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Trump’s revised travel ban dealt first court setback

Immigration activists, including members of the DC Justice for Muslims Coalition, rally against the Trump administration's new ban against travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, outside of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington, U.S., March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Thayer

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – A federal judge in Wisconsin dealt the first legal blow to President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban on Friday, barring enforcement of the policy to deny U.S. entry to the wife and child of a Syrian refugee already granted asylum in the United States.

The temporary restraining order, granted by U.S. District Judge William Conley in Madison, applies only to the family of the Syrian refugee, who brought the case anonymously to protect the identities of his wife and daughter, still living in the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo.

But it represents the first of several challenges brought against Trump’s newly amended executive order, issued on March 6 and due to go into effect on March 16, to draw a court ruling in opposition to its enforcement.

Conley, chief judge of the federal court in Wisconsin’s western district and an appointee of former President Barack Obama, concluded the plaintiff “has presented some likelihood of success on the merits” of his case and that his family faces “significant risk of irreparable harm” if forced to remain in Syria.

The plaintiff, a Sunni Muslim, fled Syria to the United States in 2014 to “escape near-certain death” at the hands of sectarian military forces fighting the Syrian government in Aleppo, according to his lawsuit.

He subsequently obtained asylum for his wife and their only surviving child, a daughter, and their application had cleared the security vetting process and was headed for final processing when it was halted by Trump’s original travel ban on Jan. 27.

That executive order sought to ban admission to the United States of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Iraq – for 120 days and to suspend entry of all refugees indefinitely.

The original travel ban, which caused widespread chaos and protests at airports when first implemented, was rescinded after the state of Washington won a nationwide federal court order blocking further enforcement of the policy.

The modified executive order reduced the number of excluded counties – removing Iraq from the list – and lifted the indefinite refugee travel ban for Syrians. But opponents from several states have gone to court seeking to halt its implementation as well.

“The court appreciates that there may be important differences between the original executive order, and the revised executive order,” Conley wrote in his decision. “As the order applies to the plaintiff here, however, the court finds his claims have at least some chance of prevailing for the reasons articulated by other courts.”

In a related development on Friday, the federal judge in Seattle who imposed a nationwide injunction on enforcement of the original travel ban refused a request to apply that order to the revised policy, saying that lawyers from states opposed to the measure needed to file more extensive court papers.

(Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Sandra Maler and Mary Milliken)

Massachusetts judge considers right-to-die lawsuit

Retired Massachusetts physician Roger Kligler, a plaintiff in a right-to-die lawsuit, speaks to reporters outside a courtroom in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., March 8, 2017. REUTERS/Nate Raymond

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) – Two Massachusetts doctors urged a judge on Wednesday to let them proceed with a lawsuit seeking an order that the state’s murder and manslaughter laws do not apply to physicians who offer lethal medications to terminally ill patients.

During arguments before Superior Court Judge Mary Ames in Boston, a lawyer for the doctors, one of whom is suffering from cancer, said a cloud of uncertainty was preventing physicians from providing such medications.

“Medical aid-in-dying is simply not covered by the Commonwealth’s manslaughter and murder laws,” lawyer John Kappos said.

He made the arguments on behalf of Roger Kligler, a retired doctor diagnosed with stage-four prostate cancer, and Alan Steinbach, a physician who says he is willing to write prescriptions for lethal medication but fears prosecution.

Assistant Attorney General Robert Quinan said that while Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey extended her “utmost sympathy” to Kligler, no grounds existed to grant the ruling he sought.

Quinan argued the court should defer to the state legislature to decide the issue and ensure safeguards are enacted to protect vulnerable patients and the integrity of the medical community.

“Only a deliberative body can implement the appropriate safeguards,” he said.

Ames made no ruling on whether to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed in October, following two hours of arguments. She called the issues “important” and said the case was headed to a higher court no matter how she ruled.

“These are probably issues very much on the mind of anyone with family members facing very serious disease and mortality,” Ames said.

The lawsuit is being pursued by nonprofit right-to-die organization Compassion & Choices.

According to the group, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana, California and Colorado and the District of Columbia allow medical aid-in-dying, with all but one of the states taking the action as a result of legislation or ballot initiatives.

The Massachusetts legislature has considered, but never enacted, similar legislation. In 2012, voters narrowly defeated a ballot initiative that would have legalized the practice.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Peter Cooney)

U.S. attorney general pushes to stop suing local police

A bitterly divided Senate confirmed Republican Senator Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general of the United States. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Tuesday that the federal government should stop spending money to sue local police departments, signaling a sharp departure from the previous administration’s policy toward law enforcement exhibiting patterns of racism or excessive force.

In his speech to the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington, Sessions said the Justice Department should instead use its resources to help police figure out the best way to fight crime.

He announced the formation of a Justice Department task force to look at deficiencies in current practices to combat crime and propose new legislation.

The Justice Department is still weighing whether it should impose reforms on the Chicago Police Department, which was the subject of a critical report by the Obama administration.

Sessions said violent crime had risen since 2014, although it is down almost half since the early 1990s.

Federal Bureau of Investigation crime statistics for 2015, the latest year for which complete data is available, showed violent crimes increased 3.9 percent from 2014, while property crimes declined by 2.6 percent. The rise in violent crime came after two years of decreases, not decades of declines as Sessions suggested.

The Obama administration began several investigations into police departments that it said were unfairly targeting minorities and using excessive force. Videos of such incidents shared online have sparked protests in cities from Baltimore to Ferguson, Missouri.

The address to the attorneys general, who are responsible for prosecuting state-level crimes, signaled that the Trump administration would commit itself to supporting police rather than questioning their practices.

“To confront the challenge of rising crime, we must rely heavily on local law enforcement to lead the way,” Sessions said in prepared remarks. “And they must know they have our steadfast support.”

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Trump administration sued over protection for vanishing bumble bee

By Laura Zuckerman

(Reuters) – An environmental group sued U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday for delaying a rule that would designate the rusty patched bumble bee as an endangered species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a branch of the Interior Department, in September proposed bringing the bee under federal safeguards.

The rule formalizing the listing of the vanishing pollinator, once widely found in the upper Midwest and Northeastern United States, was published in the Federal Register on Jan. 11 and was to take effect last Friday.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said the listing has been delayed until March 21 as part of a broader freeze ordered by Trump’s White House on rules issued by the prior administration aimed at protecting public health and the environment.

The group argued in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that U.S. wildlife managers had violated the law by abruptly suspending the bumble bee listing without public notice or comment. They said the rule technically became final when it was published in the Federal Register.

The lawsuit seeks to have a judge declare that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted unlawfully and to order the agency to rescind the rule delaying the bumble bee’s listing.

“The science is clear – this species is headed toward extinction, and soon. There is no legitimate reason to delay federal protections,” Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney Rebecca Riley said in a statement.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could not immediately be reached for comment.

Bumble bees pollinate wildflowers and about a third of U.S. crops, from blueberries to tomatoes, according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

The bee’s population and range have declined by more than 90 percent since the late 1990s due to disease, pesticides, climate change and habitat loss, according to wildlife officials.

The insect is one of 47 varieties of native bumble bees in the United States and Canada, more than a quarter of which face the risk of extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

In September, seven varieties of yellow-faced bees in Hawaii became the first such insects to be added to the U.S. list of endangered species because of losses due to habitat destruction, wildfires and the invasion of nonnative plants and insects.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho; Editing by Curtis Skinner)

Native tribes seek judgment against Army Corps over Dakota Access

(Reuters) – The Native American tribes looking to stop the Dakota Access pipeline asked a judge to find that the Army Corps violated federal regulations when it recently granted the last permit needed for the project to be finished, according to a Tuesday court filing.

In a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, Jan Hasselman, a lawyer with Earthjustice who represents the tribes, said the court should rule, in a partial summary judgment, that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated the National Environmental Policy Act and Clean Water Act by issuing the final permit.

That easement will allow the Dakota Access pipeline to be completed by tunneling under Lake Oahe, a reservoir that forms part of the Missouri River. It comes after Judge James Boasberg on Monday denied the request by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux for a temporary restraining order stopping the last stretch of construction.

Energy Transfer Partners is building the 1,170-mile (1,885 km) line, which will run from North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois. The last permit was denied in December and later subject to further environmental review, by the outgoing Obama administration.

After taking office last month, President Donald Trump ordered that steps be taken to expedite the permit. The Army Corps then elected not to undergo the additional environmental review and issued the permit last week.

The tribes’ legal options are narrowing, according to Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux.

The case is 1:16-cv-1534-JEB, U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C.

(Reporting by David Gaffen; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Mother sues Pennsylvania school district over lead-tainted water

By Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A mother has sued a Pennsylvania school district for a delay in telling parents that the water at her daughter’s school was contaminated with toxic levels of lead, according to a complaint filed in U.S. federal court on Wednesday.

The Butler Area School District told parents in a letter on Jan. 20 that test results, which they acknowledged receiving five months earlier, had found leads levels at Summit Elementary School “exceeding acceptable water standards.”

Jennifer Tait, whose daughter attends the school, says officials should have said something as soon as the test results came through last August, according to her lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh.

Despite lead abatement efforts beginning in the 20th century, when lead was once commonly used in pipes and paint, communities across the United States continue to be exposed to dangerous levels of the metal. Lead poisoning can permanently stunt a child’s intelligence and development.

The issue came to the fore again in 2015 after state officials in Michigan acknowledged that the water supply in the city of Flint had been contaminated by lead.

In her lawsuit, Tait accuses school district officials in Butler of a “gross delay” in notifying parents, saying her daughter and other students routinely drank water tainted with toxic levels of lead for the five months between when the school district’s received the test results and when it sent out the letter.

The district officials’ actions in effect created “a school full of poisonous drinking water,” the lawsuit said. Tait is seeking damages for negligence, among other charges, and is asking the court to allow others at the school to join in the lawsuit.

William Pettigrew, the school district’s acting superintendent, referred questions about the lawsuit to the district’s lawyer, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Pettigrew said he took over after Dale Lumley, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, resigned and retired on Sunday. Lumley could not immediately be reached for comment.

In an earlier statement, Lumley said a school maintenance official failed to share the worrying test results with him or the district’s board until Jan. 19, the day before he sent out the letter to parents and sought out a supply of bottled water for students.

The district’s director of maintenance also resigned this week, Pettigrew said.

“The school is closed under my recommendation,” Pettigrew said. The children are now being taught in a vacant school building nearby, he said.

The school’s water was found to contain lead at levels nearly four times higher than federal limits, with one sample measured at 55 parts per billion, according to the Jan. 20 letter, which is posted on the district’s website.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Bill Rigby and Leslie Adler)

Rights groups challenge Israel’s new settlements law in court

view of houses in Israeli settlement in West Bank

By Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Rights groups petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court on Wednesday to annul a heavily criticized law that retroactively legalized some 4,000 settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

The law, approved by parliament on Monday, has drawn condemnation from Europe and the United Nations and has been described by Israel’s attorney general as unconstitutional.

Acting on behalf of 17 Palestinian villages and towns, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah), and the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center also asked the court for an injunction in order to stop any registration of the plots as under settler ownership.

The Supreme Court has in the past supported Palestinian property rights and annulled laws it deemed unconstitutional.

The legal process in some of those cases took months, though the court usually rules on injunction requests within days.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the law an aggression against the Palestinian people and threatened to suspend security cooperation with Israel if its ramp-up of Israeli settlements continued.

On Tuesday Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said that if implemented, the measure would cross a new and dangerous threshold.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the action went against international law, while French President Francois Hollande said it paved the way for the annexation of territory Palestinians want as part of a future state.

The administration of new U.S. President Donald Trump has so far signaled a softer approach toward Israeli settlement policy. Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Feb 15.

Most countries consider Israeli settlements built on land captured in the 1967 Middle East War as illegal and obstacles to peace.

Some 550,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, which was also seized by Israel in 1967, among 2.6 million Palestinians who want those territories for a future state.

In January, Israel announced it would build about 6,000 new homes in the two areas, to which it cites biblical, historical and political connections.

(Additional reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and John Stonestreet)

Appeals court to hear arguments on Trump’s travel ban

Donald Trump speaking to U.S. Central Command

By Dan Levine and Timothy Gardner

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department will face off with opponents in a federal appeals court on Tuesday over the fate of President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, his most controversial act since taking office last month.

Last Friday, U.S. District Judge James Robart suspended Trump’s ban, opening a window for people from the seven affected countries to enter the country.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will hear arguments over whether to restore the ban from Justice Department lawyers and opposing attorneys for the states of Minnesota and Washington at 3 p.m. PST (6.00 p.m. ET).

In a tweet on Monday night, Trump said: “The threat from radical Islamic terrorism is very real, just look at what is happening in Europe and the Middle-East. Courts must act fast!”

Trump has said the travel measures are designed to protect the country against the threat of terrorism. He has derided Robart, appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, as a “so-called judge.”

In a brief filed on Monday, the Justice Department said the suspension of Trump’s order was too broad and “at most” should be limited to people who were already granted entry to the country and were temporarily abroad, or to those who want to leave and return to the United States.

Opponents say the 90-day ban barring entry for citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and imposing a 120-day halt to all refugees, is illegal. The state of Washington argues it has suffered harm, saying some students and faculty at state universities had been stranded overseas because of the ban.

The Republican president’s Jan. 27 executive order sparked protests and chaos at U.S. and overseas airports in the weekend that followed.

All the people who had carried out fatal attacks inspired by Islamist militancy in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had been U.S. citizens or legal residents, the New America think tank said. None came to the United States or were from a family that emigrated from one of the countries listed in the travel ban, it said. (http://bit.ly/2keSmUO)

UPHILL FIGHT?

Trump faces an uphill battle in the liberal-leaning San Francisco court. Two members of three-judge panel that will hear the arguments were appointed by former Democratic Presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, and one was appointed by Bush.

Appeals courts are generally leery of upending the status quo, which in this case is the lower court’s suspension of the ban.

Opponents of the ban received far more filings in support of their position than the Department of Justice. Washington state’s challenge was backed by about a dozen friends-of-the- court briefs submitted by at least 17 state attorneys general, more than 100 companies, and about a dozen labor and civil rights groups. About a dozen conservative groups supported the government in three such briefs.

The appeals court was focusing on the narrow question of whether the district court had grounds to put the order on hold. The bigger legal fight over whether Trump had authority to issue the order will be addressed later in the litigation.

(Additional reporting by Peter Henderson in San Francisco)

Lawsuit claims Trump travel ban discriminates against Muslims

(Reuters) – The American Civil Liberties Union accused the Trump administration in a lawsuit filed on Thursday of violating the religious freedom of some nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries who have been barred from entering the United States.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in federal court in the Northern District of California on behalf of three student visa holders, including one Yemeni who left the United States and is unable to come back, according to court documents.

The lawsuit is a proposed class-action brought on behalf of nationals who are living or have lived in the United States and are originally from the Muslim-majority nations whose citizens President Donald Trump has temporarily banned from entering the United States, with some exceptions.

The suit is the latest in a series of legal actions challenging the executive order that was issued last Friday. Federal judges in several states have placed limits on the order.

The order set off protests over the weekend at several major airports as immigration and customs officials struggled to interpret the new rules.

The plaintiffs and the members of the class “fear that, in the event they attempt to enter or re-enter the United States, they will be denied permission to do so,” the lawsuit said.

It accuses Trump and his administration of violating the free speech, religious freedom and due process rights of those affected by the order, and says it is an attempt to fulfill a campaign promise made by Trump to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

“Senior advisers to defendant Trump have engaged in anti-Muslim rhetoric that provides additional support for the notion that the executive order was prompted by animus toward Islam and Muslims,” the suit said.

Department of Justice officials could not be reached for comment late on Thursday.

The ACLU asked the court to rule that the executive order violates the rights of the students and class members and to order the administration not to enforce the travel ban, according to the suit.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Sandra Maler, Robert Birsel and Kevin Liffey)

ACLU and Kentucky’s only abortion clinic sue over ultrasound law

By Steve Bittenbender

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Reuters) – The American Civil Liberties Union sued Kentucky state officials on Monday to block a new law that requires women seeking an abortion to first undergo an ultrasound and hear a description of the embryo or fetus.

ACLU lawyers filed the lawsuit in federal court in Louisville on behalf of EMW Women’s Surgical Center, which the lawsuit said is the sole licensed abortion facility in Kentucky.

The requirement violates the speech rights of doctors and patients by forcing them to deliver and listen to a government-mandated message, the lawsuit argues. The surgical center is asking for a temporary restraining order and a permanent declaration that the law is unconstitutional.

The law is part of a renewed effort by abortion opponents nationwide to restrict the procedure. It was passed on Saturday by the Kentucky General Assembly, where Republicans swept to power after taking the state House for the first time in nearly a century, and signed on Monday by Governor Matt Bevin, also a Republican.

Bevin, in a statement on Monday, defended the law and several other recently passed measures as representing a new day for Kentucky. He said the measures would “protect our most vulnerable.”

The law requires a physician or qualified technician to perform the ultrasound and position the screen so the woman may view the images. The medical staff will also be required to describe what the images show, including the size of the fetus and any organs or appendages visible.

It does not contain exceptions for women who are facing medical complications or are victims of rape or incest. Lawmakers inserted an emergency clause allowing it to take effect immediately upon Bevin’s signature.

The lawsuit accuses lawmakers of “forcibly co-opting and perverting the informed consent process.”

While the bill received overwhelming support in both chambers of Kentucky’s legislature, even some of its supporters questioned whether the state risked a lawsuit.

Some 25 states have laws regarding ultrasounds and abortions, but only three states require medical staff to display and describe the images, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit group focusing on health issues.

Republicans have acted swiftly in their first week with majorities in the Kentucky legislature. Other measures they passed include prohibiting abortions after a pregnancy has reached 20 weeks, making Kentucky the 27th “right-to-work” state and allowing the governor to overhaul the University of Louisville’s board of trustees.

(Reporting by Steve Bittenbender; Editing by David Ingram and Lisa Shumaker)

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