A ruling by the North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday siding with the state controller means the court will revisit a school funding case in which an earlier lineup of justices issued a landmark opinion just four months ago.
In a 5-2 decision, the Supreme Court restored enforcement of a 2021 order by the Court of Appeals that stopped the controller from transferring money from state coffers to agencies for education purposes without the General Assembly’s express approval. A trial judge had directed the controller’s predecessor to transfer the funds — an action the Supreme Court upheld in November. Two new justices joined the bench in January, altering the court’s partisan makeup.
A lawyer for current Controller Nels Roseland told the Supreme Court last month that Roseland remained worried that he or his staff could face criminal and civil penalties for making the transfer with several issues unaddressed. The controller keeps the state’s books and manages cash flow.
A lawyer for current Controller Nels Roseland told the Supreme Court last month that Roseland remained worried that he or his staff could face criminal and civil penalties for making the transfer with several issues unaddressed. The controller keeps the state’s books and manages cash flow.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Friday that he plans to sign a measure that would effectively ban abortion clinics from operating in the state, meaning hospitals will soon be the only places where they can be provided in the state.
After passing through the state Senate on Thursday with minor amendments, it returned to the Utah House of Representatives Friday morning, where it was approved and then sent to the governor for final approval. The move comes less than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, returning the power to regulate abortions to states.
Cox told reporters that he will sign the legislation, which also clarifies the definition of abortion to address legal liability concerns providers voiced about the way exceptions are worded in state law — a provision that he and Republican lawmakers called a compromise.
“One of the concerns with the trigger bill that medical providers had across the state was there was a lack of clarity that would have made it hard for them to perform legal abortions,” Cox said.
The measure is one of several that members of Utah’s Republican-supermajority statehouse has passed this year while abortion restrictions approved in years past are on hold because of a state court injunction. It has faced fierce opposition from business, civil liberties and abortion rights groups, including Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, which operates three of the four abortion clinics in the state.
Three Hong Kong activists from a now-defunct group that organized annual vigils commemorating China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters were convicted on Saturday for failing to provide authorities with information on the group in accordance with a national security law.
Chow Hang-tung, Tang Ngok-kwan and Tsui Hon-kwong were arrested in 2021 during a crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement following massive protests more than three years ago. They were leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China before it disbanded under the shadow of the Beijing-imposed law.
The alliance was best known for organizing candlelight vigils in Hong Kong on the anniversary of the Chinese military’s crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. Critics say its shutdown has shown freedoms that were promised when Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 are eroding.
Before the group voted to disband, police had sought details about its operations and finances in connection with alleged links to democracy groups overseas in August 2021, accusing it of being a foreign agent.
But the group refused to cooperate, arguing police were arbitrarily labeling pro-democracy organizations as foreign agents. It added the police did not have a right to ask for its information because it was not a foreign agent and the authorities did not provide sufficient justification.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs says corrections officials will not carry out an execution even though the state Supreme Court scheduled it over the objections of the state’s new attorney general.
The Democratic governor’s vow not to execute Aaron Gunches on April 6 for his murder conviction in a 2002 killing came a day after the state Supreme Court said it must grant an execution warrant if certain appellate proceedings have concluded — and that those requirements were met in Gunches’ case.
A week ago, Hobbs appointed retired U.S. Magistrate Judge David Duncan to examine the state’s procurement of lethal injection drugs and other death penalty protocols due to the state’s history of mismanaging executions.
“Under my Administration, an execution will not occur until the people of Arizona can have confidence that the State is not violating the law in carrying out the gravest of penalties,” Hobbs said in a statement Friday.
Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office has said the agency won’t seek court orders to carry out executions while Hobbs’ review is underway.
Mayes, a Democratic who took office in January, tried to withdraw a request by her Republican predecessor, Mark Brnovich, for a warrant to Gunches. The court declined to withdraw the request on Thursday.
A man has been charged with using Twitter to threaten to kill Michigan state government officials who are Jewish.
No names were listed in a criminal complaint unsealed against Jack Carpenter III of Tipton, Michigan. But Attorney General Dana Nessel said Thursday on Twitter that she was a target.
The FBI said Carpenter was in Texas when he tweeted on Feb. 17 that he was returning to Michigan “to carry out the punishment of death to anyone” who is Jewish in Michigan government “if they don’t leave, or confess, and now that kind of problem.”
“Because I can Legally do that, right?” he wrote.
Carpenter also declared a new country — “New Israel” — around his home, according to the criminal complaint.
Carpenter was arrested in Texas on Feb. 21. He appeared in federal court in Detroit on Wednesday on a charge of using interstate communications to make a threat and remains in custody until a detention hearing Friday. Prosecutors want to keep him locked up while the case is pending.
“When the defendant was arrested in his vehicle, they found approximately a half dozen firearms and ammunition,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Hank Moon, who added that Carpenter might flee if released on bond.
“Without getting into too much detail, the defendant does not believe he is subject to the jurisdiction of this court,” Moon told a judge.
Carpenter asked for a court-appointed lawyer but otherwise said little during the court appearance. A message seeking comment from the federal public defender office was not immediately returned Thursday.
Mexico’s president lashed out Wednesday at the chief justice of the country’s Supreme Court, accusing her of promoting rulings favorable to criminal suspects.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s comments opened a new debate over the separation of powers in Mexico, at a time when the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the president’s controversial cuts to election agency funding.
López Obrador has already attacked independent regulatory agencies, slammed the judiciary and cut funding for the National Electoral Institute.
The electoral dispute has led the president to feud with the press, demonstrators and the U.S. State Department. Opponents say the electoral cuts threaten Mexico’s democracy, and have appealed them to the Supreme Court.
López Obrador’s comments Wednesday opened a head-on conflict between the administration and Supreme Court Chief Justice Norma Piña, the first woman to hold that post.
The president was angered after a judge issued an injunction striking down an arrest warrant against Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, a former governor of the northern border state of Tamaulipas, who had been accused of corruption.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has written her first majority opinion for the Supreme Court.
The opinion released Tuesday in a dispute between states over unclaimed money is one of roughly a half dozen she is expected to write by the time the court finishes its work for the summer, usually in late June. The decision was unanimous, though all the justices didn’t join the whole opinion.
Each justice typically writes at least one opinion from the seven separate two-week arguments sessions the court holds from early October to late April. But in January and February, for example, the court has only seven argued cases each month, meaning there are not enough to go around.
Jackson joined the high court on June 30, following the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer.
Jackson, 52, is the first Black woman to serve as a justice and just the third Black person on the court. The others are Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving among the nine justices, and the late Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Each justice typically writes at least one opinion from the seven separate two-week arguments sessions the court holds from early October to late April. But in January and February, for example, the court has only seven argued cases each month, meaning there are not enough to go around.
Jackson joined the high court on June 30, following the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer.
Jackson, 52, is the first Black woman to serve as a justice and just the third Black person on the court. The others are Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving among the nine justices, and the late Justice Thurgood Marshall.
