In its deal with Alberta, Canada will scrap emissions cap on the oil and gas sector, among other moves.
Published On 27 Nov 202527 Nov 2025
Share
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has signed an agreement with Alberta’s premier that will roll back certain climate rules to spur investment in energy production, while encouraging construction of a new oil pipeline to the West Coast.
Under the agreement, which was signed on Thursday, the federal government will scrap a planned emissions cap on the oil and gas sector and drop rules on clean electricity in exchange for a commitment by Canada’s top oil-producing province to strengthen industrial carbon pricing and support a carbon capture-and-storage project.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Carney is counting on the energy sector to help the Canadian economy weather uncertainty from United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and is seeking to diversify from the US market, which currently takes 90 percent of Canada’s oil exports.
He has relaxed some environmental restrictions implemented by his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, while reaffirming his commitment to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Alberta is also exploring the feasibility of a new crude oil pipeline to British Columbia’s northwest coast in order to increase exports to Asia, but no private-sector company has committed to building a new pipeline.
Pipeline companies and the Alberta government have repeatedly said significant federal legislative changes – including removing a federal cap on oil and gas sector emissions and ending a ban on oil tankers off British Columbia’s northern coast – would be required before a private entity would consider proposing a new pipeline.
Thursday’s agreement includes a commitment by the federal government to adjust the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act in order to facilitate oil exports to Asia.
British Columbia Premier David Eby, who opposes a new pipeline through his province, said on Wednesday the legislation should stay in place.
Other pipeline opponents are also speaking out. A coalition of Indigenous groups in British Columbia said this week it will not allow oil tankers on the northwest coast and that the pipeline project will “never happen”.
The Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta to the British Columbia coast, which is owned by the Canadian government and is currently the only option to ship Canadian oil directly to Asian markets, tripled its capacity last year with a 34 billion Canadian dollar ($24.2bn) expansion.
The federal government and Alberta also said they would conclude an agreement on industrial carbon pricing by April 1 next year.
In addition, the two agreed to cooperate on building the Pathways Plus project, expected to be the world’s biggest carbon capture project and designed to capture emissions from Canada’s oil sands.
The federal government will also assist Alberta in building and operating nuclear power plants, strengthening its electricity grid to power AI data centres, and building transmission lines to neighbouring provinces.
HOLIDAYS are set to get more expensive both in the UK and abroad with new tourist tax rules and a rise in Air Passenger Duty.
Regional mayors will be given powers to introduce the levy on overnight stays at hotels, holiday lets and B&Bs, it was announced in today’s budget.
Sign up for the Travel newsletter
Thank you!
In today’s budget, it was announced that regional mayors will be given powers to introduce a tourist tax levy on overnight stays at hotels, holiday lets and B&BsCredit: PABrits face paying an additional fee for each night they stay in hotels or Airbnb-style accommodationCredit: Getty
Measures announced in today’s Budget include…
London mayor Sadiq Khan, Liverpool‘s Steve Rotherham and Manchester‘s Andy Burnham have all backed the tourism levy.
But the Tory mayor of Teesside Ben Houchen vowed to shield visitors to his North East region and blasted the idea.
He told The Sun: “If Labour hands me these powers, I won’t use them.
“People in Teesside and our local businesses are already feeling the squeeze from Labour’s last budget.
“Piling another tax on working people isn’t the answer and won’t drive growth.
“This is yet another cash grab that will hammer the fantastic hospitality businesses we have across Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool.”
It comes just two months after Tourism Minister Chris Bryant told MPs the government “had no plans to introduce a tourism tax”.
Luke Petherbridge, the Association of British Travel Agent’s (ABTA) Director of Public Affairs said: “ABTA has consistently raised concerns about the cumulative impact of increasing taxes and charges on tourists and tourism businesses, with the UK already applying much higher rates of VAT than many countries and levying the highest air departure tax in the world.
“Against that backdrop, it’s hard to see how a further tax will not simply worsen the UK’s situation when it comes to competitiveness.
“We will be engaging with industry partners to respond to the consultation in the coming weeks.”
Kate Nicholls, Chair of UKHospitality, slammed the move as “another shocking U-turn”.
She added: “I know the Government is worried about the cost of living, but a holiday tax is little more than a higher VAT rate for holidaymakers.”
Yesterday, EasyJet boss Kenton Jarvis warned the Chancellor against imposing a tourist tax across cities in the UK.
The airline chief said it might encourage tourists to go to rival European cities instead, such as Paris or Berlin.
‘Tourist tax’ is yet another blow to hard-up families
By LISA MINOT, Head of Travel
NEWS of impending taxes on holiday stays delivers yet another blow to hard-up families and under-pressure tourism businesses.
Figures from Westminster’s All Party Parliamentary Group for tourism and hospitality show that while day visitors spend an average of £36 per trip, it rockets to £193 for overnight tourists.
Anything that adds extra cost to staycations will surely lead to cash-strapped Brits simply choosing to stay for shorter periods – or not at all.
Both Manchester and Liverpool already have taxes of £1 and £2 a night respectively on hotels, the move to allow all areas of the country to charge for any type of accommodation could have a serious impact on the industry as a whole.
Adding £56 to the the cost of a week-long holiday for a family of four will be devastating for those on low incomes who choose to staycation as they simply cannot afford to head abroad.
If destinations choose to impose the charges, holidaymakers will want to see the taxes they pay visibly being spent on improving the infrastructure in the destinations they choose to visit.
Mr Jarvis said: “Any increase in tax that impacts the competitiveness of the UK visitor economy would not be a good thing.
“Last year, easyJet flew 15 million tourists into the UK and they spent just under £10 billion across the UK economy… so it’s very important to the visitor economy.”
And the cost of holidays abroad is set to go up as well.
The government will increase all rates of Air Passenger Duty (ADP) in line with the rate of inflation from April 1, 2027.
APD is a ‘tax’ on passengers flying from UKairports, built into the price of a flight ticket.
The logo of U.S. Steel pictured in May on a plant near Braddock, Pa. On Friday, the Trump administration issued a proclamation exempting coal-using steel manufacturing facilities called “coke ovens” from Biden-era regulatory updates to the Clean Air Act. File Photo by Archie Carpenter/UPI | License Photo
Nov. 24 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump issued a proclamation granting two years of regulatory relief from a stringent, existing Environmental Protection Agency on coke over facilities.
rump inked a proclamation Friday that exempts manufacturing facilities from Biden-era regulatory updates to the Clean Air Act that affect coal in steelmaking plants known as coke ovens.
The Coke Oven Rule, according to the White House, “places severe burdens on the coke production industry and, through its indirect effects, on the viability of our nation’s critical infrastructure, defense, and national security.”
A coke oven is a chamber in which coal is flamed to produce coke, which then fuels steelmaking. The Biden EPA estimated compliance cost would cost companies about$500,000 in additional fees.
The Trump administration’s new policy switch will absolve at least 11 U.S. coke oven plants from a need to cut back on release of toxic pollutants, including mercury, formaldehyde, soot and dioxins for two years.
“Specifically, the Coke Oven Rule requires compliance with standards premised on the application of emissions-control technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially demonstrated or cost-effective form,” Trump’s proclamation said.
A number of companies eligible for the exemptions include ABC Coke, EES Coke, SunCoke Energy, Cleveland Cliffs and U.S. Steel.
The previous administration under then-President Joe Biden argued the rule was critical to cut back on pollution and could curtail an increase in dirty air.
In March, the EPA set the stage for the coke oven proclamation by announcing it would allow Clean Air Act exemptions to be processed online.
Prominent environmental groups, meanwhile, say the exemptions will likely harm local communities.
The United States is asking the European Union (EU) to change its tech regulations before reducing U. S. tariffs on steel and aluminum from the EU. EU ministers wanted to discuss their July trade deal, which included cuts to U. S. tariffs on EU steel and removing them from goods like wine and spirits. However, U. S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated that the EU must first create a more balanced approach to its digital sector rules.
After a meeting with EU ministers, Lutnick mentioned they could address steel and aluminum issues together if the EU improved its regulations. European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic noted that he didn’t expect any immediate breakthroughs with the U. S. but was hopeful to begin discussions about steel solutions. The July trade agreement set U. S. tariffs at 15% on many EU goods, while the EU agreed to lower some of its duties on U. S. imports, with potential implementation not expected until March or April pending approval from European leaders.
The U. S. currently has a 50% tariff on metals and has also applied tariffs on related products, raising concerns in the EU about the impact on their trade agreement. The EU seeks to have more of its products subjected only to low tariffs and is open to discussing regulatory cooperation in various areas, including energy and economic security, particularly related to China.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that Washington can reduce duties on EU steel and aluminium but only if the Europeans agree to ease the implementation of digital rules following a meeting in Brussels on Monday.
Lutnick, who is a close ally of President Donald Trump and negotiated on his behalf a trade deal with the EU over the summer introducing 15% tariffs, said that European should reassess the way they implement their flagship policies on digital regulation if they want further tariff relief. Lutnick did not call to remove the rules but did say the way in which they are applied should be “more balanced” for American tech companies.
Brussels is desperately seeking to obtain a reduction of the 50% tariffs that the Trump administration imposed on European aluminium and steel in June under pressure from the industry.
The US does want the EU “to put these rules away, but find the balanced approach that works for us,” he told reporters in Brussels. “Then we will, together with them, handle the steel and aluminium issues.”
“The enforcement is quite aggressive at times”
Lutnick and US trade representative Jamieson Greer were in Brussels meeting with EU27 trade ministers and Commission boss Maroš Šefčovič for a working lunch.
The implementation of the trade deal signed over summer was at the center of the discussion, which was “open and direct,” according to an EU diplomat.
The EU and the US clinched a trade deal in July in which the US tripled tariffs on EU while Europeans agreed to cut tariffs for most US industrial goods at 0%. US tariffs on EU steel and aluminium remain stuck at a much higher rate of 50% despite the deal.
Lutnick and Greer also met EU Tech Commissioner Henna Virkkunen who stressed in a statement the importance of the Digital Market Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), the two landmark digital regulations applied in the EU. The comments suggest the Commission is not ready to water them further for the time being.
To counter the US offensive on its digital legislation, EU Trade Commissioner Šefčovič said that the EU is working hard to explain its legislation to the US and stressed that there no discriminatory practices applied to US companies. The rules, he argued, are the same for everyone operating in the EU single market regardless of their origin.
Still, the US insists that is not the case and American Big Tech is being punished.
“The enforcement is quite aggressive at times,” Greer said about EU tech rules, adding that the US government wants to make sure their companies do not see their global revenues “affected” by foreign rules. In his comments, Greer’s tone was severe.
Brussels recently launched investigations against Amazon and Microsoft under the DMA which prevents big platforms from abusing their dominance in the tech market. It also hit Google with a €2.95 billion over antitrust rules despite the threats from the US.
BISMARCK, N.D. — Abortion is again illegal in North Dakota after the state’s Supreme Court on Friday couldn’t muster the required majority to uphold a judge’s ruling that struck down the state’s ban last year.
The law makes it a felony crime for anyone to perform an abortion, though it specifically protects patients from prosecution. Doctors could be prosecuted and penalized by as much as five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Three justices agreed that the ban is unconstitutionally vague. The other two justices said the law is not unconstitutional.
The North Dakota Constitution requires at least four of the five justices to agree for a law to be found unconstitutional, a high bar. Not enough members of the court joined together to affirm the lower court ruling.
In his opinion, Justice Jerod Tufte said the natural rights guaranteed by the state constitution in 1889 do not extend to abortion rights. He also said the law “provides adequate and fair warning to those attempting to comply.”
North Dakota Republican Atty. Gen. Drew Wrigley welcomed the ruling, saying, “The Supreme Court has upheld this important pro-life legislation, enacted by the people’s Legislature. The attorney general’s office has the solemn responsibility of defending the laws of North Dakota, and today those laws have been upheld.”
Republican state Sen. Janne Myrdal, who introduced the 2023 legislation that became the law banning abortion, said she was “thrilled and grateful that two justices that are highly respected saw the truth of the matter, that this is fully constitutional for the mother and for the unborn child and thereafter for that sake.”
The challengers called the decision “a devastating loss for pregnant North Dakotans.”
“As a majority of the Court found, this cruel and confusing ban is incomprehensible to physicians. The ban forces doctors to choose between providing care and going to prison,” Center for Reproductive Rights senior staff attorney Meetra Mehdizadeh said. “Abortion is healthcare, and North Dakotans deserve to be able to access this care without delay caused by confusion about what the law allows.”
The ruling means access to abortion in North Dakota will be outlawed. Even after a judge had struck down the ban last year, the only scenarios for a patient to obtain an abortion in North Dakota had been for life- or health-preserving reasons in a hospital.
The state’s only abortion provider relocated in 2022 from Fargo to nearby Moorhead, Minn.
Justice Daniel Crothers, one of the three judges to vote against the ban, wrote that the district court decision wasn’t wrong.
“The vagueness in the law relates to when an abortion can be performed to preserve the life and health of the mother,” Crothers wrote. “After striking this invalid provision, the remaining portions of the law would be inoperable.”
North Dakota’s newly confirmed ban prohibits the performance of an abortion and declares it a felony. The only exceptions are for rape or incest for an abortion in the first six weeks of pregnancy — before many women know they are pregnant — and to prevent the woman’s death or a “serious health risk” to her.
North Dakota joins 12 other states enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy. Four others bar it at or around six weeks of gestational age.
Judge Bruce Romanick had struck down the ban the GOP-led Legislature passed in 2023, less than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade and opened the door to the state-level bans, largely turning the abortion battle to state courts and legislatures.
The Red River Women’s Clinic — the formerly sole abortion clinic in North Dakota — and several physicians challenged the law. The state appealed the 2024 ruling that overturned the ban.
The judge and the Supreme Court each denied requests by the state to keep the abortion ban in effect during the appeal. Those decisions allowed patients with pregnancy complications to seek care without fear of delay because of the law, Mehdizadeh previously said.
Trump and some of Wall Street’s power players reignite a decades-old question: Should companies be judged every three months, or twice a year?
Corporate America is once again at odds over whether to maintain its 50-year tradition of quarterly reporting or join Europe and parts of Asia in adopting a semi-annual schedule.
It’s not the first time for this debate. President Donald Trump brought it up during his first term, but nothing came of it. This time, Trump is joined by Wall Street power players like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in championing the idea.
At stake is nothing less than the rhythm of American business. Every quarter, earnings season arrives like clockwork: a high-stakes ritual in which CEOs and CFOs parade their numbers, hype their narratives, and face a barrage of analysts’ questions. The spectacle moves markets, shapes careers, and, critics contend, forces companies into a cycle of short-term thinking. Missing an earnings report requires additional paperwork and, perhaps, the threat of delisting.
The notion of fewer earnings reports hasn’t sat well with some finance veterans, however.
Short-seller Jim Chanos, known for exposing Enron’s accounting transgressions, blasted efforts to loosen disclosure rules as a “gift to corporate opacity,” particularly Trump’s suggestion that the US could emulate China’s semi-annual model. “China should not be a model for American financial oversight,” Chanos warned on X.
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers was equally blunt, calling the proposal “a bad idea whose time should never come.” He added, “America’s capital markets have thrived precisely because of their accountability and transparency…frequent accountability and substantial sharing of information have been central to that.”
Still, while Summers and Chanos want to uphold the earnings season pastime, several corporate advisors opined that the appeal of less frequent reporting is simpler than that: cost savings.
The Cost Of Compliance
For Aslam Rawoof, partner at Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff, filings are about transparency as well as scale.
“I don’t think that a one-size-fits-all approach makes sense for every single company,” he says of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) current quarterly Form 10-Q requirements. For smaller firms with limited resources, quarterly reporting is an added strain.
“I have clients that run the gamut from a market cap of $10 million to $8 billion,” Rawoof says. “For some of the smaller clients, forcing them to do quarterly reporting costs a lot of money because oftentimes they don’t have any in-house lawyers: so all the work is being done by external counsel.”
The legal tab alone can be daunting. Securities law, Rawoof notes, isn’t something one can “dabble in.” Companies must go to Wall Street-caliber firms, and those don’t come cheap.
“Then there’s the auditors,” he says. “They don’t provide an audit opinion on quarterly numbers, but even their reviews can cost tens of thousands of dollars. I’ve seen quotes of $75,000 per quarter for an auditor review.”
Those recurring costs add up quickly, with some reported estimates exceeding $1 million for companies with a market cap of over $10 billion.
“So, I can see where this proposal makes sense,” Rawoof says. “The idea isn’t to end quarterly reporting altogether, it’s just to make it optional. If a company wants to report twice a year, it should be allowed to.”
SEC Chair Paul Atkins downplayed the relevance of the 10-Q in a TV appearance in September. “Professionals,” he explained, tend to prefer the earnings calls: “scripted sorts of events to make sure that everything from the company’s perspective meshes with what their overall disclosure is.”
Atkins thinks it’s a good time “to look at the whole panoply of ways that people get information, how it’s disseminated, and what’s fit for purpose.”
A Populist Twist On Corporate Reform
The question of how often public companies should report their earnings has always been closely tied to the larger debate about corporate short-termism.
In 2015, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed “quarterly capitalism” while on the US presidential campaign trail. The obsession with short-term profits, she said, led companies to cut pay and forward-looking investments just to meet investors’ expectations.
Last month, the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE) took up the cause and petitioned the SEC to give companies the option to report semi-annually.
The move would be seismic. Since 1970, when the SEC first introduced the 10-Q, US public companies have been required to disclose their results every three months. The system was born out of a post-Depression-era desire for accountability. Today, critics say it fuels short-termism, volatility, and burnout.
With envy, they look abroad. In Asia, most markets rely on annual and semi-annual disclosures. China allows quarterly results, but primarily for investor relations. Hong Kong requires annual and half-year reports, and Singapore, Malaysia, and South Korea generally follow a semi-annual schedule, with quarterly updates optional and mostly provided by large-cap companies.
The European Union banned mandatory quarterly reporting in 2013, arguing it encouraged short-termism. The UK followed suit, and while investors initially feared less transparency, markets adapted.
Julie Herzog, Pierson Ferdinand partner
Europe’s six-month schedule “works fine in that context,” says Omar Choucair, CFO of Trintech, a financial software provider, and a former KPMG executive. “But for US markets, quarterly reporting has become best practice. It keeps investors informed and management teams disciplined.”
Still, Choucair sees an upside: Semi-annual reporting would lower compliance costs and “encourage” IPOs.
Over the past 25 years, the number of publicly listed US companies has fallen by nearly half while the number of private equity-backed firms has surged more than 500%, according to PitchBook. The result: fewer IPOs, more concentration risk, and shrinking opportunities for everyday investors. Just three companies—Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia—now account for 17.5% of the entire US stock market, up from 4.2% in 2015.
“We could see more IPOs,” Choucair argues. “Because the investment required to go public and to stay compliant would be lower.”
Pierson Ferdinand partner Julie Herzog agrees—up to a point.
“Today’s IPO hesitation is driven by valuation uncertainty, rates/volatility, litigation risk, research coverage dynamics, and abundant private capital,” she contends. “Cutting quarterlies doesn’t solve those frictions.”
In practice, she predicts, underwriters and institutional investors would still demand quarterly-style updates through 8-Ks.
“For micro- and small-caps, cost relief could help,” she concedes. “But any opacity premium the market applies can erase the benefit.”
‘Keep The Rhythm’
Quarterlies keep investors informed, prevent manipulation, and ensure comparability across companies, supporters maintain.
“Markets function best when participants share frequent, standardized baselines,” Herzog says. Reducing cadence increases monitoring costs, widens spreads, and raises the cost of capital, “often more than the savings on filings.”
The real solution for short-termism, she argues, isn’t fewer quarterlies.
“It’s smarter reporting,” she says. “Keep the rhythm, streamline the content, and reweight the conversation toward medium-term value creation rather than penny-perfect quarters.”
A hybrid model may offer the best of both worlds. “Scaled disclosure is sensible if designed carefully,” Herzog contends.
Large, accelerated filers should keep quarterly reporting, she envisions. After all, they have the potential to move markets. Smaller issuers could shift to semi-annual 10-Qs if paired with mandatory quarterly KPI updates and clear liquidity disclosures.
Such a tiered system eases the burden for smaller companies while preserving transparency for the largest. During M&A activity or financing rounds, banks and buyers would still demand quarterly-quality data. But for micro firms struggling under compliance costs, semi-annual reports could be a lifeline.
Whether the LTSE’s proposal will gain traction remains uncertain. Many see it as a long-shot bid by a smaller exchange to differentiate itself from the NYSE and NASDAQ. Yet, Atkins’s remarks suggests the winds may be shifting.
The Big Four accounting firms would likely feel the pinch, observers note. Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC currently earn millions from quarterly review work, and halving the reporting cadence could shrink that revenue stream. Some industry leaders stress, however, that the shift would have broader consequences.
For Victoria Woods, CEO of ChappelWood Financial Services, such a drastic change might strain the financial system long-term. The only way to know for sure? “Try it.”
“I would like to see a phased approach where a handful of firms across multiple market sectors test the concept of semi-annual earnings reports,” she says. “If investors accept it, roll it out over time to the broader market. If they don’t, maintain the status quo.”
Nov. 18 (UPI) — Facebook owner Meta can keep the WhatsApp mobile messaging app and the Instagram social media site in a federal trial first brought by the Federal Trade Commission in 2020.
Washington D.C.-based Judge James Boasberg ruled Tuesday that the FTC did not prove its claim that Meta has maintained a monopoly on social media platforms, CNBC reported.
“Whether or not Meta enjoyed monopoly power in the past, though, the agency must show that it continues to hold such power now,” Boasberg wrote.
“The court’s verdict today determines that the FTC has not done so,” he added.
Meta officials said in a statement to NPR that Boasberg’s ruling affirms that social media remains competitive.
Boasberg in 2021 dismissed the case citing a lack of evidence that Facebook held “market power” over social media.
The FTC amended and refiled its complaint in August 2021, providing more detail on user data and comparisons to competitors, including Snapchat, the discontinued Google+ social network and Myspace.
The FTC also argued Meta engaged in a “buy or bury” strategy to monopolize social media when it paid more than market value to buy Instagram in 2012 and when it bought WhatsApp in 2014, according to NPR.
The only way to resolve the alleged monopoly was to require Meta to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp as independent companies, the FTC argued.
The social media marketplace has changed greatly over the past five years since the federal agency first accused Meta of monopolizing social media, Boasberg wrote.
“While it once might have made sense to partition apps into separate markets of social networking and social media, that wall has since broken down,” Boasberg wrote.
He cited the rise of TikTok and called it “Meta’s fiercest rival,” which he called evidence of a competitive social media marketplace.
During the trial that concluded in May, Meta’s legal team argued it faced plenty of competition and only bought WhatsApp and Instagram because they are quality products that were easier to buy instead of replicating.
During the trial, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified that buying Instagram was easier than creating a new product that would compete with it.
A village named the world’s prettiest by Forbes in 2025 is introducing new bans and restrictions to stop visitors from frustrating locals and overwhelming the place
Locals complain of being overwhelmed by visitors (Image: Mike Kemp, In Pictures via Getty Images)
A UK village named the most beautiful in the world is considering new ways to keep visitors away after strict rules were introduced this summer.
Bibury, in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds, is an undeniably picturesque location. It features honey-coloured stone cottages, a gently meandering river, and a historic, fairytale ambience. Its appeal prompted Forbes to crown it the world’s prettiest village for 2025, roughly 150 years after poet William Morris dubbed Bibury “the most beautiful village in England.”
The cottages of Arlington Row are frequently described as the most photographed and stunning cottages in Britain. Constructed in 1380 as a monastic wool store, it was subsequently transformed into a row of weavers’ cottages in the 17th century.
It’s not difficult to understand why Bibury receives such high praise, with lodging choices including the Swan Hotel and The Catherine Wheel pub both inviting inside and adorned with climbing plants outside. The village’s appeal has placed Bibury firmly on the tourist map. And now, some residents say, things are becoming unmanageable.
Chairman of the local parking action group, Mark Honeyball, who has lived in Bibury for 10 years, has endured very unpleasant encounters with visitors. He told the Express that he asked a coach driver to move on from some double yellow lines before the unthinkable happened.
He said: “I’ve been physically attacked four times now, but once really quite badly two weeks ago, I was kicked in the chest and stomach and kneed and punched in the face full force by a driver that I’d just asked simply to move on from double yellows at the top of the village.
“The coach drivers themselves are being pushed here by their coach companies, they don’t really want to be here, they find it really difficult to park. The tour operators are the key behind this, the coach operators are doing what the tour operators ask them to do, primarily with people from China, India, and South Korea at the moment.”
As many as 20,000 visitors descended on Bibury in a weekend, with up to 50 coaches parking there daily. That’s an enormous figure for a village with just 600 inhabitants. Now, following a trial during the summer months, Gloucestershire County Council is planning to introduce permanent restrictions on coaches entering the village.
Councillor Lisa Spivey, leader of the council, told the BBC: “Bibury is one of the Cotswolds’ most iconic destinations, but its popularity has created real challenges. These proposals aim to safeguard the village, curb congestion, and preserve its unique charm.
Additional proposals have been put forward to control the chaos. These include:
Banning coaches from driving through the centre, except at specified drop-off/pick-up points.
Extending yellow lines to prevent illegal parking and congestion.Introducing pay-and-display parking for visitors, with exemptions for residents.
Improving short-term parking access, particularly near the village school and church.
Adding raised kerbs and seating to further pedestrianise parts of the centre and enhance safety.
Restrictions on coaches entering the village were introduced in May. At that time, parking bays in the centre of the village were closed and new public bus stop clearways were installed. The aim was to halt “unsafe coach manoeuvres.
Plans to make these changes permanent are backed by a group called Bibury One, which includes representatives from the local community, parish councillors, coach and tour operators, the county council, as well as Gloucestershire Constabulary.
If approved, the measures could be implemented by early summer 2026.
The picturesque village is home to a 16th-century bridge now buckling under the strain of a staggering 40,000 vehicles rumbling through each month during busy periods.
Ryanair will only offer digital boarding passes from November 12, leading to fears that tech-phobes will be unable to fly – and the company’s boss Michael O’Leary could be to blame
The new rule comes into force today(Image: Getty)
Ryanair’s new boarding rules take effect today, with Brits warned not to get caught out and risk incurring a large fee.
Today, the budget carrier has switched entirely to digital boarding passes. This means travellers who have purchased tickets will no longer be able to download and print them before arriving at the airport – an option currently used by 20 per cent of Ryanair passengers, according to the airline.
Desks at the airports will no longer offer the option to print them, which incurred a fee of £55. It is likely that a similar fee will be charged to those who arrive at the airport without having downloaded their digital boarding pass.
All Ryanair has said is that “If you have already checked-in online and your smartphone or tablet is lost, you will receive a free of charge boarding pass at the airport.” That implies that a £55 late-check-in fee will be levied on those who don’t or aren’t able to check-in online before they get to the airport.
There are significant concerns that passengers without use of a mobile phone, or those who are less tech-savvy, may be caught out. A sizeable 2.06 million Brits aged over 55 do not have one of the handy devices, according to MoneySuperMarket. This equates to around 10 per cent of the age group.
With the new rule, customers will have to use the digital boarding pass created by the myRyanair app after they check in. Ryanair stated that 206 million of its passengers already use digital boarding passes, suggesting approximately 40 million journeys could potentially be affected.
The company’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said that his 86-year-old mother uses the Ryanair app to travel. Nevertheless, the decision has sparked criticism, with several campaign groups accusing the airline of ageism.
Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, told The Telegraph: “It’s a disgraceful move. They are effectively saying they don’t want older people as passengers. There’s a strong argument to say that it’s discriminatory.”
Several worried readers contacted The Mirror to voice their concerns about the change. One said: “I have elderly in-laws who live in Spain. They won’t be able to download anything onto their phone. They’re not tech-savvy, so what will happen when they travel to the UK? I appreciate the need to utilise technology, but that will not work for a lot of passengers.”
Another said: “This seems discriminatory to people, such as the elderly, who, for various reasons, are not able to use smartphones. By Ryanair’s own admission, some 20% of passengers do not use smartphones currently for boarding passes. It may backfire. Ryanair will lose these customers who will turn to alternative providers without such a policy.”
Mr O’Leary, aged 64, was swift to dismiss such concerns. He said: “I’m old, and I travel with Ryanair on a very, very regular basis, and I use the Ryanair app, it is pretty simple, pretty easy to use.” For those especially worried about the change, Mr O’Leary indicated the airline would show flexibility, assuring that “nobody would be cut off at the knees.”
He stated it would be “reasonably forgiving” of passengers arriving with paper boarding passes throughout Christmas and into January.
“The critical thing: If you’ve checked online before you get there and you lose your phone, we’ll have your name in the system,” he said. “We will manually board you at the boarding gate so if your phone goes off, you lose your phone, your phone gets stolen, it is not going to make any issue as long as you checked in online before you got to the boarding gate, which, by the way, would eliminate all the check-in fees at the airport.”
Mr O’Leary dismissed suggestions that elderly passengers would struggle with the changes as patronising.
“Actually, what you find is the old people firstly just get their kids or grandkids to make bookings for them, and then pretty quickly they’re adopting it themselves. And it is slightly patronising, this notion that old people can’t and won’t move to mobile technology or to the apps,” he said, MailOnline reported.
The switch was pushed back by a week to November 12 to avoid the UK and Irish half-term period.
Ryanair chief marketing officer Dara Brady said: “To ensure a seamless transition to 100 per cent digital boarding passes for our customers, we will make the switch from November 12, which is traditionally a slightly quieter time for travel following the busy mid-term break period.
“Ryanair’s move to 100 per cent digital boarding passes will mean a faster, smarter, and greener travel experience for our customers, streamlined through our best-in-class ‘myRyanair’ app, where passengers will also benefit from helpful in-app features, like Order to Seat and live flight information.”
An August 2025 picture of a worker looking out from behind a gate outside Britain’s Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex. Asylum seekers will now be permitted to stay in the Essex hotel following Britain’s high court ruling against the local municipal council to remove them. Photo Provided by Tolga Akmen/EPA
Nov. 11 (UPI) — Asylum seekers will be permitted to stay at hotel in Essex following a British high court ruling against a local council to remove them.
The Bell Hotel in Epping Forest, less than 20 miles northeast of London, has housed roughly 140 migrants in the process of seeking British asylum. But the local Epping Forest District Council sought to block their temporarily living conditions after a 14-year-old girl was sexually assaulted and a man living in the hotel accused of the attack.
On Tuesday, Justice Tim Mould dismissed the council’s claims and ruled that an injunction was “not an appropriate means of enforcing planning control.”
Epping Forest’s councillors argued the Bell Hotel owner flouted local planning and zoning rules.
“What we saw in court was an unholy alliance of lawyers for government and big business intent on protecting huge profits and an indefensible asylum policy,”Ken Williamson, a member on Epping Forest District Council, told the BBC.
Protests near the hotel turned violent in July when hijacked by far-right supporters after Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, an Ethiopian national and resident of the hotel, was charged with the teen girl’s sexual assault.
But Mould on Tuesday rejected the prospect that hotel owner Somani Hotels demonstrated a “flagrant or persistent abuse” of planning control with a growing number of immigrants and other foreign asylum seekers.
“Taking a broad view, the degree of planning and environmental harm resulting from the current use of the Bell is limited,” he wrote in a 87-page ruling.
The judge acknowledged the “criminal behavior of a small number of individual asylum seekers” housed at the hotel had “raised the fear of crime” in the local community.
It was noted there was a “continuing need” to house asylum seekers with a looming asylum hearing. And so that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood “can fulfill her statutory duties.”
Tuesday’s ruling continued that statutory procedures under British law provided for the “local planning authority, or on appeal the Secretary of State, to determine conclusively whether an existing use of land is lawful because it does not involve development.”
A U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington on Tuesday overturned a decision requiring organizations that run election-related television ads to reveal their funders, saying a lower court erred in finding that Congress intended to require such disclosure — a victory for some of the biggest groups participating in the 2012 campaign.
In an unsigned decision, the three-judge panel wrote that it was “doubtful” that Congress anticipated how campaign finance rules would change and sent the case back to the lower court for further review.
But for the remainder of this election the ruling lets up the pressure on GOP-allied organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity and Crossroads GPS, which changed their ad strategies after a federal judge ruled this spring that Congress intended such groups to disclose their donors.
“We’re just delighted,” said Thomas Kirby, an attorney for the Center for Individual Freedom, one of two groups that pursued an appeal of the case. “CFIF believes that the right to engage in political speech should not be needlessly conditioned upon the loss of anonymity.”
Rep. Christopher Van Hollen (D-Md.), who brought the original case against the Federal Election Commission that upheld the donor disclosure requirement, issued a statement saying the appellate decision “struck a blow against transparency in the funding of political campaigns.”
“The Court of Appeals’ decision today will keep the American people, for the time being, in the dark about who is attempting to influence their vote with secret money,” he added.
The case hinges on the FEC’s interpretation of the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act, a landmark campaign finance reform measure that, among other things, required groups that engage in “electioneering communications” to reveal all their contributors.
Five years later, the FEC issued a rule stating that such organizations only had to reveal the donors who gave for the purpose of financing TV ads.
Van Hollen — backed by lawyers from the campaign finance reform organizations Democracy 21, Public Citizen, Campaign Legal Center and the law firm WilmerHale — sued the FEC, arguing that the rule created a major loophole that undermined the intent of the McCain-Feingold Act. A federal judge agreed, ruling on March 30 that the FEC had overstepped its authority.
“Congress intended to shine light on whoever was behind the communications bombarding voters immediately prior to elections,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote in her decision.
Her ruling threw out the 2007 rule and reinstated a 2003 FEC regulation that required organizations doing electioneering to report all donations of $1,000 or more dating back to the first day of the preceding year.
That triggered a scramble among politically active groups on the right that have been fighting efforts to force them to reveal their funders. Despite the fact that they are organized as nonprofit social welfare organizations – or, in the case of the Chamber, as a trade group — the groups began running explicitly political ads, taking advantage of the conflicting patchwork of campaign finance rules that did not require disclosure of those doing “express advocacy.”
That move came with its own risk: paying for overtly political spots could jeopardize their tax status.
Such a tactic is no longer necessary after Tuesday’s ruling by the appellate court, which declared that the McCain-Feingold Act is “anything but clear” in light of major court cases that have followed it, including the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United.
The panel chided the FEC for not clearly dealing with the changes in the law or defending its stance in court. The appellate court sent the case back to the lower court, ordering it to refer the matter back to the FEC to defend its current rules or issue new ones.
But with the FEC locked in partisan gridlock, it remains unclear whether the six commissioners will be able to come to agreement on how to proceed.
Campaign finance reform advocates said they were not giving up, saying they still believed they had a strong argument to make at the district court level if the FEC chooses to defend the current rules.
“The Court of Appeals got it wrong,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21. “There is no way Congress enacted a statute to result in no disclosure of contributors when the statute calls for all disclosure of contributors.”
Wertheimer said his group would also continue to press the Internal Revenue Service to scrutinize the activities of groups such as Crossroads GPS that claim to be nonprofit social welfare organizations.
But he admitted that in the prospect of forcing such organizations to reveal their donors this year has been effectively shut down.
“They’ll go back to doing electioneering and claim that their campaign ads are not campaign ads,” Wertheimer said.
With rides such as the Indiana Jones Adventure, the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, or the iconic Space Mountain, Disneyland competes with the world’s biggest attractions when it comes to adrenaline and thrills
11:48, 11 Nov 2025Updated 11:48, 11 Nov 2025
Disneyland takes its dresscode rules seriously(Image: Getty Images)
Disneyland has a surprisingly extensive list of dos and don’ts when it comes to getting dressed up for a day in the Magical Kingdom.
The iconic theme park is firmly stuck at the top of many people’s bucket lists, and for good reason. With rides such as the Indiana Jones Adventure, the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, or the iconic Space Mountain, Disneyland competes with the world’s biggest attractions when it comes to adrenaline and thrills.
And, of course, it is the undisputed champion when it comes to sprinklings of magic. “The Happiest Place on Earth” delivers sparkle and joy with fireworks displays, parades and castles galore.
However, Disneyland has a strict set of rules to ensure that the park remains fun, friendly and safe for everyone. A big part of that is its dress code.
For those who have saved and scrimped for a trip to Disney, the last thing they’d want is to be chucked out or refused entry. According to the Disneyland website, that could happen if you wear “attire that is not appropriate for theme parks”.
That includes but is not limited to:
Costumes may not be worn by guests 14 years of age or older
Masks may not be worn by guests 14 years of age or older (unless they are for medical purposes)
Clothing with objectionable material, including obscene language or graphics
Excessively torn clothing or loose-fitting clothing, which may drag on the ground and create a potential trip hazard
Clothing that, by nature, exposes excessive portions of the skin that may be viewed as inappropriate for a family environment
Clothing with multiple layers is subject to search upon entry
Visible tattoos that could be considered inappropriate, such as those containing objectionable language or designs
Disneyland also has specific costume guidelines for special events such as Oogie Boogie Bash – A Disney Halloween Party. Before brewing up ideas for your next disguise, it’s advised that you read the park’s rules carefully. They are:
All guests may dress as their favorite character, but may not pose for pictures or sign autographs for other guests.
Costumes must be family-friendly and may not be obstructive, offensive, objectionable or violent.
Costumes may not contain any weapons that resemble or could easily be mistaken for an actual weapon.
Costumes may not contain sharp objects, pointed objects or materials that may accidentally strike another Guest.
Layered costumes or costume props that surround the entire body are strongly discouraged and may be subject to additional security screening.
Costumes may not reach or drag on the ground (e.g., full-length Princess dresses)
There are also specific rules for guests of different ages.
For guests aged 13 and under
Costumes and some masks may be worn, as long as the mask does not cover the entire face and eyes are visible.
For guests aged 14 and older
Capes may be worn if the length does not go below the waist.
Themed T-shirts, blouses, sweatshirts and hats are acceptable.
Acceptable accessories include: transparent wings, plastic Lightsabers, toy swords and tutus.
Headwear may be worn as long as it does not cover the face.
Masks of any kind may not be worn, except for medical purposes.
A statement on the Disneyland website suggests that those who breach the rules will, most likely, be given a chance to change their outfit.
“Guests who do not adhere to these guidelines may be refused entry into, and/or removed from, the event, unless his or her costume can be modified to meet the above standards. While we encourage creativity, we also value safety and good judgment. The above costume guidelines apply throughout the duration of Oogie Boogie Bash – A Disney Halloween Party and/or other costumed events. Please note: all rules, regulations and guidelines are subject to change without notice,” it reads.
A judge on Monday allowed the continued deployment of more than 300 West Virginia National Guard members to patrol the streets of Washington, D.C., as part of President Trump’s push to send the military into Democratic-run cities.
Kanawha County Circuit Judge Richard D. Lindsay made the ruling after hearing arguments in a lawsuit by a civic organization that argued Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey exceeded his authority when he authorized the Guard’s deployment in August.
“The question before this court is whether or not state law allows West Virginia to do this,” Lindsay said. “… This court believes that the federal law allows for the request made by the president to the governor.”
West Virginia is among several states that sent National Guard members to the nation’s capital. While the state National Guard has said its deployment could last until the end of November, it is consulting with the governor’s office and others on the possibility of extending the stay.
Formal orders were issued last week extending the deployment of the District of Columbia’s National Guard in the city through the end of February.
“We are pleased with the judge’s decision,” Jace Goins, the state’s chief deputy attorney general, said outside the court in Charleston. “The National Guard are going nowhere. They’re staying in D.C. They’re not going to be redeployed to West Virginia.
“The judge made the determination that the governor made a lawful decision deploying the National Guard to D.C. by a lawful request of the president.”
The West Virginia Citizen Action Group, which filed the lawsuit, argued that under state law, the governor could deploy the National Guard out of state only for certain purposes, such as responding to a natural disaster or another state’s emergency request.
The civic group claimed that it was harmed by the deployment by being forced to refocus its resources away from government accountability and transparency. The state attorney general’s office sought to reject the case, saying the group has not been harmed and lacked standing to challenge Morrisey’s decision.
“It was a simple issue of a broad, lawful request by the president and a lawful deployment by the governor. That’s all,” Goins said.
Aubrey Sparks, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s West Virginia chapter, said she didn’t believe it was the correct decision.
“I think that West Virginia law is clear,” Sparks said. “I think what the state was permitted to do here is to skirt past West Virginia law simply because Trump asked them to. And that’s not how the law works. We remain deeply concerned about it.”
Trump issued an executive order in August declaring a crime emergency in the nation’s capital, although the Department of Justice itself says violent crime there is at a 30-year low.
Within a month, more than 2,300 Guard troops from eight states and the District of Columbia were patrolling under the Army secretary’s command. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist them.
Separately, a federal judge heard arguments Oct. 24 on District of Columbia Atty. Gen. Brian Schwalb ’s request for an order that would remove National Guard members from Washington streets. U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, an appointee of former President Biden, did not rule from the bench.
Lisa Nandy: ‘We didn’t meet the highest standards – that is on me’
The culture secretary has apologised for breaking rules by failing to declare she had received donations from the man she picked to run England’s new football regulator.
On Thursday, the commissioner for public appointments published a report which found that David Kogan had made two separate donations of £1,450 to Lisa Nandy, when she was running to be Labour leader in 2020.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Nandy said: “We didn’t meet the highest standards – that is on me.”
The Conservatives have said Nandy’s actions were “a serious breach of public trust” and called for a further investigation into Sir Keir Starmer, who also received donations from Mr Kogan.
In a statement, Mr Kogan has said: “As the commissioner states, my suitability for the role has never been in question, and at no point was I aware of any deviation from best practice.”
Mr Kogan, a sports rights executive, was initially longlisted for the football regulator role under the previous Conservative government.
Nandy became involved in the process after Labour won the 2024 general election and she took on the role of culture secretary.
In April, she announced that Mr Kogan would be her preferred pick to fill the £130,000-a-year role.
However, a month later she removed herself from the appointment process after Mr Kogan revealed to a parliamentary committee that he had donated “very small sums” to Nandy in 2020.
In his report, commissioner for public appointments Sir William Shawcross said Nandy had “unknowingly” breached the code and should have checked if Mr Kogan had given her money before choosing him as her preferred candidate.
The contributions were part of total donations worth £33,410 to Labour and the party’s candidates in the five years prior to his appointment, the commissioner said.
Mr Kogan’s donations to Nandy were below declaration thresholds set by the Electoral Commission and by Parliament.
Asked why she had not declared the donation during the appointments process, Lisa Nandy told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg she had not known about the money at the time it was given.
She said that during her leadership campaign she had been “out on the road” doing hustings and interviews.
“I wasn’t involved in fundraising for the campaign, and as soon as I found out I declared it and recused myself and I complied fully with the process.”
She insisted Labour was different from the Conservatives saying: “When we make mistakes – and we will make mistakes, we are human beings- we put ourselves through independent processes, we respect the outcome and we take the consequences.”
In his report, Sir William said: “It need not be true that the donations actually influenced the secretary of state’s decision-making – only that the risk of this perception should have been mitigated by declaration of this financial interest.”
He found the Department for Culture, Media and Sport had breached the rules by failing to declare Mr Kogan’s previous donations to Labour when he was named as the government’s preferred choice for the job.
The department also breached the rules by not discussing the donations to Nandy when Mr Kogan was interviewed for the job, Sir William found.
After the report was published, Nandy wrote a letter to the prime minister saying: “I deeply regret this error. I appreciate the perception it could create.”
In his reply, Sir Keir Starmer wrote: “I know you to be a person of integrity and on the basis of your letter, it is clear you have acted in good faith.”
In May 2024, Mr Kogan donated £2,500 to the prime minister’s local Labour branch of Holborn and St Pancras.
The Conservatives have asked the government’s ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus to investigate whether Sir Keir’s role in Mr Kogan’s appointment broke ministerial rules on transparency.
Downing Street said Sir William Shawcross had already carried out an extensive review and “found no breaches aside from those set out in the report”.
The football regulator role was set up following a fan-led review into the management of football clubs.
The regulator has been tasked with improving the financial sustainability of clubs and safeguarding “the heritage of English football”.
US district judge blocks Donald Trump’s use of military force to tackle protests against immigration officers.
Published On 8 Nov 20258 Nov 2025
Share
United States President Donald Trump unlawfully ordered National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, a federal judge has ruled, marking a legal setback for the president’s use of the military for policing duties in US cities.
The ruling on Friday by US District Judge Karin Immergut is the first to permanently block Trump’s use of military forces to quell protests against immigration authorities.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
Immergut, a Trump appointee, rejected the administration’s claim that protesters at an immigration detention facility were waging a rebellion that legally justified sending troops to Portland.
Democrats have said Trump is abusing military powers meant for genuine emergencies such as an invasion or an armed rebellion.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield described the ruling as a “huge victory” and the “decision confirms that the President cannot send the Guard into Oregon without a legal basis for doing so”.
“The courts are holding this administration accountable to the truth and the rule of law,” Rayfield said in a post on social media.
BREAKING NEWS: We just secured a final court order blocking National Guard deployment!
Today’s ruling is a huge victory for Oregon. The courts are holding this administration accountable to the truth and the rule of law. pic.twitter.com/ffzgj0zCjM
— Attorney General Dan Rayfield (@AGDanRayfield) November 8, 2025
Portland’s Mayor Keith Wilson also applauded the decision, saying it “vindicates Portland’s position while reaffirming the rule of law that protects our community”.
“As I have said from the beginning, the number of federal troops needed in our city is zero,” Wilson said, according to local media reports.
The City of Portland and the Oregon Attorney General’s Office sued in September, alleging that the Trump administration was exaggerating occasional violence to justify sending in troops under a law permitting presidents to do so in cases of rebellion.
Echoing Trump’s description of Portland as “war-ravaged”, lawyers from the Department of Justice had described a violent siege overwhelming federal agents in the city.
But lawyers for Oregon and Portland said violence has been rare, isolated and contained by local police.
“This case is about whether we are a nation of constitutional law or martial law,” Portland’s lawyer Caroline Turco had said.
The Trump administration is likely to appeal Friday’s ruling, and the case could ultimately reach the US Supreme Court.
A review by the Reuters news agency of court records found that at least 32 people were charged with federal crimes stemming from the Portland protests since they began in June. Of the 32 charged, 11 pleaded guilty to misdemeanours, and those who have been sentenced received probation.
About half the defendants were charged with assaulting federal officers, including 14 felonies and seven misdemeanours.
Prosecutors dismissed two cases.
Charging documents describe protesters kicking and shoving officers, usually while resisting arrest.
Three judges, including Immergut, have now issued preliminary rulings that Trump’s National Guard deployments are not allowed under the emergency legal authority cited by his administration.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Trump to remove transgender markers from new passports and to require applicants to designate they were male or female at birth.
By a 6-3 vote, the justices granted another emergency appeal from Trump’s lawyers and put on hold a Boston judge’s order that prevented the president’s new passport policy from taking effect.
“Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth,” the court said in an unsigned order. “In both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson filed a dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
She said there was no emergency, and the change in the passport policy would pose a danger for transgender travelers.
“The current record demonstrates that transgender people who use gender-incongruent passports are exposed to increased violence, harassment, and discrimination,” she wrote. “Airport checkpoints are stressful and invasive for travelers under typical circumstances—even without the added friction of being forced to present government-issued identification documents that do not reflect one’s identity.
“Thus, by preventing transgender Americans from obtaining gender-congruent passports, the Government is doing more than just making a statement about its belief that transgender identity is ‘false.’ The Passport Policy also invites the probing, and at times humiliating, additional scrutiny these plaintiffs have experienced.”
Upon taking office in January, Trump ordered the military to remove transgender troops from its ranks and told agencies to remove references to “gender identity” or transgender persons from government documents, including passports.
The Supreme Court has put both policies into effect by setting aside orders from judges who temporarily blocked the changes as discriminatory and unconstitutional.
U.S. passports did not have sex markers until the 1970s. For most of time since then, passport holders have had two choices: “M” for male and “F” for female. Beginning in 1992, the State Department allowed applicants to designate a sex marker that differed from their sex at birth.
In 2021, the Biden administration added an “X” marker as an option for transgender and non-binary persons.
Trump sought a return to the earlier era. He issued an executive order on “gender ideology extremism” and said his administration would “recognize two sexes, male and female.” He required “government-issued identification documents, including passports” to “accurately reflect the holder’s sex” assigned at birth.
The ACLU sued on behalf of transgender individuals who would be affected by the new policy. They won a ruling in June from U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick who blocked the new policy from taking effect.
The transgender plaintiffs “seek the same thing millions of Americans take for granted: passports that allow them to travel without fear of misidentification, harassment, or violence,” the ACLU attorneys said in an appeal to Supreme Court last month.
They said the administration’s new policy would undercut the usefulness of passports for identification.
“By classifying people based on sex assigned at birth and exclusively issuing sex markers on passports based on that sex classification, the State Department deprives plaintiffs of a usable identification document and the ability to travel safely…{It} undermines the very purpose of passports as identity documents that officials check against the bearer’s appearance,” they wrote.
But Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer argued the plaintiffs had no authority over official documents. He said the justices should set aside the judge’s order and allow the new policy to take effect.
“Private citizens cannot force the government to use inaccurate sex designations on identification documents that fail to reflect the person’s biological sex — especially not on identification documents that are government property and an exercise of the President’s constitutional and statutory power to communicate with foreign governments,” he wrote.
