temporarily

Oct. 18 (UPI) — The U.S. Marine Corps‘ live-fire event at Camp Pendleton as part of its 250th birthday celebration will cause the closure of Interstate 5 for four hours on Saturday.

The closure is a precaution due to the firing of explosive artillery rounds over the freeway from gunnery ranges at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, which has drawn the ire of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Newsom accused President Donald Trump of “putting his ego over responsibility with this disregard for public safety” in a prepared statement released on Saturday morning.

“Firing live rounds over a busy highway isn’t just wrong — it’s dangerous,” Newsom said.

“Using our military to intimidate people you disagree with isn’t strength,” he added. “It’s reckless. It’s disrespectful, and it’s beneath the office he holds.”

Trump will not attend the celebratory event, but Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are scheduled to attend, with the live-fire scheduled at 1:30 p.m. local time.

Marine Corps officials initially said there would be no need to close the freeway and only asked that signs be posted warning drivers of the live-fire event and to expect to hear explosions.

California Highway Patrol officials instead announced the freeway would be closed while the event is in progress, according to KTLA-TV.

Due to safety concerns, a section of Interstate 5 will be closed Saturday due to a White House-directed military event at Camp Pendleton involving live ammunition being discharged over the freeway,” Caltrans officials said in a statement on Saturday morning.

“Drivers should expect delays on Interstate 5 and other state routes throughout Southern California before, during and after the event.”

The closure starts at 11 a.m. PDT for the 17-mile stretch of freeway running from Basilone Road near San Onofre in the north to Harbor Drive in Oceanside to the south and reopens at 3 p.m.

The event will include a demonstration of Navy and Marine Corps operations on land, sea and in the air.

Camp Pendleton is located about 40 miles north of San Diego and east of I-5, which runs along the Pacific Coast.

Caltrans officials advise motorists in Los Angeles County to use state routes in San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties to bypass the closed section of freeway.

Several local train routes also will be closed during the live-fire event.

A federal judge said the layoffs by the administration of US President Donald Trump seem politically motivated and ‘you can’t do that in a nation of laws’.

A United States federal judge in California has ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to halt mass layoffs during a partial government shutdown while she considers claims by unions that the job cuts are illegal.

During a hearing in San Francisco on Wednesday, US District Judge Susan Illston granted a request by two unions to block layoffs at more than 30 agencies pending further litigation.

Her ruling came shortly after White House Budget Director Russell Vought said on “The Charlie Kirk Show” that more than 10,000 federal workers could lose their jobs because of the shutdown, which entered its 15th day on Wednesday.

Illston at the hearing cited a series of public statements by Trump and Vought that she said showed explicit political motivations for the layoffs, such as Trump saying that cuts would target “Democrat agencies”.

“You can’t do that in a nation of laws. And we have laws here, and the things that are being articulated here are not within the law,” said Illston, an appointee of Democratic former President Bill Clinton, adding that the cuts were being carried out without much thought.

“It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs, and it has a human cost,” she said. “It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”

Illston said she agreed with the unions that the administration was unlawfully using the lapse in government funding that began October 1 to carry out its agenda of downsizing the federal government.

A US Department of Justice lawyer, Elizabeth Hedges, said she was not prepared to address Illston’s concerns about the legality of the layoffs. She instead argued that the unions must bring their claims to a federal labour board before going to court.

‘Won’t negotiate’

The judge’s decision came after federal agencies on Friday started issuing layoff notices aimed at reducing the size of the federal government. The layoff notices are part of an effort by Trump’s Republican administration to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.

Democratic lawmakers are demanding that any deal to reopen the federal government address their healthcare demands. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted the shutdown may become the longest in history, saying he “won’t negotiate” with Democrats until they hit pause on those demands and reopen.

Democrats have demanded that healthcare subsidies, first put in place in 2021 and extended a year later, be extended again. They also want any government funding bill to reverse the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill that was passed earlier this year.

About 4,100 workers at eight agencies have been notified that they are being laid off so far, according to a Tuesday court filing by the administration.

The Trump administration has been paying the military and pursuing its crackdown on immigration while slashing jobs in health and education, including in special education and after-school programmes. Trump said programmes favoured by Democrats are being targeted and “they’re never going to come back, in many cases.”

The American Federation of Government Employees and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees claim that implementing layoffs is not an essential service that can be performed during a lapse in government funding, and that the shutdown does not justify mass job cuts because most federal workers have been furloughed without pay.

PORTLAND, Ore. — A federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard in Portland, ruling Saturday in a lawsuit brought by the state and city.

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut issued the order pending further arguments in the case. She said that the relatively small protests the city has seen did not justify the use of federalized forces and that allowing the deployment could harm Oregon’s state sovereignty.

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote. She later continued, “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”

State and city officials sued to stop the deployment last week, one day after the Trump administration announced that 200 Oregon National Guard troops would be federalized to protect federal buildings. The president called the city “war-ravaged.”

Oregon officials said that characterization was ludicrous. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in the city has been the site of nightly protests that typically drew a couple dozen people in recent weeks before the deployment was announced.

Generally speaking the president is allowed “a great level of deference” to federalize National Guard troops in situations where regular law enforcement forces are not able to execute the laws of the United States, the judge said, but that has not been the case in Portland.

Plaintiffs were able to show that the demonstrations at the immigration building were not significantly violent or disruptive ahead of the president’s order, the judge wrote, and “overall, the protests were small and uneventful.”

“The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” Immergut wrote.

After the ruling, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that “President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement — we expect to be vindicated by a higher court.”

Trump has deployed or threatened to deploy troops in several U.S. cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, including Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and Memphis, Tenn. Speaking Tuesday to U.S. military leaders in Virginia, he proposed using cities as training grounds for the armed forces, alarming many military analysts.

Last month a federal judge ruled that the president’s deployment of some 4,700 National Guard soldiers and Marines in Los Angeles this year was illegal, but he allowed the 300 who remain in the city to stay as long as they do not enforce civilian laws. The Trump administration appealed, and an appellate panel has put the lower court’s block on hold while it moves forward.

The Portland protests have been limited to a one-block area in a city that covers about 145 square miles and has about 636,000 residents.

The protests grew somewhat following the Sept. 28 announcement of the Guard deployment. The Portland Police Bureau, which has said it does not participate in immigration enforcement and intervenes in the protests only if there is vandalism or criminal activity, arrested two people on assault charges. A peaceful march earlier that day drew thousands to downtown and saw no arrests, police said.

On Saturday, before the ruling was released, roughly 400 people marched to the ICE facility. The crowd included people of all ages and races, families with children and older people using walkers. Federal agents responded with chemical crowd-control munitions, including tear gas canisters and less-lethal guns that sprayed pepper balls. At least six people were arrested as the protesters reached the ICE building.

During his first term, Trump sent federal officers to Portland over the objections of local and state leaders in 2020 during long-running racial justice protests after George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police. The administration sent hundreds of agents for the stated purpose of protecting the federal courthouse and other federal property from vandalism.

That deployment antagonized demonstrators and prompted nightly clashes. Federal officers fired rubber bullets and used tear gas.

Viral videos captured federal officers arresting people and hustling them into unmarked vehicles. A report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found that while the federal government had legal authority to deploy the officers, many of them lacked the training and equipment necessary for the mission.

The government agreed this year to settle an excessive-force lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union by compensating several plaintiffs for their injuries.

Rush and Boone write for the Associated Press and reported from Portland and Boise, Idaho, respectively. AP writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

The United States Supreme Court says it will hear arguments over President Donald Trump’s efforts to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook from her post. The court’s announcement means Cook will stay in the job for now.

The high court announced the decision on Wednesday.

The White House has been trying to remove Cook in the first-ever bid by a president to fire a Fed official, an unprecedented challenge to central bank independence.

The justices declined to immediately decide a Department of Justice request to put on hold a judge’s order temporarily blocking the Republican president from removing Cook, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, while litigation over the termination continues in a lower court.

The justices said they would hear the case in January.

In creating the Fed in 1913, Congress passed a law called the Federal Reserve Act, which included provisions to shield the central bank from political interference, such as allowing governors to be removed by a president only “for cause”, although the law does not define the term or establish procedures for removal. The law has never been tested in court.

Washington, DC-based US District Judge Jia Cobb on September 9 ruled that Trump’s claims that Cook committed mortgage fraud before taking office, which Cook denies, likely were not sufficient grounds for removal under the Federal Reserve Act.

Trump on August 25 said he was removing Cook from the Fed’s Board of Governors, citing allegations that before joining the central bank in 2022, she falsified records to obtain favourable terms on a mortgage. Her term is set to expire in 2038.

Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, sued Trump soon after. Cook has said the claims made by Trump against her did not give the president the legal authority to remove her and were a pretext to fire her for her monetary policy stance.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2-1 ruling on September 15 denied the administration’s request to put Cobb’s order on hold.

Expansive view of presidential powers

In a series of decisions in recent months, the Supreme Court has allowed Trump to remove members of various federal agencies that Congress had established as independent from direct presidential control despite similar job protections for those posts. The decisions suggest that the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, may be ready to jettison a key 1935 precedent that preserved these protections in a case that involved the US Federal Trade Commission.

But the court has signalled that it could treat the Fed as distinct from other executive branch agencies, noting in May in a case involving Trump’s dismissal of two Democratic members of federal labour boards that the Fed “is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity” with a singular historical tradition.

Trump’s bid to fire Cook reflects the expansive view of presidential power he has asserted since returning to office in January. As long as the president identifies a cause for removal, Cook’s sacking is within his “unreviewable discretion”, the Department of Justice said in a September 18 filing to the Supreme Court.

“Put simply, the President may reasonably determine that interest rates paid by the American people should not be set by a Governor who appears to have lied about facts material to the interest rates she secured for herself – and refuses to explain the apparent misrepresentations,” the filing stated.

Cook’s lawyers told the Supreme Court on September 25 that granting Trump’s request, “would eviscerate the Federal Reserve’s longstanding independence, upend financial markets and create a blueprint for future presidents to direct monetary policy based on their political agendas and election calendars”.

A group of 18 former US Federal Reserve officials, Treasury secretaries and other top economic officials who served under presidents from both parties also urged the Supreme Court not to let Trump fire Cook.

The group included the past three Fed chairs, Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan. In a brief to the court, they wrote that allowing this dismissal would threaten the Fed’s independence and erode public confidence in it.

Cook took part in the Fed’s highly anticipated two-day meeting in Washington, DC, in September, at which the central bank decided to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point as policymakers responded to concerns about weakness in the job market. Cook was among those voting in favour of the cut.

Pressure on Fed

Concerns about the Fed’s independence from the White House in setting monetary policy could have a ripple effect throughout the global economy.

The case has ramifications for the Fed’s ability to set interest rates without regard to the wishes of politicians, widely seen as critical to any central bank’s ability to function independently and carry out tasks such as keeping inflation under control.

Trump this year has demanded that the Fed cut rates aggressively, berating Fed Chair Jerome Powell for his stewardship over monetary policy as the central bank focused on fighting inflation. Trump has called Powell a “numbskull,” “incompetent” and a “stubborn moron”.

Human rights groups say the government risks breaching international law by denying people the right to claim asylum.

A British court has temporarily blocked the deportation of an asylum seeker to France, dealing an early setback to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plan to return people who arrive in the United Kingdom on small boats.

The 25-year-old Eritrean man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, crossed the English Channel on August 12 and was due to be removed on Wednesday under a “one in, one out” pilot scheme agreed between the UK and France in July.

But on Tuesday, London’s High Court granted him an interim injunction preventing his removal, pending a full hearing of his trafficking claim.

Judge Clive Sheldon ruled: “I am going to grant a short period of interim relief. The status quo is that the claimant is currently in this country and has not been removed.

“So, I make an order that the claimant should not be removed tomorrow at 9am, but that this matter should come back to this court as soon as is reasonably practical in light of the further representations that the claimant … will make on his trafficking decision.”

“The removal takes place against the backdrop of the recently signed agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the French Republic.

“It seems to me there is a serious issue to be tried with respect to the trafficking claim and whether or not the Secretary of State has carried out her investigatory duties in a lawful manner.”

The case follows a decision by the UK’s National Referral Mechanism (NRM) – which identifies and assesses victims of slavery and human trafficking – asking the man to submit further evidence in relation to his claim.

The ruling is a setback for Prime Minister Starmer, who has made stopping small boat crossings central to his government’s agenda.

His approach has drawn criticism from rights groups, who accuse him of bowing to pressure from the far right following attacks on asylum-seeker accommodation.

The UK-France scheme is also seen by analysts as part of the government’s attempt to blunt the growing support of the anti-immigrant Reform UK party, which has been climbing in opinion polls.

Under the plan, people arriving in Britain would be returned to France, while the UK would accept an equal number of recognised asylum seekers with family ties in Britain.

Downing Street has defended the plan, calling it a “fair and balanced” system designed to reduce irregular migration.

It insisted it expects deportations to begin “imminently”, with the prime minister’s official spokesman saying “for obvious reasons we’re not going to get into a running commentary on operational details before that”.

Human rights groups say the government risks breaching international law by denying people the right to claim asylum in the UK.

Sept. 5 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration for now from ending Temporary Protected Status for more than 1.1 million migrants from Venezuela and Haiti.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco ruled that the change unlawfully “truncated and condensed” the timeline to end temporary legal protections and work permits for people who fled the two Latin American nations. He was appointed by President Barack Obama.

About 600,000 Venezuelans had their protections expire in April or on Sept. 10. They have fled political unrest, mass unemployment and hunger since receiving their protected status in 2021. The ruling affects 500,000 from Haiti.

The Department of Homeland Security has attempted to end the status for several countries. Separate litigation is ongoing for migrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.

“This case arose from action taken post haste by the current DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem, to revoke the legal status of Venezuelan and Haitian TPS holders, sending them back to conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries,” Chen wrote in a 69-page decision. “The Secretary’s action in revoking TPS was not only unprecedented in the manner and speed in which it was taken but also violates the law.”

The decision only temporarily halted the agency from deporting them. But Chen said he expects Venezuelans will be able to renew this status while the case goes through the courts, including appeals, and ultimately the Supreme Court.

Earlier, he halted a TPS order for several hundred thousand Venezuelans. But the Supreme Court in May allowed the Trump administration to end the program as it goes through the courts.

Chen said his new decision concerned only preliminary relief, and the high court didn’t bar him from deciding on the case based upon its merits under the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the rule-making process of the agency.

In planning to appeal, Noem said the government will “use every legal option at the Department’s disposal to end this chaos and prioritize the safety of Americans.”

“For decades the TPS program has been abused, exploited, and politicized as a de facto amnesty program. Its use has been all the more dangerous given the millions of unvetted illegal aliens the Biden Administration let into this country,” the statement obtained by CBS News read.

The Trump administration has argued that conditions in Venezuela and Haiti have improved sufficiently to end those protections.

TPS was established in 1990 to allow for temporary immigrant protections for people experiencing wars, natural disasters or other “extraordinary” conditions.

“For 35 years, the TPS statute has been faithfully executed by presidential administrations from both parties, affording relief based on the best available information obtained by the Department of Homeland Security,” Chen wrote. “This case arose from action taken post haste by the current DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem, to revoke the legal status of Venezuelan and Haitian TPS holders, sending them back to conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries.”

When Donald Trump was president during his first term, he attempted to end TPS for several countries, including Haiti. Court cases were blocked during his presidency.

When Joe Biden was president, he designated Venezuela as part of TPS, covering 600,000 migrants. It was expanded to Afghanistan, Cameroon, Haiti and Ukraine.

Haiti was first designated the protection after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 2010. The nation faces widespread hunger and gang violence.

Two years later in 2023, he extended protections for those from Venezuela and Haiti.

When Trump became president again in January, Noem sought to reverse the extension for Venezuela and then sought to terminate the designation entirely. Haitians also were included, as well as those from other countries.

“As a matter of law, the Secretary lacked the implicit authority to vacate,” Chen wrote. “Even if she had such authority, there is no genuine dispute that she exceeded that authority.”

The National TPS Alliance and Venezuelan TPS holders in February challenged Noem’s decisions.

“From Day 1, Secretary Noem acted with a sole intent of stripping TPS-holders of their legal status whether or not there was a basis for it,” Emi MacLean, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Northern California, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement to The Washington Post. “This decision recognizes the illegality of that. As a result, TPS protections should go back into effect immediately.”

Aug. 8 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Friday replaced Bill Long as Internal Revenue Service commissioner after less than two months on the job with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a temporary role.

The New York Times was the first media outlet to confirm his ouster and Long later announced his departure on X with plans to become Iceland’s ambassador.

“It is a honor to serve my friend President Trump and I am excited to take on my new role as the ambassador to Iceland. I am thrilled to answer his call to service and deeply committed to advancing his bold agenda. Exciting times ahead!”

A spokesperson for the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, said in a statement to NBC News that the department “thanks Commissioner Long for his commitment to public service and the American people. His zeal and enthusiasm to bring a fresh perspective to the Federal Government was evident in both the House of Representatives and as part of the Trump Administration.”

Bessent has already been tasked with negotiating tariff rates as part of trade talks. Also, he is helping with the search for ultimately the next Federal Reserve chairman.

Long was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 12 and sworn in as commissioner four days later to a term that was supposed to last through Nov. 12, 2027. Trump nominated him on Dec. 4, 2024. While awaiting confirmation, he was appointed as a senior adviser in the Office of Personnel Management.

Lpng had limited tax experience and had supported the abolishment of the agency, CNN reported.

He served in the U.S. House from 2011 to 2023, representing a district in Missouri, and was previously an auctioneer.

On Thursday, he sent an email to all IRS employees with the subject line: “It’s Almost FriYay that read: “Please enjoy a 70-minute early exit tomorrow. That way you’ll be rested for my 70th birthday on Monday,” The New York Times reported.

He signed it: “Call Me Billy.”

The IRS has been processing tax forms since the April 15 deadline with extensions until Aug. 15.

The IRS workforce has shrunk 25% amid Trump’s government cuts and mass buyouts. In all there are plans to cut its 102,000 workforce by up to 40%, according to a memo obtained by CBS News in April.

And 26% of the agents who conduct audits have left the agency by May, according to the report.

And the IRS has been dealing with new deductions and tax cuts after the passage of the sprawling spending bill, labeled as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” The new law has no tax on tips or overtime.

Seven different people will have led the agency since Trump won the 204 election.

Danny Wefel held the role until Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 despite a statutory five-year term.

Other acting commissioners had policy differences with Trump: Doug O’Connell and Melanie Krause. Another acting boss, Gary Shapley, was appointed but ousted Bessent a few days later because he didn’t want him. Deputy Secretary Michael Faulkender became the acting commissioner until Long was confirmed.

June 4 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the deportation of family members of the Egyptian national charged in the anti-Semitic attack in Boulder, Colo.

In the U.S. District Court in Denver, Judge Gordon P. Gallagher directed the federal government to stop the deportation proceedings of Mohamed Soliman‘s 41-year-old wife, Hayem El Gamal, and their five children.

On Tuesday, they were taken into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Florence, Colo., about 40 miles from their home in Colorado Springs. Federal immigration records show they are being held at a federal detention center in Dilley, Texas, designed to house families with minors, CBS News reported.

The White House posted Tuesday on X: “THEY COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT.”

“Defendants SHALL NOT REMOVE” the five undocumented migrants from Colorado or the United States “unless or until this Court or the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit vacates this order,” Gallagher wrote in his order.

“Moreover, the Court finds that deportation without process could work irreparable harm and an order must (be) issue(d) without notice due to the urgency this situation presents.”

He set a hearing for June 13 for a request on a temporary restraining order.

The Washington Post reported the family was held “incommunicado and without access to a lawyer” after they were placed in ICE custody on Tuesday, their lawyers said in court records.

By applying for asylum, the Trump administration can’t legally speed up their deportation, the legal representative said.

“Punishing individuals – including children as young as four-years-old – for the purported actions of their relatives is a feature of medieval justice systems or police state dictatorships, not democracies,” family attorney Eric Lee said Wednesday in a statement to CNN. “The detention and attempted removal of this family is an assault on core democratic principles and must provoke widespread opposition in the population, immigrant and non-immigrant alike.”

In the court filing obtained by The New York Times, the suspect’s wife “was shocked to learn” that her husband “was arrested for having committed a violent act against a peaceful gathering of individuals commemorating Israeli hostages.”

After his arrest, Soliman told detectives “no one” knew about his attack plans,” including his wife or children, according to the affidavit for his arrest filed Sunday.

“We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it. I am continuing to pray for the victims of this attack and their families. Justice will be served,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X on Tuesday.

The children are an 18-year-old daughter, two girls and two boys.

They are Egyptian citizens, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

El Gamal, 41, is a network engineer with a pending EB-2 visa for professionals with advanced degrees.

The eldest daughter, identified as Habiba Soliman, recently graduated from high school in Colorado Springs. An article in the Colorado Springs Gazette on April 25 said she had won a scholarship and planned to study medicine.

In August 2022, they were initially granted entry until February 2023, DHS said in a Wednesday statement. Soliman applied for asylum in September 2022 in Denver, the agency said.

In 2023, Soliman received a two-year work authorization that expired in March, a DHS official told CNN.

Authorities say Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” and used a flamethrower to ignite molotov cocktails and threw them into the crowd where a pro-Israeli group, Run for Their Lives, was seeking the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

A federal appeals court has temporarily reinstated (PDF) US President Donald Trump’s tariffs a day after a trade court ruled that it exceeded the authorities granted to the president.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington temporarily blocked the lower court’s decision on Thursday, but provided no reasoning for the decision, only giving the plaintiffs until June 5th to respond.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted an emergency motion from the Trump administration arguing that a halt is “critical for the country’s national security”.

The White House has applauded the move.

“You can assume, even if we lose tariff cases, we will find another way,” trade adviser Peter Navarro said.

Wednesday’s surprise ruling by the US Court of International Trade had threatened to halt or delay Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs on most US trading partners, as well as import levies on goods from Canada, Mexico and China related to his accusation that the three countries were facilitating the flow of fentanyl into the US.

The International Court of Trade said tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which is typically used to address issues of national emergencies rather than addressing the national debt, were considered overreach.

Experts said the IEEPA, which was passed in 1977, is narrow in scope and targets specific countries, US-designated “terrorist organisations”, or gang activity pegged to specific instances. The US, for example, used the law to seize property belonging to the government of Iran during the hostage crisis in 1979 and the property of drug traffickers in Colombia in 1995.

“The 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act doesn’t say anything at all about tariffs,” Bruce Fain, a former US associate deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan, told Al Jazeera.

Fein added that there is a statute, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows tariffs in the event of a national emergency. However, he said, it requires a study by the commerce secretary and can only be imposed on a product-by-product basis.

‘Product-by-product’

Despite the appeal court’s reprieve, Wednesday’s decision has been viewed as a blow to the administration’s economic agenda that has thus far led to declining consumer confidence and the US losing its top credit rating.

Experts believe that, ultimately, the tariffs will not last.

Posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday, lawyer Peter Harrell, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote that, if the trade court’s decision “is upheld, importers should eventually be able to get a refund of [IEEPA] tariffs paid to date. But the government will probably seek to avoid paying refunds until appeals are exhausted.″

“The power to decide the level of tariffs resides with Congress. The IEEPA doesn’t even mention raising tariffs. And it was actually passed in order to narrow the president’s authority. Now the president is using it to rewrite the tariff schedule for the whole world,” Greg Schaffer, professor of international law at Georgetown Law School, told Al Jazeera.

The US trade court did not weigh in on tariffs put in place by other laws, such as the Trade Expansion Act – the law used to justify tariffs on steel, aluminium, and automobiles.

There are additional targets for similar narrow tariffs, such as pharmaceuticals from China. In April, the White House announced that the US Department of Commerce launched an investigation to see if the US reliance on China for active ingredients in key medications posed a national security threat, thus warranting tariffs.

“This is not an issue of whether the president can impose tariffs,” said Fein, the former associate deputy attorney general. “He can under the 1962 act after there’s a study and after showing that it’s not arbitrary and capricious and that it’s a product-by-product, not a country-by-country approach.”

“If he doesn’t like that, he can ask Congress to amend the statute.”

The ruling comes as US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is set to pause federal funds to New York state.

New York City has won a temporary reprieve in its legal battle against the administration of US President Donald Trump, which had threatened to withhold federal funding from New York state unless the city ended its congestion pricing programme.

United States District Judge Lewis Liman held the hearing on the matter on Tuesday and granted a temporary restraining order that will allow the programme to keep running until at least June 9 as the administration and state-level officials battle over the future of congestion pricing.

A day earlier, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said he believed the federal government would withhold government approvals in the state, which would have frozen contracts for highway and transit projects.

Congestion pricing is likely to move forward indefinitely despite the federal administration’s objections because the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) – New York City’s mass transit system, which is operated as a state-level agency – “showed a likelihood of success”, according to the judge.

The courts said this is because the plan was already reviewed by state, local and federal agencies, according to the New York Times newspaper.

“Congestion relief is perfectly legal and thoroughly vetted. Opponents exhausted all plausible arguments against the programme, and now the increasingly outlandish theories are falling flat, too,” Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director for the Riders Alliance, a transportation advocacy group, told Al Jazeera.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul called the judge’s decision “a massive victory” for New York commuters.

“So here’s the deal: Secretary Duffy can issue as many letters and social media posts as he wants, but a court has blocked the Trump Administration from retaliating against New York for reducing traffic and investing in transit … Congestion pricing is legal, it’s working and we’re keeping the cameras on,” the governor’s office said in a statement.

“It’s really upsetting that it came to this point to begin with. We should not be in a position where the federal government is trying to stop New York state from enacting its own policy and trying to blackmail New York state when it doesn’t follow their [the US Department of Transportation’s] lead,” Alexa Sledge, communications director for the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, told Al Jazeera.

New York state launched the programme in January. Drivers have to pay congestion pricing tolls of $9 per day for driving during peak times in parts of Manhattan. The state made the programme in an effort to cut congestion in the nation’s most populous city as well as raise funds for NYC’s mass transit system.

“New York state should be able to make their own laws, and they should be able to run their own streets. And so hopefully, this can be the end of this,” Sledge said.

Meeting its goals

Since the programme began earlier this year, it has fulfilled many of its goals. Within a month of congestion pricing, subway ridership increased by six percent, and bus ridership by nine percent. Traffic decreased by 11 percent.

In March, the MTA forecasted that congestion pricing would bring in $500m in revenue for the system, which will fund a swath of new transit-system projects including station upgrades and zero-emissions buses. At the time, a Siena College poll found that 42 percent of New Yorkers wanted to keep the programme, while 35 percent wanted to get rid of it.

Neither the MTA nor the US Department of Transportation was immediately available for comment.

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Decision comes after two British nationals born on Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago, claimed the islands should remain under UK control. 

A British High Court judge has temporarily blocked the government from transferring sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

The last-minute injunction on Thursday morning came hours before the agreement was expected to be signed at a virtual ceremony with representatives from the Mauritian government.

The High Court decision was granted after action was taken by Bernadette Dugasse and Bertrice Pompe, two British nationals who were born at the Diego Garcia military base on Chagos and claimed that the islands should remain under British control.

High Court judge Julian Goose temporarily blocked the British government from taking any “conclusive or legally binding step to conclude its negotiations concerning the possible transfer of the British Indian Ocean Territory, also known as the Chagos Archipelago, to a foreign government”.

“The defendant is to maintain the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom over the British Indian Ocean Territory until further order,” he said.

Another court hearing is set for 10.30am (09:30 GMT).

Earlier this year, the lawyer for the two nationals, Michael Polak, said on his chambers website that the government’s attempt to “give away” the islands without formal consultation with its residents is a “continuation of their terrible treatment by the authorities in the past”.

“They remain the people with the closest connection to the islands, but their needs and wishes are being ignored,” Polak said.

The UK, which has controlled the region since 1814, separated the Chagos Islands in 1965 from Mauritius to create the British Indian Ocean Territory.

In the early 1970s, the government evicted about 1,500 residents to Mauritius and Seychelles to make way for the Diego Garcia airbase on the largest island.

In October, the government announced a draft agreement to hand the islands to Mauritius and allow Britain and the United States to continue using the Diego Garcia base under a 99-year lease.

US President Donald Trump’s administration, which was consulted on the deal, gave its approval. However, finalising the agreement was delayed by a change in government in Mauritius and reported last-minute negotiations over costs.