court

March 6 (Asia Today) — A South Korean court has suspended a disciplinary penalty against lawmaker Bae Hyun-jin, intensifying internal criticism of People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk and prompting calls for accountability within the main opposition party.

The court granted Bae’s request for an injunction blocking the party’s decision to suspend her membership rights for one year. The ruling effectively halted the punishment while the broader legal dispute proceeds.

The decision has fueled criticism of Jang’s leadership and sparked demands for the resignation of Yoon Min-woo, head of the party’s ethics committee that imposed the discipline.

Speaking on SBS radio Thursday, Bae sharply criticized the party leadership.

“Even if he had ten mouths, he would have nothing to say,” she said of Jang, accusing him of using the ethics committee to purge members who do not align with his political stance.

She also called on the party leader to apologize to members and the public.

Former party leader Han Dong-hoon also criticized the leadership in a Facebook post, saying the court ruling suggested the disciplinary move had raised constitutional concerns.

Han accused the leadership faction supporting former President Yoon Suk Yeol of remaining silent after the court decision and criticized what he described as attempts to shift responsibility to the ethics committee leadership.

Rep. Park Jeong-hoon, another party lawmaker, also condemned the move in a social media post, arguing that using the ethics committee to target political rivals had pushed the party toward what he called a constitutional crisis.

Rep. Cho Eun-hee, a member of a younger lawmakers’ group within the party called Alternative and Future, urged ethics committee chair Yoon to step down, saying the case showed the committee had operated in an arbitrary and biased manner.

Jang has not publicly commented on the court decision.

Party chief spokesperson Park Sung-hoon told reporters that Jang is currently focused on economic issues and preparations for upcoming local elections and has no plans to address the matter.

He also said the party is not considering additional legal action related to the court ruling.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260306010001731

The saga of “A Court of Thorns and Roses” will continue.

Author Sarah J. Maas announced on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast Wednesday that two new books will be released in the hugely popular romantasy series, ending a five-year drought since the fifth installment, “A Court of Silver Flames.” The sixth book will be published on Oct. 27, 2026, and the seventh on Jan. 12, 2027.

“It took me a while to find the right story and to be in the right headspace. And then, like what poured out of me was this and it poured out very quickly,” the author told Cooper. “The story that was finally ready to come out of me was big. Really, really big.”

Maas first teased the sixth book on Instagram in July, with the caption “First drafts DONE” on a video that drew nearly a million likes.

Maas did not share details about the book titles, cover art or whose point of view the stories will follow, but did mention that the character’s perspective was “one of the surprising things” for her while writing.

On Instagram, Maas thanked her fans for their patience, passion and “never letting the world fade.”

“I know how long you’ve waited. I know how much these characters mean to you. And I also know these stories deserve more than speed and deadlines. They deserve my best self. They deserve the right moment,” Maas wrote. “I’m so honored by the way you guys have always embraced Prythian as your own. I truly hope it feels like coming home for you like it did for me.”

The first installment of the “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series was released in 2015, but the franchise gained popularity on BookTok — a TikTok subcommunity dedicated to literature — during the COVID-19 pandemic. The books follow Feyre Archeron in the faerie lands of Prythian and her love story with the High Lord of the Night Court, Rhysand.

Maas has sold more than 70 million English copies between her interconnected “Throne of Glass,” “A Court of Thorns and Roses” and “Crescent City” series, according to her website. Maas is a major player in the romantasy — a portmanteau of romance and fantasy — genre, which has soared in popularity on TikTok.

“This is going to sound silly, and you probably won’t believe me, but just talking about things like legacy is beyond for me,” Maas told Cooper. “I’m still very much that girl in middle school or high school sneaking off to watch anime or drool over Legolas and getting to go play in these worlds in my head and do the thing that makes me come alive every day, that’s incredible.”

March 4 (Asia Today) — In U.S. history, only one president served four terms: Franklin D. Roosevelt. Facing the unprecedented economic crisis of the Great Depression, Roosevelt pushed forward sweeping New Deal legislation to revive the economy. With Congress controlled by his Democratic Party, the political environment initially seemed favorable.

However, Roosevelt’s New Deal soon faced a major obstacle: opposition from the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court. Several core New Deal laws were struck down as unconstitutional.

After winning re-election in 1936 with 61% of the vote, Roosevelt proposed a plan to expand the Supreme Court. Under the proposal, the president could appoint additional justices if sitting justices over the age of 70 years and six months did not retire. Because six justices were already over that age, the court could have expanded from nine members to as many as fifteen.

The proposal became known as “court packing” – an attempt to add justices favorable to the administration.

Opposition emerged from unexpected quarters. Not only Republicans but also members of Roosevelt’s own Democratic Party objected. Even Vice President John Nance Garner opposed the plan, warning it could create a dangerous precedent by allowing a president to reshape the judiciary for political purposes.

The proposal was ultimately withdrawn without a vote.

Another leader who reshaped the judiciary was Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. After taking power, Chávez expanded the number of Supreme Court justices and appointed individuals loyal to his government. Once the executive branch gained control over the judiciary, the court largely lost its ability to check the administration.

The consequences were severe. Venezuela’s political system deteriorated, and the power structure Chávez built has remained firmly in place under his successor, Nicolás Maduro.

In South Korea, a revision to the Court Organization Act aimed at expanding the number of Supreme Court justices passed the National Assembly on Feb. 28 with 173 votes in favor, 73 against and one abstention. The legislation now awaits promulgation by the president.

If enacted, the number of Supreme Court justices will increase from 14 to 26. President Lee Jae-myung would have the authority to appoint not only the 12 newly added justices but also replacements for 10 justices whose terms are set to expire, including Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae. In total, the president could appoint 22 of the court’s 26 justices during his term.

Expanding the number of justices is not simply a matter of increasing seats.

In Venezuela, Chávez filled the court with allies and during his tenure the Supreme Court issued virtually no rulings against the government. The judiciary effectively lost its role as an independent check on executive power.

Even Roosevelt – widely admired in American history – saw his attempt to expand the Supreme Court become one of the most controversial episodes of his presidency.

History offers clear lessons about the consequences of governments attempting to dominate the judiciary. Once the independence of the courts is compromised and the balance of powers between branches of government is weakened, any leader risks being viewed as moving toward authoritarian rule.

— Kim Chae-yeon, Asia Today

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the publication.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether the brokers who connect shippers with trucking companies can be held liable for irresponsible drivers.

The case, Montgomery vs. Caribe Transport II LLC, stems from a 2017 incident in which Shawn Montgomery, the petitioner, suffered significant injuries after a tractor-trailer hit his parked truck on the side of an Illinois highway.

A key part of the case is the interpretation of part of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994. It prevents state laws “related to a price, route or service” of trucking companies or brokers that connect them to shippers.

However, the statute also provides an exception, stating that it will “not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a state with respect to motor vehicles.”

The outcome could redefine liability standards for freight brokers and impact the broader transportation industry and interstate commerce landscape.

The driver of the tractor-trailer, Yosniel Varela-Mojena, had been involved in a crash months earlier, but was still employed by Caribe Transport II, an interstate trucking company. Freight broker C.H. Robinson recruited Caribe II to deliver a cross-country shipment. After the crash, Montgomery sued the broker for negligent hiring under Illinois state laws.

During the arguments, the two sides disagreed about whether the phrase “with respect to motor vehicles” includes brokers.

“We do believe that ‘with respect to motor vehicles’ is the crucial question here,” said Theodore Boutrous Jr., Caribe II’s counsel. He argued Congress did not intend for brokers to be included.

The attorney for the United States agreed that the two different sections of the law being discussed should, in context, be taken altogether to mean that brokers are not included in the realm of “motor vehicles.”

“Paragraph one uses the phrase ‘with respect to the transportation of property,’ [and] paragraph two [says] ‘with respect to motor vehicles,'” said Sopan Joshi, assistant to the U.S. solicitor general. “That seems like a conscious choice that Congress made to parallel the language, but change the noun to a much narrower noun.”

Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned Paul Clement, Montgomery’s counsel, on how brokers would address safety concerns if the court were to rule in favor of Montgomery and say that brokers are liable for consequences of negligent hiring.

For instance, Kavanaugh suggested drivers should be proficient in English to ensure safety. In April 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to enforce English-language requirements for commercial motor vehicle drivers.

“If you’re hiring drivers who can’t read the signs, that seems like a safety issue,” Kavanaugh said.

Clement said brokers could work with larger trucking companies with deeper pockets and check that they have adequate programs in place to test drivers for drug use, check on prior accidents and address other potential concerns.

“One of the reasons, I think, that you do want [brokers] to have some duty of care in these circumstances is this is a margin business,” Clement said. “If they don’t have any sort of incentive to internalize any of the cost of not asking the question, they really have no good reason to ask the question. They want the cheapest carrier.”

Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked Joshi to explain why he thought Congress did not think brokers should share responsibility for safety given the language in the 1994 law.

“The problem, I think, with the argument in the way that you’ve set it up is that you are assuming away any responsibility that a broker might have for safety,” Jackson said.

Joshi argued that Congress did not intend for brokers to have responsibility regarding safety and could have worded the law differently if it did.

“Congress has an entire chapter, several chapters, of the U.S. Code in Title 49 that deal with safety addressing carriers, safety of motor vehicles, driver qualifications, and they’re all addressed at carriers,” Joshi said. “Not a single one is addressed at brokers.”

Joshi acknowledged that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is “understaffed,” “overworked” and unable to review all of the federally registered carriers. However, he said Congress has provided ways of bringing consequences against carriers who violate federal requirements and regulations.

In his closing rebuttal, Clement told the court that 94% of registered carriers on the road do not have meaningful federal safety inspections — a number derived from 2021 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data.

He said state tort law could provide a “backstop to the federal system.”

“This case doesn’t have to be that hard. The thing that triggers state tort liability is an 80,000-pound motor vehicle. That’s what devastatingly injured my client,” Clement said.

The court is expected to issue a ruling by summer.

After years of ticketing complaints and frustrations, the trial for the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation is officially underway.

As part of its case, the DOJ has accused Live Nation of requiring artists to use its promotional services when they play a Live Nation-owned venue. Because so many venues are owned by the company, the government claims Live Nation’s alleged practices are anti-competitive.

Jury selection began Monday in a New York federal court and opening statements are expected Tuesday for the complaint first filed in 2024. Since then, the antitrust case against the Beverly Hills-based company has been streamlined — examining whether Live Nation uses illegal anti-competitive practices and whether the company and Ticketmaster should be broken up.

The legal proceeding is expected to last around a month, with Judge Arun Subramanian, who also presided over Sean Combs’ sentencing last year, at the helm.

Live Nation’s presidents Michael Rapino and Joe Berchtold, executives from competing companies like Anschutz Entertainment Group and Irving Azoff, the former Ticketmaster CEO, are expected to testify. Musicians like Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons and entertainer Kid Rock could also take the stand.

Key claims in the lawsuit

The original lawsuit led by a cadre of interested parties including the federal government, 39 states and the District of Columbia alleged that Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster have monopolies in various aspects of the live music industry, such as concert promotion, venue operations, artist management and ticketing services.

The lawsuit states that Live Nation manages over 400 artists and controls more than 265 venues in North America. Ticketmaster simultaneously controls around 80% of the primary ticket marketplace and is also increasing its involvement in the resale market.

Many of the large monopoly claims were thrown out during a pretrial hearing with Judge Subramanian last month, including an allegation that Live Nation’s industry power raises ticket prices and harms consumers.

The claim with arguably the greatest potential impact centers on whether Live Nation should own Ticketmaster. The two companies merged in 2010, a move that has frequently been considered controversial. Beyond the ownership of Ticketmaster, the DOJ claims Live Nation forces venues to sign exclusive contracts with Ticketmaster, barring the inclusion of other ticket vendors.

“For over a decade, Ticketmaster and Live Nation have promised reform, but meaningful competition has remained out of reach. The industry now stands at an inflection point: restore a competitive marketplace that supports innovation, or allow the status quo to continue narrowing options for American consumers,” Dustin Brighton of the Coalition for Ticket Fairness said in a statement.

“Yet the very competitors that could check this monopoly and restore balance are routinely boxed out by restrictive practices that limit innovation and reduce consumer options,” Brighton added.

Live Nation did not respond to a request for comment. When the complaint was first filed, the company called the claims “baseless.”

“Calling Ticketmaster a monopoly may be a PR win for the DOJ in the short term, but it will lose in court because it ignores the basic economics of live entertainment,” wrote Live Nation in a previous statement.

Next steps after the trial

If Live Nation loses the trial, the judge will decide how the company should be restructured, which could mean selling Ticketmaster to a competitor. Live Nation maintains the right to appeal such a decision, if it materializes, and take the matter to a higher court.

“If the court finds Live Nation violated the law, monetary penalties and behavioral commitments alone will not be sufficient,” Stephen Parker, executive director of the Independent Venue Association, said in a statement.

“The relief must be proportionate to the harm,” Parker added, “and that means structural separation of primary ticketing, resale ticketing, venue operation, national tours, advertising/sponsorship, and artist management must be seriously considered.”

Beyond the current DOJ trial, Live Nation is also facing a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission and a handful of class action lawsuits from groups of concertgoers.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court revived a San Diego judge’s order Monday and said parents have a right to know about their child’s gender identity at school.

The decision came in a 6-3 order granting an emergency appeal from lawyers for Chicago-based Thomas More Society.

They said the student privacy policy enforced in California infringes parents’ rights and the free exercise of religion.

“The parents object that these policies prevent schools from telling them about their children’s efforts to engage in gender transitioning at school unless the children consent to parental notification,” the court said. “The parents also take issue with California’s requirement that schools use children’s preferred names and pronouns regardless of their parents’ wishes.”

The judge’s injunction “does not provide relief for all the parents of California public school students, but only for those parents who object to the challenged policies or seek religious exemptions,” the justices added.

The six conservatives were in the majority, while the three liberals dissented.

Religious liberty advocates hailed the decision.

“Parents’ fundamental right to raise their children according to their faith doesn’t stop at the schoolhouse door,” said Mark Rienzi, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “California tried cutting parents out of their children’s lives while forcing teachers to hide the school’s behavior from parents. We’re glad the Court stepped in to block this anti-family, anti-American policy.”

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had put on hold a late December ruling by U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who held that the student privacy rules enforced by California school officials were unconstitutional.

“Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence,” Benitez wrote. “Teachers and school staff have a federal constitutional right to accurately inform the parent or guardian of their student when the student expresses gender incongruence.”

Escondido public schoolteachers Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, who described themselves as “devout Catholics,” sued in 2023, and they were later joined by parents in Pasadena and Clovis.

The Supreme Court’s ruling refers only to the parents.

The parents who brought the case “have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs,” the court said.

The court added: “Gender dysphoria is a condition that has an important bearing on a child’s mental health, but when a child exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria at school, California’s policies conceal that information from parents and facilitate a degree of gender transitioning during school hours.”

“This is a watershed moment for parental rights in America,” said Paul M. Jonna, special counsel at Thomas More Society. “The Supreme Court has told California and every state in the nation in no uncertain terms: you cannot secretly transition a child behind a parent’s back.”

The 9th Circuit had agreed with the state’s attorneys who said the judge had misstated California law.

“The state does not categorically forbid disclosure of information about students’ gender identities to parents without student consent,” they said in a 3-0 decision.

“For example, guidance from the California Attorney General expressly states that schools can ‘allow disclosure where a student does not consent where there is a compelling need to do so to protect the student’s wellbeing,’ and California Education Code allows disclosure to avert a clear danger to the well-being of a child.”

In their parents’ rights appeal to the Supreme Court, attorneys said school employees are secretly encouraging gender transitions.

“California is requiring public schools to hide children’s expressed transgender status at school from their own parents — including religious parents — and to actively facilitate those children’s social transitions over their parents’ express objection,” they told the court.

“Right now, California’s parental deception scheme is keeping families in the dark and causing irreparable harm. That’s why we’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene immediately,” Jonna wrote in his appeal. “Every day these gender secrecy policies stay in effect, children suffer and parents are left in the dark.”

California state attorneys had urged the court to put the case on hold while it is under appeal.

They said the judge’s order “appears to categorically bar schools across the State from ever respecting a student’s desire for privacy about their gender identity or expression — or respecting a student’s request to be addressed by a particular name or pronouns—over a parent’s objection.”

They said the order “would allow no exceptions, even for extreme cases where students or teachers reasonably fear that the student will suffer physical or mental abuse.”

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday urged the Supreme Court to limit the reach of the 2nd Amendment and deny gun rights to “habitual” users of drugs, including marijuana.

But most of the justices sounded skeptical. They questioned whether marijuana users are so dangerous they should not have firearms.

They noted too that President Trump signed a recent executive order to reclassify marijuana as lesser controlled substance.

“Why is this a test case?,” asked Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.

Federal laws on “controlled substances” and the 2nd Amendment created a conflict between gun rights and illegal drugs, but Gorsuch said marijuana users are not seen as a particular danger to the public.

“This is an odd case to have chosen” to resolve this legal dispute, he said.

Most of the justices said they were wary of ruling broadly to decide the legal status of other addictive drugs.

At issue was a provision of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which forbids gun possession by any person who “is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.”

The Justice Department says about 300 people per year are charged with a crime under this provision. They include Hunter Biden, the former president’s son, who was charged and convicted of lying about his drug addiction when he applied for a handgun permit.

The case brought together civil libertarians and gun rights advocates, who said millions of Americans could face criminal charges if the government’s view is upheld.

Deputy Solicitor Gen. Sarah Harris, representing the administration, said the court should uphold the law to deny guns to habitual users of unlawful drugs.

“Congress decided it is dangerous to mix firearms with controlled substances,” she said.

But Erin Murphy, a Washington attorney, said gun owners have not been notice that having a handgun at home could lead to a criminal prosecution if they sometimes use marijuana.

She said the court should hand down a “narrow” decision that spares her client.

Ali Hemani, a Texas man, was investigated by the FBI in 2020 for his family’s suspected ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terrorist group.

When the FBI obtained a warrant to search his home, agents found a Glock pistol and 60 grams of marijuana as well as 4.7 grams of cocaine in his mother’s room. Hemani said he used marijuana about every other day.

He was charged with illegal gun possession because he was an unlawful drug user.

But citing the 2nd Amendment, a federal judge and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the charges on the grounds that he was not under the influence of drugs at the time of his arrest.

Appealing, the Trump administration said the Supreme Court should uphold the 1968 law and deny guns to those who are “habitual users” of illegal drugs.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said this prosecution “falls well within Congress’s authority to temporarily disarm categories of dangerous persons — here, habitual drug users.”

From the nation’s founding, “habitual drunkards” could be prohibited from having guns and that historic principle supports denying guns to habitual drug users.

The American Civil Liberties Union defended Hemani said the government’s view threatens to broadly extend the reach of the criminal law.

“Like tens of millions of Americans, Ali Hemani owned a handgun for self-defense, keeping it safely secured at home. Like many of those same Americans, he also consumed marijuana a few days a week,” they said in their brief.

“According to the government, those two facts alone sufficed to make him an ‘unlawful user’ of a controlled substance who could face criminal penalties.”

March 1 (UPI) — The Supreme Court will determine whether people who regularly smoke marijuana will be allowed to own guns.

In United States v. Hemani, which goes before the Supreme Court on Monday, the Trump administration will attempt to uphold their prosecution of Ali Danial Hemani, who lives in Texas.

In 2022, FBI officials found that Hemani, who is a dual citizen in the United States and Pakistan, owned a pistol while in possession of marijuana and cocaine.

When Hemani said that he engaged in marijuana use approximately every other day, he was indicted, facing up to 15 years behind bars, but the charge was dismissed.

The 1968 law he allegedly violated was meant to disarm people who used drugs.

An appeals court stated that there was not enough “tradition of gun regulation” to “support disarming a sober person based solely on past substance usage,” USA Today reported.

“I think what the court is being asked to decide, and I would imagine the reason it took the case, is to give some more guidance about what kinds of people can be disarmed without violating the Second Amendment,” said Joseph Blocher, one of the Duke Center for Firearms Law, CBS News reported.

Fundamentally, that’s what this case is about,” Blocher said.

Feb. 27 (Asia Today) — Park Young-jae, chief of the National Court Administration, has offered to step down, just over 40 days after taking office, as the ruling party moves ahead with a package of judicial reform bills.

According to court officials, Park conveyed his intention to resign Thursday morning to Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae.

In a statement, Park said, “Considering recent discussions both inside and outside the judiciary, I concluded that stepping down would better serve the public and the courts.”

“I regret leaving at a time when the judiciary faces many challenges,” he added, expressing hope that discussions on reforming the judicial system would proceed “in a direction that benefits the public.”

His resignation is widely seen as linked to the National Assembly’s handling of three controversial reform measures: the creation of a new crime of “distorting the law,” the introduction of a system allowing constitutional complaints against court rulings and an increase in the number of Supreme Court justices.

The National Assembly has been processing the bills in plenary sessions since Monday. Lawmakers passed a revised version of the “distortion of law” bill Wednesday, narrowing its scope to criminal cases and adjusting the elements required to establish the offense. A separate bill to allow constitutional petitions against court decisions was expected to be voted on later Thursday.

Since his appointment last month as successor to former court administration chief Cheon Dae-yeop, Park had repeatedly voiced concerns about the reform package.

He warned that the proposed “distortion of law” offense could be abused and lacked sufficient clarity, raising potential constitutional issues. On the plan to allow constitutional complaints against court rulings, he said it risked plunging citizens into excessive litigation. Regarding the proposal to expand the number of Supreme Court justices, Park said it could weaken lower courts by drawing experienced judges away without a clear plan to fill the gaps.

Earlier this week, he convened an emergency meeting of court presidents nationwide, saying the three bills could bring fundamental changes to the courts’ role and directly affect the public. He stressed that the judiciary’s views should be reflected in the legislative deliberation process.

Park had also faced criticism from some lawmakers over his prior involvement in an appeal case related to President Lee Jae-myung under the Public Official Election Act before his appointment as court administration chief.

His departure comes as tensions between the judiciary and the legislature intensify over the scope and direction of judicial reform.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260227010008381

California’s landmark single-use plastic law is slowly being eroded by pressures within the state. Now legal attacks from outside threaten to kneecap it entirely.

Earlier this month, a federal district court judge in Oregon put parts of its single-use plastic law, which is similar to California’s, on hold while he decides whether it violates antitrust and consumer protection laws.

At the same time, 10 Republican attorneys general sent letters directly to companies that are taking part in plastic reduction campaigns, telling them to stop.

They threatened legal action against Costco, Unilever, Coca-Cola and 75 other companies for participating in the Plastic Pact, the Consumer Goods Forum and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. These efforts all include industry as an active partner in reducing plastics, but the letters say the companies are colluding against consumers “to remove products from the market without considering consumer demand, product effectiveness, or the cost and impact on consumers of a replacement product.”

Charges of corporate collusion and conspiracy are central to both cases.

Anti-waste advocates and attorneys well versed in packaging say the lawsuit and the letters to Costco and the other companies highlight vulnerabilities in several of California’s waste laws, including the seminal Senate Bill 54 — the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act. At issue are what are known as Extended Producer Responsibility laws.

These put the cost of cleanup and waste disposal on the companies that make materials — plastic, paint or carpet — rather than on consumers, cities and municipalities.

In 2024, a report from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta estimated that collectively, the state’s cities spend more than $1 billion each year on litter management. In 2023, 2.9 million tons of single-use plastic (or 171.4 billion pieces) were sold or distributed, according to one state analysis.

These producer responsibility laws emphasize the idea of “circular economy”: that the producer of a material must consider its fate — making sure it can be reused or recycled, or at least reduced.

The laws organize companies into entities, called Producer Responsibility Organizations (PROs), that generally oversee the management of the laws, set fees and collect them from members.

In the Oregon lawsuit, the National Assn. of Wholesaler-Distributors alleges a state-sanctioned product responsibility organization levied fees on trade group members that were onerous and opaque.

“Their fee structure was designed in secret by board members of the PRO,” said Eric Hoplin, president and chief executive of the group.

“Oregon is attempting to build a statewide recycling system by granting vast authority to a private entity to impose what amount to hidden taxes on businesses and consumers,” said Brian Wild, chief government relations officer for the wholesalers. “This law raises prices, shields decision-making from scrutiny, and advantages large, vertically integrated companies at the expense of smaller competitors.”

The group he references, the Circular Action Alliance, is the same one that oversees California’s single-use plastic law. Amazon, Colgate-Palmolive, General Mills and Procter & Gamble are part of it.

Others, however, say California’s laws are strong.

People shop at Costco in Glendale, Calif., on April 10.

(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

“Extended Producer Responsibility laws are public policies passed by legislatures and implemented with government oversight,” said Heidi Sanborn, the executive director and CEO of the National Stewardship Action Council, which advocates for the laws and a more circular economy.

She helped craft many of California’s waste laws, including SB 54 and was also involved in Oregon’s law. “They create clear, consistent rules so all producers contribute fairly to the cost of recycling and waste management,” she said.

Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), who wrote SB 54, said California’s plastic bill was designed to avoid violating antitrust laws.

CalRecycle declined to comment.

Some advocates actually hope the California laws fall. They include Jan Dell, of Last Beach Cleanup, an anti-plastic group based in Laguna Beach.

Extended Producer Responsibility “programs are based on the false premise that plastic is recyclable and are counterproductive because they green wash plastics and preempt proven solutions like strategic bans on the worst forms of plastic pollution (e.g. single use bags, six pack rings),” Dell wrote in an email.

Even those, however, can be problematic if they’re not enforced. Dell pointed to SB 54’s de facto ban on polystyrene, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2025.

“There is still Styrofoam stuff sold in 250 Smart and Final stores across the state!” she said. “It is totally noncredible and outrageous to claim that CalRecycle will ever enforce regulations on thousands of types of packaging when they can’t enforce the regulations on JUST ONE!”

Surprise ruling comes weeks after the media mogul was convicted and jailed for 20 years on national security charges.

A Hong Kong appellate court has overturned a fraud conviction against pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai in a surprise ruling weeks after his jailing for 20 years on a separate national security charge.

The ruling by the Court of First Instance on Thursday said that it allowed the appeal from Lai and ⁠another defendant in the case to proceed as a lower court judge had “erred”.

“[We] allow the appeals, quash the convictions and set aside the sentences,” the judges wrote.

The conviction that was overturned was from an earlier fraud case in which prosecutors alleged that a consultancy firm operated by Lai, 78, for his personal use had taken up office space that his now defunct media business – Apple Daily – rented for publication and printing purposes.

This was in breach of the terms of the lease Apple Daily signed with a government company and amounted to fraud, prosecutors said.

Lai had been sentenced to five years and nine months in prison in 2022 on the two fraud charges.

Former Apple Daily executive Wong Wai-keung was also charged in the same case and jailed for 21 months.

Judges at the Court of Appeal wrote in their judgement that while Apple Daily Printing had breached the lease terms by allowing the firm to use part of the space, it didn’t owe a duty to disclose its breach. They said even if it had owed and breached that duty, the same could not be attributed to Lai and Wong as a matter of law.

The trial judges’ “reasoning in concluding that the applicants were liable for the concealment as the prosecution contended is unsupportable”, they said.

Neither defendant appeared in court.

The ruling would slightly reduce Lai’s total prison time. The judges handling Lai’s national security case allowed the two sentences to be served concurrently for only two years, with the other 18 years to be added after the fraud sentence.

The lengthy sentence – over ‌two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one for publishing seditious materials – has raised concerns that he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Lai’s children have expressed hopes that a visit by United States President Donald Trump to Beijing could help secure the release of their father, a British citizen. The White House has confirmed that Trump will travel to China on March 31 through April 2 to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has said Lai was sentenced for exercising his right to freedom of expression and called on the Hong Kong authorities to release him on humanitarian grounds.

Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have defended Lai’s sentencing in the national security case, saying it reflected the spirit of the rule of law. They also insisted the security law is necessary for the city’s stability.

In a separate ruling on Thursday, a Hong Kong court sentenced the father of a wanted pro-democracy activist to eight months in prison under the city’s national security law for attempting to withdraw funds belonging to an “absconder”.

Kwok Yin-sang, 69, was found guilty on February 11 for “attempting to deal with, directly or indirectly, any funds or other financial assets or economic resources” after he tried to terminate his daughter Anna Kwok’s insurance policy and withdraw the funds.

He is the first person in the city to be charged and convicted of the offence.

He had pleaded not guilty and did not testify at the trial.

Feb. 25 (Asia Today) — Senior judges from courts across South Korea expressed “serious regret” Tuesday over a package of judicial reform bills advanced by the ruling party, warning of potential side effects and calling for broader consultation.

At an extraordinary meeting held at the Supreme Court in Seoul, court presidents reviewed the so-called three judicial reform bills – which include creating a new offense of “distortion of law,” introducing a constitutional complaint system against court rulings and expanding the number of Supreme Court justices.

The meeting was led by Court Administration Chief Park Young-jae and attended by chief judges from courts nationwide.

In a joint statement, the judges said fundamental changes to the judicial system could produce irreversible and significant consequences and should be subject to in-depth discussion through a consultative body that includes multiple institutions and experts.

Regarding the proposed “distortion of law” offense, the judges said the elements of the crime remain abstract even under a revised draft and warned that the scope of punishment could be overly broad. They cautioned that the measure could lead to a surge in complaints and accusations against judges, potentially undermining the swift administration of justice and the protection of citizens’ fundamental rights.

On the proposed constitutional complaint system against court rulings, the court presidents said it could delay the finality of judgments and subject litigants to repeated proceedings.

While acknowledging the need to increase the number of justices at the Supreme Court of Korea, the judges said adding a large number in a short period could weaken trial quality. They suggested first expanding the bench by four justices and reviewing the impact before considering further increases.

In opening remarks, Park said the bills would significantly affect the judiciary’s core role in safeguarding constitutional order and citizens’ rights and stressed that the courts’ views should be reflected in the legislative process.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260225010007747

Feb. 25 (UPI) — The Supreme Court‘s ruling to limit President Donald Trump‘s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs is forcing the administration to look to different statutory authorities to carry out its trade policy.

On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that the president could not use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to generate revenue through tariffs. While this caused Trump to seek another avenue to impose tariffs, landing on a global 15% rate through Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, his plans to use tariffs to negotiate trade deals have not changed.

The decision impacts a great deal of the tariffs Trump has enacted during his second term, Purba Mukerji, professor of economics at Connecticut College, told UPI. She said he has been using the IEEPA to give himself “flexibility” in trade negotiations since returning to the White House.

Trump expressed disappointment in the high court’s decision on Friday but Mukerji said it was expected by economists and is unlikely to disrupt the president’s broader economic policy. Tariffs on steel and aluminum, as well as those that target certain sectors, are likely to remain in place.

U.S. markets have not strongly reacted to the Supreme Court ruling in either direction. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by less than a point on Monday, only to rebound on Tuesday. The S&P 500 followed a similar path.

The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes has reflected some uncertainty, though concerns about AI displacing workers, global tensions and broader trade concerns may be factors as well.

“For the business leaders who make decisions, for importers and exporters and foreign countries that are dealing with us in their trade negotiations, this is not a surprise,” Mukerji said. “So I don’t think there will be any long-lasting consequences of this particular Supreme Court ruling, except to put the whole trade negotiations and trade policy on much firmer footing.”

Consumers hoping to see prices come down are unlikely to see significant changes from the ruling either, Mukerji added.

“As far as consumer prices go, I am encouraged by the fact that we didn’t see the rise in consumer prices that was expected in all sectors coming out of tariffs,” she said. “I don’t expect that to be coming down in the future. I don’t think much will change on the ground.”

A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York published earlier this month reports that 94% of Trump’s tariffs imposed last year were paid by U.S. entities and consumers during the first eight months of 2025.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported in December that it had collected $200 billion in tariff revenue. The largest portion of tariffs collected was on imports from China, a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond said. The report is based on data from the U.S. Treasury Department and Census Bureau.

We Pay The Tariffs, a coalition of more than 800 small businesses, is circulating a petition to call for the federal government to refund businesses due to the tariffs being ruled unlawful.

“A legal victory is meaningless without actual relief for the businesses that paid these tariffs,” Dan Anthony, executive director of the organization, said in a statement. “The administration’s only responsible course of action now is to establish a fast, efficient and automatic refund process that returns tariff money to the businesses that paid it.”

It remains unclear what will happen to the revenue the court ruled has been unlawfully collected. The Supreme Court did not address refunds for tariffs paid.

Mukerji said reimbursing collected tariffs poses some practical challenges. She explained that while the United States maintains a database of who has paid what tariffs, it often shows a delivery company, like FedEx, as the entity that made the payment, not the importer who in reality incurred the costs.

“So you kind of have to reimburse FedEx, who then turns around and reimburses the importer,” she said. “That is a mess because then we depend on the account keeping, say by FedEx, so it becomes more complicated there.”

There is also a matter of fairness as some wholesalers pass the costs of tariffs on to retailers, who then pass them on to consumers, Mukerji said.

Following the court’s decision, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration will look to Section 122, as well as Section 301 of the Trade Act and Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 tariff authorities to pursue “virtually unchanged tariff revenue” this year.

These statutes notably do not require congressional approval to impose tariffs like the Supreme Court affirmed the IEEPA did.

Section 122 gives the president the authority to impose a maximum 15% tariff for up to 150 days. Tariffs imposed under this authority would remain in effect into July at the latest.

Section 301 of the Trade Act gives the president the authority to impose tariffs in response to unfair trade practices, theft of intellectual property and discriminatory policies by trade partners. An investigation by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative must be completed to determine if there is a violation and allow for the use of Section 301 authority.

Trump’s broad tariffs on China were issued in 2018 under the authority of Section 301.

Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act allows the president to impose tariffs and other trade restrictions on imports if they are determined to threaten national security. This must be preceded by an investigation by the Commerce Department into the potential of a threat.

Trump used Section 232 to place tariffs on steel and aluminum during his first term.

While President Joe Biden peeled back on many of Trump’s policies when he came into office, he kept some trade policies like these largely intact and reinforced them through investigations.

For Section 301 tariffs, Biden allowed the required four-year review to continue throughout his term, ultimately raising tariffs on electric vehicles from China as well as some semiconductors, critical minerals and other sectors.

For Section 232 tariffs, Biden kept Trump’s tariff framework largely in place and continued to use the national security justification to keep tariffs as a point of negotiations.

“Biden actually made them stronger,” Mukerji said. “Most of them continued under Biden and they were extended and made even stronger. So these trade policies now have the strength of a solid foundation. These stand on the shoulders of investigations so they have this lasting power.”

The Supreme Court’s decision has caused some ongoing negotiations to shift or pause.

Earlier this week, a planned meeting with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington, D.C., was put on hold. The sides were planning to meet for three days to discuss an interim trade deal that would likely go into effect in April.

The European Union’s parliament canceled a vote to ratify a trade deal with the United States on Monday in response to the Supreme Court decision and Trump’s subsequent new tariffs.

“A deal is a deal,” the European Commission said in a statement on Saturday. “As the United States’ largest trading partner, the EU expects the U.S. to honor its commitments set out in the Joint Statement — just as the EU stands by its commitments.”

With the Supreme Court’s decision, the Trump administration and future administrations definitively have one less tool to use when imposing tariffs. The ruling does not mark an end to Trump’s tariff plans. It only clarifies his authority to impose tariffs. Meanwhile, the president is left to negotiate trade deals under greater scrutiny.

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, President Trump struck a confident and defiant tone — claiming huge victories tackling crime in major U.S. cities, securing the nation’s borders, deporting undocumented immigrants, bringing down costs for American households and commanding respect for the U.S. on the world stage.

“The state of our union is strong,” Trump said — at a time when he is significantly weakened politically, with a sluggish economy, shrinking support for his signature immigration crackdown and some of the lowest approval ratings of his political career.

Trump delivered his speech — the longest State of the Union on record — to a heavily divided Congress, receiving steady applause from Republicans and little other than stone-faced glares and momentary bursts of outrage and frustration from Democrats.

Trump employed his usual superlatives

Throughout his speech, Trump spoke in superlatives, as is common for him — mostly to project a rosy picture.

He said he “inherited a nation in crisis,” with a “stagnate economy” and a “wide open border,” with “rampant crime” and “wars and chaos” around the world, but that under his leadership, “we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before and a turnaround for the ages.”

“Our nation is back — bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before,” he said.

He said U.S. military forces had conducted one of the greatest military actions “in world history” when they entered Venezuela at the start of the year to depose and capture then-President Nicolás Maduro to face drug charges in the U.S.

He said U.S. enemies are now “scared.” He said the economy is now “roaring.” He said U.S. military and police are now “stacked,” and that the nation now has the “strongest and most secure border in American history,” with “zero” undocumented immigrants getting into the U.S. in the last nine months.

He said the country had seen the “biggest decline” in violent crime since 1900 despite reliable crime data not going back that far, that the military is setting “records for recruitment,” that natural gas production is at an “all time high,” and that more Americans are working than “at any time in the history of our country.”

He gave out two Medals of Honor, a Purple Heart, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom during his speech.

“We’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, ‘Please, please, please, Mr. President, we’re winning so much we can’t take it anymore,’” Trump said. “I say, ‘No, no, no, you’re going to win again, you’re going to win big, you’re going to win bigger than ever.”

Bullish on the economy, despite the polls

Trump was clearly working to convince Americans tuning in that the economy is strong.

Many Americans are unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy, according to polling. A recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that 57% of respondents disapproved of Trump’s managing of the economy, and 64% disapproved of his handling of tariffs.

However, Trump pushed a bullish message on his impact on the economy, saying that President Biden had given him “the worst inflation in the history of our country,” and he had driven it down.

“We are doing really well,” he said. “Those prices are plummeting downward.”

He cited his policy to end tax on tipped wages, said mortgage rates have come down, and argued that his policies would soon bring down healthcare costs for American families substantially — despite millions of people facing higher costs due to the elimination by Republicans of healthcare subsidies in their recent “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Trump suggested that Democrats ruined the economy and drove up costs for Americans. “You caused that problem,” he told those in the room, as Republicans stood and clapped. He also suggested Democrats had picked the issue of “affordability” as a political issue to focus on for nothing.

“They just used it — somebody gave it to them,” he said.

Flexing on the global front

Trump said that, in addition to increasing safety in the U.S., he had increased “security” for Americans abroad and U.S. “dominance” in the Western Hemisphere.

He claimed to have “ended eight wars” in nations abroad, a dubious claim that Democrats in the room dismissed.

He said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will go down as “the best ever.”

Trump called Venezuela a “new friend and partner” since the U.S. deposed Maduro, from whom the U.S. has since received some 80 million barrels of oil.

“As president I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever I must,” Trump said.

He praised the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear sites in June, said the country was warned not to build new weapons capabilities, and that the U.S. is in negotiations with Iran but hasn’t heard the “secret words” that they will never have a nuclear weapon.

Four from SCOTUS

Trump criticized the U.S. Supreme Court — but not heavily, as some had expected.

Just days prior, the court ruled that sweeping tariffs Trump had imposed on international trading partners — a signature piece of his economic policy — were illegal.

The 6-3 decision, in which Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and both Trump-appointed justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal-leaning justices in ruling against the president, riled Trump, who said he was pleased with the three conservative justices who voted in favor of upholding his tariffs — Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas — and upset with the six others.

He said those six were “barely invited” to observe the speech. He also suggested, without evidence, that the court was under foreign influence, and not ruling in the best interests of Americans.

On Tuesday night, four justices showed up for the speech, including three who had voted against the president: Roberts, as well as Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh and the liberal-leaning Elena Kagan. Not present were Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas, and the court’s two other liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Before his speech, Trump cordially shook the hands of all four justices present. During his speech, Trump said the ruling was “very unfortunate,” but that the good news was that many of the nations who had struck trade deals with the U.S. based on the tariffs would continue with those deals. The justices sat stone faced, their hands in their laps.

Big claims and promises

Trump accented his speech with several teased programs and calls on Congress to act.

He suggested that, in the future, tariffs he would impose on trading partners might replace the income tax system in the U.S.

He said his administration would begin to provide working Americans with retirement plans similar to those held by federal workers, with the government matching up to $1,000 in contributions to such plans by those Americans each year.

He alleged that Somali immigrant “pirates” have “pillaged” and “ransacked” Minnesota through fraud, that similar fraud is occurring in California and other states, and that he was launching a “war on fraud,” to be led by Vice President JD Vance.

He also called on Congress to pass a law banning states from granting commercial driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.

Shortly after, Trump asked everyone in the room to stand if they agreed with the statement that “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

Republicans stood and cheered. Democrats stayed seated. Trump told the latter they should be ashamed of themselves. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who was born in Somalia, screamed “Liar,” and “You have killed Americans!”

Times staff writer Ana Ceballos, in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday the U.S. Postal Service is shielded from being sued even if its employees intentionally fail to deliver the mail.

In a 5-4 decision, the court said Congress in 1946 had barred lawsuits “arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter,” and that includes mail that is stolen or misdirected by postal employees.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, said the law broadly bars complaints involving lost or missing mail.

“A ‘miscarriage of mail’ includes failure of the mail to arrive at its intended destination, regardless of the carrier’s intent or where the mail goes instead,” he said.

The ruliing is a setback but not a final defeat for Lebene Konan, a Texas real estate agent who is Black. She had sued contending white postal carriers refused to deliver her mail to two houses where she rented rooms.

She did not live at either property but said she stayed there “from time to time.”

She first complained to the post office in Euless, Texas, after she learned the mail carrier had changed the listed owner on a central postal box from Konan’s name to a tenant’s name.

After two years of frustration, she sued the United States in 2022 alleging the Postal Service had intentionally and wrongly withheld her mail. She sought damages for emotional distress, a loss of rental income and for racial discrimination.

Her claim of racial bias was dismissed by a federal judge and a U.S. appeals court and did not figure in the Supreme Court’s decision.

However, the 5th Circuit Court ruled she could go forward with her suit alleging she was a victim of intentional misconduct on the part of postal employees.

The Biden and Trump administrations urged the court to hear the case and to reject lawsuits against the Postal Service based on claims of intentional wrongdoing.

They said the 5th Circuit’s ruling could “open the floodgates of litigation.” They noted the Postal Service delivers about 113 billion pieces of mail per year and receives about 335,000 complaints over lost mail and other matters.

“We hold that the postal exception covers suits against the United States for the intentional nondelivery of mail,” Thomas said. “We do not decide whether all of Konan’s claims are barred.”

Joining Thomas to limit lawsuits against the Postal Service were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the law refers to a “loss” or “miscarriage” of the mail, which suggests negligence.

“Today, the court holds that one exception — the postal exception — prevents individuals from recovering for injuries based on a postal employee’s intentional misconduct, including when an employee maliciously withholds their mail,” Sotomayor wrote.

Joining her were Justices Elena Kagan, Neil M. Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

WASHINGTON — A trio of Senate Democrats is calling for the government to start refunding roughly $175 billion in tariff revenues that the Supreme Court ruled were collected because of an illegal set of orders by President Trump.

Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire are unveiling a bill on Monday that would require U.S. Customs and Border Protection to issue refunds over the course of 180 days and pay interest on the refunded amount.

The measure would prioritize refunds to small businesses and encourages importers, wholesalers and large companies to pass the refunds on to their customers.

“Trump’s illegal tax scheme has already done lasting damage to American families, small businesses and manufacturers who have been hammered by wave after wave of new Trump tariffs,” said Wyden, stressing that the “crucial first step” to fixing the problem begins with “putting money back in the pockets of small businesses and manufacturers as soon as possible.”

The bill is unlikely to become law, but it reveals how Democrats are starting to apply public pressure on a Trump administration that has shown little interest in trying to return tariff revenues after the Supreme Court announced its 6-3 ruling on Friday.

Because of the ruling, going into November’s midterm elections for control of Congress, Democrats have begun telling the public that Trump illegally raised taxes and now refuses to repay the money back to the American people.

Shaheen said that repairing any of the damage caused by the tariffs in the form of higher prices starts with “President Trump refunding the illegally collected tariff taxes that Americans were forced to pay.” Markey stressed that small business tend to have ”little to no resources” and a “refund process can be extremely difficult and time consuming” for companies.

The Trump administration has asserted that its hands are tied, because any refunds should be the responsibility of further litigation in court.

That message could put Republicans on the defensive as they try to explain why the government isn’t proactively seeking to return the money. GOP lawmakers had planned to try to preserve their House and Senate majorities by running on the income tax cuts that Trump signed into law last year, saying that tax refunds this year would help families.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNN on Sunday that it’s “bad framing” to raise the question of refunds because the Supreme Court ruling did not address the issue. The administration’s position is that any refunds will be decided by lawsuits winding their way through the legal system, rather than by a president who has repeatedly stressed to voters that he has the ability to act with speed and resolve.

“It is not up to the administration — it is up to the lower court,” Bessent said, stressing that rather than offer any guidance he would “wait” for a court opinion on refunds.

Trump has defended his use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose broad tariffs on almost every U.S. trading partner, saying that his ability to levy taxes on imports had helped to end military conflicts, bring in new federal revenues and apply pressure for negotiating trade frameworks.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model released estimates that the refunds would total $175 billion. That’s the equivalent of an average of $1,300 per U.S. household. But determining how to structure reimbursements would be tricky, as the costs of the tariffs flowed through the economy in the form of customers paying the taxes directly as well as importers passing along the cost either indirectly or absorbing them.

The president has previously claimed that refunds would drive up U.S. government debt and hurt the economy. On Friday, he told reporters at a briefing that the refund process could be finished after he leaves the White House.

“I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years,” Trump said, later amending his timeline by saying: “We’ll end up being in court for the next five years.”

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

Feb. 23 (UPI) — A meeting on trade negotiations between the United States and India this week has been postponed in light of Friday’s Supreme Court ruling on President Donald Trump‘s tariffs.

Officials representing the United States and India were scheduled to meet for three days in Washington, D.C., to discuss their interim trade deal but the meeting has been delayed, CNBC, the BBC and Hindustan Times reported.

India’s top trade negotiator, Darpan Jain, was slated to travel to the United States for the meeting.

India is under a 25% reciprocal tariff imposed by the United States. It was expected to be reduced to 18% as part of an interim agreement between the countries earlier this month. The sides have continued to discuss future trade plans virtually since reaching the interim deal.

The United States and India were slated to finalize the interim agreement in March with it likely to go into effect in April. The framework for the agreement noted that any changes to the deal would allow the other country to “modify its commitments.”

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump improperly applied the Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose a swath of tariffs. With those tariffs ruled unlawful, Trump announced a 15% global tariff, citing Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows a president to impose temporary tariffs.

The act allows for the president to impose tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days.

The Trump administration continues to consider new plans to continue with its tariff policy, exploring other legal routes, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a social media post.

“We will immediately shift to other proven authorities — Actions 232, 301, and 122 — to keep our tariff strategy strong,” Bessent wrote.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide on shielding energy producers from dozens of lawsuits seeking to hold them liable for costs of global climate change.

In the past decade, dozens of cities, counties and states, including California, have joined state-based lawsuits that seek billions of dollars in damages, and they have won preliminary victories in state courts.

But the Trump administration and the energy producers urged the Supreme Court to throw out all of these suits on the grounds they conflict with federal law.

“Boulder Colorado cannot make energy policy for the entire country,” lawyers for Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil said in their appeal. They urged the court to rule that “state law cannot impose the costs of global climate change on a subset of the world’s energy producers chosen by a single municipality.”

The justices will hear the case of Suncor Energy vs. Boulder County, but arguments will not be held until October.

The Biden administration had said the justices should stand aside while the lawsuits move forward in state courts, but the Trump administration filed a brief in September urging the court to intervene now.

They said the case has “vast nationwide significance,” and it should not be left to be decided state by state.

Lawyers for Boulder had urged the court against taking up the issue at an early stage of the litigation. “This is not the right time or the right case for deciding” whether municipalities can sue over the damage they have suffered.

But after weighing the issue for weeks, the court announced it will be hear the claims of the oil and gas industries.

Feb. 23 (UPI) — A Hong Kong court has rejected the appeals of 12 pro-democracy lawmakers and activists seeking to overturn their convictions in connection with a 2020 unofficial election primary that Beijing-aligned officials said was intended to undermine the city’s existing political system.

The dozen people are members of the so-called Hong Kong 47, who were sentenced in November 2024 to between 51 and 120 months in what is still the largest case so far brought under the city’s draconian National Security Law.

Eleven of the activists were convicted during the trial, while one pleaded guilty.

The court on Monday rejected their appeals. For some, they have already served their sentences and been released from prison.

Lawrence Lau Wai-chung, a barrister and democracy activist, had been acquitted in the case, but the government had appealed the decision. The court on Monday upheld that decision.

The defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit subversion under the National Security Law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in connection with their unofficial primary.

Held in July 2020 amid the fraying of democratic norms in Hong Kong, the activists used the primary to coordinate candidates and win a pro-democracy majority in the city’s legislature, which prosecutors said they planned to use to veto budget bills to force the resignation of Hong Kong’s chief executive.

The primary was held following protests that erupted in Hong Kong in 2019 against extradition that grew into a broader pro-democracy movement following allegations of excessive force used by police against the protesters.

In response to the protests, China imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong in July 2020, and police arrested dozens of pro-democracy figures on Jan. 6, 2021, with 47 charged with conspiracy to commit subversion in late February of that year.

The government accused them of seeking to use the legislature, under the guise of democracy, to threaten Hong Kong’s political system.

Their convictions were widely condemned by democratic nations, including Britain, Canada and the United States. Washington vowed to impose visa restrictions on officials responsible for their sentencing.

President Donald Trump has said he will raise global tariffs on imported goods to 15 percent after the United States Supreme Court struck down his previous trade measures.

The president announced his decision on Saturday, revising an earlier decision to impose a new 10 percent worldwide tariff after the Supreme Court ruling, which triggered immediate concern and responses from governments and markets.

The US top court’s ruling and Trump’s new tariffs have left countries grappling with the legal and economic fallout, raising questions about ongoing agreements, tariff reductions, and the legality of past duties.

Governments are now evaluating how the new levy will affect key industries, investment plans, and trade negotiations, while analysts warn that uncertainty could persist until legal and trade frameworks are clarified.

South Korea

In South Korea, one of the US’s closest allies, the presidential office, Blue House, has released a statement, saying the government will review the trade deal and make decisions in the national interest, casting a question mark over the agreement signed in November last year, which lowered tariffs from 25 to 15 percent in exchange for $350bn in cash and investments from South Korea in the US.

“For major South Korean companies in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors, the Supreme Court ruling has been positive: Even if Trump introduces the new 10 percent tariffs under Section 122, they would still pay a lower rate,” said Jack Barton, an Al Jazeera correspondent in Seoul.

“However, exporters of automobiles, more than half of which go to the US, remain subject to the 25 percent tariff, and steel exports are still hit with 50 percent duties under Section 232, which was not affected by the ruling.”

The South Korean government is expected to move cautiously. Exports account for 85 percent of South Korea’s gross domestic product, with the US as the second-largest market.

“Officials have indicated that rapid changes could jeopardise major agreements, including a recent multibillion-dollar shipbuilding deal with the US and other investments,” said Barton.

“While no definitive policy statement has been made yet, the Blue House has said that the trade deal will be under careful review and changes are likely.”

India

India has faced some of the highest US tariffs under Trump’s previous use of emergency trade powers. The president first imposed a 25 percent levy on Indian imports and later added another 25 percent on the country’s purchases of Russian oil, bringing the total to 50 percent.

Earlier this month, the US and India reached a framework trade deal. Trump said Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to stop buying Russian oil and that US tariffs would be lowered to 18 percent for India’s top exports to the US, including clothing, pharmaceuticals, precious stones, and textiles. Meanwhile, India said it will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a range of agricultural products.

According to political economist MK Venu, founding editor of Indian publication, The Wire, “Critics have argued New Delhi should have waited for the US Supreme Court decision before finalising the interim trade deal and even trade analysts previously connected with the government have maintained it would have been wiser to wait for the court verdict.”

Venu added that Trump was eager to finalise the trade deal, which includes a commitment to buy $500bn worth of new imports in defence, energy, and artificial intelligence (AI) from the US over the next five years.

While India, he said, welcomed the reduction of tariffs to 18 percent and the removal of penal duties on Russian imports, uncertainty remains over negotiations, as the Supreme Court ruling affects the legal basis of past tariffs.

“The Indian trade delegation is likely to wait for the final outcome of the Supreme Court verdict before proceeding with further negotiations, and countries around the world are expected to follow the court’s ruling rather than rush into trade agreements under legislation deemed unconstitutional,” he said.

China

China has reacted in a muted way to the Supreme Court ruling, with much of the country still on the Lunar New Year break.

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Beijing, said, “The Chinese embassy in Washington has issued a blanket statement, noting that trade wars benefit nobody, and that the decision is likely to be broadly welcomed in China, which has long been a primary target of Trump’s tariff policies.”

Since last April, he said, China has faced multiple layers of tariffs, including 10 percent on chemicals used in fentanyl production exported to the US and 100 percent on electric vehicles.

Analysts have estimated that the overall tariff level, about 36 percent, could now fall to about 21 percent, providing some relief to an economy already under strain from the COVID-19 pandemic, a prolonged property market crisis, and declining exports.

Shipments from China to the US have reportedly fallen by roughly a fifth over the past year.

“Beijing has sought to offset losses in the US market by strengthening trade ties with Southeast Asian nations and pursuing agreements with the European Union,” McBride said.

“The Supreme Court ruling may also create a more favourable atmosphere ahead of a planned state visit by Trump in early April, when he is expected to meet President Xi Jinping, potentially opening space for a reset in relations between the world’s two largest economies.”

Canada

Canada has welcomed the US Supreme Court’s decision but has pointed out that there are still some challenges ahead.

Regional leaders across the country, including those of British Columbia and Ontario, have signalled that the ruling is a positive step, according to Al Jazeera’s Ian Wood, reporting from Toronto.

However, Minister for Canada-US trade Dominic LeBlanc has said that significant work remains, as Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminium, softwood lumber, and automobiles have remained in place.

Meanwhile, Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford has added that while optimism has grown, tension has persisted over what Donald Trump will do next, Wood said.

Mexico

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said her government would be carefully reviewing the Supreme Court’s decision to assess its scope and the extent to which Mexico might be affected.

“The reality is that despite all we’ve heard over the last year about tariffs or the threat of tariffs, Mexico has actually ended up in quite a privileged, even competitive position, especially when compared to other countries,” said Al Jazeera’s Julia Gliano, reporting from Mexico City.

“We have to remember Mexico is the US’s largest trading partner, and the two countries, along with Canada, share a vast trading agreement that shields most products from the so-called reciprocal tariffs that President Trump announced.

“There were also punitive tariffs related to fentanyl and illegal immigration along the US border, which Mexico had managed to suspend while negotiations continued on those matters. Now the tariffs that Mexico has been subjected to on steel, aluminium, and car parts are not affected by today’s decision.”

So, the government here in Mexico, she said, is now standing by to see what the Trump administration comes up with next as it reels from today’s decision by the Supreme Court.

France

French President Emmanuel Macron hailed “the existence of checks and balances in democracies” after the Supreme Court’s decision, telling reporters at an event in the capital that his country wanted to continue exporting “under the fairest rules possible and not be subject to unilateral decisions”.

The country’s finance minister, Nicolas Forissier, told UK newspaper The Financial Times that the EU has the tools to hit back at the US over its tariff policy, suggesting a more combative approach.

Germany

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he expected the tariff burden on his country’s economy to be lower after the US Supreme Court ruling, raising the prospect of German companies recouping billions in refunds.

Flagging an upcoming visit to Washington, Merz told Germany’s ARD broadcaster that he would present a “coordinated European position” on the matter, pointing out that tariff policy is determined by the European Union rather than individual member states.

Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said Europe was strengthening its independence and sovereignty, building new trade relationships worldwide and concluding free trade agreements.

Limits of Trump’s tariff powers

A senior legal scholar told Al Jazeera that the US Supreme Court ruling marks a key moment in the legal battle over Trump’s tariffs, focusing on constitutional limits rather than economics.

Frank Bowman, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law, told Al Jazeera that the court has for the first time confronted what he called Trump’s broader challenge to the rule of law.

“This is a ruling that is important in several respects. The first, more broadly, is that this is the first time in the last year that the Supreme Court has stepped in and attempted to do something about Donald Trump’s generalised attack on the rule of law in the United States.

“And make no mistake, although tariffs certainly are about economics, what Trump has done over the last year is essentially to defy the law. And the Supreme Court happily decided that they had had enough and that they would say no. So, they’re not ruling on economic policy. They made a decision that the president simply exceeded his constitutional authority.”

United States President Donald Trump has doubled down on his new global tariffs, raising them from 10 to 15 percent, days after the Supreme Court struck down his sweeping levies on imports.

The move on Saturday came as businesses and governments around the world sought repayment for the estimated $133bn that Washington has already collected.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump announced the raise “effective immediately” and said the move was based on a review of the “ridiculous, poorly written and extraordinarily anti-American decision” issued by the Supreme Court on Friday.

By a six-to-three vote, the court had ruled that it was unconstitutional for Trump to unilaterally set and change tariffs, because the power to tax lies with the US Congress.

The court’s decision struck down tariffs that Trump had imposed on nearly every country using an emergency powers law, known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

Trump railed against the majority justices as “fools and lapdogs” in a news conference after the ruling, calling them an “embarrassment to their families”. He quickly signed an executive order – resting on a different statute, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 – to impose the blanket 10 percent tariff, starting on Tuesday.

The 15 percent hike announced on Saturday is the highest rate allowed under that law.

However, those tariffs are limited to 150 days unless they are extended by Congress. No president has previously invoked Section 122, and its use could lead to further legal challenges.

It was not immediately clear whether an updated executive order was forthcoming.

The White House said the Section 122 tariffs include exemptions for certain products, including critical minerals, metals and energy products, according to the Reuters news agency.

Lawsuits

Trump wrote on Saturday that his administration will continue to work on issuing other permissible tariffs.

“During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again,” he said.

The president has already said his administration intends to rely on two other statutes that permit import taxes on specific products or countries based on investigations into national ‌security or unfair trade practices.

Tariffs have been central to Trump’s economic agenda, which he has used as a tool to address a range of goals – from reviving domestic manufacturing to pressuring other nations to crack down on drug trafficking, and pushing warring countries toward peace.

He has also wielded tariffs, or the threat of them, as leverage to extract trade concessions from foreign governments.

Federal data shows the US Treasury had collected more than $133bn from the import taxes the president has imposed under the emergency powers law as of December.

Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, more than a thousand lawsuits have been filed by importers in the US to seek refunds, and more cases are on the way.

While legally sound, the path forward for such claims is not straightforward, especially for smaller firms, said John Diamond, director of the Center for Tax and Budget Policy at Rice University.

“It’s pretty clear that they will win in court, but it’ll take some time,” Diamond said. “Once we get the court orders in effect, I don’t think those refunds will be all that messy for larger firms. Smaller firms are going to have a much more difficult time getting through the process.”

But foreign governments are managing “the real mess”, Diamond said.

“What do you do if you’re Taiwan, or Great Britain, and you have this existing trade deal, but now it’s kind of been turned upside down?”

The US-Taiwan trade deal lowers the general tariff on Taiwanese goods from 20 percent to 15 percent, the same level as Asian trade partners South Korea and Japan, in exchange for Taipei agreeing to buy about $85bn of US energy, aircraft and equipment.

The US-United Kingdom deal imposes a 10 percent tariff on imports of most UK goods, and reduces higher tariffs on imports of UK cars, steel and aluminium.

‘Pickpocketing the American people’

After ⁠the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump’s trade representative, Jamieson Greer, told Fox News on Friday that those countries must honour their agreements ⁠even if they call for higher rates than the Section 122 tariffs.

Exports to the US from countries such as Malaysia and Cambodia would continue to be taxed at their negotiated rates of 19 percent, even though the universal rate is lower, Greer said.

Indonesia’s chief negotiator for US tariffs, Airlangga Hartarto, said the trade deal between the countries that set US tariffs at 19 percent, which was signed on Friday, remains in force despite the court decision.

The ‌ruling could spell good news for countries like Brazil, which has not negotiated a deal with Washington to lower its 40 percent tariff rate but could now see its tariff rate drop to 15 percent, at least temporarily.

Governments around the world have reacted to the Supreme Court decision – as well as Trump’s subsequent tariff announcement – with a mix of cautious optimism, trepidation and frustration.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would coordinate a joint European stance before talks with Trump in early March, while Hong Kong’s secretary for financial services and the Treasury, Christopher Hiu, described the situation surrounding Trump’s new tariff moves as a “fiasco”.

With the November midterm elections in the US looming, Trump’s approval rating on his handling of the economy has steadily declined during his year in office.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday showed 34 percent of ‌respondents ‌saying they approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 57 percent said they did not approve.

Democrats, who need to flip only three Republican-held seats in the US House of Representatives in November to win a majority, have blamed Trump’s tariffs for exacerbating the rising cost of living.

They were quick to condemn Trump’s new tariff threat on Saturday.

Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee accused Trump of “pickpocketing the American people” with his newly announced higher tariff.

“A little over 24 hours after his tariffs were ruled illegal, he’s doing anything he can to make sure he can still jack up your costs,” they wrote on social media.

California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, a Trump nemesis, added that “he [Trump] does not care about you”.