Supreme Court is poised to weaken environmental review of infrastructure projects
CNN
The Supreme Court appeared poised Tuesday to significantly weaken the scope of environmental reviews of major infrastructure projects in a case that could hand President-elect Donald Trump an early win on an issue he often hammered on during his first term.
The Supreme Court appeared poised Tuesday to significantly weaken the scope of environmental reviews of major infrastructure projects in a case that could hand President-elect Donald Trump an early win on an issue he often hammered on during his first term. If the court backs the plan to build an 88-mile railway in Utah it would be the latest decision in which the justices have ruled against environmentalists, shutting down regulations in recent years that were intended to protect wetlands, for instance, and reduce air pollution wafting across state lines. Environmental requirements are creating a “juicy litigation target” that allows opponents to stall infrastructure projects, Paul Clement, a veteran Supreme Court lawyer, told the justices. “After all, infrastructure requires investment, and for investors, time is money,” he said. During his first term, Trump raised similar arguments, repeatedly slamming environmental studies required by the National Environmental Policy Act as too cumbersome. The 1970 law, signed by President Richard Nixon, is considered one of the foundational environmental laws formed at the beginning of the modern environmental movement. “These endless delays waste money, keep projects from breaking ground and deny jobs to our nation’s incredible workers. From day one, my administration has made fixing this regulatory nightmare a top priority,” Trump said at the White House in 2020.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.
Authorities in Colombia are dealing with increasingly sophisticated criminals, who use advanced tech to produce and conceal the drugs they hope to export around the world. But police and the military are fighting back, using AI to flag suspicious passengers, cargo and mail - alongside more conventional air and sea patrols. CNN’s Isa Soares gets an inside look at Bogotá’s war on drugs.
Young Americans are “a generation under profound strain” with little confidence in institutions and widespread economic concerns, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics survey of adults younger than 30 released Thursday.
As lawmakers demand answers over reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike that killed survivors during an attacked on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a career Navy SEAL who has spent most of his 30 years of military experience in special operations will be responsible for providing them.
The murder trial of Brian Walshe, who is accused of killing and dismembering his wife in 2023 continues. Follow for live updates.
The FBI arrested a person Thursday who investigators believe planted pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the 2021 US Capitol riot.
Lawyers for the New York attorney general’s office are expected to appear in federal court in Albany on Thursday to try to disqualify a US attorney from investigating the state’s civil case against President Donald Trump.
A new poll shows more than 70% of Republicans with Obamacare coverage don’t want their enhanced premium subsidies to expire.