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A United States judge has denied a petition from former Democratic President Joe Biden arguing his right to privacy would be violated should recordings he made for a memoir be made public.

On Friday, US District Judge Dabney Friedrich, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled that the recordings could be released to the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank.

The Trump administration had already authorised the release of the recordings and transcripts, which Biden made while out of public office with his ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer.

Together, they released the 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.

In her 26-page ruling, Friedrich acknowledged that Biden was likely to suffer some reputational damage as a result of the recordings being released.

Biden has long been scrutinised about whether his advanced age impeded his ability to serve as president during his term from 2021 to 2025. Previously, he served as vice president from 2009 to 2017.

“The Court agrees that — on these facts involving the frank words of a public figure in his home — disclosure of the Zwonitzer materials risks irreparable harm to Biden’s privacy interests and his reputation,” Friedrich wrote.

But she concluded that such harms may not be irreparable, and they do not supersede the public interest in releasing the files.

“Biden has not identified any public harm that would arise absent an injunction in this case,” Friedrich said. “The harm to Biden’s diminished privacy interest is outweighed by the public’s interest in the Zwonitzer materials.”

Biden filed a lawsuit arguing that the Department of Justice had a duty to protect the private information it collects during criminal investigations.

He petitioned the court for an injunction to prevent the Heritage Foundation, which has supported Trump, from receiving the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” Biden’s lawyers have said in his court filings.

The recordings and transcripts came to be in the Justice Department’s possession in 2023, during Biden’s own term.

The Justice Department at the time had appointed a special counsel, lawyer Robert Hur, to independently investigate Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents while out of office.

A similar investigation, helmed by a second special counsel, Jack Smith, resulted in a short-lived criminal indictment against Trump. Hur, however, concluded that no criminal charges were “warranted” against Biden.

Part of his rationale was “a shortage of evidence”. But another part of his reasoning was that, if any charges were brought to trial, jurors were likely to perceive Biden “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

As part of his investigation, Hur had obtained Biden’s recordings and transcripts with Zwonitzer in order to evaluate whether the Democrat had misused information from his time as president for his memoir.

But he also cited them as evidence to conclude that Biden “appeared to have significant limitations” in his memory.

The scrutiny over Biden’s age increased substantially during his 2024 bid for re-election. At a June 2024 presidential debate against Trump, Biden appeared to drift off topic and make nonsensical statements.

At one point, he issued the non sequitur, “We finally beat Medicare,” referencing a government health insurance programme for the elderly and those with disabilities.

Biden subsequently dropped out of the race, and his replacement, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, lost to Trump after a curtailed campaign. The Democrat, however, has consistently denied that he was unable to perform his duties as president.

Trump, meanwhile, has cited Biden’s age and mental acuity as a reason to undo the Democrat’s actions while in office.

He has also called on the Justice Department to investigate whether any officials attempted to conceal any health conditions Biden may have had while president.

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee has also sought to obtain the Zwonitzer files for a similar investigation.

Biden was 82 years old by the time he left office in January 2025, making him the oldest sitting president in US history. Trump will be slightly older by the end of his tenure, should he complete his second term.

The Democrat is expected to appeal Friday’s decision to release the recordings.

A federal judge on Friday rejected former President Biden’s attempt to block the Trump administration from releasing to a conservative group the recordings that Biden made with a ghostwriter.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich found that the public interest in the material outweighed whatever privacy rights Biden had.

The recordings were obtained by special counsel Robert Hur in the course of his investigation into whether Biden improperly retained classified documents while a senator and vice president. Republicans in Congress demanded them after Hur declined to file charges against the then-president.

Biden’s Democratic administration refused to turn over the 2017 recordings and transcripts, leading congressional Republicans to hold his attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt.

President Trump’s Department of Justice authorized the release of the materials. That led Biden last month to sue to seek to block the release to a staffer at the conservative Heritage Foundation who had formally requested the records.

Biden objected to the release as an invasion of privacy, saying the recordings included him discussing sensitive personal matters such as the death of his older son, Beau Biden. But Friedrich found that the administration redacted that material.

The judge wrote that the materials “contain no mention of highly sensitive topics like illness or death, nor do they mention any non-public persons, including members of Biden’s family.”

Representatives for Biden did not immediately comment but asked Friedrich to bar release of the material while they appeal her decision. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Friedrich was nominated by Trump, a Republican, in 2017.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press.

A bill to tighten California’s rules on mental health diversion — a process that allows certain criminal defendants to avoid prison for arrests linked to mental illness — is now on the verge of being signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Assembly Bill 46, authored by Stephanie Nguyen (D-Elk Grove), gives judges much wider discretion to decide whether a defendant should be eligible for diversion. Under the current law, judges must presume mental illness was a factor if a defendant with a legitimate diagnosis seeks diversion. In order to defeat a diversion request, the burden is on prosecutors to prove mental health issues were not a factor in the alleged crime.

The new measure — which moved through the state Senate with no opposition last month and is expected to clear the reconciliation process in the Assembly this week — also gives judges more latitude to block diversion if a defendant poses “a risk of danger to public safety,” as opposed to the higher “unreasonable risk” standard that was passed in 2018. Defendants charged with attempted murder will no longer be eligible for diversion under the new bill.

Proponents of more inclusive diversion policies argue that many people with mental health issues are locked up in California prisons and jails, where they are unable to receive the help they need.

The pending bill’s supporters say its changes are designed to address cases like that of Gilberto Guttierrez, a Los Angeles County man who has been accused of attacking his wife four times over the last 12 years.

In 2014, a misdemeanor domestic violence allegation landed Guttierrez on probation. Three years later, Guttierrez was ordered to take anger management classes after prosecutors brought felony domestic violence charges against him. Last February, prosecutors allege, he carried out a “brutal attack” on his wife with a glass bottle, leaving her with “extensive injuries,” according to a motion filed in his current criminal case. That time, the court filings show, Guttierrez threatened to kill her.

Despite objections from prosecutors and L.A. County probation officials, a judge granted a request to give Guttierrez mental health diversion last July.

A month later, prosecutors allege, he beat his wife until she fell into a coma.

When it passed in 2018, the original mental health diversion law was heralded as a needed off-ramp for defendants suffering from serious psychological issues — offering treatment to those who need it rather than a prison cell. But with voters statewide souring on progressive criminal justice reforms, lawmakers have sought to make it harder for defendants to qualify.

“AB 46 preserves diversion as an important pathway to care while ensuring judges have a clearer and more workable standard when serious public safety concerns are present,” Nguyen said in a statement last month.

Under the existing rules, defendants who successfully argue for pretrial mental health diversion spend two years undergoing a court-appointed treatment plan instead of facing a conviction. Prosecutors must prove the defendant is likely to commit a serious violent crime, a so-called “super strike,” again in order to block diversion.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, one of many prosecutors statewide who supported Nguyen’s bill, said that has been a nearly impossible standard to overcome.

“Guttierrez being your example: Judge, if you release him, he’s going to probably beat his wife up again, and if he does this time, he could kill her. But for the grace of God, he hasn’t killed her up until now,” Hochman said.

He added that due to the judge’s decision to grant diversion in Guttierrez’s case, “you have three little kids who likely won’t have their mom for the rest of their life.”

A spokesperson for Newsom did not respond to a request for comment about his plans for the legislation.

A 2020 Rand Corporation study found 61% of the nearly 5,500 mentally ill inmates housed in Los Angeles County at that time were “likely appropriate candidates” for diversion.

But a number of troubling incidents have led to pushback against the existing diversion law.

In a letter supporting Nguyen’s bill, the California District Attorneys Assn. rattled off a list of cases in which prosecutors say the law’s shortcomings had deadly consequences. They pointed to a case in Sacramento where a defendant stabbed a 40-year-old man to death after he was granted diversion in a robbery case. In Santa Clara, the letter said, a woman on mental health diversion for carjacking proceeded to steal another car and slam it into an outside table at a restaurant, leaving one person dead and others injured.

Nikhil Ramnaney, a former federal prosecutor who now works as a defense attorney in Southern California, said thousands of people benefit from mental health diversion every year without reoffending and chastised the bill’s supporters for cherry-picking horrible — but rare — cases to muster support for their proposal.

“This is their most effective strategy because it works. Pick up the most visceral, outrageous anecdotes and then repeat them and amplify them as much as possible,” he said. “That’s how we get bad policy.”

Defense attorney Alexandra Kazarian said California politicians are repeating age-old mistakes of trying to arrest their way out of a mental health crisis.

“Without this option, you throw them into prison for a couple of years, they get out, and nothing changes. I’ve seen real change in my clients who have been granted these and who have just been on horrific mental health breaks and who, two years later, fully have their lives together,” she said. “You’re always going to be able to find an outlier. You’re always going to be able to find somebody who ruins what is a great project or program.”

Hochman said the modified mental health diversion law is a “rebalancing” of the scales in California after years of attempts to lower the state’s overcrowded jail populations affected public safety.

“In the end, I’m not looking for pendulum swings,” he said. “I think we did have a pendulum swing when these laws were being passed and people weren’t really discussing, or at least understanding, the public safety impact of laws that seem on their surface to be very — I wouldn’t even use the word ‘progressive,’ but very helpful to people who are suffering.”

Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s Christmas Day purchase of an exclusive Audemars Piguet watch has landed the billionaire boxer in court facing two felony charges alleging theft and intent to defraud, according to Clark County, Nev., court records.

Mayweather wrote a check for $200,000 to Las Vegas high-end consignment store Gold and Beyond for the timepiece on Dec. 25, 2024. Prosecutors filed a criminal complaint on April 27 of this year and the court ordered Mayweather to appear before a judge. His lawyer did so at a preliminary hearing Monday.

The charges are theft with a value of $100,000 or greater and passing a check of $1,200 or greater with intent to defraud. Mayweather did so “knowing that the check would not be paid when presented,” according to the complaint.

Mayweather, 49, could face a prison term of one to 20 years and $15,000 in fines if found guilty of felony theft. The fraud charge carries a sentence of one to four years in prison and a $5,000 fine plus restitution.

Audemars Piguet, which has operated in the quaint Swiss village of Le Brassus for 150 years, is considered a more luxurious and prestigious brand than Rolex, belonging to the “Holy Trinity” of Swiss watchmaking alongside Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin.

Luxury watch expert Prestige Time explains why a watch enthusiast would become enamored by the brand: “Buy an Audemars Piguet if you enjoy complications, the kind you find in a really high-end mechanical watch. We’re talking about tourbillons, perpetual calendars, moon phase, retrograde, minute repeaters, chronographs, dual time zone/GMT’s, and more mechanical features that offer more function than just to tell you the time.”

Now the man nicknamed “Money” is on the clock to resolve a high-dollar dispute that could result in a criminal conviction. Mayweather’s next court appearance is Sept. 17. Meanwhile, lawyers representing both sides made their cases in court filings and to the judge.

Mayweather has had a longstanding business relationship with Gold and Beyond, his attorney Adrian Lobo told ESPN in a statement on Tuesday night. Lobo appeared perturbed that the shop’s owner brought the claim to the Clark County District Attorney instead of filing a civil suit.

“This matter does not belong in the criminal courts,” Lobo wrote in the statement. “And Mr. Mayweather looks forward to being vindicated through the court proceedings.”

Gold and Beyond attorney Marc Cook said his client exhibited patience with Mayweather, giving him ample time to pay for the watch. The complaint was filed with the Clark County District Attorney’s office in February.

“The reason for the delay is that my guy trusted Mayweather and was trying to give him every opportunity to make good on that,” Cook said in a statement to ESPN. “And it got to the point where he wasn’t getting responses and wasn’t getting money for a watch that Mayweather had for well over a year.”

Given Mayweather’s reported wealth, bouncing a check might seem perplexing. He is considered the richest boxer of all time, with roughly $1.1 billion in career earnings and an estimated net worth of $400 million.

He owns three of the top-five largest payouts in boxing history, making $275 million for an exhibition with UFC fighter Conor McGregor in 2017, $250 million for the “Fight of the Century” against Manny Pacquiao in 2025, and a then-record $80 million payout for a bout with Canelo Alvarez in 2013.

Mayweather, whose career record is 50-0, reportedly has increased his net worth since last fighting nine years ago. He represents some of the world’s top boxers through Mayweather Promotions and owns roughly 75 gyms around the country along with real estate holdings.

However, Mayweather is reportedly beset by financial woes as well. He filed a $340 million lawsuit against former broadcast partner Showtime, alleging the television network concealed and diverted his earnings. Also pending is a $175 million lawsuit against former associates, claiming they defrauded him and misappropriated his funds, jewelry, and private jet.

Mayweather is scheduled to face kickboxer Mike Zambidis in a full-contact exhibition June 27 in Athens, Greece, and a rematch with Pacquiao is set for September in Las Vegas. However, an exhibition against Mike Tyson scheduled for last April was canceled because Mayweather was notified by the IRS that it intended to revoke his passport over a delinquent tax debt of $7.3 million, according to Ring Magazine.

ATLANTA — A federal judge who was disciplined after an investigation found she had sex with a police officer in her chambers and attended a partisan event, then lied when confronted with the allegations, has recused herself in a fight over Georgia election records after the U.S. Department of Justice raised questions about her ability to be impartial.

The Justice Department sought to remove U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross from the case, citing her reported attendance at an event for Fulton County Dist. Atty. Fani Willis, who prosecuted President Trump. Ross filed an order Tuesday recusing herself, writing that she was doing so “out of an abundance of caution for the potential perception of bias.”

The Justice Department had sued Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for seeking an unredacted statewide voter list, and Ross was presiding over that case.

“Both the Trump administration’s present and Willis’s past efforts have become heavily polarized,” Ross wrote, explaining that she “cannot discount” that an objective observer might interpret her attendance at an event sponsored by Willis’ campaign as support for the district attorney’s position, even if she only went to see former colleagues.

Ross received a “private reprimand” after a court investigation found that she had sex in the courthouse with a high-ranking uniformed police officer within earshot of staff, attended a partisan event and then initially lied to deny the allegations.

The investigation report says Ross went to an event hosted by a district attorney’s campaign. The judge said the district attorney had been a friend since 1999 and acknowledged having gone to the a private mixer held on the sidelines of the event to visit with former colleagues in the district attorney’s office.

Ross previously worked in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and overlapped there with Willis there before Willis was district attorney.

Willis in August 2023 obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. That case was ultimately dismissed in November.

Brumback writes for the Associated Press.

MADISON, Wis. — A federal judge on Tuesday declined to overturn a Wisconsin judge’s obstruction of justice conviction for helping a man evade immigration officers who showed up at a courtroom looking to detain him.

The case against Hannah Dugan, who resigned from the Milwaukee County Circuit Court following her conviction, was an early test of how the courts would respond to President Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

Trump allies branded Dugan as an activist judge, while her supporters said she was unfairly targeted.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman postponed Dugan’s sentencing June 3 to consider arguments about whether he should overturn her conviction. But in his ruling Tuesday, Adelman said Dugan’s conviction would stand. He did not immediately set a sentencing date.

“The court’s decision is wrong,” Dugan’s legal defense team said in a statement.

Questions about a similar case in Virginia

Dugan’s attorney had argued that her conviction in helping Eduardo Flores-Ruiz leave the courthouse was invalid and should be overturned. He said that was necessary because a federal appeals court in April overturned a key Virginia immigration case that the judge and prosecutors had cited in Dugan’s case.

In the Virginia case, an immigrant who was in the country illegally was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and later escaped. He was recaptured and indicted on a charge of obstructing a pending immigration proceeding.

The federal appeals court found that the ICE action did not constitute a “pending proceeding,” as is required under the federal obstruction law.

Dugan’s attorneys argue that she should not have been charged because there was no “pending proceeding” against the immigrant in her courtroom being sought by ICE agents, only a warrant filed for his arrest. The filing of a warrant does not constitute a “proceeding” under the law, Dugan’s attorneys argued.

Prosecutors countered that the facts in the Virginia case are different and don’t apply to Dugan’s. They also argued that other cases support Dugan’s conviction.

Adelman said the attempted arrest of Flores-Ruiz did count as a “pending proceeding,” in part because it was a planned and targeted operation rather than an arrest resulting from a random encounter.

“Defendant argues that ICE was acting as a law enforcement agency here,” Adelman wrote. “But this ignores the fact that, unlike, say, the FBI, ICE can issue its own warrants and adjudicate and effectuate a removal, as it did with Flores-Ruiz, without the involvement of a court. This makes a difference.”

Dugan faces 5 years in prison, but will likely get probation

Dugan, 67, faces up to five years in prison after a jury convicted her Dec. 19, 2025, but she is unlikely to be sentenced to time behind bars. Federal sentencing guidelines generally call for probation for defendants like her, who have no criminal history and are convicted of a nonviolent crime.

Dugan resigned from her position as a Milwaukee County circuit judge two weeks after her conviction amid threats of impeachment from Republican state lawmakers. She had been a judge for nine years.

The Trump administration brought the case against Dugan as the president pressed ahead with his sweeping immigration crackdown. Trump’s administration and his allies branded Dugan as an activist judge, while Dugan’s attorneys said she was being unfairly targeted and argued, unsuccessfully, that she was immune from being charged because she was a judge.

Dugan’s case marked the first time that a state judge in Wisconsin went to trial on charges of obstructing immigration agents. She was acquitted of concealing an individual to prevent arrest, which is considered a misdemeanor.

Dugan helped an immigrant wanted by ICE agents

On April 18, 2025, immigration officers went to the Milwaukee County courthouse after learning Flores-Ruiz had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

Dugan confronted agents outside her courtroom and directed them to the chief judge’s office because she told them their administrative warrant wasn’t sufficient grounds to arrest Flores-Ruiz.

After the agents left, she led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. A week later, FBI agents arrested Dugan in the courthouse, leading her outside in handcuffs.

Flores-Ruiz was deported in November.

Bauer writes for The Associated Press.

A federal immigration judge has granted asylum to a woman orphaned in Iran in the 1970s and adopted by an American war veteran, whom immigration officials threatened this year with deportation to the country with which the U.S. is now at war.

Judge Andrew Fishkin’s ruling probably ends a months-long ordeal for the California woman, one of thousands adopted from abroad who were never granted citizenship because of bureaucratic loopholes between adoption and immigration law.

The woman has lived in the United States since she was adopted by American parents as a toddler and has no criminal record. The Associated Press is not naming her because she worries her legal situation remains tenuous as the administration has time to appeal. A federal judge has allowed her to use a pseudonym, “Ms. S,” in her challenge to the government’s determination of her immigration status.

The woman received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security in February that ordered her to appear for removal proceedings, saying she is subject to deportation because she overstayed her visa in March 1974 at 4 years old.

The woman, 56, described what came next as a terrifying and humiliating few months.

She grew up in a Christian, military family on a farm in Wisconsin and was taught to be patriotic. But the documents she received from the government described her as an “alien;” some said she did not understand English, which is the only language she speaks.

Immigration officials told her she was being arrested, but was released and tracked with an ankle monitor. She bought new pants to try to hide it and taught herself not to cross her legs in work meetings, terrified it would threaten the corporate job in healthcare she’s held for almost two decades.

They fingerprinted her and took her DNA. She said she was obviously weeping in the mug shot they snapped of her.

She prepared herself to be detained: She put her bills on autopay and gave her friends a key to her home.

Her lawyer, Emily Howe, said the government had the power to agree she is an American citizen.

“Instead they treated her like a terrorist, like she was the worst of the worst criminals,” Howe said. “It felt very Big Brother, very Orwellian.”

The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the record on an individual case.

The Associated Press profiled the woman in 2024 as part of a story about how many international adoptees were left without citizenship because their American adoptive parents failed to naturalize them.

The woman’s parents were living in Iran, where her father was working for a U.S. government contractor, in the 1970s. He was retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel. He’d been held for years a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II.

The couple found the toddler at an orphanage and returned to the U.S. with her in 1973 and soon completed the adoption. At that time, parents had to separately naturalize adopted children. The woman’s parents have since died.

She didn’t learn she hadn’t been naturalized until she applied for a passport at 38 years old. She still doesn’t know how the oversight happened. She searched her father’s papers and found a letter from a lawyer, dated 1975, that said he was working with immigration officials, “it appears this matter is concluded,” and billed her father for his services.

She filed a federal lawsuit this month trying to prohibit the government from removing her and forcing it to grant her citizenship.

She has long believed she should be considered a U.S. citizen: She has a Social Security card, and a driver’s license and has been legally allowed to work and pay taxes for decades. It’s only the immigration agency that denies she is a citizen. She suspects her paperwork was lost, probably when militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Fishkin seemed to agree: He wrote in his ruling that documents from that embassy are not available to her or to the U.S. government. He declared her a refugee, entitled to work in the U.S. His ruling puts the woman on a pathway to being recognized as a citizen.

She’d felt hopeful, she said, when she learned her court date before Fishkin was scheduled for her late father’s birthday. She always felt like she needed to protect not only herself but also her father’s legacy. He was a conscientious military official, she said, who would not have knowingly allowed such a glaring oversight that left his daughter in legal limbo.

Galofaro writes for the Associated Press.

The lawsuit originally filed in September focused on broader alleged misappropriation of confidential information.

A United States federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI that accused rival Sam Altman’s OpenAI of stealing trade secrets for chatbots.

US District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco said on Monday that xAI failed to show that OpenAI induced former xAI senior engineer Xuechen Li to divulge confidential information related to its Grok chatbot, or that OpenAI engineers knew Li might have disclosed any.

Lin dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, saying it would be “futile” to continue. She dismissed an earlier version in February. The lawsuit originally filed last September focused on broader alleged misappropriation of confidential information, including source code, by xAI employees who left for jobs at OpenAI.

Monday’s decision is Musk’s second legal loss against OpenAI in four weeks.

On May 18, a federal jury ruled against Musk, the world’s richest person, in his $150bn lawsuit accusing OpenAI and Altman of “stealing a charity” by betraying the company’s original mission as a nonprofit to enrich themselves.

The xAI business is part of Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI company SpaceX.

Lawyers for xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. OpenAI and its lawyers did not immediately respond to similar requests.

Discussing past work

The amended complaint focused on a presentation that Li gave while OpenAI was recruiting him.

Musk’s company said OpenAI wanted secrets related to the July 2025 release of Grok 4, knowing its forthcoming update to ChatGPT “could not compete” on complex reasoning, and because OpenAI was “lagging” in reinforcement learning and post-training techniques that Li understood.

But the judge said asking job candidates to discuss their prior work was routine, and one could not infer that OpenAI pushed Li to leak anything confidential.

“To hold otherwise would potentially expose employers to liability any time they inquire about a candidate’s past work,” Lin wrote.

OpenAI has said Li never worked for the company and that it never acquired xAI secrets.

In seeking dismissal, lawyers for OpenAI wrote: “OpenAI does not need or want anyone’s trade secrets, especially not from xAI, which is failing in the marketplace and hemorrhaging talent.”

Li is being sued separately by xAI and has denied wrongdoing.

June 15 (UPI) — A judge who is turning 99 years old on Saturday is seeking to have her suspension lifted but the U.S. Supreme Court is passing on taking up her case.

The high court decided on Monday to decline Pauline Newman’s request for a hearing to lift her suspension. She is the oldest active federal judge but has been suspended for refusing to submit to mental fitness testing.

Newman argued that she is fit to serve, despite her age and the suggestion otherwise from her colleagues. She filed a lawsuit against her colleagues for suspending her with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, alleging that her suspension is unconstitutional.

“The petition presents questions concerning crucial constitutional and statutory aspects of lifetime tenure and judicial independence, especially the availability of judicial review for intra-branch infringements on judicial service,” Newman’s attorneys said in a filing to the Supreme Court.

Newman is indefinitely suspended from taking up new cases. She was suspended three years ago and told by the court’s chief judge, Kimberly Moore, that she may either retire or be given senior status, a type of semi-retirement for judges that reduces their caseload.

Newman has been on the bench for the U.S. Court of Appeals’ Federal Circuit since 1984. The Federal Circuit was established in 1982.

Newman has been called the “Great Dissenter” for writing more than 300 dissenting opinions throughout her career.

In her filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Moore said Newman experienced health issues in 2021 that made her “unable to discharge the duties of an active circuit judge.” She adds that Newman fainted following an argument and was unable to walk in 2022. Newman then agreed to reduce her caseload.

After convening with a special committee of two Federal Circuit judges, Moore and the committee ordered Newman to undergo neurological and neuropsychological testing and for her to submit medical records.

Newman shared expert reports from two doctors but the committee recommended that she be barred from hearing any cases for one year, subject to renewal. In September 2023, the court approved the recommendation and she has remained under suspension since.

June 12 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday extended an order to indefinitely block President Donald Trump‘s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund because she does not trust the administration’s word that it will not attempt to enact it.

The fund was announced last month and meant to compensate people the Trump administration alleged were targeted by the Biden administration, including people who were convicted for their actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia in her ruling blocked Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, Jr., and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from taking “any action to create or operate” the fund and that they not proceed with the concept “in any manner, or under any name.”

Brinkema’s ruling builds atop one from Washington, D.C., Judge Richard Leon that they do not believe the administration will not attempt to distribute money in the scheme.

Both judges indicated that they do not believe that the Department of Justice will back off from the plan because no officials from the agency have said they would do so while sworn in and under penalty of perjury.

“When the President of the United States says” that he wants something, referring to Trump, Brinkema said “that’s a pretty good indicator there will be an incentive and motive to make it happen,” CNN reported.

Even with the fund having been on hold for the last week, at least one person already has attempted to file a claim, to which the federal court responded that it is “not accepting applications”

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore signs related to topics such as climate change, slavery and Indigenous and LGBTQ+ history that were removed under an executive order to purge language at national parks that allegedly cast America in a negative light.

The order has prompted the removal of mentions of President Washington’s slaves at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, signs regarding climate threats at Fort Sumter in South Carolina and a pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, according to the lawsuit challenging the action.

In California, language related to the internment of Japanese Americans at the Manzanar National Historic Site, as well as the history of Indigenous people in Death Valley and Muir Woods came under scrutiny.

A preliminary injunction was issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston, who sided with a coalition of conservation and historical groups and ordered all language removed under the order to be reinstated before the Fourth of July. Earlier this year, another federal judge ordered the signage related to Washington’s slaves restored.

In Friday’s injunction, Kelley accused the Trump administration of seeking “to rewrite the Nation’s history with a white-out pen,” and said that national parks play an important role in telling the multifaceted history of America, including “the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

“Because Defendants deemed it important to strip the parks of these undeniable truths in anticipation of the 250th Anniversary of our great Nation,” she wrote, “it is equally important that our shared history be honestly told and fully restored by the 250th Anniversary to properly honor the remarkable achievements of the United States.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior dismissed the ruling as the work of a “liberal activist judge.”

“The Department will look at our appeal options while we celebrate UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House this weekend in honor of our nation’s 250th with the greatest president in the history of our country — President Donald J. Trump,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Trump initially signed the executive order in March 2025, arguing that a revisionist movement is seeking to undermine American history by replacing objective fact with a distorted, ideologically driven narrative.

“Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed,” the order stated.

Under the order, more than 430 sites under the purview of the National Park Service were told to review language on monuments, memorials, statues and markers to ensure they didn’t disparage Americans past or present, with a close eye on language added during former President Biden’s administration. QR codes were also added at sites encouraging visitors to report any signs they believed violated the order.

In February, a coalition including the National Parks Conservation Assn., American Assn. for State and Local History, Assn. of National Park Rangers and Union of Concerned Scientists filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston alleging that the order was erasing American history and science.

“National parks serve as living classrooms for our country, where science and history come to life for visitors,” Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources at the parks conservation association, said in a February statement. “As Americans, we deserve national parks that tell stories of our country’s triumphs and heartbreaks alike. We can handle the truth.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The bitter legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni over allegations of misconduct and retaliation tied to the making of “It Ends With Us” moved closer to a conclusion Friday after a federal judge ordered Baldoni and his production company to pay Lively’s attorneys fees related to his unsuccessful defamation lawsuit against her, while rejecting her bid for additional damages.

In a 47-page order, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman found that Lively was entitled to recover legal fees under a California law intended to protect people who report sexual misconduct from retaliatory defamation claims, ruling that Baldoni’s side had failed to show she acted with malice when making her allegations.

But Liman denied Lively’s request for treble and punitive damages, concluding that the procedural mechanism her lawyers used permitted recovery of attorneys fees and costs but not broader financial penalties.

Lively’s attorneys, Esra Hudson and Michael Gottlieb, called Friday’s ruling a victory for their client and emphasized that the judge found “there was no evidence she acted with malice.”

“The Court is awarding Ms. Lively attorneys’ fees and costs and has explained that a prevailing defendant under Section 47.1 may seek damages using different procedural mechanisms,” the attorneys said in a statement. “The parties’ settlement agreement expressly preserves Ms. Lively’s rights to obtain those damages.”

While the judge rejected Lively’s request for additional damages in this particular motion, her legal team said she could still seek them through other legal avenues permitted under the statute.

Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s attorney, sharply disputed Lively’s characterization of the ruling, arguing that the court’s prior decisions had substantially undercut many of her original claims.

“There was no sexual harassment. There was no retaliation. There was no smear campaign,” Freedman said in a statement. “The court recognized it, the record reflects it, and we have maintained it from the very beginning.”

The amount Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios ultimately may have to pay has not yet been determined. Lively’s lawyers must still submit billing records and fee calculations for court approval.

The ruling follows last month’s settlement between Lively and Baldoni, which came just before what had been expected to be a closely watched federal trial in Manhattan. Under that settlement, neither side received financial compensation. But the agreement preserved Lively’s ability to seek attorneys fees and damages under California Civil Code Section 47.1, a relatively new statute designed to shield sexual harassment and assault accusers from retaliatory defamation claims.

Lively sued Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, Wayfarer CEO Jamey Heath and others in December 2024, alleging Baldoni and his associates orchestrated a coordinated effort to damage her reputation after she raised concerns about misconduct during production of the film, which Baldoni directed and co-starred in. Baldoni denied wrongdoing.

Baldoni and Wayfarer later filed a $400 million defamation suit against Lively, her publicist Leslie Sloane and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, that was dismissed last year. Friday’s ruling dealt specifically with whether Lively could recover attorneys’ fees and damages tied to that dismissed suit under California Civil Code Section 47.1.

The latest ruling comes after Liman earlier this year dismissed 10 of the 13 claims in Lively’s lawsuit, including sexual harassment and defamation claims, while allowing retaliation-related claims to proceed.

In Friday’s ruling, Liman wrote that Baldoni’s team had produced no evidence demonstrating Lively acted maliciously when making her allegations.

“Allegations are insufficient on their own to demonstrate that statements were in fact made with malice,” the judge wrote. “That determination requires some evidence.”

Friday’s ruling offered each side new grounds to claim vindication in a legal battle that has played out as much in public statements as in court filings. Lively’s team pointed to the judge’s finding that she acted without malice, while Baldoni’s attorneys emphasized that many of her original claims had been dismissed.

Still, the settlement agreement bars either side from appealing Liman’s ruling, potentially drawing one of Hollywood’s ugliest recent legal fights to a close.

The US president has sought to reshape the capital city’s image and institutions through series of plans and projects.

President Donald Trump’s name is set to be removed from the facade of the Kennedy Center, an entertainment and cultural institution in Washington, DC, after a judge rejected a last-minute request to keep it in place.

US District Judge Christopher Cooper dismissed an effort by the centre’s board, whose members were handpicked by Trump, to reverse a previous order taking his name off the building by Friday.

The saga is yet another example of Trump’s effort to make changes to major sites and institutions across the nation’s capital, on which he has sought to impose himself through a series of planned projects that include an enormous triumphal arch and a White House ballroom.

Many of those efforts have faced legal challenges.

Trump dismissed the centre’s previous leadership and appointed a board that named him chairman.

Cooper had ruled last month that the addition of Trump’s name to the exterior of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was illegal and ordered its removal.

“Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of,” Trump wrote in a 580-word social media post at the time, slamming the decision, referring to himself in third-person.

A June 4 memo from the centre’s Office of General Counsel had instructed staff to use the name “The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” or “Kennedy Center” in email signatures, letterhead and other documents. The centre’s website also dropped Trump’s name.

But the board attempted to salvage the change in an appeal on Thursday, appealing a previous ruling that denied their request for a stay. Cooper rejected that request on Friday.

June 12 (UPI) — A federal judge blocked a lawsuit by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue.

In a 15-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns granted ActBlue a preliminary injunction banning Paxton from continuing the litigation, finding that ActBlue was likely to win in its claims that the suit infringed on its First Amendment’s free-speech protections.

The judge said the suit was filed in retaliation of ActBlue raising funds for James Talarico, who is running for Senate against Paxton.

“The lawsuit in Texas is undoubtedly an adverse action,” Stearns wrote in the order. “And having previously found bad faith, the court agrees with ActBlue that the evidence in the record compels the conclusion that, far from protecting Texas consumers, the action was filed in retaliation for ActBlue’s fundraising on behalf of Talarico, Paxton’s current political rival for the Senate seat.”

Paxton began an investigation in 2023 against the organization for allegedly enabling international donors to make gifts through gift cards and prepaid debit cards. President Donald Trump requested the investigation before he was re-elected. Paxton filed suit in April.

“The truth is plain and captured in Paxton’s own declarations: The lawsuit was filed in retaliation for (and in an attempt to suppress) ActBlue’s efforts to fund [James] Talarico’s campaign,” Stearns ruled.

ActBlue sued in Boston to stop Paxton, claiming Paxton’s suit was “rife with false and inflammatory allegations” and was filed soon after a $2 million funding day for Talarico. ActBlue is based in Massachusetts.

“Paxton’s public statements in the wake of filing the case against ActBlue reveal his true motivation,” Stearns wrote. “While a prosecutor is entitled to a large degree of prosecutorial discretion and has a right to make a considered public accounting of his actions, Paxton did not hesitate in drawing a connection between the lawsuit and his candidacy for Senate.”

Paxton had alleged that ActBlue had misrepresented itself to donors.

“The platform does nothing more than facilitate political donations from private donors, who seek out its convenience, anonymity and aggregation of the benefit bestowed on chosen political candidates,” Stearns ruled.

Justice Department had walked back controversial plan after meeting backlash from lawmakers and lawsuits.

A federal judge in the United States has indefinitely blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with plans for a $1.8bn “anti-weaponisation” fund, meant to offer payments to those who experienced alleged “lawfare” and “weaponisation” of the government.

The ruling on Friday represents another setback for the scheme, which has faced heavy resistance from lawmakers and has been walked back by the Department of Justice previously.

Judge Leonie Brinkema of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia had issued a temporary halt to the fund last week and issued a preliminary injunction as it was set to expire on Friday.

The fund was the product of a settlement between Trump and the Justice Department of a $10bn lawsuit the president had brought against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The Justice Department set up a $1.776bn fund that would have been helmed by a five-member commission to distribute funds to those they deemed victims of “weaponisation”, a term that Trump has used to describe investigations and criminal cases into himself and his allies.

Attorney General Todd Blanche walked back the plans earlier this month amid growing criticism, and government attorneys have argued that lawsuits challenging the scheme are now irrelevant.

Even before the administration announced it was dropping the fund, the Justice Department did not form the five-member commission to decide on payout criteria, so no money was paid out or claims accepted.

Many of the Republican president’s allies are opposed to compensating rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. In May, however, Blanche would not rule out the possibility that Capitol rioters who engaged in violence could be eligible to apply for payments from the fund.

Trump issued mass pardons to Capitol rioters on his first day back in the White House last year. More than 1,500 people were charged in the January 6 attack before Trump erased every case with his sweeping act of clemency.

Plaintiffs who sued to block the plan argued that the scheme diverted taxpayer funds into what was essentially a slush fund and have expressed doubt about Blanche’s assurances that the fund will not move forward.

While the administration has moved away from the scheme, Trump himself has not endorsed its cancellation and has continued to discuss it positively in comments to the press.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal judge agreed on Friday to extend a court-ordered block on the Trump administration’s creation and operation of a $1.8 billion settlement fund for compensating people who claim to be victims of a weaponized government.

Earlier this month, acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche told Congress that the government is scrapping its plans for the fund in the face of a fierce bipartisan backlash. Government attorneys have argued that lawsuits challenging the fund are now moot, but plaintiffs’ attorneys aren’t satisfied by Blanche’s assurances that the fund won’t move forward.

Neither was U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who ruled that the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” will remain blocked until further notice from the court.

“The (government’s) mootness argument, in my view, doesn’t go anywhere,” the judge said.

President Trump, meanwhile, has not publicly and unequivocally endorsed its cancellation. He has continued to express support for the fund in remarks to reporters.

Brinkema gave the parties a week to negotiate an agreement for Blanche to submit a sworn declaration that the administration won’t revive the fund.

Brinkema previously agreed to temporarily block the administration from proceeding with the fund for at least two weeks. Her May 29 order was due to expire on Friday.

Trump’s Republican administration created the fund to resolve his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.

Plaintiffs who sued to block fund payouts argue that the government can’t legally divert taxpayer money into what they argue is a slush fund for compensating Trump’s allies.

In a separate case on Wednesday, a different judge in Washington, D.C., rejected a government watchdog’s parallel request for a court order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from forging ahead with the fund. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said he accepts Blanche’s representation that the fund is now moot.

Leon had asked Justice Department attorney Andrew Block why Blanche doesn’t formally rescind his May 18 order establishing the fund. Block said he didn’t know. He still didn’t have an answer to that question when Brinkema posed it two days later.

“It’s a huge gap in the record that we don’t have an answer to that question,” the judge said.

In the Virginia case, attorneys from the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward asked for an order to temporarily suspend the fund’s implementation and stop the Trump administration from disbursing any payouts from it.

The plaintiffs include a fired prosecutor and a college professor acquitted of assaulting federal agents at a protest.

Even before the administration said it was dropping the fund, the Justice Department did not form the five-member commission that would decide on payout criteria, so no money was paid out nor claims accepted.

Many of the Republican president’s allies are opposed to compensating rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In May, however, Blanche wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Capitol rioters who engaged could be eligible to apply for payments from the fund.

Trump issued mass pardons to Capitol rioters on his first day back in the White House last year. More than 1,500 people were charged in the Jan. 6 attack before Trump erased every case with his sweeping act of clemency.

Brinkema was nominated to the bench by President Clinton, a Democrat.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

Judge Emily Marks had previously allowed the execution to proceed, arguing that no execution is entirely without pain.

A federal judge in the United States has permanently blocked Alabama from executing an inmate with nitrogen gas, after declaring that the method violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

On Tuesday, US District Judge Emily C Marks permanently enjoined the state from executing Jeffery Lee by nitrogen gas. Lee was scheduled to be executed Thursday at an Alabama prison.

Her decision came a day after an appeals court reversed her earlier ruling that the method is constitutional.

The case centres on how to interpret the US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which bars the government from inflicting “cruel and unusual punishments”.

A spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state is reviewing the decision and considering next steps, including an appeal. The case will likely end up before the US Supreme Court, which has previously let nitrogen executions proceed.

A spokeswoman for Lee’s legal team said they did not have an immediate comment.

In her 26-page ruling, Marks said litigation is a constant in death penalty cases.

“Were Alabama to adopt firing squad as a method of execution, that method would likely be challenged as well. Indeed, there is likely no method — no matter how humane — that would be immune to constitutional challenge,” Marks wrote.

“But the Constitution does not guarantee a painless death, and human life cannot be purposefully extinguished without some risk of pain. The Court, the condemned, and the State must all confront that sobering reality.”

Marks noted that the state has two other authorised execution methods: lethal injection and the electric chair. She said Lee is “not entitled to an injunction barring the State from executing him using one of those methods”.

Marks also ruled that the state could switch to Lee’s preferred method, a firing squad. Inmates challenging execution methods are required to suggest an alternative method.

“The State can readily obtain rifles, ammunition, and other materials necessary to carry out a firing squad execution,” Marks wrote.

“Additionally, the State would be able to modify space at Holman to carry out executions by firing squad. The State is also able to source and train volunteers willing to carry out such an execution.”

Lee is currently housed at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

June 8 (UPI) — A federal judge ruled Monday that a $100,000 visa fee for U.S.companies seeking highly skilled workers from other countries is illegal. This voids the requirement set by President Donald Trump by a presidential proclamation in September.

Judge Leo Sorokin said the policy violated the U.S. Constitution and the federal Administrative Procedure Act and that only Congress has the authority to change federal immigration policy to require the fee. The Trump administration says it will appeal the ruling.

“The president lacked the power or delegated authority to impose a tax on H-1B petitions,” Sorokin said in his decision, CNN reported.

A group of Democratic state attorneys brought the case in December. Letitia James, New York attorney general, was among them.

“Every day, thousands of people with H-1B visas serve New Yorkers as doctors, teachers and other skilled workers,” James said Monday, CNBC reported. “Today, a court put an end to this administration’s illegal attempt to destroy this critical program and the many jobs it makes possible.”

Before Trump’s proclamation, H-1B visa fees ranged from $2,000 to $5,000 per application, CNBC reported. These visas are meant for foreign professionals who hold at least a bachelor’s degree to work in more specialized fields. They’re valid for three years and can be renewed for another three years after that. The New York Times reported that about 85,000 of such visas are available annually, and that they are often used by universities and companies in the fields of technology, finance and medicine.

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement to CNBC after the ruling that “President Trump has clear legal authority to restrict entry of any class of aliens he determines is not in America’s best interests, and that is exactly what he did.” She said the visa program “has been abused for decades.”

BOSTON — A federal judge on Monday struck down the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, contradicting an earlier federal court ruling upholding the fee hike.

The administration announced the much-higher fee as a way of preventing foreign workers from taking American jobs.

But U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston sided with 20 states and struck down the visa policy, concluding that the executive branch exceeded its authority and violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

“The Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress,” Sorokin wrote.

H-1B visas are meant for high-skill jobs that are difficult to find American workers to fill. Deep-pocketed technology companies are the biggest users, with nearly three-quarters of approvals going to workers from India. The states argued that using the H-1B program to fill vacancies for much-needed doctors and teachers was already difficult before the higher fee.

Most H-1B visa applications cost several thousand dollars before the announced increase set off a wave of panic among confused employers, students and workers in the United States and abroad and led to several lawsuits, including in Boston.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also sued, in federal court in Washington, D.C., and has appealed a denial of a summary judgment against the fee hike. That left the higher fee in effect, at least until September, when it is scheduled to expire. Monday’s ruling is also a summary judgment, to the opposite effect. Still another lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco, by religious groups and labor organizations, setting up the possibility of divided rulings in three appellate court circuits.

The states argued that the policy impedes their ability to hire primary and secondary school educators and to staff public colleges and universities, will stymie academic research and will lead to a decline in medical workers.

“The Proclamation makes various overtures to domestic economic policy goals to justify the unprecedented $100,000 fee,” plaintiffs wrote in their complaint. “But the Proclamation gives no indication that the President gave any consideration to how the fee would affect Plaintiff States and their ability to provide their residents access to education, healthcare, and other basic human needs.”

A Department of Homeland Security statement said the agency disagrees with “this blatant judicial activism dismantling President Trump’s historic efforts for immigration reform.”

“Under President Trump and Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin, our immigration system is being reformed to serve American citizens, American workers, and American families and to preserve our national identity — not to rapidly import foreigners who take American jobs, commit crimes, burden our welfare system, and erode our cultural and social fabric.”

Casey writes for the Associated Press.

Attorneys for musician Chuck Redd say a D.C. Superior Court judge dismissed a breach of contract lawsuit filed against the artist after he canceled a Christmas Eve performance at the Kennedy Center in protest of President Trump’s influence over the venue.

The dismissal was granted Friday under Washington’s Anti-SLAPP laws, which are designed to prevent meritless lawsuits intended to silence opposing points of view on matters of public interest.

Redd, a drummer and vibraphone player who has toured with Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown and others, had presided over holiday “Jazz Jams” at the Kennedy Center since 2006. He called off last year’s performance shortly after Trump’s handpicked board for the Kennedy Center voted to add the president’s name to the venue, which Congress named for President Kennedy after his assassination.

“The Center sued Mr. Redd because he publicly and rightly objected to adding Donald Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center, a living memorial to former President John F. Kennedy,” Lisa J. Banks, one of Redd’s lawyers, said in a statement. “The lawsuit against Mr. Redd was political retribution, pure and simple, by the Trump Kennedy Center, and the Court correctly saw it as such in dismissing the case with prejudice.”

Redd told the Associated Press in an email Saturday that he is “very pleased with the judge’s ruling.”

The motion to dismiss, filed in March, argued that Redd wasn’t contractually obligated to perform. It included the contract provided by the Kennedy Center, which the artist never signed.

Representatives for the Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit’s dismissal.

Goldin writes for the Associated Press.

A federal judge sided with California and other Democratic states on Friday in a preliminary injunction that blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to condition food benefits on compliance with the president’s policies on gender and immigration.

Twenty states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in March against the Trump administration in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, arguing that the “unlawful” and “unconstitutional” funding requirements are vague and designed to force policies on states.

Billions in federal funding are ultimately at stake, including money for school lunch programs that provide meals to 30 million children nationwide and food stamps that support about 40 million Americans living in low-income households.

“As the Trump Administration tries to use essential programs and billions in funding as leverage to advance their hateful, discriminatory agenda, California continues to fight to uphold the law and ensure that our communities can continue to access the funding they need to thrive,” said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta in a statement.

The policy shift from the United States Department of Agriculture marks another effort by the president to force left-leaning states to submit to his positions on hot-button political and cultural issues to receive government funding. California’s current budget relies on $174.5 billion in federal dollars, or roughly one-third of the overall state budget funds.

Last year, the Trump administration canceled a sexual education grant to California after the state declined to remove gender identity from sexual education curriculum. The administration is also restricting federal funds in an attempt to force states to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.

The funding conditions from the USDA relate to gender ideology, women and girls’ sports and immigration, according to the lawsuit.

States argue that the conditions do not explain what activities are prohibited for entities that receive grants. The USDA did not cite any law allowing the organization to impose anti-discrimination policies that go beyond federal law, the suit states.

The states that joined the lawsuit contend that they are left with the “unlawful” choice of adhering to the conditions or risk losing up to $74 billion in collective federal assistance from the USDA.

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun approved a preliminary injunction Friday and is expected to issue a memorandum later explaining the decision, according to the Associated Press.

BOSTON — A federal judge on Friday struck down a Trump administration policy enacted after the shooting of two National Guard members that made it harder for immigrants from dozens of countries to stay and enter the U.S.

In a ruling harshly criticizing the administration, U.S. District Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. said the policy “threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo,” and he accused the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of ignoring the law.

“In enacting its latest immigration policies, USCIS: claims statutory and regulatory authority that it does not possess; makes decisions without the reasoned explanations that it must provide; acts without regard for the reliance interests of applicants that it must consider; and justifies its actions with pretextual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making,” he wrote. “In legal terms that means USCIS’s actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The policies enacted after the National Guard shooting last year meant that immigrants from 39 African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries have been “categorically barred” from receiving final decisions on, among other things, their asylum, work permit, green card and citizenship applications.

“This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: the federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represented the plaintiffs in the case. “These unlawful policies caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum-seekers, and communities across the country who were left in limbo, unable to work, access protections, or move forward with their lives.”

The policies apply to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which approves applications for immigrants to work and become citizens. The agency, which is within the Homeland Security Department, often grants asylum, but only for those already in the United States when they apply. Immigration judges grant asylum to those who are stopped at the border; the ruling does not affect them, and neither do the policies that sparked the lawsuit.

It is part of an ongoing effort by the administration to tighten U.S. entry standards for travel and immigration, in what critics say unfairly prevents travel for people from a broad range of countries. The administration suggested it would expand the restrictions after the arrest of an Afghan national suspect in the shooting of two National Guard troops over Thanksgiving weekend.

In its motion to dismiss, which the court denied, the government argued that Congress gave the executive branch broad authority over immigration policy, including “the entry of aliens into the United States as well as discretion within the statutory scheme to confer as well as withdraw various discretionary benefits.”

“This case rests on a remarkable premise: that a federal court should prevent an agency from issuing the very policy guidance that provides government personnel with the guardrails necessary to ensure consistent, non-arbitrary, and individualized decisionmaking consistent with federal law,” the government wrote in its brief.

Immigration groups celebrated the ruling.

“This ruling sets a powerful precedent that the administration cannot ignore the law as laid down by Congress and cannot arbitrarily bar immigration benefits on the basis of national origin by fiat,” said Jamal Abdi, president at the National Iranian American Council. “Fortunately, this is still a nation of laws, and those who uphold America’s values have recourse to challenge and push back on such discriminatory, arbitrary policies.”

Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran who heads a coalition that supports Afghan resettlement efforts called #AfghanEvac, said the ruling was a “significant victory for the rule of law and for thousands of Afghan allies and other immigrants who followed every requirement asked of them.”

“Just this week in Dallas and Fort Worth, we met people who feared losing jobs because delayed work permit renewals threatened their livelihoods, families who postponed education, travel, and homeownership because they did not know when their cases would be resolved, and future Americans who had expected to become citizens only to see their applications stall without explanation,” VanDiver said.

Casey writes for the Associated Press.