Court blocks Louisiana law requiring schools to post Ten Commandments in classrooms
NEW ORLEANS — A panel of three federal appellate judges has ruled that a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in each of the state's public school classrooms is unconstitutional.
The ruling on Friday marked a major win for civil liberties groups who say the mandate violates the separation of church and state , and that the poster-sized displays would isolate students — especially those who are not Christian.
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Jay Peak GM Calls Impact of Canadian Tariffs "Catastrophic"
Earlier this week, the United States Senate convened a forum amongst the Senate Financial Committee, and others, on the impacts of tariffs and the current administration's trade war on business, manufacturing, farming, and the tourism industry. Vermont Senator Peter Welch, who is a member of the Senate Finance Committee welcomed General Manager Steve Wright of Vermont's Jay Peak to the forum to speak on the economic impacts and cultural harm as a result of the administration's new policies. Wright's opening statement provided a stark look into how the ski area and its local economy, which sits just south of the Canadian border, has already seen dramatic impacts of the tariffs imposed by the administration. Wright cited that the ski area itself is a $70M business that's been around for 60 years, and was once even owned by a Canadian company. The towns that are closest to the ski area, Newport and Jay, are home to less than 5,000 and 550 full-time residents respectively. On any given busy day at the ski resort, the population of Jay, VT can increase to more than 10,000 people, 50% of whom are Canadian visitors traveling from towns like Toronto, Montreal, and several of the eastern townships. Due to both a close proximity and relationship with the neighboring country, Wright noted policies that had been put in place many years prior at the resort that allowed Canadians to use the Canadian dollar on products like lift tickets, entry to the water park, for golf rounds. Depending on the current status of the dollar and Canadian dollar, that's meant that a discount of around 20-35% at any given time. "Our french fries come with American gravy and Canadian cheese curds and the resort consumes equal parts Budweiser and Molson," said Wright, in a lighthearted emphasis of his to watch the full speech below. Keep reading for to keep up with the best stories and photos in skiing? Subscribe to the new Powder To The People newsletter for weekly updates. Wright continued by saying that Jay Peak and the state of Vermont are forecasting a 'potentially catastrophic amount of trouble' as it pertained to Canadians citizens unwillingness to visit the state for the 'indeterminate future.' He also touched on the increased costs of bringing in necessary operating equipment for the resort as a result of the tariffs. Located within Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, Jay Peak is the state's chief supplier of state and local taxes as well as more than 1,500 employment opportunities for Vermont's workforce, not to mention the most snow in eastern North America over the past winter, stated Wright. Despite these metrics, the ski area has already seen a massive decrease in Canadian visitorship. The 2026 fiscal year season pass sales has already seen a reduction of 35% by Canadian passholders. Wright recalled personally calling more than 150 Canadian households over the past two weeks. "They cite the Presidential Administration's flagrant disrespect of Canadian independence and not only a challenge to Canadian sovereignty but their own identity and they feel the need to respond," said Wright, summarizing the common sentiments of these phone calls. One family told him they were not sure when they'd return to Jay Peak, if ever. Beyond just Jay Peak, the 50,000 yearly Canadian visitors inject $150M into Vermont's economy annually, a number that has already seen suffering as a result of the tariffs. Wright closes his statement by noting the optimism required to work in the ski industry, one that is based largely on remote locations, fickle weather, and a lack of affordable housing. "The very last thing we need added to our plates is the President's anti-Canadian being driven by this administration that is neither grounded in logic nor supported by facts. It is my hope that ultimately cooler and more logical heads will prevail, but we have not seen much in the way of cool, and logic appears to be roughly five months out the proverbial window," said Wright. Jay Peak is not the only voice in the ski and outdoor industry to speak out about the affects of these tariffs. Earlier this week, women's ski and mountain bike brand, Wild Rye, opened to public investors as a way to bridge the financial gap needed to move product production out of China, as a result of the tariffs. On May 5th, Black Diamond reported a 15-25% raise in prices as a result of the tariffs. Many more brands and ski areas have waited in hesitation to see how these tariffs will continue to impact an already precarious industry following the COVID pandemic and in the face of climate change. Vermont skiers and ski areas are no strangers to standing up to this administration. Wright's statement further exemplifies that just because an office in the ski industry might look a little different than one in the White House, it's doesn't mean they aren't prepared to suit up and fight Peak GM Calls Impact of Canadian Tariffs "Catastrophic" first appeared on Powder on Jun 12, 2025 Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
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19 minutes ago
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Why Aren't We Electing Skiers as Politicians?
Looking to the outdoors–out the proverbial window–Hornsby long ago told us to watch out for the back room boys that say the smoke is going to blow away. Look out for the men who say it's okay, sitting in a building far prescient, his words are as pressing as ever for anyone concerned with the preservation of our world outside of golf cart paths and boys club boardrooms. Miles from any BLM office, and at a remarkably troubling clip, a paradigm shift in environmental government policy is in not hard to wonder if those spearheading this movement–namely President Donald Trump and his on-again, off-again friend Elon Musk–spend any time outside, let alone in the wilderness. How else can you explain their approach to government? Marooned and protected in the urban ballast of Mar-a-Lago and Starbase, they take their DOGE axe to the federal budget, ostensibly cutting waste. To what end? Amidst an historic drought, federal firefighting crews have seen their ranks decimated by DOGE cuts, then, in the confusion, departments have asked some of those employees to return. Thousands of forest service workers have been furloughed, while the wanton use of tariffs has caused massive uncertainty in the outdoor industry. All of this theorized by some to be just the beginning in a long strategy to diminish our public lands to the point of fallowness that they will be unmissed as they come under the scythe of industry. While that ultimate end remains conjecture, the last few months have been a shocking counterpoint to what had become a comfortable status quo for the outdoorsperson–that stewardship of public lands and the conservation of wilderness for posterity was not only a given, but permanent. That feels as fraught as ever in a new administration that eschews not only decorum, but anything resembling an ethos of Trump is not alone. While the Republican-backed behemoth funding measure–the hyperbolically titled One Big Beautiful Bill that is in front of Congress now–at first had some of its teeth pointed at claiming public lands removed, the Senate decided to actually increase the amount of land for sale, further threatening protection for clean water, clean energy, and the what can we do in such a time? My take: be it city council, state legislature, even the White House, we need to elect outdoors people to office. We need skiers, hunters, wildland firefighters, dog park users, e-bike riders–anyone who prioritizes the beauty of our natural world–in it's more than that. We have to build our coalition. Millions in this country, billions the world over, still don't have the ability to take part in the overly gatekept outdoor world. If the public lands and the pursuit of happiness outdoors stand a chance at longevity against current headwinds, it is in a democratized outdoor culture. And as it stands now, the outdoor lifestyle is mostly enjoyed by a certain few with the means to take part–an oligarchy of sorts. Sound familiar? Many are working to change this, but this work remains yet unfinished. Building our ranks can seem counterintuitive. Trailheads are packed post-Covid, and our mountain towns have become busier than ever even as local voting blocs have been pushed out by buyers from cities who could afford second homes. But the more folks who have a stake–the more middle-class voters who can remain in mountain towns, the less NIMBY our approach to those with means who do come–the better chance we stand at coming together, influencing policy, and protecting what is to many of us our greatest wilds are eminently worthy of protection. Out there, where a cell phone tower can't ping you, one finds solidarity not only with nature, but themselves and others. Running in Couloir's October 1997 issue, the late ski guide and writer Alan Bard poignantly spoke to the power of beautiful, wild places. 'It becomes important then, in fact essential, to savor and share these places and feelings,' he wrote. 'When we travel far afield to ski, we often find not just some intoxicatingly remote landscape but the convoluted topography of our own souls.' Today, bound by smartphones and online echo chambers, the world desperately needs the grounding power of the before us have long taken to promulgating an outdoors ethos, or have even lobbied in Washington for stronger protections for the natural world. Summer camps nationwide have for decades taught the next generation the power and poise that one can learn from being self-sufficient in the wilderness. Edward Abbey–though insensitive, problematic, and now overly-worshiped by a gear-heavy, Instagram-bound outdoor culture he would have abhorred–himself took a more philosophical if extreme route, endlessly writing on the wilds while fantasizing how Karo syrup and a little sand might work together to diminish a bulldozer's engine. Perhaps, in a few hearty souls, Hayduke indeed there's Protect Our Winters (POW), arguably the best-known, most professional advocacy group in all the outdoor canon. A bonafide lobbying outfit, POW and their affiliates have even testified before Congress, working from inside the establishment for the benefit of not only climate change awareness, but a slew of other pressing environmental issues. The groundwork is there. What remains is the mobilization of the outdoor culture at a large enough scale to propel our rank to office. And people are looking for an alternative to the staid political status quo. In the wake of his spat with Trump, Musk polled X users, asking if a new party should emerge out of this schism. Of the millions who responded, 80 percent did so in the what about a movement borne not out of a rivalry between oligarchs, but on inclusion, humanity, nature, and a shared belief in the transcendence of those tenets?That would be something to rally around. Why Aren't We Electing Skiers as Politicians? first appeared on Powder on Jun 17, 2025
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19 minutes ago
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Appeals panel scrutinizes judge's block on Trump National Guard deployment
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) got a frosty reception at a federal appeals court Tuesday afternoon as it scrutinized a lower judge's ruling blocking President Trump's federalization of the National Guard in Los Angeles. The three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit appeared inclined to let Trump maintain control of the guardsmen, weighing the scope of the president's discretion in times of conflict and whether the courts have the authority to intervene at all. The judges seemed to believe Supreme Court precedent provides the president with broad authority to declare emergencies that can trigger the ability for him to deploy the troops. 'Those are maybe good arguments for the Supreme Court to reconsider those cases,' Judge Eric Miller, one of Trump appointees on the panel, told California's lawyer. 'But they've told us repeatedly that when there is a case that is directly applicable to an issue, even if we think it's been undercut by later developments…we're supposed to follow the applicable case and leave it to them to overrule it,' Miller added. The judges repeatedly stressed an 1827 Supreme Court decision, Martin v. Mott, that gives the president exclusive authority to decide whether an exigency justifying the use of military power has arisen. Samuel Harbourt, California's attorney, insisted 'it was a very different case.' 'If we were writing on a blank slate, I would tend to agree with you,' Jennifer Sung, an appointee of former President Obama, told him. 'But the problem that I see for you is that Mott seem to be dealing with very similar phrasing about whenever there is an invasion, then the President has discretion, and it seemingly rejected the exact argument that you're making.' Judge Mark Bennett, the other Trump appointee, questioned whether the courts could intervene in the Los Angeles deployment even if there was some limited role for judicial review. 'With the facts here and the language in Martin v. Mott, how can that test be met here?' he asked. Trump deployed the National Guard over a week ago as protests erupted in Los Angeles over the administration's immigration raids, devolving at times into violence. He cited a statute that allows the guard to be federalized when there is a rebellion or when the president can't execute federal law with regular forces. Tuesday's arguments followed a district judge's order directing Trump to return control of California's National Guard to Newsom. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, an appointee of former President Clinton and the brother of retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, called Trump's takeover illegal and said it exceeded the scope of the statute. The Justice Department appealed the ruling within minutes of its release, and the 9th Circuit panel granted the government's request to temporarily halt the ruling as its request for a longer pause is considered. Brett Shumate, who represented the government at Tuesday's arguments, said Breyer 'improperly second-guessed' Trump's judgment about the need to call up the guard, interfering with his commander-in-chief powers. 'It upends the military chain of command. It gives state governors veto power over the President's military orders. It puts article three judges on a collision course with the commander in chief. And it endangers lives,' Shumate said. California also argues that regardless of whether the triggering conditions were met, Trump did not follow the statute's mandate to issue his order 'through' the state's governor. California says that requires Newsom to consent, which he did not. But at least some of the judges appeared skeptical of that argument, too. 'It's a very roundabout way, I mean, of imposing a consultation requirement,' said Miller. The appeals court could now rule at any time. Before adjourning, the panel noted Breyer is moving quickly to a Friday hearing on whether to grant a longer injunction. His ruling would moot the current appeal. And if the administration loses, they asked for the deployment to remain intact until they have an opportunity to file an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court. Updated on June 18 at 5:58 a.m. EDT Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
