Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
@ReichlinMelnick

🚨HUGE news. Judge Tipton dismisses the multistate lawsuit against the Biden admin's CHNV parole program, finding that the states do not have standing to sue.

That leaves the program alive for now. Texas will no doubt appeal to the 5th Cir.

Decision: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txsd.1903141/gov.uscourts.txsd.1903141.305.0_1.pdf

Here is the key finding that Judge Tipton made: evidence shows that, after the parole programs went into effect, border crossings by people from the four CHNV countries went down (⬇️ .

As he reads 5th Circuit law, since the program was a success, there can't be any injury.

The CHNV parole program represented Biden's big shift to a "carrot and stick" approach.

Mexico lets the US send 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans back across the border each month. In exchange, the US agrees to take 30,000 people a month through parole.

The Biden admin will likely be very happy with Judge Tipton's factual findings on the program.

"In conclusion, the Parties agree, and the record reflects, that the number of CHNV nationals entering the [US] has dramatically declined from the date the program commenced."

In brief: Texas claimed the CHNV parole program is an abuse of the parole authority. The Biden admin said "hey, Texas can't sue, the program is actually working and border crossings have gone down, they haven't been injured." Judge Tipton looks at the facts and agrees with Biden.

Since Texas can't prove it was injured (because the program was part of a deal with Mexico that has demonstrably been a success), Judge Tipton does not even get to the question of whether the program is a substantively lawful exercise of the parole authority.

What's next? Texas can appeal to the 5th Circuit and seek to advance their theory of standing. As Judge Tipton notes, that theory "pivoted" when the facts showed the program was working, and now focuses only on potential state costs incurred by people coming through parole.

A federal judge on Friday rejected a challenge to a Washington state law that cleared the way for lawsuits against the gun industry in certain cases.

The measure was one of three bills signed by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee last year seeking to address gun violence.

It requires the industry to exercise reasonable controls in making, selling and marketing weapons, including steps to keep guns from being sold to people known to be dangerous or to straw buyers. It allows the attorney general or private parties, such as the family members of shooting victims, to sue for violations or damages under the state's Consumer Protection Act.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association, challenged the law in U.S. District Court in Spokane, saying the measure violates the Second Amendment as well as the free-speech rights of its members.

U.S. District Judge Mary K. Dimke rejected the lawsuit in a decision Friday, saying the organization had not established legal standing to challenge the measure. She noted that its members were neither being sued under the law nor had expressed an intent to violate its terms.

Iowa Republicans passed a personhood bill in the state House on Thursday night that would make it a felony to “cause the death” of an “unborn person,” putting the conservative Midwestern state directly into the national battle over protections for in vitro fertilization.

The bill in its current form does not provide any protections for embryos created via IVF — which, according to Democrats in the state and reproductive rights advocates, means the measure could easily be interpreted as criminalizing IVF care and services.

Passage of the bill by the GOP-controlled state House makes Iowa the latest state where lawmakers have taken steps that could threaten IVF. The procedure involves the creation of embryos outside the body, and many are often discarded if not used.

The vote in Iowa came just hours after Republican lawmakers in Alabama — trying to curtail the fallout over a state Supreme Court ruling that said embryos are children — enacted a bill intended to protect IVF. The Alabama court’s ruling has prompted broader concerns that conservative measures targeting abortion elsewhere would also go after the fertility procedure.

To be enacted, the Iowa bill would still have to be passed by the state Senate and signed by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds.

A federal appeals court has upheld a Texas law mandating that pornography websites verify that their users are adults, though it struck down a part of the law requiring them to display health warnings about their content.

The 2-1 decision from the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late on Thursday overturned a lower court ruling blocking the law, which had been challenged in court by pornography producers.

Adult industry group Free Speech Coalition, which is spearheading the lawsuit, said in a statement that it "strenuously" disagrees with the ruling and is considering its next steps.

The office of Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit was filed in August after Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed the law in June. The law applies to online publishers whose content is more than one-third "sexual material harmful to minors" and requires them to verify age using government-issued ID or some other method using "public or private transactional data."

(Reuters) - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, is set to win more than $5 billion in federal grants from the U.S. government for setting up a chipmaking plant in Arizona, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.

The award is yet to be finalized and it is unclear whether TSMC will tap the loans and guarantees also on offer from the 2022 Chips and Science Act, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

TSMC and the U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

TSMC, which makes chips used in Apple's iPhones, has said it would invest about $40 billion in its Arizona plant, among the largest foreign investments in U.S. history.

President Joe Biden in his Thursday State of the Union address repeatedly battled Republican hecklers on immigration.

Biden during his speech criticized Republicans for killing a bipartisan border deal while decrying the border situation.

"We can fight about the border — or we can fix it. I'm ready to fix it. Send me the border bill now," Biden said.

During Biden’s remarks, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., shouted the name of a Georgia nursing student killed by an undocumented immigrant, Laken Riley.

Biden responded by holding up a pin that Greene had given him and responded by referring to Riley as "an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal” — a term that drew criticism from Biden’s Democratic allies.

Miami-Dade County on Thursday gave the Miami Seaquarium weeks to vacate its government-owned campus after a string of federal inspection reports alleged poor care of animals there.

The notice terminating the Seaquarium’s county lease moves Miami-Dade dramatically closer to ejecting the Seaquarium from its home of nearly 70 years in a rapid escalation of the confrontation between Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and the company that took over the for-profit operation in 2022.

“This decision did not come lightly,” Levine Cava said at an afternoon press conference. “But the situation at the Seaquarium is so dire that we believe terminating the lease is the best course of action to assure safety for all.”

In a letter from the mayor’s office Thursday morning, Miami-Dade ordered the Seaquarium to surrender its waterfront property by April 21.

“Lessee’s long and troubling history of violations constitute repeated, continuing longstanding violations of Lessee’s contractual obligations to keep the property in a good state of repair, maintain animals in accordance with applicable law, and comply with all laws,” read the letter from Jimmy Morales, chief operating officer under Levine Cava.

Miami-Dade County on Thursday gave the Miami Seaquarium weeks to vacate its government-owned campus after a string of federal inspection reports alleged poor care of animals there.

The notice terminating the Seaquarium’s county lease moves Miami-Dade dramatically closer to ejecting the Seaquarium from its home of nearly 70 years in a rapid escalation of the confrontation between Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and the company that took over the for-profit operation in 2022.

“This decision did not come lightly,” Levine Cava said at an afternoon press conference. “But the situation at the Seaquarium is so dire that we believe terminating the lease is the best course of action to assure safety for all.”

In a letter from the mayor’s office Thursday morning, Miami-Dade ordered the Seaquarium to surrender its waterfront property by April 21.

“Lessee’s long and troubling history of violations constitute repeated, continuing longstanding violations of Lessee’s contractual obligations to keep the property in a good state of repair, maintain animals in accordance with applicable law, and comply with all laws,” read the letter from Jimmy Morales, chief operating officer under Levine Cava.

The Republican Party has no shortage of unpopular policy preferences, running the gamut from defunding libraries to bringing back child labor. But one of the least relatable, most bewildering items on its agenda may be its broad opposition to sex.

Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, yet another lawsuit manufactured by the Christian-right litigation organization Alliance Defending Freedom. Despite the name, the ADF dedicates much of its time to rolling back reproductive freedom: This particular case is about cutting off access to a pill called mifepristone, which the FDA approved for abortion medication and miscarriage management over twenty years ago. Since its approval, more than five million Americans have safely taken the medication. And today, mifepristone is used in more than half of all abortions nationwide.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, conservatives are more emboldened than ever to use the law to curtail bodily autonomy. People who get abortions almost universally attest that it was the right decision for them. Yet in his opinion siding with ADF in the mifepristone case, Texas district court judge Matt Kacsmaryk claimed that the FDA had improperly ignored “the intense psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress women often experience from chemical abortion.” Reversing the approval of mifepristone would force people to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth—even if they are unwilling or unable to safely do so—and expose them to legal jeopardy, since Republican lawmakers are increasingly criminalizing pregnant people for actions deemed harmful to their pregnancies. Any attack on abortion needlessly creates a risk of grave consequences for the simple act of having sex.

While conservatives are trying to make it impossible to end a pregnancy, they’re also making it harder to avoid pregnancy in the first place. In February, nearly 150 Republican lawmakers filed an amicus brief in the mifepristone case urging the Supreme Court to end medication abortion by reinvigorating the Comstock Act—a 19th-century law that would prevent anything “obscene” from being shipped through the mail. Its history would allow Republican lawmakers and conservative justices to apply it to a lot more than dirty magazines; in fact, the law explicitly applied to birth control until the Supreme Court decriminalized contraception in Griswold v. Connecticut. In his concurrence in Dobbs, Clarence Thomas opined that the Court should overturn Griswold, too, which makes the path pretty clear: Slap the “obscene” label on contraception and abortion, and you effectively kneecap reproductive healthcare nationwide.

U.S. intelligence officials are planning to brief Donald Trump on national security matters if he secures the GOP nomination this summer — despite concerns about his handling of classified information.

The decision would be in keeping with a tradition that dates back to 1952, but it would mark the first time an administration has volunteered to share classified information with a candidate who is facing criminal charges on charges that he mishandled classified documents.

The Biden administration intends to share intelligence with the former president no matter the outcome of his trial in Florida, according to a senior intelligence official and a second person with knowledge of internal conversations. They, like some others interviewed, were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.

The sit-down is not legally required, but for the last 72 years, incumbent administrations have tapped the spy agencies to read in the candidates of both major political parties on some of the most pressing threats to the country. While often this is just one meeting, sometimes candidates receive several briefings.

The briefings, which are managed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and approved by the White House, normally take place after the national conventions in late summer.