Supreme

March 30 (UPI) — The Supreme Court on Monday denied an appeal from Joe Exotic, the former Tiger King star who is serving time for trying to have an animal rights activist killed.

The court declined to consider tossing the 2019 conviction of Joe Exotic for a murder-for-hire plot to kill animal rights activist Carole Baskin. Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is serving 21 years for the plot. He was also convicted of falsifying wildlife records and violating the Endangered Species Act.

Baskin was also part of the Tiger King series. She founded Florida rescue center Big Cat Rescue and was an advocate of the Big Cat Public Safety Act, which limited owning big cats and cross-breeds to wildlife sanctuaries, state universities and certified zoos. Former President Joe Biden signed the law in 2022.

Maldonado-Passage’s lawyer, Alexander Roots, told the court that the case arose out of an “intense personal, litigation, operational, and even political, rivalry between two of America’s two largest big cat exhibitors,” The Hill reported.

“By denying any hearing and by refusing to evaluate the evidence as a whole, the lower courts departed from principles that safeguard every criminal prosecution in the nation,” he wrote in the petition to the court.

At the trial in 2019, prosecutors said Maldonado-Passage, 63, hired two men to kill Baskin, one of whom was an FBI agent. They also said he shot and killed five tigers in October 2017 and sold and offered to sell tiger cubs.

Maldonado-Passage has asked President Donald Trump for a pardon. He also asked Biden while he was in office.

In his feud with Baskin, Maldonado-Passage alleged without evidence that she killed her second husband, who disappeared in 1997, and he rebranded his traveling show Big Cat Rescue Entertainment, for which she sued him for trademark infringement. He settled with her for $1 million.

In his petition to the Supreme Court, Maldonado-Passage argued that the lower courts “shrugged off” evidence that three witnesses had recanted their trial testimony, including Allen Glover, a zoo employee and the other hired hitman, and Florida businessman James Garretson.

He also alleged federal prosecutors failed to tell the defense that the witnesses were promised immunity for testifying.

But the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the new evidence wasn’t likely to change the trial’s result.

In July, Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, 65, another Tiger King alum, was sentenced to federal prison for crimes related to trafficking exotic animals. He was given 12 months and one day, plus a $55,000 fine and three years of supervised release for violating the Lacey Act, which bans the sale of illegally acquired wildlife, fish or plants, including those designated as protected species by the federal government.

His cancer surgery over the weekend reminds us that Chief Justice William Rehnquist, appointed to the Supreme Court by President Nixon, is not going to be on the court forever.

Neither is John Paul Stevens — a Ford appointee and, like Rehnquist, a World War II veteran. Nor is the third most senior justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, who has now served through six presidential terms.

Their successors will control national policy on the most sensitive and profound political questions of our day –abortion, race, religion and gay marriage. And that means that the most important domestic issue confronting a President Bush or a President Kerry will be his appointments to the Supreme Court.

The court’s current lineup hasn’t changed since 1994 — the longest period without a new justice since the Marshall court of the early 1800s. In the last century, by my calculations, justices on average retired when they were 71 years old after about 14 years on the court.

In 2005, Rehnquist will be 81 and will have served on the court for 33 years. Stevens will be 85 and will have served for 30 years. O’Connor will be 75 and will have served for 24 years. Others are not far behind: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Clinton appointee, will be 72, with 12 years’ service. Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Anthony Kennedy will be 69, with 19 and 17 years respectively. Only Justice Clarence Thomas will be below the age of 65.

Even one new justice could profoundly affect a court that is closely divided on important social issues. And two new justices could shift national policy dramatically.

Slim 5-4 majorities stand behind the decisions that have struck down prohibitions on partial-birth abortion, approved affirmative action programs in colleges and universities, allowed the use of vouchers at private religious schools and restricted use of the death penalty.

Only a one-vote margin has supported restricting Congress’ regulatory power in favor of the states, which affects anti-discrimination, criminal and environmental laws.

A 5-4 majority last term agreed that the nation was at war after the Sept. 11 attacks and that the president and Congress could authorize the detention of “enemy combatants” in the war on terror.

A 6-3 margin defends the basic right to abortion first recognized in Roe vs. Wade and the expansion of gay rights in Lawrence vs. Texas that has spurred efforts for a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage.

With a closely divided Senate a certainty, Supreme Court confirmation hearings in the next four years could make the outrages of the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas hearings look tame. And the filibuster, used by Democrats to block Bush’s lower-court nominees, may be only the beginning of procedural shenanigans.

Just how bloody a battle might be, however, depends on which justice resigns and which candidate wins. A Bush nominee replacing the reliably conservative Rehnquist wouldn’t change the court’s status quo or draw a massive fight. If John Kerry wins, however, his choice to replace Rehnquist would mean major change and, most likely, a knock-down, drag-out struggle.

A more politicized nomination and confirmation process is the Supreme Court’s own doing. Over the last half-century, it has arrogated power — weakening the role of states and even Congress — when it comes to many political and moral questions. The only way for interest groups and citizens to change policy on abortion, affirmative action or gay rights is to change the justices on the Supreme Court.

Despite bruising confirmation proceedings, however, history shows that it is the president who still makes the decisive choice when it comes to the court. In the last century, the Senate has confirmed 89% of the president’s nominees to the Supreme Court. Twelve of the last 14 nominees have taken their seats on the court.

Both candidates are well aware of the stakes, and both are certainly readying nominees. Kerry has said he would nominate a jurist who would protect abortion rights. According to the New York Times, Bush told donors that he expected to replace one justice shortly after his reelection and that he might be replacing as many as four in a second term. His role models for nominees, he has said, are Scalia and Thomas.

But either candidate could be surprised. Republican President Eisenhower chose Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice William Brennan, whose late-blooming activist tendencies caused him to consider their appointments the biggest mistakes of his presidency. The first President Bush appointed David H. Souter, who has evolved toward the liberal end of the spectrum.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court made it harder for music and movie makers to sue for online piracy, ruling Wednesday that internet providers are usually not liable for copyright infringement even if they know their users are downloading copyrighted works.

In a 9-0 decision, the justices threw out Sony’s lawsuit and a $1-billion verdict against Cox Cable for copyright infringement.

Lower courts upheld a jury’s verdict against Cox’s internet service for contributing to music piracy, which the company did little to stop.

Sony’s lawyers pointed to hundreds of thousands of instances of Cox customers sharing copyrighted works. Put on notice, Cox did little stop it, they said.

But the high court said that is not enough to establish liability for copyright infringement.

“Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court.

Two decades ago, the court sided with the music and motion picture producers and ruled against Grokster and Napster on the grounds their software was intended to share copyrighted music and movies.

But on Wednesday, the court said “contributory” copyright infringement did not extend to internet service providers based on the actions of some of their users

“Cox provided Internet service to its subscribers, but it did not intend for that service to be used to commit copyright infringement,” Thomas said. “Cox neither induced its users’ infringement nor provided a service tailored to infringement.”

In its defense, Cox argued that internet service providers could be bankrupted by huge lawsuits for copyright infringement, which they said they did not cause and could not prevent.

WASHINGTON  — The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to rule that it may block migrants from applying for asylum at ports of entry along the southern border.

The administration’s lawyers argued that the right to asylum, which arose in response to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, does not extend to those who are stopped just short of a border post in California, Arizona or Texas.

They pointed to part of the immigration law that says a non-citizen who “arrives in the United States … may apply for asylum.”

“You can’t arrive in the United States while you’re still standing in Mexico. That should be the end of this case,” Vivek Suri, a Justice Department attorney, told the court.

Immigration rights advocates called this claim “perverse” and illogical. They said such a rule would encourage migrants to cross the border illegally rather than present themselves legally at a border post.

The justices sounded divided and a bit uncertain over how to proceed. But the conservative majority is nonetheless likely to uphold the administration’s broad power over immigration enforcement.

Several of the justices noted, however, the Trump administration is not currently enforcing a “remain in Mexico” policy.

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned why the court would make a major decision on immigration and asylum with no immediate, practical impact.

The case posed a fundamental clash between the government’s need to manage surges at the border and the moral and historic right to offer asylum to those fleeing persecution.

In 1939, more than 900 Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi Germany aboard the MS St. Louis were turned away by Cuba and the United States. They were forced to return to Europe and more than 250 of them died in the Holocaust.

The worldwide moral reckoning spurred many nations, including the United States, to adopt new laws which offer protection to those fleeing persecution.

In the Refugee Act of 1980, Congress said that non-citizens either “physically present in the United States” or “at a land border or port of entry” may apply for asylum.

To be eligible for asylum, a non-citizen had to demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country due to their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

Only a small percentage of applicants win their asylum claims, and only after years of litigation.

But faced with overwhelming surge of migrants, the Obama administration in 2016 adopted a “metering” policy that required people to wait on the Mexican side of the border.

The Trump and Biden administrations maintained such policies for a time.

Immigrant rights advocates sued, contending the metering policy was illegal. They won before a federal judge in San Diego who ruled the migrants had a right to claim asylum.

In a 2-1 decision, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in 2024.

“To ‘arrive’ means ‘to reach a destination,’” Judge Michelle Friedland wrote for the appeals court. “A person who presents herself to an official at the border has ‘arrived.’”

The Trump administration appealed.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said the “ordinary meaning of ‘arrives in’ refers to entering a specific place, not just coming close to it. An alien who is stopped in Mexico does not arrive in the United States.”

On Tuesday, the Justice Department attorney said the court should reverse the 9th Circuit and uphold the government’s broad power to block migrants approaching the border.

“I can’t predict the next border surge,” Suri said.

“For more than 45 years, Congress has guaranteed people arriving at our borders the right to seek asylum, consistent with our international treaty obligations,” said Kelsi Corkran, Supreme Court director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, who argued the case. “Yet this administration believes that Congress gave it discretion to completely ignore those requirements, and turn back those who are seeking refuge from persecution at its whim.”

“The people turned away at our border are fleeing rape, torture, kidnapping, and death threats. You cannot tell families running for their lives to go back and wait in danger because their suffering is inconvenient,” said Nicole Elizabeth Ramos, border rights project directo at Al Otro Lado which was the plaintiff in the case. “We brought this case because the United States made a legal and moral commitment to protect people fleeing persecution.”

WASHINGTON — Californians may be forced to put their ballots in the mail well before election day to be certain they will be counted.

That’s the likely outcome of a Republican challenge to mail ballots that came before the Supreme Court on Monday.

The court’s six conservatives sounded ready to rule that federal law requires that ballots must be received by election day if they are to be counted as legal.

In the 19th century, Congress set a national day for federal elections on a Tuesday in early November, but it did not say how or when states would count their ballots. The Constitution leaves it to states to decide the “times, places and manners for holding elections.”

California and 13 other states count mail ballots that were cast before or on election day but arrive a few days late. And most states accept late ballots from members of the military who are stationed overseas.

By law, California counts mail ballots that arrive within seven days of election day. In 2024, more than 406,000 of these late-arriving ballots were counted in California, about 2.5% of the total.

Other Western states — Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Alaska — also count late-arriving mail ballots.

But President Trump has repeatedly claimed that voting by mail leads to fraud, and the Republican National Committee has gone to court to challenge the state laws that allow for counting the legally cast ballots of citizens which are postmarked on time but arrive late.

GOP lawyers argued that the phrase “election day” has always meant ballots must be in the hands of election officials on that day. In their questions and comments, all six conservatives agreed.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. saw a real prospect of fraud. There could be “a big stash of ballots” that arrive late and “flip the outcome,” he said.

Democrats and election law experts say that the proposed new rule conflicts with more than a century of practice, because most states allowed for some people to vote by mail if they were traveling on election day. They argued that election day is like the federal tax day of April 15. While tax returns must be postmarked then, the tax returns are legal even if they arrive at the Internal Revenue Service a few days later.

The GOP filed its challenge in Mississippi, which accepts ballots that arrive up to five days after election day. A district judge rejected the claim, but a 5th Circuit Court panel with three Trump appointees ruled that ballots are illegal if they are not received by election day.

The case before the court is Watson vs. Republican National Committee.

California has been criticized for taking weeks to count all the votes, but that issue was not raised in this case.

JUNEAU, Alaska — The tiny Alaska Native village of Beaver is about 40 minutes — by plane — from the nearest city. Its roughly 50 residents rely on weekday flights for mail and many of their basic supplies, including groceries and Amazon deliveries of everyday household items.

Air service plays an outsize role in the nation’s most expansive state, where most communities rely on flights for year-round access. Planes also play a crucial role in elections, getting voting materials and ballots to and from rural precincts such as Beaver and delivering ballots for thousands of Alaskans who vote by mail — some in places where in-person voting is not available.

The vast distances and relative isolation of so many communities make Alaska unique and are why its residents have a significant interest in arguments taking place Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Many here worry that a case from Mississippi challenging whether ballots received after election day can be counted in federal elections could end Alaska’s practice of accepting late-arriving ballots. Alaska counts ballots if they are postmarked by election day and received within 10 days, or 15 days for overseas voters in general elections.

“These processes have been in place for a long time just to ensure that our ballots are counted,” said Rhonda Pitka, a poll worker and first chief in Beaver, which sits along the Yukon River 110 miles north of Fairbanks.

If the court decides ballots in all states must be received by election day, she said, “they’ll be disenfranchising thousands of people — thousands of people in these rural communities. It’s just basically saying that their votes don’t count, and that’s a real shame.”

The Supreme Court will hear arguments as the U.S. Senate is debating legislation being pushed by President Trump that would require people to show proof of citizenship to register to vote — an onerous burden for many — and a photo ID to cast a ballot.

Most Republicans argue that the bill is necessary to shore up voting integrity, but Democrats and voting rights advocates — and Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski — contend that it amounts to voter suppression. Studies have consistently shown that voting fraud is exceedingly rare in the U.S., and courts have struck down similar measures after finding they prevented eligible voters from casting ballots.

Some ballots already arrive late

Alaska is one of 14 states that allow all mailed ballots postmarked by election day to arrive days or weeks later and be counted, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Voting Rights Lab. An additional 15 provide grace periods for military and overseas ballots.

But Alaska’s geography, weather and great distances between communities — Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas, the nation’s second-largest state — raise the stakes for voters. The unusual way the state counts its votes also makes a grace period important, advocates say.

Under Alaska’s ranked-choice system for general elections, workers in small rural precincts call in voters’ first choices to a regional election office. All ballots, however, ultimately are flown to the state Division of Elections in the capital, Juneau. There, the races not won outright are tabulated to determine a winner.

Even with Alaska’s current 10-day grace period, ballots from some villages in 2022 were not fully counted because of mail delays. They arrived too late for tabulations in Juneau, 15 days after election day.

If the Supreme Court rules that ballots cannot be counted if they arrive at election offices after election day, many Alaska voters could be affected. About 50,000 Alaskans voted by mail in the 2024 presidential election.

“I think there’s probably no other state where this ruling could have a more detrimental impact than ours,” Murkowski, her state’s senior senator, said in an interview.

Murkowski sees the case — a challenge by the Republican National Committee and others to Mississippi’s allowance of late-arriving ballots — as an effort to end voting by mail nationwide.

‘Seeing a level of voter intimidation’

The RNC argues that such grace periods improperly extend elections for federal office, but Mississippi responded that no voting occurs after election day — only the delivery and counting of already completed ballots.

Taken together, Murkowski said, the Trump-backed voting bill and the Supreme Court case could discourage people from voting.

“I think we’re seeing a level of voter intimidation, I’ll just say it,” she said. “I feel very, very strongly that the effort that we should be making at the federal level is to do all that we can to make our elections accessible, fair and transparent for every lawful voter out there.”

Alaska’s other congressional members, Rep. Nick Begich and Sen. Dan Sullivan, both Republican allies of Trump who are seeking reelection this year, support the SAVE America Act now before the Senate. But they also said they want to ensure that ballots properly cast on or before election day get counted.

“We’ll see what the courts choose to do on that issue, but I do think that we need to allow for time for ballots to come in from the rural parts of our state,” Begich said during a recent visit to Juneau.

Alaska officials highlight challenges to the court

A court filing in the Mississippi case by Alaska Atty. Gen. Stephen Cox and Solicitor Gen. Jenna Lorence did not take sides but outlined geographic and logistical challenges to holding elections in Alaska.

In Atqasuk, on Alaska’s North Slope, poll workers counted votes on election night in 2024, tallies they would normally relay by phone to election division officials. But the filing said they could not get through and “chose what they saw as the next best solution — they placed the ballots and tally sheets into a secure package and mailed them to the Division, who did not receive them until nine days later.”

The filing seeks clarity from the Supreme Court, particularly around what it means for ballots to be received by election day.

While it is clear when a ballot is cast, “when certain ballots are actually ‘received’ is open to different interpretations, especially given the connectivity challenges for Alaska’s far-flung boroughs,” Cox and Lorence wrote.

Effect on Alaska Native voters

Lawyers with the Native American Rights Fund and Great Lakes Indigenous Law Center said in filings with the court that limited postal service in rural areas means that some ballots might not be postmarked until they reach Anchorage or Juneau, which can take days.

In the 2022 general election, between 55% and 78% of absentee ballots from the state House districts spanning from the Aleutian Islands up the western coast to the vast North Slope arrived at an election office after election day, they wrote. Statewide, about 20% of all absentee ballots in that election were received after election day.

Requiring ballots to be received by election day, they warned, would “disproportionately disenfranchise” Alaska Native voters. The lawyers represent the National Congress of American Indians, Native Vote Washington and the Alaska Federation of Natives.

Michelle Sparck, director of Get Out the Native Vote, a nonpartisan voting rights advocacy group affiliated with the Alaska Federation of Natives, worries about creating confusion and fear among voters.

She sees the case before the Supreme Court and the Republican SAVE Act as “a multipronged attempt to take control or wrest control of elections away from states.” Alaska, she said, already has enough inherent barriers for many voters.

“There is a minute record of election fraud — not at the rate that requires this heavy-handed response through the legislature and the Supreme Court,” she said.

Bohrer writes for the Associated Press.

March 22 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Watson vs. Republican Nation Committee, a legal case that could have ramifications on mail-in balloting deadlines in the upcoming mid-term elections, on Monday.

About 30 percent of voters cast their ballots by mail in 2024.

CBS noted that 14 states and the District of Columbia have extended deadlines for counting mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day.

Illinois, for instance, counts ballots received up to two weeks after Election Day, while California has a grace period of seven days.

This week’s case will look at whether extended deadlines violate federal statutes recognizing Election Day as a specific date.

“The longer the period over which the election is conducted, the greater the opportunity for and risk of fraud,” USA Today quoted conservative groups, backing the RNC’s attempt to count only ballots received by Election Day, as saying in the court filing.

Marc Elias, a Democratic elections attorney representing Vet Voices and the Alliance for Retired Americans, told the newspaper eliminating grace periods could disproportionately impact Democrats because they are more likely to vote by mail than Republicans.

“People are being stripped of their voting rights through no fault of their own,” Elias said, noting delays in the U.S. Postal Service might be one reason ballots don’t arrive at their local polling places until after Election Day.

The case will be heard as U.S. President Trump continues to pressure the Senate to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require those registering to vote to show proof of citizenship with passports or birth certificates.

“THE SAVE AMERICA ACT MUST BE PASSED BY THE SENATE. THERE IS NOTHING THAT IS MORE IMPORTANT FOR THE U.S.A. Voter I.D., Proof of Citizenship, etc. Get it done and watch all of the good things that will happen!!!” Trump wrote on X Friday.

A recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll showed that 71 percent of voters support the SAVE Act.

Under the guise of preserving secularism, this law allows the exclusion of people based on their religious identity.

On Monday, the Supreme Court of Canada will begin a four-day hearing for one of the most consequential constitutional cases in the country’s recent history. At issue is Quebec’s so-called “secularism law”, known as Bill 21 – a law enacted in 2019 that prohibits certain public sector workers from wearing visible religious symbols at work.

It bars many public sector employees, including teachers, prosecutors, police officers, and judges, from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs, turbans, kippahs, and other visible expressions of faith while at work.

There is much at stake in this case that raises fundamental questions about religious freedom, equality, and the limits of state power in a constitutional democracy. In addition, another significant issue is that to get the bill passed, Quebec’s government had used the “notwithstanding clause”, a unique provision in Canadian law that allows it to override fundamental rights and freedoms. No other constitutional democracy in the world has a similar blanket override of fundamental rights and freedoms.

The Quebec government claims that the law is necessary to preserve the religious neutrality of the state. Yet Bill 21 does the opposite: by forcing some individuals to choose between their profession and their religious identity, the Quebec government is not remaining neutral – it is effectively excluding people of faith from public sector employment.

The use of this extraordinary, and until recently rarely used, constitutional mechanism has turned the spotlight on Bill 21 beyond the borders of Quebec and the debate over secularism and religious freedoms. It has become a test of how far a democratic government can go in limiting fundamental rights and freedoms.

Evidence before the courts shows that Bill 21 affects religious people of many faiths, including Jewish men who wear kippahs and Sikh men and women who wear turbans; but its impact falls particularly heavily on Muslim women who wear the hijab. For many Muslim women who wear headscarves, teaching and other public service careers have effectively been closed off.

The message of exclusion that this law sends to young people is especially troubling. Generations of young people in Quebec are being told that their full participation in public life requires abandoning visible aspects of their identity.

This is why the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association launched the constitutional challenge against Bill 21. The Supreme Court of Canada must consider the implications, and possible limitations, of allowing governments to sidestep rights protections through pre-emptive use of constitutional override powers. The court’s decision will help determine whether constitutional rights in Canada remain meaningful constraints on government power, or whether they can be suspended whenever politically convenient.

These questions extend far beyond Canada. Across Europe and elsewhere, debates about secularism have increasingly centred on restrictions targeting religious expression, often impacting Muslim women in particular.

Canada often prides itself on being a model of multicultural democracy, one that accommodates diversity. Bill 21 challenges that reputation by testing whether neutrality can coexist with policies that effectively exclude people of visible faith from public service.

True secularism does not demand the erasure of religious identity. A neutral state does not require citizens to shed visible expressions of belief in order to participate fully in public life.

The Supreme Court of Canada now has the opportunity to reaffirm these principles and clarify that constitutional rights cannot be easily set aside. At a time when countries around the world are grappling with questions of belonging, pluralism, and the rights of minorities, the Canadian court’s ruling will send an important signal about whether liberal democracies are willing to uphold their commitments to freedom and equality.

We say this is not an abstract idea, but an imperative to demonstrate that commitments to freedom and equality are more than mere words.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has released a message for the Persian New Year saying that Iran’s unity had defeated the enemy. Khamenei’s message comes amid rumours over his health following US-Israeli strikes.

March 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of allowing a so-called street preacher in Mississippi to challenge a law prohibiting where he can protest.

The high court said Gabriel Olivier can file a civil suit in response to a law in Brandon, Miss., that prevents public protests outside of designated areas. He said the law violates the 1st Amendment’s free speech protection.

Police in Brandon, Miss., arrested Olivier in 2021 as he and a group of protesters shouted slurs and insults at concertgoers as they entered an amphitheater. Some members of the group also held up graphic signs showing aborted fetuses.

He was convicted of violating the city’s laws banning protesters from coming within about 265 feet away of the amphitheater and from using loudspeakers that can be heard from more than 100 feet away, CNN reported.

Olivier pleaded no contest to the charges and was ordered to pay a fine and serve a year of unsupervised probation. Following his sentence, he sued the city, saying its law violated his free speech rights.

A 1994 Supreme Court ruling — Heck v. Humphrey — though says that a defendant convicted of a crime can’t then sue over the legality of their conviction. Otherwise, he and other defendants could be cleared of their convictions outside of the normal criminal appeals process, The Washington Post reported.

Olivier’s lawyers said his case should be allowed to proceed because success wouldn’t affect the result of his conviction, for which he wasn’t imprisoned. The Supreme Court agreed with a unanimous vote.

The ruling did not pass judgment on the constitutionality of the city of Brandon’s laws, only that Olivier is allowed to challenge them.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to rule on whether the Trump administration may end the temporary protection that had been extended in the past to migrants who live and work in the United States.

At issue are legal protections for about 6,000 Syrians and up to 350,000 Haitians.

The court’s announcement signals the justices want to resolve this issue in a written opinion rather through emergency appeals.

Twice last year, the court’s conservatives set aside decisions from judges in San Francisco who said President Trump’s Homeland Security secretary had overstepped her authority.

Those cases involved the temporary protection status extended to about 600,000 Venezuelans.

But those decisions did not set clear precedents, and in recent weeks, judges in New York and Washington, D.C., blocked the administration’s plan to end the special protections for Haitians and Syrians.

Frustrated by what he labeled “indefensible” decisions, Trump’s Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer advised the court to hear arguments and issue a written ruling on the issue.

The justices on Monday agreed to just that. Arguments will be heard in April, and a decision will be handed down by July.

Immigrant-rights advocates argued the repeal of the special protection would be cruel and unjust to migrants who have established lives and careers in this country.

In 1990, Congress authorized giving temporary shelter to non-citizens from countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disaster or “extraordinary and temporary conditions” that prevent them from returning there.

In 2012, the Homeland Security secretary extended this protection to Syrians in response to a “brutal crackdown” engineered by its then-President Bashar al-Assad.

Last year, citing Assad’s fall from power, Trump’s Secretary Kristi Noem proposed to cancel the temporary protection for Syrians. Lawyers for the Syrians questioned how this could be seen as an emergency requiring an immediate ruling.

They said about 6,100 Syrians who have lived here lawfully for years.

They are “highly sought-after doctors and medical professionals, reporters, students, teachers, business owners, caretakers, and others who have been repeatedly vetted and by definition have virtually no criminal history. The government apparently needs urgent authority to send them to a country in the middle of an active war,” the lawyers said.

In 2010, the Obama administration extended the protection to Haiti after an earthquake caused death and damage in Port-au-Prince, the capital.

Judges in New York and Washington blocked those repeals and said the high court had given “no explanation” for its decision upholding the repeal for Venezuelans.

Those judges said the Supreme Court’s earlier orders orders “involved a TPS designation of a different country, with different factual circumstances, and different grounds for resolution by the district court.”

Sauer pointed to a provision in the 1990 law that says judges have no authority to second-guess the government’s decision to end it.

“There is no judicial review of any determination of the [Secretary] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state under this subsection,” the law says.

In the three weeks since Trump’s attorney filed his emergency appeal, there have been two significant changes since then.

Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. And his war launched against Iran threatens countries throughout the Mideast, including Syria.

In agreeing to hear the pair of cases, the justices did not disturb the lower court rulings that blocked the repeals for now.

Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has never held a formal position in government, but his appointment as his late father’s successor amid the US-Israeli war on his country was not unexpected.

Iran’s Assembly of Experts appointed the 56-year-old mid-ranking religious scholar to the position on Sunday, just over a week after his late father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in United States-Israeli strikes.

Khamenei, who has strong ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and his late father’s still-influential office, is seen as a hardliner who will provide continuity in the country.

His appointment, which came after he lost both his father and his wife in strikes, was interpreted as a defiant choice signalling continuity as the Islamic Republic faces the biggest crisis in its 47-year history.

Khamenei received immediate backing from figures in Iran’s political and security establishment, including IRGC leaders, President Masoud Pezeshkian and Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

Outside the country, reactions were mixed:

Oman

Oman was a mediator in recent talks between Iran and the United States, which collapsed when the US and Israel unleashed their war on Iran last month.

Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said on Monday sent a “cable of congratulations” to Khamenei on his appointment as Iran’s new supreme leader, according to the official Oman News Agency.

Iraq

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani also congratulated Khamenei on his appointment on Monday.

“We express our confidence in the ability of the new leadership in the Islamic Republic of Iran to manage this sensitive stage, and continue to strengthen the unity of the Iranian people in facing the current challenges,” al-Sudani said in a statement.

He reaffirmed Iraq’s solidarity and support for Iran and “all steps aimed at ending the conflict and rejecting military operations against its sovereignty, in order to preserve the stability of other countries in the region”.

United States

US President Donald Trump had previously dismissed Mojtaba Khamenei as a “lightweight”, and insisted he should have a say in appointing a new Iranian leader, which Tehran rejected.

On Monday, Trump told NBC News, “I think they made a big mistake. I don’t know if it’s going to last. I think they made a mistake.”

Later on Monday, he told CBS News: “I have no message for him.”

Trump said he has someone in mind to lead Iran, but did not elaborate.

Israel

The ⁠Israeli ⁠military has already threatened to kill any replacement for the late Ali Khamenei.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that Mojtaba Khamenei was a “tyrant” like his slain father, and would continue what it described as the Iranian “regime’s brutality”.

In a post on X featuring a picture of Mojtaba Khamenei and his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, holding guns, the ministry wrote: “Mojtaba Khamenei. Like Father Like Son”.

“Mojtaba Khamenei’s hands are already stained with the bloodshed that defined his father’s rule. Another tyrant to continue the Iranian regime’s brutality,” said the ministry.

Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday pledged “unwavering support” to Iran.

“I would like to reaffirm our unwavering support for Tehran and solidarity with our Iranian friends,” Putin said in a message to Khamenei, adding that “Russia has been and will remain a reliable partner” to Iran.

“At a time when Iran is confronting armed aggression, your tenure in this high position will undoubtedly require great courage and dedication,” the Russian leader said.

China

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters on Monday that Iran’s decision to appoint the younger Khamenei was “based on its constitution”.

“China opposes interference in other countries’ internal affairs under any pretext, and Iran’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity should be respected,” he said when asked about the threats against the new leader.

Beijing is a close partner of Tehran and condemned the killing of the former supreme leader, but it has also criticised the Iranian counterstrikes against Gulf states.

Yemen’s Houthis

Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Monday welcomed the appointment of the new supreme leader.

“We congratulate the Islamic Republic of Iran, its leadership and people, on the selection of Sayyid Mojtaba Khamenei as Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution at this important and pivotal juncture,” the group said in a statement on Telegram.

It called his selection “a new victory for the Islamic Revolution and a resounding blow to the enemies of the Islamic Republic and the enemies of the nation”.

A new supreme leader in Iran – Mojtaba Khamenei – has replaced his assassinated father.

His selection sends a defiant message to the United States and Israel as they attack the country.

So, who is Iran’s new leader – and what does his appointment mean?

Presenter: Tom McRae

Guests:

Hassan Ahmadian – Associate professor at the University of Tehran

Mehran Kamrava – Professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and director of the Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies

Alex Vatanka – Senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has pledged allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei, the country’s newly-elected supreme leader. While some Iranians have celebrated, many are dismayed the 56-year-old cleric, accused of human rights abuses, has ascended to the country’s highest office.

Iran has named Mojtaba Khamenei as its new supreme leader, just over a week after the assassination of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint United States-Israeli strikes that have plunged the entire region into a sprawling war.

The 56-year-old, who will now be charged with leading the Islamic Republic through the biggest crisis in its 47-year history, was named by clerics as his father’s successor on Sunday.

Key leaders, Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the armed forces were quick to pledge their backing to the new leader.

Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, who has been tasked with steering Iran’s security strategy since the US and Israel launched their all-out offensive, called for unity around the new supreme leader.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf welcomed the choice, saying that following the new supreme leader was a “religious and national duty”.

Mojtaba Khamenei has never run for office or been subjected to a public vote, but has for decades been a highly influential figure in the inner circle of the supreme leader, cultivating deep ties to the IRGC.

In recent years, Khamenei has increasingly been touted as a top potential replacement for his father. His selection could be a sign that more hardline factions in Iran’s establishment retain power, and could indicate that the government has little desire to agree to a deal or negotiations in the short term as the war enters its second week.

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem described Khamenei as his “father’s gatekeeper”.

“He adopts the positions of his father with respect to the United States, with respect to Israel. So we are expecting a confrontational leader. We’re not expecting any moderation,” he said.

“However, if this war comes to an end and he is still alive, and he is able to continue running the country, there is going to be big potential… to find new routes for Iran,” Hashem said.

Rami Khouri, a distinguished public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut, said Khamenei’s appointment signals “continuity” and that it remains to be seen whether the new supreme leader will push for negotiations to end the war.

Either way, he said, the appointment was “an act of defiance”. Iran is “telling the Americans and Israelis, ‘You wanted to get rid of our system? Well … this is a more radical person than his father who was assassinated,’” he said.

Heidari Alekasir, a member of the Assembly of Experts that was tasked with choosing the supreme leader, said the candidate had been picked based on the late Khamenei’s advice that Iran’s top leader should “be hated by the enemy” instead of praised by it.

“Even the Great Satan [US] has mentioned his name,” the senior cleric said in reference to US President Donald Trump’s earlier statement that Mojtaba Khamenei would be an “unacceptable” choice for him to lead Iran.

Israel’s military had previously warned any successor that “we will not hesitate to target you”.

On Sunday, Trump again promised to exert influence over who is selected as Iran’s next supreme leader, saying that, without Washington’s approval, whoever is picked for the role is “not going to last long”.

The selection of Khamenei’s son is certain to enrage Trump.

Supreme leader not decided by ‘Epstein’s gang’

The 88-member Assembly of Experts said on Sunday that it “did not hesitate for a minute” in choosing a new supreme leader, despite “the brutal aggression of the criminal America and the evil Zionist regime”.

Earlier, the clerical body had indicated it had reached a majority consensus on its choice, without naming who it was, with one member saying, “The path of ⁠Imam Khomeini and ⁠the path of the martyr Imam Khamenei has been ⁠chosen. The name of ⁠Khamenei will continue.”

Mojtaba Khamenei studied under conservative clerics in the seminaries of Qom, the heart of Shia theological learning, and holds the clerical rank of hojjatoleslam, a mid-level clerical ranking.

Ali Khamenei, who led Iran for 37 years, succeeding Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the 1979 revolution, was killed in a US-Israeli strike on Tehran on February 28, at the outset of the war, which has now unleashed chaos throughout the Middle East.

The ⁠Israeli ⁠military has already threatened to kill any replacement for Khamenei, while Trump said the war may only end once Iran’s military and leaders have been wiped out.

“He’s going to have to get approval from us,” Trump told ABC News. “If he doesn’t get approval from us, he’s not going to last long,” Trump said on Sunday of any new supreme leader.

Iranian officials have rejected Trump’s push to be involved in the selection of the next leader, insisting that only Iranians can decide the future of their country.

On Friday, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf appeared to ridicule the US president’s demands.

“The fate of dear Iran, which is more precious than life, will be determined solely by the proud Iranian nation, not by [Jeffrey] Epstein’s gang,” Ghalibaf wrote on X, referring to the late sex offender who had ties to rich and powerful figures in the US.

Dark skies

As clerics selected the new supreme leader, a dark haze hung over Tehran after Israel struck five oil facilities in and around the capital city overnight, setting them ablaze and filling the skies with acrid smoke.

As the war extended into its ninth day, the IRGC said they had enough supplies to continue their drone and missile attacks across the Middle East for up to six months.

IRGC spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini said Iran had so far used only first- and second-generation missiles, but would use “advanced and less-used long-range missiles” in the coming days.

Trump again refused to rule out sending American ground troops into Iran, but continued to insist that the war was all but won, despite the ongoing Iranian missile and drone strikes.

Analysts warn there is no clear path to ending the conflict, which US and Israeli officials say could last a month or longer.

Iran’s military and political leaders pledge allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei as Saudi Arabia reports two deaths amid Iranian counterattacks.

March 8 (UPI) — Members of the Iranian body charged with selecting the country’s new supreme leader said a candidate has been chosen, but no name has been revealed.

Mohsen Heydari, a member of the selection body, told Iran’s state-run ISNA news agency that a decision has been made on the successor to supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in joint U.S.-Israeli air strikes Feb. 28.

“The most suitable candidate, approved by the majority of the Assembly of Experts, has been determined,” Heydari said.

Mohammad Mehdi Mirbagheri, another member of the assembly, confirmed Heydari’s statement to the state-run Fars news agency.

Israeli forces have pledged to target Khamenei’s successor, as well as anyone involved in appointing a new supreme leader.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz revealed Sunday that Abu-al-Qasem Baba’iyan, who was appointed last week as the new head of the supreme leader’s military bureau, has been killed.

An Iranian missile strike injured five people Sunday in central Israel. One person was reported killed in an Iranian strike in Dubai on Saturday. Sunday morning strikes were also reported in Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The strikes came just one day after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a pre-recorded statement apologizing to neighboring countries targeted in Iranian strikes, and pledged to suspend such attacks, unless attacks on Iran originated from those locations.

Meanwhile, two Israeli soldiers were killed Sunday morning in Lebanon, marking the country’s first fatalities in its campaign against Iran-aligned Hezbollah.

Lebanese health minister Rakan Nasreddine said at least 394 people have been killed in the country since Israeli strikes began last week.

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

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

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

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

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

The proposal was ultimately withdrawn without a vote.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Kim Chae-yeon, Asia Today

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

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Iran’s Assembly of Experts is now tasked with choosing the next Supreme Leader. It elected Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 1989.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The court is expected to issue a ruling by summer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Religious liberty advocates hailed the decision.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. President Donald Trump says that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed. Khamenei was among a number of senior Iranian officials targeted in the initial wave of U.S.-Israeli strikes earlier today.

Readers can first get caught up on the ongoing conflict in our previous rolling coverage here.

“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead. This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social social media network. “He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do.”