court

Feb. 16 (UPI) — The lone surviving suspect in the Bondi Beach shooting, in which 15 Jewish people were killed and 40 were injured, made his first court appearance in Sydney on Monday on murder and terrorism charges.

Naveed Akram, 24, appeared in court via video-link from Goulburn supermax prison to face 59 charges related to the Dec. 14 attack on a gathering to celebrate the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, including 15 counts of murder and one of carrying out a terror attack.

Akram is accused of carrying out the attack alongside his 50-year-old father, Sajid Arkram, who was shot dead at the scene by police who also shot Naveed, seriously injuring him.

Naveed Akram did not enter a plea and was asked only to confirm he understood the extension of a court order suppressing the identities of survivors of the attack who do not wish to be named in court.

After the brief hearing at Sydney’s Downing Center Local Court, criminal defense attorney Ben Archbold refused to answer questions as to how his client would plead, saying it was too early to say.

Court documents detail several videos, including one taken on one of their mobile phones in which the pair are allegedly seen undergoing firearms training at a rural location somewhere in New South Wales. Police allege the footage shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner.”

Another video on Naveed Akram’s phone shows the pair allegedly posing with an Islamic State flag and long-arm firearms, in which they are allegedly heard making “a number of statements regarding their motivation for the Bondi attack and condemning the acts of ‘Zionists.'”

The documents allege the attack was “meticulously” planned over a period of months with CCTV footage also showing the pair carrying out a reconnaissance mission to Bondi on Dec. 12, in which they scoped out the footbridge from which they are alleged to have opened fire on around 1,000 people gathered in Archer Park two days later.

The pair is also alleged to have thrown several IEDs at the crowd, including a “tennis ball bomb,” but none of them detonated, according to the court documents.

Naveed and Sajid Akram spent most of November in an area of the southern Philippines known for Islamist militants, but authorities have said their investigations thus far indicate they acted alone and did not receive training or “logistical preparation” assistance there, as originally feared.

Naveed Akram is next scheduled to appear in court in April.

The Federal Constitutional Court, the highest Court in Germany, has spoken. That sentence is the centre of gravity. It signals judicial restraint. It confirms that the Federal Government retains broad discretion in determining how it complies with its constitutional duty to protect fundamental human rights, including in the sensitive area of arms exports contributing to a warfare that is deemed genocidal by the United Nations.

This assessment is embedded in the legal framework governing German arms exports, including the relevant provisions of the War Weapons Control Act and the Foreign Trade and Payments Act, which define the procedural and substantive prerequisites for export authorizations and directly inform the court’s evaluation of the complainant’s standing. Beneath the formalism in its decision lies an act with profound political weight. The Court states: “However, how the state authorities fulfil their general duty of protection and any specific duties of protection is, in principle, their own responsibility to decide.”

The case concerns German-made transmission components for Israeli Merkava and Namer tanks, widely deployed by Israeli forces in Gaza and reportedly used repeatedly in violations of international law. Germany is one of the largest arms suppliers to Israel.

The Court notes that “[t]he specialist courts have determined – in a manner that is not objectionable under constitutional law – that the legislature and the executive have not remained inactive, but have created a general protection regime to effectively counter the risks of arms exports with regard to the protection of human rights and compliance with international humanitarian law, and that they have also taken concrete measures with regard to the Israeli military offensive and the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.”

In concrete terms, this means the judiciary will not substitute its own assessment for that of the executive. It does not examine battlefield realities in Gaza – on the contrary, it states that it is unclear whether, when, and how the exported goods would be used in a way that directly affects the complainant, and therefore the complainant lacks a sufficiently concrete legal interest to claim constitutional protection. It will not determine whether particular weapons systems might contribute to violations of international humanitarian law. As long as the government can demonstrate that it has established a system to “effectively counter the risks” and has taken “concrete measures”, the constitutional threshold for intervention is not met. It remains unclear how the government counters risks. Just yesterday, Julia Klöckner, President of the German Bundestag, emphasised the friendship between Israel and Germany.

This evidently shows that the protection system referred to by the Federal Constitutional Court is ineffective in legal practice. When arms exports continue despite numerous indications of serious violations of international law, and affected parties are unable to challenge these decisions in court, the protection regime fails to provide meaningful legal safeguards.

“The Court acknowledges the duty to protect but only in the abstract and refuses to ensure its practical enforcement. For people whose lives are endangered by the consequences of German arms exports, access to justice remains effectively closed,” says Dr. Alexander Schwarz, Co-Director of the International Crimes and Accountability Program at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.“Especially when life and death are at stake, the rule of law must allow for judicial oversight. Instead, this decision largely removes state action in this sensitive area from review. This is not persuasive.”

If courts do not intervene unless the state has entirely abdicated its duty of protection, then the decisive arena becomes merely political. This represents a discourse in Germany that constantly places Palestinian matters and rights in a political frame, even when they concern fundamental human rights.

The ECCHR is supporting the complainant together with Palestinian human rights organizations Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). Shawan Jabarin, General Director of Al-Haq, commented:

“Germany remains bound by international law, including the Genocide Convention, and must not export weapons where there is a clear risk that they will be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law or contribute to genocide. Israel’s conduct throughout Palestine clearly violates international humanitarian law and the Genocide Convention. Germany’s continued adherence to a policy of ‘reason of state’ that defends Israeli crimes regardless of their scale and impact and trivializes the cost in Palestinian lives must be challenged. We will continue to pursue justice for the Palestinian people.”

Neither the legal landscape nor politics are abstract or neutral. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of crimes against humanity. The International Court of Justice, in proceedings concerning Gaza, has indicated that states have obligations to prevent genocide where there is a plausible risk and to ensure that their conduct does not contribute to such acts. In addition, proceedings have been brought before the International Court of Justice against Germany itself, alleging violations of the Genocide Convention in connection with its support and arms exports — directly linking Germany’s conduct to the duty to prevent genocide under international law.

The Constitutional Court’s ruling does not negate these developments. Nor does it declare German exports compliant with international law. It simply affirms that the assessment of risk lies “in principle” with the political branches.

If the government alone decides whether its general protection regime is sufficient in light of allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, then accountability becomes a matter of parliamentary oversight and public scrutiny rather than constitutional adjudication.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

A United States court has ordered the administration of President Donald Trump to facilitate the return of a Babson College student, Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, who was wrongfully deported last year.

In his ruling on Tuesday, US District Judge Richard Stearns gave the government two weeks to take steps to bring Lopez Belloza back.

He framed the order as an opportunity to correct a “mistake” – but he did not rule out holding the government in contempt if it failed to take the necessary actions.

“Wisdom counsels that redemption may be found by acknowledging and fixing our own errors,” Stearns wrote.

“In this unfortunate case, the government commendably admits that it did wrong. Now it is time for the government to make amends.”

A surprise trip turned deportation

Lopez Belloza, 19, was arrested on November 20 by immigration agents at Boston’s Logan airport.

The college freshman had been preparing to board a flight home to her family in Texas to surprise them for the Thanksgiving holiday.

She has since told The Associated Press news agency that she was denied access to a lawyer after her initial detention at the airport. The immigration agent told her she would need to sign a deportation document first, according to Lopez Belloza, who said she denied the offer.

For the next two nights, she said she was kept by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a holding room with 17 other women, without enough room to lie down.

Then, she was loaded onto a deportation flight, which took her to Texas, then to her native Honduras, on November 22.

“I was numb the whole plane ride,” Lopez Belloza told the AP. “I just kept questioning myself. Why is it happening to me?”

Her lawyers, however, had obtained during that time a court order barring her removal from Massachusetts for 72 hours. Lopez Belloza’s deportation violated that court order.

She has remained in Honduras for the last two and a half months, while legal challenges over her case proceeded.

A legal battle

In court, the Trump administration has apologised for the error in Lopez Belloza’s case, acknowledging that a mistake was indeed made.

“On behalf of the government, we want to sincerely apologise,” prosecutor Mark Sauter told the court.

But Sauter rejected accusations that the government wilfully defied the 72-hour court order, saying that Lopez Belloza’s deportation was the mistake of one ICE agent and not an act of judicial defiance.

The government has also argued that Lopez Belloza was subject to a removal order before her November 20 arrest and therefore should not be returned to the US.

Lopez Belloza was brought to the US from Honduras when she was eight years old, and in 2016, she and her mother were ordered to be deported.

But the college freshman said she had no knowledge of any deportation order and has told the media that her previous legal representation had assured her there was no removal order against her.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration has rejected efforts to bring Lopez Belloza back to the country, even on a student visa.

In a February 6 court filing, US Attorney Leah B Foley wrote that a student visa “is unfeasible as the Secretary of State lacks authority to adjudicate visa applications and issue visas”.

“In any event,” Foley added, “Petitioner appears ineligible for a student visa.” She explained that Lopez Belloza “would remain subject to detention and removal if returned to the United States”.

The filing ended with a warning to the court to “refrain from ordering Respondents to return Petitioner to the status quo because this Court lacks authority”.

The Trump administration has questioned the authority of federal courts to intervene in immigration-related matters.

A series of mistakes

Critics, meanwhile, have accused the Trump administration of repeatedly failing to heed court orders it disagrees with.

Lopez Belloza’s case is not the first instance of an immigrant being wrongfully deported since the start of Trump’s second term.

Trump had campaigned on a pledge of mass deportation, and he has followed through with that promise, leading a series of controversial immigration crackdowns that have been accused of violating due process rights.

One of the most high-profile cases came in March 2025, when his administration wrongfully deported a Salvadoran father named Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who lived in Maryland with his wife, a US citizen.

Abrego Garcia had been subject to a 2019 court order barring his removal from the US on the basis that he could face gang violence in El Salvador.

But he was nevertheless sent back to the country and was briefly held in El Salvador’s Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT), a maximum-security prison.

On April 10, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, largely upholding a lower court’s decision.

But the Trump administration initially argued Abrego Garcia was outside of its power. Then, on June 6, it abruptly announced Abrego Garcia had been returned, only to file criminal charges against him and seek his deportation a second time.

Another case involved a Guatemalan man, identified only by his initials OCG.

He had been under a court protection order that barred him from being returned to Guatemala, for fear that his identity as a gay man would subject him to persecution.

But the Trump administration detained and deported him instead to Mexico, which in turn sent him back to Guatemala. He subsequently went into hiding for his safety.

In June, OCG was returned to the US after a court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return. It also noted that OCG’s deportation “lacked any semblance of due process”.

Lopez Belloza continues her studies at Babson College remotely from Honduras as she awaits the outcome of her legal proceedings.

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych took his case to sport’s highest court Friday, detailing the reasons why he wanted to race at the Milan-Cortina Olympics in a helmet that paid tribute to his country’s war dead.

The arbitrator was moved by his story but ruled against him anyway, denying him his last chance for a win of any kind at this year’s Winter Olympics.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport denied Heraskevych’s appeal of his disqualification from the men’s skeleton race, agreeing with the International Olympic Committee and the sliding sport’s federation that his plan to wear a helmet showing the faces of more than 20 Ukrainian coaches and athletes killed since Russia invaded their country four years ago would violate Olympic rules.

“The court sided with the IOC and upheld the decision that an athlete could be disqualified from the Olympic Games without actual misconduct, without a technical or safety threat, and before the start,” wrote Yevhen Pronin, Heraskevych’s attorney.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport said the sole arbitrator who heard the case sided with IOC policy about what athletes at an Olympics can say on a field of play — and that the “memory helmet” Heraskevych brought to the Milan-Cortina Games would not align with the rules.

The arbitrator, the court said, “found these limitations reasonable and proportionate,” especially since Heraskevych could show his helmet away from the racing surface, such as in interview areas and on social media. Heraskevych also wore the helmet in training runs.

The court added that the arbitrator “is fully sympathetic to Mr. Heraskevych’s commemoration and to his attempt to raise awareness for the grief and devastation suffered by the Ukrainian people, and Ukrainian athletes because of the war.”

The appeal, which Heraskevych believed he would win, was largely moot anyway. He was disqualified from the competition 45 minutes before its start on Thursday, and whatever the Court of Arbitration for Sport said Friday wouldn’t have changed that.

“Looks like this train has left,” Heraskevych said after Friday’s hearing, knowing there was no way he could race. He left Cortina d’Ampezzo’s Olympic village on Thursday night with no plans to return.

He was blocked from racing by the IOC and the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation on Thursday after the slider and his father emerged from a last-minute, last-ditch meeting with IOC President Kirsty Coventry — who was unable to get Heraskevych to change his mind.

Coventry reiterated Friday that she believed the disqualification was justified. The IOC made its decision based on the guidelines for athlete expression at the Olympics, he said.

They say, in part, “the focus on the field of play during competitions and official ceremonies must be on celebrating athletes’ performances.” Heraskevych never made it to the field of play — not in competition, anyway.

“I think that he in some ways understood that but was very committed to his beliefs, which I can respect,” Coventry said. “But sadly, it doesn’t change the rules.”

The IOC contends that the rule is in place for multiple reasons, including protecting the athletes from pressure from their own countries or others about using Olympic platforms to make statements.

“I never expected it to be such a big scandal,” Heraskevych said.

He also said he found it puzzling that his accreditation for the Games was taken away, then returned in short order Thursday in what seemed like a goodwill gesture.

“A mockery,” he said.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport did agree that Heraskevych should keep his accreditation.

Heraskevych said he felt his disqualification fed into Russian propaganda, noting that he and other Ukrainian athletes have seen Russian flags at events at these Games — even though they are not allowed by Olympic rule. He has previously spoken out against the IOC’s decision to allow Russians and Belarusians to compete at Milan-Cortina as “neutral” athletes and said the IOC empowered Russia by awarding it the 2014 Sochi Games.

He also wondered why other tributes from these Olympics, such as U.S. figure skater Maxim Naumov displaying a photo of his late parents — killed in a plane crash last year — have been permitted without penalty.

Italian snowboard competitor Roland Fischnaller had a small Russian flag image on the back of his helmet during these Games, and Israeli skeleton athlete Jared Firestone wore a kippah with the names of the 11 athletes and coaches who were killed representing that country during the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Pronin wrote that IOC representatives at Friday’s hearing said that “they were not punished because they did not declare this in advance, but did it after the fact, so there was no point in disqualifying them.”

The IOC said those cases were not in violation of any rules. Naumov showed his photo in the kiss-and-cry area and not while he was actually on the ice; Fischnaller’s helmet was a tribute to all the past Olympic sites he competed at, with Sochi included; and Firestone’s kippah “was covered by a beanie,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said.

The IOC offered Heraskevych the chance to compete with a different helmet and bring the tribute helmet through the interview area after his runs. He also could have worn a black armband, which the IOC typically bans. It just didn’t want him making a statement by competing in the helmet.

“I think it’s the wrong side of history for the IOC,” Heraskevych said.

Reynolds writes for the Associated Press. AP journalists Annie Risemberg and Stefanie Dazio in Milan and Vasilisa Stepanenko in Warsaw contributed to this report.

London, United Kingdom – The United Kingdom’s ban on Palestine Action has “backfired”, its cofounder said, after the High Court ruled that proscribing the group as a “terror” organisation was unlawful.

Critics from the United Nations human rights chief to the Irish author Sally Rooney decried the UK’s ban last June as an illiberal overreach, since it put Palestine Action on par with ISIL (ISIS), al-Qaeda and dangerous far-right organisations.

On Friday, High Court judges dealt a massive blow to the government of Labour leader Keir Starmer, saying, “The decision to proscribe Palestine Action was disproportionate.”

“Today is a victory for Palestine,” Palestine Action cofounder Huda Ammori told Al Jazeera. The ban has “backfired on [the government] massively. They’ve made Palestine Action a household name.

“They have spread the message and the power that ordinary people have to shut down weapons factories across the country and across the world. So for that, I thank them.”

Founded in 2020, Palestine Action’s stated objective has been to counter Israeli war crimes – and what it says is British complicity in them – by targeting weapons manufacturers and associated companies.

Its main target is Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms company, which has several sites in the UK.

“Rather than ask somebody else to stop those weapons going and being used to commit genocide, we go to the source, and we stop those weapons ourselves,” said Ammori, a 31-year-old Briton of Iraqi and Palestinian heritage.

“That is what direct action is about. If you saw a building burning down with children inside, you wouldn’t hesitate to bang down the door to save those children’s lives. It is exactly the same principle. You don’t care about the value of the door. It is about those lives. It is about the liberation of Palestine. And so we do our bit to shut down the Israeli weapons trades from Britain.”

The group has been a thorn in Starmer’s side since Israel began its genocidal onslaught in Gaza.

Palestine Action-linked activists have carried out several raids, often leaving their mark in red spray paint intended to symbolise blood.

Dozens are currently being held on remand in relation to two actions.

Some prisoners, known as part of the “Filton 24”, are alleged to have participated in a break-in at a UK subsidiary of Elbit Systems in Bristol.

Others are accused of involvement in a break-in at the UK’s largest air base in Oxfordshire, where they were alleged to have spray-painted two Voyager refuelling and transport planes. It was after this raid that the government banned Palestine Action.

They all deny the charges against them, such as burglary and criminal damage.

Six of the “Filton 24” were recently acquitted of aggravated burglary; five of them were bailed.

“At its core, Palestine Action is an organisation that promotes its political cause through criminality and encouragement of criminality. A very small number of its actions have amounted to terrorist action,” the High Court judges said.

Tens of thousands of people have protested against the ban. Almost 3,000 of them have been arrested for raising placards with slogans such as: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

“The government committed a huge crime against its own population,” said Ammori. “It was unlawful for them to ban Palestine Action, and when they banned Palestine Action, they subsequently did thousands of unlawful arrests against their own citizens and tried to prosecute them through the courts for terrorism offences, for holding up signs.”

Despite Friday’s ruling, the ban remains in place pending appeal.

The UK’s Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she was “disappointed” by Friday’s ruling and intends to appeal – earning further criticism from rights groups and some fellow Labour politicians.

John McDonnell, an MP who voted against the proscription, said on X, “I thought it was unjust. We have a right to protest, to assemble, and to speak freely in this country – that has been secured largely by direct action over centuries. I am urging the government to abide by that tradition and not to appeal this judgement.”

“Shabana Mahmood needs to take a step back,” said Ammori. “She’s completely betrayed the Palestinian people since she’s become minister … it’s only going to backfire on her.

“Palestine Action’s ban will be lifted … We won today in the High Court … If they try and appeal, we’ll beat them again.”

The UK’s High Court has ruled that the government ban on the pro-Palestinian campaign group Palestine Action as a ‘terror group’ was unlawful. The case was brought by the group’s co-founder Huda Ammori. Rory Challands is outside the court in London.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Group’s co-founder declares ruling ‘monumental victory both for our fundamental freedoms here in Britain and in the struggle for freedom for the Palestinian people.’

The High Court in the United Kingdom has ruled that the government ban on the pro-Palestinian campaign group called Palestine Action as a “terror group” was unlawful.

In a statement responding to the landmark ruling on Friday, the Claimant and co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, said, “This is a monumental victory both for our fundamental freedoms here in Britain and in the struggle for freedom for the Palestinian people, striking down a decision that will forever be remembered as one of the most extreme attacks on free speech in recent British history.”

The United Kingdom said last June that it would ban Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws. This that put the organisation on par with armed groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) in the UK, making it a criminal offence to be part of Palestine Action.

The government’s announcement prompted legal battles, criticism from human rights organisations and triggered protests.

More to come…

Feb. 12 (UPI) — The U.S. government issued a warning to Peru after a judicial ruling limited that nation’s oversight over the Chancay megaport, one of the country’s main port infrastructures operated by China’s Cosco Shipping.

“We are concerned by recent reports indicating Peru may be unable to oversee Chancay, one of its most important ports, under the jurisdiction of predatory Chinese owners,” the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said in a statement posted on X.

The publication underscored “Peru’s sovereign right to supervise critical infrastructure in its own territory” and questioned the origin of investment in the megaport located north of Lima.

“Let this serve as a warning to the region and the world: cheap Chinese money costs sovereignty,” the U.S. authority said.

In recent years, Beijing has expanded its presence in strategic sectors, such as infrastructure, energy and technology, across Latin America — a trend that has drawn concern among U.S. policymakers.

Chancay, opened in 2024, aims to become a key logistics hub linking South America with Asia. The project has been presented as a milestone for Peruvian trade and part of China’s growing footprint in regional port infrastructure.

The State Department’s statement followed a ruling by a Peruvian court that limited the authority of the Organismo Supervisor de la Inversión en Infraestructura de Transporte de Uso Público, known as Ositran, the national transport infrastructure regulator, over the Chancay terminal, according to local outlet RPP Noticias.

The decision upheld an injunction awarded to Cosco Shipping Ports, the Chinese state-owned majority shareholder in the port. The company argued that Chancay was fully financed with private capital, operates without a state concession contract and functions under an administrative authorization granted by Peru’s National Port Authority.

The ruling ordered Ositran to refrain from regulating, supervising, auditing or sanctioning activities at the port. It said subjecting the terminal to that regulatory framework would violate the claimant company’s constitutional rights to property, free enterprise and legal certainty, according to newspaper La República.

The court also said that public use is a functional characteristic of port services, but does not automatically trigger the legal framework applied to state-concession ports.

In practice, the decision means the regulator cannot intervene directly in terminal operations or impose administrative controls. However, the ruling does not eliminate all state oversight.

Instead, supervisory responsibilities would be redistributed among various Peruvian regulatory bodies, with Ositran excluded from comprehensive regulation except in limited circumstances.

Ositran President Verónica Zambrano said the agency will appeal the ruling, arguing the company may seek to avoid Peruvian regulations.

“They are a public-use company providing services to the public. That condition creates legal consequences, including oversight by Ositran, because we supervise public transport service providers,” Zambrano told news channel Canal N.

She added Peru’s National Port Law defines a port administrator as an operator of public-use transport infrastructure and said this applies to Cosco Shipping.

Separately, Peru’s Cabinet Office issued a statement on X regarding the judicial process involving Cosco Shipping Ports Chancay Peru S.A. Authorities said they will defend private investment while respecting Peru’s regulatory framework.

Ministers added that if conditions outlined in the ruling affect Ositran’s supervisory role, the government will use legal remedies available under existing law.

As part of the National Security Strategy promoted by President Donald Trump’s administration, the U.S. president has called a summit for March 7 in Miami with several Latin American leaders considered strategic allies.

The meeting aims to consolidate a regional bloc aligned with Washington amid growing Chinese investment, trade and diplomatic influence in Latin America, Infobae reported.

Among the invited leaders are Argentine President Javier Milei, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, Paraguay’s Santiago Peña, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz and Honduras’ Tito Asfura.

In addition to economic issues, the agenda includes coordination on security matters, particularly the fight against drug trafficking and the management of migration flows.

Feb. 10 (UPI) — Same-sex partners can legally co-own property in the Philippines, the nation’s Supreme Court announced Tuesday, a landmark decision for LGBTQ rights in the overwhelmingly Christian nation.

The ruling, which was dated Thursday but released Tuesday, states for the first time that same-sex partners can jointly own property under Article 148 of the Family Code, the country’s primary law governing marriage, family and property relations.

“Our laws should be read from more contemporary lenses. We must bear in mind how the lived realities of many couples in the Philippines are now far from heteronormative standards,” Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen said in a concurring opinion.

“To be different is not to be abnormal. A same-sex relationship is a normal relationship and therefore should be covered by Article 148 of the Family Code. Otherwise, we render legally invisible some forms of legitimate intimate relationships.”

The ruling comes in litigation over ownership of a Quezon City house once inhabited by same-sex couple Jennifer Josef and Evalyn Ursua.

They purchased the property in 2006, agreeing to register it under Ursua’s name for ease of bank transactions. According to court documents, when they separated, they agreed to sell the house and divide the proceeds equally.

However, Josef filed a complaint for partition of the property and damages after Ursua refused to sell it, recognize Josef as a co-owner or give her half of the property.

Same-sex unions are illegal in the conservative Christian nation where public support of such relations was only about 22%, according to a 2018 survey by the nonprofit social research institute Social Weather Stations.

Shared property is governed under two provisions of the Philippine Family Code: Article 147, which applies to legally married couples; and Article 148, which concerns couples who cannot legally marry, such as so-called adulterous heterosexual relationships, incestuous or otherwise prohibited relationships and bigamous or polygamous marriages.

This effectively left same-sex couples without a clear legal basis to assert shared property claims.

The case made its way to the Supreme Court after a lower court and then an appeals court ruled against Josef.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court reversed the previous orders, citing a 2007 document signed by Ursua that recognized Josef as co-owner of the property into which she paid 50% of the expenses for its acquisition and renovation.

With its ruling, the high court clarified the provisions of the Family Code to state that same-sex couples fall under Article 148 since marriage is only permitted between a man and a woman.

The justices also stated that without a law recognizing same-sex marriage, Congress and local governments must work to address issues affecting the rights of same-sex couples.

“This Court does not have the monopoly to assure the freedom and rights of homosexual couples,” the Second Division of the Supreme Court said.

“With the political, moral and cultural questions that surround the issue concerning the rights of same-sex couples, political departments, especially the Congress, must be involved to quest for solutions, which balance interests while maintaining fealty to fundamental freedoms. The process of legislation exposes the experiences of homosexuals who have been oppressed, ensuring that they are understood by those stand with the majority.”

Feb. 10 (UPI) — A federal appeals court has sided with the Trump administration’s effort to end deportation protections for Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal, a decision that could lead to the removal of tens of thousands of people living in the United States, some of whom have called the country home for up to two decades.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a stay pending appeal on Monday, granting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s emergency request to lift a lower court’s order blocking the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for nationals of those three countries.

“A win for the rule of law and vindication for the U.S. Constitution,” Noem said in a social media statement following the ruling on Monday. “TPS was never designed to be permanent, yet previous administrations have used it as a de facto amnesty program for decades.

“Given the improved situation in each of these countries, we are wisely concluding what was intended to be a temporary designation.”

The ruling comes in a protracted case pitting the Trump administration against immigration advocates, who filed the class action lawsuit in July against the federal government’s effort to end TPS for the three countries.

Jhony Silva, a Honduran TPS holder, nursing assistant, father and a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement that he is upset with the ruling but will not stop “fighting for justice.”

“I cannot bear the thought of being separated from my family. I have lived in this country since I was a toddler and I belong here,” he said. “My child does, too.”

Established by Congress in 1990, TPS is a mechanism to shield migrants in the United States from being deported to countries experiencing war, conflict or famine, ultimately preventing Washington from deporting people into a harmful environment.

Honduras and Nicaragua were granted TPS designations in January 1999, a year after the countries were devastated by Hurricane Mitch. Nepal was granted TPS in 2015, after it was hit by a destructive earthquake.

An estimated 60,000 people from the three countries currently in the United States are protected from being deported to those three countries.

Ending TPS designations has been a prong of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and effort to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

In canceling TPS protections for Nepal in June and Honduras and Nicaragua in July, Trump administration officials argued that the designation was only meant to be temporary and that conditions in the three nations have improved significantly enough that they are no longer warranted.

On July 7, the National TPS Alliance filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government, arguing the terminations were unconstitutional, arbitrary and capricious and conducted without following the necessary review process.

The National TPS Alliance argued the Trump administration’s decision to rescind TPS for the three countries was not based on a review of the conditions on the ground but on a predetermined political decision to dismantle the program, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

Within that month, a district judge granted the immigration advocates a postponement of the termination, followed by the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals approving the Trump administration’s request for a stay pending appeal in mid-August.

In October, the plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment. On Dec. 31, a district judge granted the immigration advocates partial summary judgment on two of their three claims, staying the termination of the TPS designations — prompting the Trump administration to file for another emergency request with the appeals court.

In its six-page ruling, the appeals court said Monday that the federal government was likely to succeed on the merits of its appeal by either showing that the district court lacked jurisdiction to impose the stay or by prevailing on the argument that the federal government was not in violation of the APA.

“TPS holders deserve better than this,” Jessica Bansal, an attorney with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said in a statement.

“Today’s decision allows mothers, fathers, students and workers who have lived lawfully in this country for decades to be stripped of status without even acknowledging the devastation caused to them and their families or the contributions they have made to their communities.”

SIR Idris Elba is due to give evidence in the trial of a woman who allegedly stalked him and his wife.

The defendant is to face court next year after being arrested and charged.

The Sun told last year how actor Idris, 53, and his wife Sabrina, 36, had allegedly received unwanted emails and other communications.

The woman was also said to have turned up at private events in London, which the couple attended separately on different days.

A source said: “These events were seriously distressing for Idris and his family.

“He had no choice but to report it to the authorities.”

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The woman, in her 30s, was arrested in October and in November denied five harassment-related charges at Kingston crown court, South West London.

She has been released on bail.

Luther star Idris is expected to take the stand in the trial pencilled in for May 2027.

The Met Police said: “A woman has been charged following an investigation.

“The charges follow an arrest on Sunday, 26 October, 2025.”

President Trump’s administration can continue to detain immigrants without bond, marking a major legal victory for the federal immigration agenda and countering a slew of recent lower court decisions across the country that argued the practice is illegal.

A panel of judges on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday evening that the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested across the country is consistent with the Constitution and federal immigration law.

Specifically, Circuit Judge Edith H. Jones wrote in the 2-1 majority opinion that the government correctly interpreted the Immigration and Nationality Act by asserting that “unadmitted aliens apprehended anywhere in the United States are ineligible for release on bond, regardless of how long they have resided inside the United States.”

Under past administrations, most noncitizens with no criminal record who were arrested away from the border had an opportunity to request a bond hearing while their cases wound through immigration court. Historically, bond was often granted to those without criminal convictions who were not flight risks, and mandatory detention was limited to recent border crossers.

“That prior Administrations decided to use less than their full enforcement authority under” the law “does not mean they lacked the authority to do more,” Jones wrote.

The plaintiffs in the two separate cases filed last year against the Trump administration were both Mexican nationals who had lived in the United States for more than 10 years and weren’t flight risks, their attorneys argued. Neither man had a criminal record, and both were jailed for months last year before a lower Texas court granted them bond in October.

The Trump White House reversed that policy in favor of mandatory detention in July, reversing almost 30 years of precedent under both Democrat and Republican administrations.

Friday’s ruling also bucks a November district court decision in California, which granted detained immigrants with no criminal history the opportunity to request a bond hearing and had implications for noncitizens held in detention nationwide.

Circuit Judge Dana M. Douglas wrote the lone dissent in Friday’s decision.

The elected members of Congress who passed the Immigration and Nationality Act “would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people,” Douglas wrote, adding that many of the people detained are “the spouses, mothers, fathers, and grandparents of American citizens.”

She went on to argue that the federal government was overriding the lawmaking process with the Department of Homeland Security’s new immigration detention policy that denies detained immigrants bond.

“Because I would reject the government’s invitation to rubber stamp its proposed legislation by executive fiat, I dissent,” Douglas wrote.

Douglas’ opinion echoed widespread tensions between the Trump administration and federal judges around the country, who have increasingly accused the administration of flouting court orders.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi celebrated the decision as “a significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at every turn.”

“We will continue vindicating President Trump’s law and order agenda in courtrooms across the country,” Bondi wrote on the social media platform X.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.

In recent weeks, Marin County Registrar Natalie Adona has been largely focused on the many mundane tasks of local elections administrators in the months before a midterm: finalizing voting locations, ordering supplies, facilitating candidate filings.

But in the wake of unprecedented efforts by the Trump administration to intervene in state-run elections, Adona said she has also been preparing her staff for far less ordinary scenarios — such as federal officials showing up and demanding ballots, as they recently did in Georgia, or immigration agents staging around polling stations on election day, as some in President Trump’s orbit have suggested.

“Part of my job is making sure that the plans are developed and then tested and then socialized with the staff so if those situations were to ever come up, we would not be figuring it out right then and there. We would know what to do,” Adona said. “Doing those sort of exercises and that level of planning in a way is kind of grounding, and makes things feel less chaotic.”

Natalie Adona faced harassment from election deniers and COVID anti-maskers when she served as the registrar of voters in Nevada County. She now serves Marin County and is preparing her staff for potential scenarios this upcoming election, including what to do if immigration agents are present.

(Jess Lynn Goss / For The Times)

Across California, local elections administrators say they have been running similar exercises to prepare for once unthinkable threats — not from local rabble-rousers, remote cyberattackers or foreign adversaries, but their own federal government.

State officials, too, are writing new contingency plans for unprecedented intrusions by Trump and other administration officials, who in recent days have repeated baseless 2020 election conspiracies, raided and taken ballots from a local election center in Fulton County, Ga., pushed both litigation and legislation that would radically alter local voting rules, and called for Republicans to seize control of elections nationwide.

California’s local and state officials — many of whom are Democrats — are walking a fine line, telling their constituents that elections remain fair and safe, but also that Trump’s talk of federal intervention must be taken seriously.

Their concerns are vastly different than the concerns voiced by Trump and other Republicans, who for years have alleged without evidence that U.S. elections are compromised by widespread fraud involving noncitizen voters, including in California.

But they have nonetheless added to a long-simmering sense of fear and doubt among voters — who this year have the potential to radically alter the nation’s political trajectory by flipping control of Congress to Democrats.

An election worker moves ballots to be sorted at the Orange County Registrar of Voters in Santa Ana on Nov. 5, 2024.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Trump has said he will accept Republican losses only if the elections are “honest.” A White House spokesperson said Trump is pushing for stricter rules for voting and voter registration because he “cares deeply about the safety and security of our elections.”

Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law, said some of what Trump says about elections “is nonsensical and some is bluster,” but recent actions — especially the election center raid in Georgia — have brought home the reality of his threats.

“Some worry that this is a test run for trying to seize ballot boxes in 2026 and prevent a fair count of the votes, and given Trump’s track record, I don’t think that is something we can dismiss out of hand,” Hasen said. “States need to be making contingency plans to make sure that those kinds of things don’t happen.”

The White House dismissed such concerns, pointing to isolated incidents of noncitizens being charged with illegally voting, and to examples of duplicate registrations, voters remaining on rolls after death and people stealing ballots to vote multiple times.

“These so-called experts are ignoring the plentiful examples of noncitizens charged with voter fraud and of ineligible voters on voter rolls,” said Abigail Jackson, the White House spokesperson.

Experts said fraudulent votes are rare, most registration and roll issues do not translate into fraudulent votes being cast, and there is no evidence such issues swing elections.

A swirl of activity

Early in his term, Trump issued an executive order calling for voters nationwide to be required to show proof of U.S. citizenship, and for states to be required to disregard mail ballots received after election day. California and other states sued, and courts have so far blocked the order.

This past week, Trump said outright that Republicans should “take over” elections nationwide.

The Justice Department has sued California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and her counterparts in other states for refusing to hand over state voter rolls — the lawsuit against Weber was tossed — and raided and seized ballots from the election office of Fulton County, long a target of right-wing conspiracy theories over Trump’s 2020 election loss.

President Trump walks behind former chairperson of the Republican National Committee Michael Whatley as he prepares to speak during a political rally in Rocky Mount, N.C., on Dec. 19.

(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)

Longtime Trump advisor and ally Stephen K. Bannon suggested U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will be dispatched to polling locations in November, reprising old fears about voter intimidation. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she couldn’t rule that out, despite it being illegal.

Democrats have raised concerns about the U.S. Postal Service mishandling mail ballots in the upcoming elections, following rule changes for how such mail is processed. Republicans have continued pushing the SAVE America Act, which would create new proof of citizenship requirements for voters. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering multiple voting rights cases, including one out of Louisiana that challenges Voting Rights Act protections for Black representation.

Charles H. Stewart, director of the MIT Election Data + Science Lab, said the series of events has created an “environment where chaos is being threatened,” and where “people who are concerned about the state of democracy are alarmed and very concerned,” and rightfully so.

But he said there are also “a number of guardrails” in place — what he called “the kind of mundane mechanics that are involved in running elections” — that will help prevent harm.

California prepares

California leaders have been vociferous in their defense of state elections, and said they’re prepared to fight any attempted takeover.

“The President regularly spews outright lies when it comes to elections in this country, particularly ones he and his party lose,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “We will continue to correct those lies, rebuild much-needed trust in our democratic institutions and civic duties, and defend the U.S. Constitution’s grant to the states authority over elections.”

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber take questions after announcing a lawsuit to protect voter rights in 2024.

(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in an interview that his office “would go into court and we would get a restraining order within hours” if the Trump administration tries to intervene in California elections, “because the U.S. Constitution says that states predominantly determine the time, place and manner of elections, not the president.”

Weber told The Times that the state has “a cadre of attorneys” standing by to defend its election system, but also “absolutely amazing” county elections officials who “take their job very seriously” and serve as the first line of defense against any disruptions, from the Trump administration or otherwise.

Dean Logan, Los Angeles County’s chief elections official, said his office has been doing “contingency planning and tabletop exercises” for traditional disruptions, such as wildfires and earthquakes, and novel ones, such as federal immigration agents massing near voting locations and last-minute policy changes by the U.S. Postal Service or the courts.

“Those are the things that keep us up at night,” he said.

Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan said the county no longer has ballots from the 2020 election.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Logan said he is not currently concerned about the FBI raiding L.A. County elections offices because, while Fulton County still had its 2020 ballots on hand due to ongoing litigation, that is not the case for L.A. County, which is “beyond the retention period” for holding, and no longer has, its 2020 ballots.

However, Logan said he does consider what happened in Georgia a warning that the Trump administration “will utilize the federal government to go in and be disruptive in an elections operation.”

“What we don’t know is, would they do that during the conduct of an election, before an election is certified?” Logan said.

Kristin Connelly, chief elections officer for Contra Costa County, said she’s been working hard to make sure voters have confidence in the election process, including by giving speeches to concerned voters, expanding the county’s certified election observer program, and, in the lead-up to the 2024 election, running a grant-funded awareness campaign around election security.

Connelly — who joined local elections officials nationwide in challenging Trump’s executive order on elections in court — said she also has been running tabletop exercises and coordinating with local law enforcement, all with the goal of ensuring her constituents can vote.

“How the federal government is behaving is different from how it used to behave, but at the end of the day, what we have to do is run a mistake-free, perfect election, and to open our offices and operation to everybody — especially the people who ask hard questions,” she said.

Lessons from the past

Several officials in California said that as they prepare, they have been buoyed by lessons from the past.

Before being hired by the deep-blue county of Marin in May, Adona was the elected voting chief in rural Nevada County in the Sierra foothills.

In 2022, Adona affirmed that Trump’s 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden was legitimate and enforced a pandemic mask mandate in her office. That enraged a coalition of anti-mask, anti-vaccine, pro-Trump protesters, who pushed their way into the locked election office.

Protesters confronted Adona and her staffers, with one worker getting pushed down. They stationed themselves in the hallway, leaving Adona’s staff too terrified to leave their office to use the hallway bathroom, as local, state and federal authorities declined to step in.

“At this point, and for months afterwards, I felt isolated and depressed. I had panic attacks every few days. I felt that no one had our back. I focused all my attention on my staff’s safety, because they were clearly nervous about the unknown,” Adona said during subsequent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In part because she knows what can go wrong, Adona said her focus now is on preparing her new staff for whatever may come, while following the news out of Georgia and trying to maintain a cool head.

“I would rather have a plan and not use it than need a plan and not have one,” she said.

Clint Curtis, the clerk and registrar of voters in Shasta County — which ditched its voting machines in 2023 amid unfounded fraud allegations by Trump — said his biggest task ahead of the midterms is to increase both ballot security and transparency.

Since being appointed to lead the county office last spring, the conservative Republican from Florida has added more cameras and more space for election observers — which, during the recent special election on Proposition 50, California’s redistricting measure, included observers from Bonta’s and Weber’s offices.

He has also reduced the number of ballot drop boxes in the vast county from more than a dozen to four. Curtis told The Times he did not trust the security of ballots in the hands of “these little old ladies running all over the county” to pick them up, and noted there are dozens of other county locations where they can be dropped off. He said he invited Justice Department officials to observe voting on Proposition 50, though they didn’t show, and welcomes them again for the midterms.

“If they can make voting safer for everybody, I’m perfectly fine with that,” he said. “It always makes me nervous when people don’t want to cooperate. Whatcha hiding? It should be: ‘Come on in.’”

Election workers inspect ballots after extracting them from envelopes on election night at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on Nov. 5, 2024, in the City of Industry.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Weber, 77 and the daughter of an Arkansas sharecropper whose family fled Southern racism and threats of violence to reach California, said that while many people in the U.S. are confronting intense fear and doubt about the election for the first time, and understandably so, that is simply not the case for her or many other Black people.

“African Americans have always been under attack for voting, and not allowed to vote, and had new rules created for them about literacy and poll taxes and all those other kinds of things, and many folks lost their lives just trying to register to vote,” Weber said.

Weber said she still recalls her mother, who had never voted in Arkansas, setting up a polling location in their home in South L.A. each election when Weber was young, and today draws courage from those memories.

“I tell folks there’s no alternative to it. You have to fight for this right to vote. And you have to be aware of the fact that all these strategies that people are trying to use [to suppress voting] are not new strategies. They’re old strategies,” Weber said. “And we just have to be smarter and fight harder.”

The United States Supreme Court has ruled in favour of a California redistricting measure meant to net the Democratic Party more congressional seats, rejecting a challenge from the state Republican Party.

There was no dissent in Wednesday’s decision, and the conservative-majority court did not offer any explanation for its decision.

Instead, its order was comprised of a single sentence, stating that the Republican application “is denied”.

Previously, in December, the Supreme Court had allowed a similar redistricting measure, designed to benefit Republicans in Texas, to move forward.

Democratic officials in California have applauded Wednesday’s decision as fair, given that Republican President Donald Trump has led a nationwide push to redraw congressional districts in his party’s favour.

“Donald Trump said he was ‘entitled’ to five more Congressional seats in Texas,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a written statement.

“He started this redistricting war. He lost, and he’ll lose again in November.”

California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta echoed Newsom’s remarks, blaming Trump for launching a kind of redistricting arms race that threatened to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

“The US Supreme Court’s decision is good news not only for Californians, but for our democracy,” Bonta said in the statement.

The Supreme Court’s decision marks a win for Democratic efforts to counter the Trump-led redistricting efforts, which began last year in Texas.

In June last year, reports emerged that Trump had personally called Texas state politicians to redraw their congressional districts to give Republicans a greater advantage in Democrat-held areas.

Each congressional district elects one person to the US House of Representatives, which has a narrow Republican majority. Out of 435 seats, 218 are held by Republicans, and 214 by Democrats.

Texas, a Republican stronghold, proceeded to approve a newly revamped congressional map in August, overcoming a walkout by Democratic legislators.

That, in turn, prompted Newsom to launch a ballot initiative in California to counteract the Texas effort.

Just as the new Texas congressional map was designed to increase Republican seats by five, the California ballot initiative, known as Proposition 50, was also positioned to increase Democratic representation by five.

Voters in California passed the initiative overwhelmingly in a November special election, temporarily suspending the work of an independent redistricting commission that had previously drawn the state’s congressional maps.

Newsom, a possible 2028 presidential contender, framed Proposition 50 as a means of fighting “fire with fire”.

The new map approved under Proposition 50, however, will only be in place through the 2030 election, and Newsom has pledged to repeal it, should Republicans in Texas do the same with their new map.

The push to redistrict for partisan gain — a process known as gerrymandering — has long faced bipartisan pushback as an attack on democratic values.

Normally, redistricting happens every 10 years, after a new census is taken, to reflect population changes.

But this mid-decade redistricting battle comes before the pivotal 2026 midterm elections, which are slated to be a referendum on Trump’s second term as president. Trump has already expressed fear that he might be impeached, should Congress switch to Democratic control.

Partisan gerrymandering is not necessarily illegal, unless it purposefully disenfranchises voters on the basis of their race. That, in turn, is seen as a violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, an important piece of civil rights legislation from 1965.

In response to the passage of Proposition 50, Republicans in California sued Newsom and other state officials in an effort to overturn the new congressional map.

They argued the new map was created “specifically to favor Hispanic voters” and would dilute the representation of Republican voters in the state.

The Trump administration joined the lawsuit on November 13, backing the state Republicans.

But Bonta, the California attorney general, argued the redistricting process was legal. In court filings, he also maintained that Trump’s backing of the lawsuit was driven by self-interest.

“The obvious reason that the Republican Party is a plaintiff here, and the reason that the current federal administration intervened to challenge California’s new map while supporting Texas’s defense of its new map, is that Republicans want to retain their House majority for the remainder of President Trump’s term,” his court filing said.

Bonto also called on the Supreme Court not to “step into the political fray, granting one political party a sizeable advantage” by overturning Proposition 50.

The victory for California Democrats on Wednesday comes as redistricting fights continue across the country.

Already, states like North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri have adopted new congressional maps to favour Republicans. There has been pushback, though.

In December, Indiana’s Republican-led legislature voted down a partisan redistricting measure, despite pressure from Trump to pass it.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that California this fall may use its new election map, which is expected to send five more Democrats to Congress.

With no dissents, the justices rejected emergency appeals from California Republicans and President Trump’s lawyers, who claimed the map was a racial gerrymander to benefit Latinos, not a partisan effort to bolster Democrats.

Trump’s lawyers supported the California Republicans and filed a Supreme Court brief asserting that “California’s recent redistricting is tainted by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”

They pointed to statements from Paul Mitchell, who led the effort to redraw the districts, that he hoped to “bolster” Latino representatives in the Central Valley.

In response, the state’s attorneys told the court the GOP claims defied the public’s understanding of the mid-decade redistricting and contradicted the facts regarding the racial and ethnic makeup of the districts.

Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed re-drawing the state’s 52 congressional districts to “fight back against Trump’s power grab in Texas.”

He said that if Texas was going to redraw its districts to benefit Republicans so as to keep control of the House of Representatives, California should do the same to benefit Democrats.

The voters approved the change in November.

While the new map has five more Democratic-leaning districts, the state’s attorneys said it did not increase the number with a Latino majority.

“Before Proposition 50, there were 16 Latino-majority districts. After Proposition 50, there is the same number. The average Latino share of the voting-age population also declined in those 16 districts,” they wrote.

It would be “strange for California to undertake a mid-decade restricting effort with the predominant purpose of benefiting Latino voters and then enact a new map that contains an identical number of Latino-majority districts,” they said.

Trump’s lawyers pointed to the 13th Congressional District in Merced County and said its lines were drawn to benefit Latinos.

The state’s attorneys said that too was incorrect. “The Latino voting-age population [in District 13] decreased after Proposition 50’s enactment,” they said.

Three judges in Los Angeles heard evidence from both sides and upheld the new map in a 2-1 decision.

“We find that the evidence of any racial motivation driving redistricting is exceptionally weak, while the evidence of partisan motivations is overwhelming,” said U.S. District Judges Josephine Staton and Wesley Hsu.

In the past, the Supreme Court has said the Constitution does not bar state lawmakers from drawing election districts for political or partisan reasons, but it does forbid doing so based on the race of the voters.

In December, the court ruled for Texas Republicans and overturned a 2-1 decision that had blocked the use of its new election map.
The court’s conservatives agreed with Texas lawmakers who said they acted out of partisan motives, not with the aim of denying representation to Latino and Black voters.

“The impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in a concurring opinion.

California’s lawyers quoted Alito in supporting their map.

Love Island: All Stars contestant Zac Woodworth has seemingly given away his “game plan” after entering the villa as a Bombshell on the hit ITV2 reality show earlier this week

Love Island All Stars contestant Zac Woodworth has seemingly given away his “game plan” after entering the villa. The reality star, 26, initially appeared on Love Island USA but recently entered the British version of the ITV2 reality dating show by arriving at the South African Villa as a bombshell.

He is currently getting close to Millie Court on the spin-off of the main show, which sees former contestants heading back onto the programme that made them famous, so they can have a second chance at finding love.

An Instagram account dedicated to Love Island memes screenshotted a story that was reposted onto Zac’s page, which was initially posted by his former co-star JD Dodard, who also appeared on the US version of Love Island in summer 2025.

READ MORE: Love Island viewers flood Ofcom with over 500 complaints over shocking scenesREAD MORE: Love Island fans spot problem minutes in as three new bombshells arrive

He wrote: “Pre game plan executed perfectly @zacwoodworth,” with a crying tears of laughter emoji, whilst his other co-star Zak Strakaew said: “Make sure ya’ll go back my boyyyy @zacwoodworth,” which was then reposted onto his Stories.

Viewers of the reality show rushed to the comments to share their thoughts, with some claiming that some contestants are just hoping for a spot on the show.

The original account wrote: “From Zak’s story!! I hope this wasn’t his plan all along and is leading her on,” and in response, one fan said: “Of course it is, the Americans all just want to get into the main villa. No one is there ‘looking for love,'” whilst another wrote: “Producers should step in because that’s someone’s feelings!”

Another wrote: “You can see this a mile off!” and a fourth viewer said: “It could be that he really likes her and happy he’s got what he went in for… never judge a book by it’s cover as they say.” Another shared: “Feel like pre game plan means that he saw her before on there, that was who he wanted and he beelined for her and got her! Really doubt it’s a negative thing.”

Just before heading into the villa, Zac said: “I am super social, I love talking to everybody. They can expect me to be gentlemen but also go for what I want.

“In the US Villa I was conscious of not wanting to talk to ‘somebody’s girl’ but I would do that differently this time. I’m really excited to just get in there and do my thing!” The reality star also shared that he thought his time was “cut short” the first time round, after making it to just day 20.

Zac, a native of Arizona, explained: “Honestly, I felt that my time in the Love Island USA villa was cut short, I didn’t get the best shot at getting to know someone so for me, experiencing Love Island again but in the UK is perfect. I’ve always travelled the world and I love meeting girls outside of the US. “

Love Island: All Stars airs weeknights at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX.

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