Will the Supreme Court Hand Government Contractors Blanket Immunity?

After being sued for violating state-level human trafficking laws, the nation’s largest private prison company is pushing the U.S. Supreme Court to grant private government contractors like itself blanket immunity from such lawsuits and many others. This case — and another involving a military contractor — could deliver sweeping immunity to federal contractors, if they get the ruling they…
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Critics Alarmed as Trump Leverages Shutdown to Gut Special Education Office

Two months after Education Secretary Linda McMahon was confirmed, she and a small team from the department met with leadership from the National Center for Learning Disabilities, an advocacy group that works on behalf of millions of students with dyslexia and other disorders. Jacqueline Rodriguez, NCLD’s chief executive officer, recalled pressing McMahon on a question raised during her…
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NYC Public Schools System Defies Trump Anti-Trans Demands, Files Lawsuit

In recent months, some of the nation’s most elite universities have folded under the Trump administration’s demands to ban transgender students from bathrooms, sports, and even recognition altogether. Hospitals, too, have caved to federal funding threats designed to force compliance with discriminatory policies. But one place has emerged as a bulwark of resistance: local school boards.
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Trump Cuts and Climate Change Compound Worry in Alaska After Typhoon Disaster

After the latest catastrophic storm hit Western Alaska, displacing more than 1,500 people, killing at least one and leaving villages in ruins, residents face an existential crisis. Will the wide delta that fans out between the lower Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers and has supported one of the circumpolar north’s largest Indigenous populations for millennia continue to be a place where Alaska’s…
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Senators Launch a Bipartisan Bid to Block Possible Trump War on Venezuela

With President Donald Trump floating potential military action within Venezuela and authorizing operations by the Central Intelligence Agency after launching several deadly strikes on boats near the South American country, three lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Friday said they would force a new vote on blocking the White House from carrying out an attack there. Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.
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Court Dismisses Youth-Led Lawsuit Challenging Trump Orders Boosting Fossil Fuels

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. A federal district court in Montana Wednesday granted the Trump administration’s request to toss out a youth-led lawsuit challenging the administration’s efforts to increase the extraction and use of fossil…
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