Thursday, September 17, 2026
A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the Kennedy Center cannot install memorials to President Trump or rename itself without Congress. Hours later the board he chairs voted to close the main building immediately for a renovation expected to last two years. The president said the work will not happen at all unless the naming ruling is overturned.
A federal judge has ended the Kansas law that let undocumented students who graduated from Kansas high schools pay in-state tuition. The Justice Department sued, the state's attorney general agreed with the lawsuit, and the judge entered a consent judgment. The governor and a student group asked to defend the law and were refused.
A federal judge in San Francisco has ruled that the Department of Homeland Security acted unlawfully in directing FEMA to cut its workforce roughly in half. The record contained no reasoning for the cut, the officials who discussed it used Signal and deleted the messages, and the judge will now presume those messages would have shown unlawful conduct.
Prosecution and defence psychiatrists used the same term for the killings. What separates a life sentence from commitment to a hospital is whether the jury finds she could appreciate that it was wrong.
Caseload standards and staffing reality have diverged far enough that courts are dismissing cases and appointing private counsel at cost. The constitutional obligation is being met with a checkbook.