cop routine.” 

He added: “A couple of officers involved were in our house for five minutes, 10 minutes… 

“They turned to us and said ‘how did you discipline him?’ 

“We said ‘we didn’t, we never had problems with him’.” 

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Referring to the family’s treatment, he said: “It’s wrong. I still have no idea what they said to Charlotte. 

“She came back (from police questioning) really shaken and said ‘just don’t ask because what they asked me was disgusting’, so we can guess.”

He continued: “There were too many statistics and assumptions.

“They traumatised all three of us, but just because I’m a man I got the worst of it. 

“It was so off beam and so wrong, that it did end up with a suicide attempt because I just thought we’re never going to find him like this, I just need to be out of the way because clearly they’ve got this idea in their head.

“I know it’s not true but they’re never going to find him if that’s where they’re putting their time and resources.”

Referring to the idea he or anyone else in the family had hurt Andrew, Kevin went on to say: “I said to them more than once, if you find him, you can ask him and he’ll tell you it’s rubbish. 

“You’ve asked my daughter and my wife, the neighbours, his teachers, school friends and you’ll have come across no hint that there was ever a problem.”

‘All we can hope is something comes up’

Andrew, if he’s still alive, would be 32 now. 

Kevin said: “All we can hope is that something comes up and someone volunteers something and remembers something, anonymously if necessary, and gives us something revolutionary.”

The dad-of-two, 59, is currently refurbishing the family home, including repainting Andrew’s old bedroom, which is adorned with photos of the then-schoolboy.

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Kevin said: “It never gets any damn easier… nightmares and flashbacks overnight. I finally get to sleep and I’m like ‘how have I woken up at one in the afternoon?’”

The refurbishment is addressing “all the stuff I haven’t paid notice to for the last 30 years”, he explained. 

Asked if keeping his mind occupied has helped him to process what happened to Andrew, he said: “I don’t know about processing things. It never gets any easier. 

“I’ve never made the mental illness stuff a secret.”

Kevin attempted suicide early in the search for Andrew, saying he was tipped over the edge by cops implying he was involved in his son’s disappearance. 

It never gets any damn easier… nightmares and flashbacks overnight. I finally get to sleep and I’m like ‘how have I woken up at one in the afternoon?

Kevin GosdenMissing Andrew’s dad

“Sadly, I had reached the conclusion that it isn’t going to get any better.”

He left his job at the NHS after Andrew disappeared and was doing part-time cleaning work before being made redundant. 

In November, when he turns 60, Kevin is due a “big payout” from the NHS, having been employed there for 20 years. 

He said keeping himself occupied with any little projects is essential.

“I know an awful amount of people retiring, I can’t,” he admitted. “All of this distracts.

“Since Andrew disappeared, my concentration, memory, all that stuff… mood and anxiety in particular, it paralyses your brain.

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“All of that has been constant so I struggle to think straight. 

“Things like refurbishing, you have to pay enough attention on it to not ruminate on things. I have several little projects on the go.”

He went on to say: “I do most days wake up in a bit of a panic, thinking I need to get this done, I need to get that done. 

“My wife goes, ‘you never sit still’. You propel yourself into doing stuff with far too much anxiety behind it and rush it. That tends to be how it goes. 

“You get the days when depression will kick in and I just can’t do anything. It’s constantly tough.

“Every day it is a struggle. Partly I just keep doing these things, you have to persevere, or I do, just to keep going. As opposed to giving up.”

Sick trolls posting fake updates

Most recently, Kevin and his family have been forced to consult with police over sick clickbait articles falsely claiming that Andrew has been found, or further CCTV footage has been unearthed, and some include falsified statements from his loved ones.

“That’s been causing me a lot of anxiety,” said Kevin. “What I worry about is, you just don’t want to end up going through the same thing Nicola Bulley’s family went through.”

Nicola Bulley was a mum-of-two young children who vanished aged 45 in January 2023 during a dog walk in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire, before her body was found weeks later in the river.

However, the search for the mum saw a media frenzy, with TikTokers and other social influencers flooding the scene and some spreading misinformation online.

Kevin has been alerted to countless possible sightings of Andrew over the years, and at one stage the family had age progression images done showing what he might look like now.

“One of my fears is I could walk past him in the street, if he’s alive,” he said. 

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“He might have grown a beard, he would look so different. You worry you could trip over him in the street and have no idea.”

Asked what he believes became of Andrew, Kevin said he, his wife and daughter have “fluctuated on this for years”.

He continued: “None of us can imagine that the Andrew we knew would not have made some kind of contact at some point because we never fell out, we never argued. 

“It still boils down to we’re still absolutely clueless, but that makes us think he probably isn’t alive but that makes you think how come we’ve never found remains and no one ever saw him or noticed anything. 

“It turns around in your head and you can never come to any definite conclusion, which is the whole problem with ambiguous loss and why the mental health issues never resolved.”

He added: “We try to maintain hope, there’s that little voice in your head that says someone somewhere must know something, surely.”

Kevin said it would be easier, in a sense, if it could be proven either way what happened to his son.

“If we had a bag of bones or something that would be incredibly tough, and obviously would raise a whole lot of other questions as to how we’ve ended up with that,” he said. 

“It’s a double-edged sword, it’s the answer you just don’t want to know. But on the other hand, it feels like knowing would be better than not knowing.”

Andrew went missing at a time before the smart phones craze, the first iPhone was released the same year as his disappearance, and he didn’t even have a mobile.

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Kevin said: “You are going back to the days of a lot less social media and internet. People weren’t carrying around a computer in their pocket the whole time.”

However, he said the fact that it appeared to go “pear-shaped” when trying to retrieve further CCTV at one of Europe’s most heavily surveillanced areas, “is still rather upsetting”.

Kevin said he and his family told investigators, after witnesses came forward, that King’s Cross was unlikely to be Andrew’s final destination as it’s a “transport exchange with links to everywhere”.

But he said the sluggish start meant the golden window of collecting evidence within the first 48 hours was missed.

He said there seemed to be a lack of communication between South Yorkshire Police, with the Met and British Transport Police.

Kevin said: “It’s worth saying that policing is still inconsistent when looking for a missing person, but it is very much improved. 

“I’m pretty sure every police force has a dedicated team for missing persons now. Things are done a lot better now.”

Andrew’s disappearance

Looking back to the time Andrew disappeared, Kevin said it was a Friday and they weren’t certain he’d gone missing until the Monday morning.

The family spoke to train station staff, including a woman who said she’d sold the schoolboy a one-way ticket.

They then trekked down to London and began putting up posters in any places they thought Andrew might have been.

They have relatives in the capital and he had been on trips there before.

“A couple of commuters saw posters we put up and said ‘we sat on the same carriage’ and we established he got to King’s Cross,” Kevin said.

The dad had also rung around Andrew’s friends and local hospitals, and even considered his son may have gone to Whitby, another place he liked.

“Our gut instinct was right,” he continued. “We were saying to police ‘we know he went to King’s Cross, most likely he got a train because he was most familiar with that transport’.

“The point is, it took them 27 days or something to get the CCTV of him walking out of King’s Cross station, which is what we were saying he would probably do from the start.”

But Kevin said he doesn’t believe cops at the time wanted to believe Andrew had simply gone missing, and rather the attention turned to something more sinister involving the family.

He said: “There were potential sightings that sounded quite plausible but the police weren’t following those up. 

“They weren’t liaising with the Met and then it’s six weeks later and they’re saying ‘the CCTV’s been overwritten’, that was frustrating at the time.”

Kevin and Andrew’s other loved ones still have no idea why the schoolboy even decided to skip school and head down south. 

“This is why it was a complete shock to us,” Kevin said. “It never occurred to us that he would go missing at all.

“The whole thing was awful and I can’t remember how many days, weeks it was and when certain events occurred. 

“It was such a blur. You’re in such a state of panic. We were all three of us very traumatised by the fact of the matter that Andrew had disappeared and we had no clue why.”

At the time, there were theories Andrew had perhaps travelled down for a gig or to meet up with friends, and would suddenly turn up.

“He was going to do something that he knew we wouldn’t want him to do – just doing whatever it was,” said Kevin. 

“He maybe thought ‘I can always get to my grandparents or my uncle’s and I’ll face the music later on and they’ll have a chance to calm down.’

“We thought he’d show up somewhere and say ‘I’ve done something foolish and I need a bit of help’. It just never happened,” said Kevin.

Other theories suggested Andrew had been groomed online and had headed down to London where he was trafficked.

Kevin said: “There’s no evidence, not one shred of evidence.”

Instead, he believes it was as simple as Andrew skipped school to do something in London he knew his parents otherwise wouldn’t be happy about, and he came across the wrong people.

“That’s what my gut has always said, really,” Kevin admitted. “We brought both kids up to think for themselves and be independent and they were both extremely capable, more than.

“Andrew was exceptionally gifted academically, so he could be lost in deep thought.

“He was insanely intelligent, but you wouldn’t have put him in the hanging round street corners and being streetwise category.”

He added: “One day, we hope that we’ll find out what happened.”

DCI Andy Knowles, of South Yorkshire Police, who has led the investigation in recent years, told The Sun: “I’m in regular contact with the Gosden family and I’m incredibly grateful for their support as we work together to answer the questions which have remained unanswered for so long. 

“We carefully consider any information received ensuring it is recorded, catalogued and, where there are reasonable lines of enquiry, it is pursued.”

A RUSSIAN oligarch’s estranged wife has won a six-year fight to drag her divorce battle into the English courts.

Natalia Potanina secured a landmark Court of Appeal ruling on Thursday to sue her billionaire ex-husband Vladimir Potanin, who is said to be worth around £15.7billion.

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Potanin is described as Russia’s second richest man and a pal of Vladimir Putin through their shared love of ice hockey.

Potanin is the chief executive of Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest palladium producer and a global nickel giant.

But he was sanctioned by the UK and US in 2022 after Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

The former couple wed in Russia in 1983, where they lived for their entire married life and raised three children.

They split in acrimonious fashion, with Potanin claiming the marriage ended in 2007.

Potanina insists they only separated in 2013, with a Russian court finalising the divorce a year later.

He has previously claimed their marriage ended when her husband calmly told her over tea that he was leaving her for a younger employee.

She said at first she thought it was a “badly-worded joke” but was later told she “didn’t need money” when the subject of a financial settlement arose.

The pair first met as penniless students in the 1970s, when Russia was still under communism.

Potanina argues that her husband only built his fortune after their marriage, and that she supported him throughout his rise.

Despite his £15billion fortune, Potanina was awarded just £30.9million in the Russian courts – less than one per cent of the family wealth.

Lawyers for Potanin argue she actually received around £63m, but she insists the sum barely scratched the surface of their assets.

Now, after years of legal wrangling, Potanina has been cleared to bring a claim in London for financial relief – setting the stage for what could become the world’s biggest-ever marital split.

She is seeking half of her ex-husband’s beneficial interest in shares in Norilsk Nickel, along with half of the dividends paid on those shares since 2014.

She also wants half the value of a lavish Moscow mansion known as The Autumn House, on which the couple splashed out around £111million.

She is thought to be seeking around £5billion in total.

At the heart of earlier disputes was the couple’s palatial family home in Nemchinovo, 17 miles west of Moscow, where they lived with their three children – daughter Anastasia, and sons Ivan and Vasily.

Also up for grabs were two superyachts, including “The Anastasia,” named after their daughter, and “The Nirvana.”

Potanina’s legal team told the court she had earned her share of the fortune through years of marriage and by being the “main carer” of their children.

Her barrister, Charles Howard KC, branded the earlier dismissal of her case “inconsistent and illogical,” accusing the judge of falling into Potanin’s trap of repeatedly labelling her a “divorce tourist.”

Potanin’s lawyers, led by Lord Faulks KC, countered that the couple had “no connection with this jurisdiction during the marriage” and that Potanina only had “recent and modest connections” to England when she applied.

London’s High Court originally threw out her claim in 2019, warning that allowing it would mean “no limit to divorce tourism.”

That decision was overturned in 2021 by the Court of Appeal, only for Potanin to win a narrow 3-2 victory in the Supreme Court last year, which sent the case back to be reconsidered.

Now, judges Lord Justice Moylan, Lady Justice Falk and Lord Justice Cobb have sided with Potanina once again, ruling she had “substantial grounds” to pursue her claim in England.

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They said there was evidence she had “very largely severed her ties with Russia” and that her connection to the country was “increasingly tenuous.”

The ruling added: “The discrepancy between her award of the marital assets and the husband’s retained share was significant.

“The discrepancy between what she had recovered in Russia compared with what she would have recovered had the case been heard in this jurisdiction was equally significant.”

The Sun reported in 2016 that Potanina was living “in exile” in central London, near Westminster Abbey.

She said at the time to be fearing that if she returned to Russia her passport could be seized, preventing her from visiting her son studying in New York.

She also accused her husband of offering her only medical insurance, a driver, and maintenance for their youngest child, rather than a fair settlement.

The blockbuster ruling reignites fears that London will become the “divorce capital of the world.”

Jennifer Headon, head of international family law at Birketts LLP, said the High Court had already warned such a move could open the floodgates to “limitless” divorce tourism.

Sarah Jane Lenihan, partner at Dawson Cornwell, said few had expected such an outcome, asking: “The question now is whether it will open the door for others who have divorced overseas to seek a second bite at the cherry in England.”

Sital Fontenelle, head of family law at Kingsley Napley LLP, said the ruling reinforced the UK’s status as the “divorce capital of the world” and left the “door still open” for future claims.

Peter Burgess, partner at Burgess Mee, added that aspiring “divorce tourists” might now wait to demonstrate their links to England at a full hearing rather than being knocked back early.

She has previously said her situation reflects the discrimination faced by many women in Russia, where “the law is male, the ideology is male,” adding that she had been “deprived of money and driven out of the house.”

Potanina’s solicitor, Frances Hughes of Hughes Fowler Carruthers, hailed the ruling as a “second vindication” of her client’s case, saying Potanina was delighted and now hoped the matter could be “resolved without further delay.”

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For more than a century, the stock market has stood tall as the premier wealth creator, with stocks generating a higher average annual return than bonds, commodities, and real estate. But getting from Point A to B can often be an adventure.

Just five months ago, the unveiling of President Donald Trump’s tariff and trade policy sent the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.64%), growth-fueled Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC -1.15%), and ageless Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI -0.20%) spiraling lower. The S&P 500 endured its fifth-steepest two-day percentage decline since 1950, while the Nasdaq Composite plummeted into its first bear market in three years.

However, sentiment on Wall Street can shift at the drop of a hat. Since President Trump announced a 90-day pause on higher “reciprocal tariffs” on April 9, the S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, and Dow Jones Industrial Average have been off to the races, with all three indexes achieving multiple record-closing highs.

But this euphoria may soon be coming to an end, if history has its say.

Image source: Getty Images.

The stock market has rarely been pricier than it is right now

To preface the following discussion, historical precedent can’t concretely guarantee what’s going to happen in the future. If there was a metric or correlative event that could guarantee directional moves in the stock market, every investor would be using it by now.

With this being said, the stock market is making history on the valuation front — and not in a good way.

Value tends to be a subjective term that varies from one individual to the next. What you consider to be expensive might be viewed as a bargain by another investor. This dynamic is one of the reasons the stock market can be so unpredictable.

When most investors “value” a stock, they turn to the time-tested price-to-earnings ratio (P/E), which is arrived at by dividing a company’s share price by its trailing-12-month earnings per share (EPS). The P/E is a quick and easy way to evaluate mature businesses, but it’s not without its faults. This traditional valuation measure doesn’t account for a company’s growth rate, and it can be rather useless during recessions and shock events (e.g., the pandemic).

When back-tested, arguably no valuation tool provides a more-encompassing, apples-to-apples comparison of stock valuations than the S&P 500’s Shiller P/E ratio, which is also referred to as the cyclically adjusted P/E ratio (CAPE ratio).

The Shiller P/E is based on average inflation-adjusted EPS over the trailing decade. This means short-lived recessions and shock events won’t skew valuation multiples.

S&P 500 Shiller CAPE Ratio data by YCharts.

With the S&P 500 crossing above 6,500 for the first time in its storied history on Aug. 28, the Shiller P/E ratio closed at 39.18, which is its high-water mark for the current S&P 500 bull market. There are only two other periods spanning 154 years when the Shiller P/E has been higher:

• During the first week of January 2022, the S&P 500’s Shiller P/E surpassed 40 by a few hundredths.
• In December 1999, the Shiller P/E hit its all-time high of 44.19.

Historical precedent comes into play when examining what has happened to stocks following these previous periods of premium valuations. The 2022 bear market wiped out a quarter of the S&P 500’s value and lopped off more than a third of the Nasdaq’s value.

Meanwhile, the dot-com bubble, which took shape just months after December 1999, saw the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite lose 49% and 78%, respectively, on a peak-to-trough basis.

In fact, any instance in which the S&P 500’s Shiller P/E ratio has surpassed and sustained 30 for a period of at least two months has been a harbinger of significant downside. The S&P 500, Dow Jones, and/or Nasdaq Composite lost between 20% and 89% of their value following the five previous occurrences of the Shiller P/E topping 30.

With the stock market closing in on its second-priciest valuation since January 1871, history couldn’t be clearer on what’s to eventually come.

Image source: Getty Images.

Widening the lens leads to a completely different outlook

But there’s a big difference in attempting to forecast short-term directional moves for Wall Street’s major stock indexes and widening the lens to look at the big picture. While the Shiller P/E has an immaculate track record of forecasting eventual bear market downturns, few (if any) asset classes have proved more resilient over multiple decades than stocks.

The nonlinearity of economic and stock market cycles is one of the most-powerful catalysts working in favor of long-term investors.

For example, approximately 80 years have passed since the end of World War II. Since September 1945, the U.S. has navigated its way through a dozen recessions. The average recession has endured just 10 months, and none of these 12 downturns stuck around for longer than 18 months.

On the other end of the spectrum, the typical period of economic growth has endured for about five years, with two expansions surpassing the 10-year mark. Short-lived downturns and extended periods of growth are favorable to corporate EPS expansion over time.

This disparity between optimism and pessimism is even more apparent in the stock market.

It’s official. A new bull market is confirmed.

The S&P 500 is now up 20% from its 10/12/22 closing low. The prior bear market saw the index fall 25.4% over 282 days.

Read more at https://t.co/H4p1RcpfIn. pic.twitter.com/tnRz1wdonp

— Bespoke (@bespokeinvest) June 8, 2023

In June 2023, the analysts at Bespoke Investment Group published a data set on X (formerly Twitter) that examined the calendar length of every bull and bear market in the S&P 500 dating back to the start of the Great Depression in 1929.

Bespoke found the average S&P 500 decline of 20% or greater lasted just 286 calendar days, or approximately 9.5 months. But over this nearly 94-year stretch, the typical bull market was sustained for 1,011 calendar days, or two years and nine months.

While it’s anyone’s guess what might happen to stocks a month, six months, or even a year from now, patience and perspective have proved invaluable to investors willing to look to the horizon. The S&P 500 has never been down over any rolling 20-year period, including dividends, which is a strong endorsement for the U.S. economy and stocks in the decades to come.

Aug. 28 (UPI) — The Trump administration Thursday night announced a second criminal referral against Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook for mortgage fraud, as she sues President Donald Trump for attempting to illegally dismiss her.

William Pulte, the agency’s director, announced the second referral on X, stating “3 strikes and you’re out.”

“Lisa Cook needs to step aside — with the evidence coming out on her 3rd mortgage and her alleged misrepresentations to the Federal Government ethics department, I believe she is causing irreparable harm to our beloved Federal Reserve,” Pulte said in a second statement. “How is Jay Powell fine with her behavior?”

Pulte had sent the first criminal referral to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Aug. 26, accusing Cook, the first Black woman to sit on the independent board, of falsifying documents and committing mortgage, bank and wire fraud. She is accused of signing two separate mortgage documents for two separate properties that claim each is her primary residence. One property is in Michigan and the other is in Atlanta. The two documents were allegedly signed two weeks apart during the summer of 2021.

The new referral is about a third property in Cambridge, Mass.

Pulte states Cook misrepresented the property by calling it her “second home” on a 15-year mortgage document in December 2021, and then listing it on a U.S. ethics form as an “investment/rental property” weeks later.

Trump moved to fire Cook on Monday, after calling for her to resign, citing the first criminal referral as reason for the dismissal, the legality of which was unclear and has prompted staunch opposition from Democrats.

The second referral was announced hours after Cook sued Trump for attempting to fire her.

“This case challenges President Trump’s unprecedented and illegal attempt to remove Governor Cook from her position, which, if allowed to occur, would be the first of its kind in the Board’s history,” the suit said.

“It would subvert the Federal Reserve Act, which explicitly requires a showing of ’cause’ for a Governor’s removal, which an unsubstantiated allegation about private mortgage applications submitted by Governor Cook prior to her Senate confirmation is not,” the case introduction continued.

“The President’s actions violate Governor Cook’s Fifth Amendment due process rights and her statutory right to notice and a hearing under the [Federal Reserve Act],” it further stated. “Accordingly, Governor Cook seeks immediate declaratory and injunctive relief to confirm her status as a member of the Board of Governors, safeguard her and the Board’s congressionally mandated independence, and allow Governor Cook and the Federal Reserve to continue its critical work.”

The suit names Trump, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and the Fed Board of Governors as defendants, and a hearing for a request for a temporary restraining order has been slated for 10 a.m. EDT on Friday in front of Federal Judge Jia Cobb.

Should she win the case, her lawyers ask for Trump to declare she remains an active Fed governor, and that board members can only be removed for cause, as described in the Federal Reserve Act, the law under which Trump is attempting to fire her.

The suit also seeks “an award of the costs of this action and reasonable attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act or any other applicable law,” as well as an “award of all other appropriate relief.”

Trump campaigned on retaliating against political opponents. Since returning to the White House in January, he has used his executive powers to strip lawyers and law firms that have represented or are connected to his rivals of security clearances.

Two other Democrats and Trump critics — New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff of California — have also been accused of mortgage fraud by the Trump administration.

Trump’s attempt to fire Cook follows months of the president applying political pressure on her boss, Powell, to lower interest rates. Despite the insults and demands from Trump, Powell has resisted, stating economic policy will not be determined by politics.

Democrats have accused Trump of perpetrating an illegal authoritarian power grab by firing Cook. On Thursday night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, accused Trump of attempting to “turn the Federal Reserve into the ‘Central Bank of Trump.'”

“The Fed makes decisions based on economic data — not political pressure,” she said in a statement. “This move would undermine the world’s confidence in our economy and harm working people.

“And it is illegal.”

Aug. 24 (UPI) — Police descended upon Pennsylvania’s Villanova University on Sunday in response to reports of an active shooter on campus, making it the second time in less than a week that a hoax attack has been reported at the private Catholic school.

The Radnor Township Police Department said officers were responding to reports of an active shooter at the university’s Austin Hall.

“Law enforcement has confirmed that call to be false,” it said in a statement published on X at about 11:40 a.m. EDT.

“Officers are working to clear the campus and restore normal operations. At this time, the investigation is ongoing.”

Monday is the start of classes for the fall semester of the 2025-26 academic year at Villanova University, where about 10,000 students, including 6,700 full-time undergraduate students, attend. Villanova is a Philadelphia suburb.

Kathleen Byrnes, vice president of student life at the school, has announced in a letter that Sunday evening’s Mass and Commissioning has been canceled “given the whirlwind of emotions over these last few days.”

“With all that has transpired on campus in recent days, we feel our first-year students are best served by an evening with time to pause before classes start tomorrow,” Byrnes said.

“For our new students: Please take this evening to relax, talk with new friends and get a good night’s sleep — all of which will help you feel prepared for your first day of college tomorrow.”

The first false call of an active shooter on campus occurred Thursday late afternoon. Students were warned at about 4:30 p.m. to shelter in place. The shooter was reported to have been at the university’s law school.

University President Peter Donohue announced the Thursday active shooter report was a “cruel hoax.”

In a letter to students Sunday following the second false report, Donohue said he wished he had more answers for them.

“I do not know why this is happening, but I assure you the authorities are working tirelessly to find out who is behind these calls,” he said.

“I know it may not seem like it after the past couple of days, but I assure you that campus is safe, and there is no evidence of a legitimate threat to our community.”

Grimsby Town vs Manchester United

Less than a day after city workers painted the 2nd Street Tunnel, long an L.A. graffiti haven, taggers covered the walls of the iconic tunnel again, according to an Instagram post.

Video footage posted by user @grafftv appeared to show people spray-painting new graffiti on top of blank walls as motorists drove by.

“Less than 24 hours after the 2nd Street tunnel in downtown Los Angeles was painted a sterile white for the first time in over six months, the city’s graffiti underground roared back to life,” the user posted. “What had been a clean slate at noon became by midnight a living gallery of street expression, filled with burners, rollers, and painted signatures from L.A.’s most well known vandals.”

City officials did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether or when they would repaint the walls of the tunnel, which was finished in 1924 and runs from South Figueroa Street to Hill Street.

The 1,500-foot white-tiled tunnel is an L.A. landmark, featured in Hollywood movies such as the sci-fi epic “Blade Runner” and the biographical drama “The Soloist.” It is also a popular location for car commercials, with more than 70 shot there between 2006 and 2009.

July 27 (UPI) — A second whistleblower has come forward in the appointment of Emil Bove to a lifetime appellate court judgeship, saying Bove directed attorneys to give false information and defy court orders.

Bove, a former member of President Donald Trump‘s criminal defense team in his fraud case in New York, is the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States. Trump nominated him for Third Circuit Court of Appeals judge in Philadelphia.

The second whistleblower, who is not named, is a career Department of Justice attorney and is represented by Whistleblower Aid, a non-profit legal organization that helps public- and private-sector workers report and expose wrongdoing. They disclosed evidence to the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General that corroborates the first whistleblower’s claims that Bove and other senior DOJ officials were “actively and deliberately undermining the rule of law,” Whistleblower Aid said.

“What we’re seeing here is something I never thought would be possible on such a wide scale: federal prosecutors appointed by the Trump Administration intentionally presenting dubious if not outright false evidence to a court of jurisdiction in cases that impact a person’s fundamental rights not only under our Constitution, but their natural rights as humans,” Whistleblower Aid Chief Legal Counsel Andrew Bakaj said in a statement.

“What this means is that federal career attorneys who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution are now being pressured to abdicate that promise in favor of fealty to a single person, specifically Donald Trump. Loyalty to one individual must never outweigh supporting and protecting the fundamental rights of those living in the United States,” he said.

The DOJ defended Bove.

“Emil Bove is a highly qualified judicial nominee who has done incredible work at the Department of Justice to help protect civil rights, dismantle Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and Make America Safe Again,” spokesperson Gates McGavick told CNN. “He will make an excellent judge — the Department’s loss will be the Third Circuit’s gain.”

Bove has contradicted the complaints.

“I don’t think there’s any validity to the suggestion that that whistleblower complaint filed … calls into question my qualifications to serve as a circuit judge,” Bove told the Senate the committee during his confirmation hearing.

“I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order,” Bove said.

As Trump’s personal attorney, Bove defended him in his federal criminal cases, which were dismissed after his reelection. He also represented Trump in his New York hush-money case. In that case, he was found guilty of all 34 charges.

The previous whistleblower Erez Reuveni provided documents earlier this month saying that Bove is the person who gave the Trump administration the directive to ignore a court order to stop flights taking migrants to a Salvadoran prison. Bove allegedly said to prepare to tell the courts “f- you.” Bove told Congress he doesn’t remember using the F-word and sidestepped other questions about the incident.

Reuveni was fired from his job as the acting deputy director for the Office of Immigration Litigation after he disclosed that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported in error. He worked for the DOJ for 15 years.

The Senate gave its preliminary approval for Bove’s appointment.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said “Even if you accept most of the claims as true, there’s no scandal here. Government lawyers aggressively litigating and interpreting court orders isn’t misconduct – it’s what lawyers do.”

THE historic Appleby Horse Fair has left shops and roads closed as a second day of rowdy celebrations continues.

The Gypsy King, Tyson Fury, joined thousands of revellers yesterday for the first day of the fair.

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The celebrations have seen thousands of travellers descend on the town, riding horses through the small streets.

Cops have been spotted patrolling the streets and roads have been closed to traffic.

Pictures from yesterday’s celebrations show horses being ridden in the River Eden as part of a longstanding tradition.

Tens of thousands of travellers have arrived in the small town for the event, lining the roads nearby.

Campsites have been set up, quickly filling with hundreds of caravans.

The six day event features traditional music, dancing, horse riding, market stalls and horses for sale.

Carts and wagons have been pulled through the town by horse as the event continues to unfold.

Residents in nearby villages have complained of anti-social behaviour during the event.

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The roads of the small town and surrounding area have been lined with travellers arriving to join the festivities.

Today as the celebrations continued locals have shut their shops and roads are being patrolled by cops.

Signs have been left on doors up and down the busy high street reading “closed” with the town effectively shut down for the event.

A huge police presence is in the area for the second day in a row with officers on standby ahead of potential chaos and violence.

RSPCA officers and Blue Cross volunteers are also present, keeping an eye on the welfare of the horses being exercised, bought and sold.

During the 2021 event seven people were arrested.

Travellers and their families have been descending on the town for the fair for 340 years.

The event falls on the first weekend of June and is recognised as the largest of its kind in Europe.

Huge queues have formed along the busy country lanes and town life has ground to a standstill as the fair continues.

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WASHINGTON — A closely divided Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a 2nd Amendment challenge to the bans on semiautomatic rifles in Maryland, California and eight other blue states.

Gun rights advocates say these AR-15s are owned by millions of Americans, and they argue the 2nd Amendment protects weapons that are “in common use by law-abiding citizens.”

But they fell one vote short of winning a hearing on the question before the Supreme Court.

Three conservatives — Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch — voted to hear the 2nd Amendment challenge.

But Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh refused for now to cast the key fourth vote. He called the lower-court ruling upholding Maryland’s ban “questionable,” but agreed with the majority in turning down the appeal for now.

“In my view, this court should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon, in the next Term or two,” Kavanaugh said.

The closely watched appeal had been pending since December, and the outcome suggests that the majority, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., is not ready to strike down state laws that restrict semiautomatic guns.

Monday’s no-comment order lets stand laws in Maryland and Rhode Island that forbid the sale or possession of “assault weapons” and large-capacity magazines.

California adopted the nation’s first ban on assault weapons in 1989. Since then, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Washington have enacted similar laws, all of which would have been struck down if Maryland’s law were ruled unconstitutional.

Lawmakers in California and nine other Democratic-led states say these rapid-fire weapons are especially dangerous and not needed for self-defense.

Maryland said its ban applies to “certain highly dangerous, military-style assault weapons of the sort used in a series of highly publicized mass shootings.”

The case tested the reach of the 2nd Amendment and its “right to keep and bear arms.”

For more than a decade, the justices have turned away gun-rights appeals that challenged local or state bans on assault weapons.

In 2008, the court ruled for the first time that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to self-defense, but its constitutional rulings since then have been modest in their impact.

The justices struck down city ordinances in Washington and Chicago that prohibited private possession of handguns, and they ruled states may not deny law-abiding citizens a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

In opinion polls, most Americans are opposed to a ban on handgun possession but they support a ban on semiautomatic assault rifles.

Maryland passed its ban on “assault weapons” after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, where 20 children and six school employees were killed.

The law was upheld last year in an opinion written by a prominent conservative judge.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee who was a finalist for a Supreme Court nomination in 2005, said the AR-15, AK-47 and similar rapid-fire rifles are not protected by the 2nd Amendment.

“They are military-style weapons designed for sustained combat operations that are ill-suited and disproportionate to the need for self-defense,” he wrote in a 9-5 decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. “We decline to wield the Constitution to declare that military-style armaments which have become primary instruments of mass killing and terrorist attacks in the United States are beyond the reach of our nation’s democratic processes.”

The dissenters said the 2nd Amendment protects the right to the “arms” that are in common use.

“Today, the AR-15 and its variants are one of the most popular and widely owned firearms in the Nation,” wrote Judge Julius Richardson, a Trump appointee.

“As of 2021, there are at least 28 million AR-style semiautomatic rifles in circulation. For context, this means that there are more AR-style rifles in the civilian market than there are Ford F-Series pickup trucks on the road — the most popular truck in America.”

Three years ago, the court said in an opinion by Thomas that the 2nd Amendment should be interpreted based on the nation’s history and tradition of gun regulations.

However, the two sides in the Maryland case differed on what to glean from that history.

Gun-rights advocates said there was no early history of laws banning common firearms.

But some judges and state lawyers said the history shows that when new dangers arose — including stored gunpowder, dynamite and machine guns — new restrictions were written into law. If so, that would support new laws adopted in response to the danger posed by rapid-fire weapons.

The justices denied review in the case of Snope vs. Brown.