Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. has sued Florida’s surgeon general, challenging the state’s barring of businesses from requiring proof of Covid-19 vaccination and intensifying the standoff between the company and Florida.

The cruise operator is sticking with its policy to require full vaccinations for all crew and passengers, including children, for initial sailings through Oct. 31 after more than a yearlong hiatus and billions of dollars in losses. That policy, if maintained in Florida, would result in the company being fined up to $5,000 for each passenger affected, it said.

The Miami-based company filed the lawsuit Tuesday against Scott Rivkees, the state surgeon general, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Norwegian asked the court to block and declare unlawful the enforcement of the ban on requiring proof of vaccination. Norwegian only sued Dr. Rivkees because he is the state official who has authority to enforce the ban, according to the company’s complaint.

To the editor: Jonah Goldberg complains that California's single-party rule leaves Republicans with no alternative except a recall. I have an idea for the state GOP: Become an American political party living in the 21st century.

Gun violence isn't reduced by allowing larger-capacity magazines and higher fire rates. California has an infant mortality rate of about 4 per 1,000 live births; nationally, the rate is 5.6, and Republican-controlled states that refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act have rates above the national average. The same is true for maternal mortality.

California's COVID-19 infection rate is well below the national average. Democrats did not storm the nation's capital and attempt to end American democracy.

The solution for California Republicans is not to complain about Democrats; it's for them to fix their party.

Kentucky’s GOP congressional delegation entered the redistricting cycle with an unusual request for their state legislative counterparts: leave Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth alone.

The group, which includes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, wants the state’s Republican supermajority to refrain from cracking Yarmuth's Louisville-based district into three, even if that might deliver them control of all of Kentucky’s six House seats.

“It's been my experience in studying history that when you get real cute, you end up in a lawsuit — and you lose it. And then the courts redraw the lines,” said Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.). “So my advice would be to keep Louisville blue.”

-snip-

Besides Yarmuth in Louisville, Republicans will also have to consider whether to take the knife to the seats of Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) in Nashville; Reps. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) and Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) in Kansas City on both sides of the border and perhaps even freshman Rep. Frank Mrvan (D-Ind.) in northwest Indiana. Also potentially on the chopping block: the city of Omaha, the "cracking" of which could shore up Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) in one of the nation’s swingiest seats.

The decisions they make will shape the balance of power in Congress for the next five cycles. And because Nebraska splits its Electoral College votes by congressional district — changes there could even sway the 2024 and 2028 presidential contests.

A federal court on Monday dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust complaint against Facebook, dealing a major setback for the agency’s complaint that could have resulted in Facebook divesting Instagram and WhatsApp.

“Although the Court does not agree with all of Facebook’s contentions here, it ultimately concurs that the agency’s Complaint is legally insufficient and must therefore be dismissed,” reads the filing from U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “The FTC has failed to plead enough facts to plausibly establish a necessary element of all of its Section 2 claims -- namely, that Facebook has monopoly power in the market for Personal Social Networking (PSN) Services.”

The court dismissed the complaint, not the case, meaning the FTC could file its complaint once again.

In the filing, the court states that the FTC did not prove Facebook maintains a monopoly.

“The Court agrees that the first — the possession of monopoly power in the market for Personal Social Networking Services (as defined by the agency) — is not adequately pleaded here,” the filing reads. “No more is needed to conclude that the Complaint must be dismissed.”

Marijuana’s popularity boom in red states isn’t breaking through with conservatives on Capitol Hill, pinching an already narrow path to federal legalization.

A growing number of Republican senators represent states that have legalized recreational or medical cannabis — six approved or expanded marijuana in some form just since November. But without their support in Congress to make up for likely Democratic defectors, weed falls critically short of the 60 votes needed to advance legislation.

Montana’s Steve Daines and South Dakota’s Mike Rounds, both Republicans, said they don’t support comprehensive federal cannabis reform, no matter what voters back home voted for.
“I oppose it,” said Daines, who is otherwise a lead sponsor of the SAFE Banking Act, which would make it easier for the cannabis industry to access financial services, such as bank accounts and small business loans. “The people in Montana decided they want to have it legal in our state, and that's why I support the SAFE Banking Act as well — it’s the right thing to do — but I don't support federal legalization.”

DENVER (AP) — A man who intervened in a shooting that killed a police officer near Denver was shot and killed by a responding officer while holding the suspect's AR-15, police said Friday.

Johnny Hurley, who has been described by police as a hero who prevented further bloodshed, shot suspect Ronald Troyke on Monday after Troyke gunned down Arvada Officer Gordon Beesley with a 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun.

After shooting Beesley twice, Troyke shot out the windows of police cars in the city's downtown district, returned to his truck to get an AR-15 and was confronted by Hurley, who shot him with a handgun. When an officer arrived, Hurley was holding Troyke's AR-15 and the officer opened fire, police said.

With support from both Democrats and Republicans, Candace Jackson-Akiwumi was confirmed on Thursday to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals in the 7th Circuit. Before her confirmation, every judge on that federal court was white.

The highly influential U.S. courts of appeals, or circuit courts, are just below the Supreme Court and serve as the final arbiter on many federal cases. Nominated by President Joe Biden, Jackson-Akiwumi will be the only person of color serving on the 7th Circuit Court, which has jurisdiction over Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Jackson-Akiwumi’s confirmation also marks only the second time a Black woman has ever served on this particular court of appeals. Ann Claire Williams was the first Black judge on the court, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1999.

Jackson-Akiwumi will fill the vacancy left by Judge Joel Flaum. The 7th Circuit is also the court that launched Justice Amy Coney-Barrett, who, nominated by then president Donald Trump, was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2020 after the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Coney-Barrett is thought to have extreme views—analysis from 538 of her time on the 7th Circuit found she was one of the most conservative justices, especially on civil rights issues.

Oregon Democrats had finally secured total control of redistricting for the first time in decades.

Then, just months before they were set to draw new maps, they gave it away.

In a surprise that left Democrats from Salem to Washington baffled and angry, the state House speaker handed the GOP an effective veto over the districts in exchange for a pledge to stop stymieing her legislative agenda with delay tactics. The reaction from some of Oregon's Democratic House delegation was unsparing: “That was like shooting yourself in the head,” Rep. Kurt Schrader told POLITICO. Rep. Peter DeFazio seethed: “It was just an abysmally stupid move on her part.”

Yet what happened this spring in Oregon is just one example, though perhaps the most extreme one, of a larger trend vexing Democratic strategists and lawmakers focused on maximizing the party’s gains in redistricting. In key states over the past decade, Democrats have gained control of state legislatures and governorships that have long been in charge of drawing new maps — only to cede that authority, often to independent commissions tasked with drawing political boundaries free of partisan interference.

Supporters of these initiatives say it's good governance to bar politicians from drawing districts for themselves and their party. But exasperated Democrats counter that it has left them hamstrung in the battle to hold the House, by diluting or negating their ability to gerrymander in the way Republicans plan to do in many red states. And with the House so closely divided, Democrats will need every last advantage to cling to their majority in 2022.

“We Democrats are cursed with this blindness about good government,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, a Democratic state that will nonetheless see its congressional map drawn by a newly created independent commission.

A federal court granted a preliminary injunction against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its conditional sail order that has shut down the cruise industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday is part of a larger lawsuit brought by the state of Florida that contends the CDC has overstepped its authority through its orders that have limited cruise lines’ ability to return to business.

By granting the injunction, the court deemed that Florida was likely to succeed in the overall case on its merits, demonstrating the state would be harmed if the order continues, but also sent both the state and CDC back to mediation.

A three-judge panel for the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Tuesday that the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause does not apply to the U.S. territory of American Samoa, reversing a lower-court ruling.

Why it matters: American Samoa, which was annexed by the U.S. in the early 1900s and is home to more than 50,000 people, is one of the only places in the country where birthright citizenship does not apply. Many people in the territory hope it remains that way, while others desire automatic citizenship.