in the courts

The justices ruled unanimously that Bianco must return the ballots to the county’s top election administrator and “refrain from further handling” them. In a second ruling, the court also held that Bianco broke the law when he ignored directives from the state’s attorney general to hold off on his plans to execute a search warrant to seize the ballots last March.

Bianco’s argument “overlooks that allowing law enforcement unfettered access to ballots, or the ability to handle and count them in secret based on unregulated protocols, itself creates a substantial risk to election integrity,” Guerrero wrote. 

“There is no need to introduce this risk because the Elections Code already contains its own comprehensive procedures for recounting and examining ballots, including for law enforcement purposes, without exposing them to alteration or tampering — unlike the unlawful seizure that occurred here,” the ruling read.

Abbie Kamin, the county attorney for Harris County, Texas, one of the local governments that filed the lawsuit, said in a statement, “Today’s win is the result of cities and counties standing together against blatant federal overreach that jeopardized public safety.”

In response to President Donald Trump’s ban on certain media outlets from covering the White House, the Trump administration is now facing a lawsuit as well as a refusal by other TV networks to provide TV pool coverage of the president’s activities on Monday.

New York Civil Liberties Union lawyer Amy Belsher, who represented the plaintiffs, called the ruling “an enormous win for every noncitizen seeking to safely attend their immigration court proceedings.”

“For too long, we watched masked, often armed, ICE officers ambush noncitizens in courthouse hallways, throw immigrants to the ground, and tear sobbing children from their parents,” Belsher said in a statement. “But with today’s order, the Court made clear: ICE’s cruel, unjustified policy of conducting mass immigration arrests in courthouses is unlawful and cannot stand.”

A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to limit birthright citizenship, granting a preliminary injunction against an executive order that the administration said would target “birth tourism.”

U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman in Maryland on Wednesday issued the injunction until a class-action lawsuit brought by immigrant families and advocacy groups is resolved.

“The Supreme Court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ‘citizens at birth,’” Boardman, appointed by President Joe Biden, wrote in Wednesday’s ruling.

A coalition of blue states has come together to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging its plan to strip federal funds from gender-affirming care for minors. The lawsuit alleges that the administration is overstepping its authority by trying to dictate what medical procedures can and can’t be covered by federal funding.

“[The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)] has disregarded the law and its own policy precedent in another attempt to restrict transgender individuals’ access to crucial care,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “We will not stand by as the Trump administration oversteps its authority and twists the facts to justify its bad-faith agenda against transgender Americans. We will continue to fight to secure access to medically necessary care and protect transgender individuals’ abilities to prosper as their authentic selves.”

A federal judge has authorized American Prairie to continue grazing bison on three federal allotments amid ongoing litigation. This decision halts a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rule that threatened to remove 900 bison from these lands, crucial for American Prairie’s conservation efforts. The nonprofit filed a lawsuit against the BLM and the Department of the Interior to prevent a new rule altering bison grazing policies in the U.S.

Voting rights groups, joined by 23 states and the District of Columbia, sued the administration to stop the proposed rule, arguing that the US constitution provides no authority for the president to issue orders governing the administration of elections.

“The federal government does not have the authority to dictate what medically necessary care New York provides to its residents,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James. “This unlawful rule threatens access to health care for transgender young people and undermines states’ ability to administer our own Medicaid programs. New York will continue to stand up for patients and defend our authority to provide the care they need.”

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell added, “The Trump Administration’s latest attack on access to gender-affirming care for young people unlawfully undermines states’ authority to regulate healthcare and tries to strip healthcare access from vulnerable kids. Gender-affirming care remains legal and protected in Massachusetts, and we will not allow the federal government to dictate what care our patients receive. I will continue to challenge these unlawful actions and use every tool at my disposal to defend the rights of transgender young people and their families.”