Previous News Briefings have criticized how the Supreme Court uses the “shadow docket,” where it can simply issue verdicts without explaining or justifying them, to push Trump’s agenda. But an analysis by Stanford professor Adam Bonica shows just how extreme the Court is acting. Judges of both parties in lower courts have ruled against Trump’s executive orders in 82 of 87 cases—94% of the time. The Supreme Court, in contrast, has ruled for Trump 94% of the time. It’s like watching Tiger Woods—a once-in-a-lifetime swing. 

This stat isn’t *quite* as bad as it looks. Lawsuits against Trump’s policies have been disproportionately filed in Democratic judicial districts, with plaintiffs “venue shopping” for a favorable court. (Just like how Republican challenges to Biden’s policies were disproportionately filed in Texas.) So it makes sense that lots of lower courts would rule against Trump. Plus, the Trump administration has not advanced all its losses to the Supreme Court (even they know some of these policies are, to use a legal term, duds.) But still, to quote Bonica, “District court judges, who see the evidence firsthand and hear directly from those affected, overwhelmingly find the administration’s actions unlawful…Then the Supreme Court—furthest from facts, closest to power—reverses almost automatically.”

Art by C.M. Duffy from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 9, Issue 51

If ...

As you likely remember, Donald Trump stopped all foreign aid immediately after taking office, as part of his mission to eradicate child hunger (seemingly by eradicating the children, not the hunger). But it isn’t enough to simply pause all new foreign aid. The administration has also set about eliminating aid already purchased by U.S. taxpayers. The most recent example came this week, when the State Department announced plans to destroy 9.7 million dollars worth of contraceptives meant for women in sub-saharan Africa. 

The IUDs and other contraceptives won’t expire until 2027 at the earliest, and it will cost US taxpayers $167,000 to destroy them. So what’s the justification for denying 1.4 million women much-needed medical care? The State Department has cited a Trump-imposed rule disallowing U.S. funds to be sent to nonprofits that advocate for safe abortion access, arguing no eligible organizations could be found to take the ...

When the dust settled at the end of the 2025 Supreme Court term, one case was left standing: Louisiana v. Callais. The Court didn’t issue a decision despite having oral argument, instead punting the case to the next term. Now we know why. On Friday, the Court issued a supplemental order asking the parties to argue whether Louisiana’s creation of a second majority-Black voting district violates the Constitution. Here’s why the order is a bleak preview of the next generation of gerrymandering, and the possible death of the Voting Rights Act. 

In 2024, the Louisiana state legislature had a problem. The state’s previous congressional district map had been ruled unconstitutional because it diluted Black votes (despite the state being almost a third Black, only one of its six districts was majority-Black). But creating an additional majority-Black district would put one of Louisiana’s Republican incumbents in the House (like Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise, the two highest-ranking House Republicans) at risk of losing their seat (or worse, having to appeal to Black voters). The solution was to create this map, with four normal-ish-shaped districts and two comically stretched-out majority-Black districts cutting across the state from Shreveport to New Orleans. 

For years the District of Columbia, like states across the U.S., allowed servers, bartenders, and other tipped employees to be paid less than minimum wage, with the logic that tips would supplement their paychecks to above minimum standards. That two-tier salary scale has existed in the U.S. since the sixties. The last time the tipped employee minimum wage was raised was in 1996, when it was set to $2.13 an hour. Proponents of the tipped minimum wage (who tend to be restaurant owners that benefit from not paying employees a full salary) claim that tipping culture allows servers to make more money than they would on a fixed salary. 

The data doesn’t back that up. Tipped employees are significantly likelier than non-tipped employees to be below the poverty line. They are more likely to depend on government benefits like SNAP (food stamps). (One strike against Trump’s “no taxes on tips” proposal: one third of tipped employees are so poor they don’t even make enough money to pay income taxes.) Tipping exacerbates preexisting inequality—studies have found that Black servers receive lower tips than their white counterparts. And besides, there’s no rule that says you can’t give someone money to thank them for their work unless they make less than $3 an hour. 

In DC, tipped employees and voters won an equal minimum wage in 2023 with the ...

By now, you’ve likely heard of the flash floods that killed more than 120 people in Texas. But as more reporting has emerged about FEMA’s response to the disaster, it is worth taking a moment to illustrate how Trump’s cuts will have an immediate impact on the most basic ways we engage with the government. While Trump promised that cuts to the agency would make it more nimble and better able to respond to disasters, unsurprisingly, the exact opposite has happened. 

The single change that most delayed FEMA’s response to the floods is a new policy that requires Kristi Noem, the rootin’-tootin’-dog-shootin’ head of the Department of Homeland Security (which oversees, among other things, ICE and FEMA), to personally approve any expenses greater than $100,000. FEMA’s budget is more than $30 billion, and disaster aid is inherently expensive, so this caused serious issues. For example, as CNN reported, FEMA usually pre-positions search and rescue teams near imminent disaster zones. But Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of the rescuers for more than 72 hours after the flooding began. 

Another example: after a disaster, thousands of people access aid by calling FEMA help centers. On July 5, the day after flooding began, FEMA answered 3,018 of the 3,027 calls from disaster survivors. But the New York Times reported that on that evening, Noem did not renew the agreements with the contractors who handle the vast majority of calls. That meant that on July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered only 846, and on the ...

In Leavenworth, Kansas, a coalition of activists is organizing to prevent the reopening of the Leavenworth Detention Center, a for-profit prison. The world’s largest private prison operator, CoreCivic, wants to use the facility to inter immigrants (and sometimes American citizens) awaiting deportation. Before being shut down in 2021, the prison was described by the Missouri Independent as “an understaffed ‘hell hole’ of violence, death and drugs.” When stabbings, sexual assaults, and murders took place within its walls, local police were barred from investigating. It’s telling that in a town with five other prisons (and a new $500 million federal penitentary under construction), residents want to keep CoreCivic out. 

The coalition, which includes nuns, former inmates, and former prison guards, has found success. They sued to prevent the prison from opening, claiming that the prison failed to get necessary permits. That argument won them a temporary injunction from a ...

Last Wednesday, Trump threatened 50 percent tariffs on Brazil unless the country ended its prosecution of its former far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. (Bolsonaro was a key Trump ally while in office, and embraced the moniker “Trump of the Tropics” on the campaign trail.) And perhaps another reason for Trump’s admiration: Bolsonaro is charged with orchestrating an unsuccessful coup that shares many similarities to Trump’s January 6 riots. 

After Bolsonaro lost the 2023 election to left-wing candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known affectionately as Lula), his supporters camped around military barracks to try and convince soldiers to overthrow the government. After that didn’t work, thousands of Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed Brazil’s Supreme Court and Congress. These rioters were fueled by unfounded claims of election fraud spread by Bolsonaro, who has yet to concede that he lost the election. Bolsonaro, who is currently taking the stand in his trial, continues to deny involvement in a coup attempt. But prosecutors allege that he met with army officials to discuss the logistics of a forceful takeover of the government. Other members of Bolsonaro’s inner circle have been arrested for plotting to assassinate Lula. 

But Brazilians aren’t taking Trump’s interference in the trial lying down. This week, thousands of people rallied in the streets of Sao Paulo ...

According to an investigation published last week by Haaretz, the Israeli Prime Minister pushed the IDF to raise the threat level on his life in an attempt to prevent his corruption trial from moving forward. According to the investigation, Netanyahu pressured the Chief of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, to sign off on restrictions on Netanyahu’s movement that would have prevented him from taking the stand. 

Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 for allegedly trading $260,000 worth of luxury gifts, including cigars, champagne and jewelry, from billionaires in exchange for political favors. He also is accused of granting political favors to two media outlets in exchange for favorable coverage of his administration. In the most serious case, prosecutors claim he offered more than $200 million in incentives to a telecommunications company in exchange for positive news stories on a news site it owns. But ever since the indictment, Netanyahu and his allies have characterized it as a witch hunt. 

Trump seems to agree. Last week, he posted on Truth social that the case was an “unheard of… horror show,” and threatened to withdraw U.S. military aid to Israel unless the trial was cancelled. The courts recently