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US judge halts plan to transfer Oak Flat land for contested Arizona copper mine

US judge halts plan to transfer Oak Flat land for contested Arizona copper mine

PHOENIX (AP) — A U.S. district judge on Friday temporarily halted the federal government's plans to transfer land in eastern Arizona for a massive copper mining project amid protest by Native American groups that consider the area sacred.
Apache Stronghold and its supporters have been fighting for years to stop the transfer of Tonto National Forest land known as Oak Flat to Resolution Copper. Meanwhile, the company has touted the economic benefits for the region and says it's worked with Native American tribes and others to shape the project.
U.S. District Judge Steven Logan said halting the land transfer would merely delay the production of copper and jobs and revenue to Arizona if it's ultimately upheld. On the other hand, he said Apaches would lose legal access to an ancestral, sacred site if the transfer proceeded.
He said the balance of equities 'tips sharply' in favor of Apache Stronghold. He granted an injunction that will be in place until the U.S. Supreme Court resolves an appeal to reconsider a decision from a panel of judges that
refused to block
the land transfer for the mine.
Logan, however, denied Apache Stronghold's request to have the injunction extend beyond the Supreme Court's resolution of the case.
'We are grateful the judge stopped this land grab in its tracks so that the Supreme Court has time to protect Oak Flat from destruction,' Wendsler Nosie Sr. of Apache Stronghold said in a statement Friday.
A statement from Resolution Cooper said the ruling simply maintains the status quo and anticipates the U.S. Supreme Court will decide soon whether to take up the case.
The fight over Oak Flat dates back about 20 years, when legislation proposing the land transfer was first introduced. It failed repeatedly in Congress before being included in a must-pass national defense spending bill in 2014.
President Donald Trump in his first administration released an environmental review that would trigger the land transfer. Former President Joe Biden pulled it back so the federal government could consult further with tribes.
Then, the U.S. Forest Service in April announced it would forge ahead with the land transfer, prompting Apache Stronghold's
emergency appeal
.
Apache Stronghold
sued the U.S. government
in 2021 under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to protect the place tribal members call Chi'chil Bildagoteel, an area dotted with ancient oak groves and traditional plants the Apaches consider essential to their religion.

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Colorado town orders organizers to cancel "No Kings" anti-Trump rally citing event conflict
Colorado town orders organizers to cancel "No Kings" anti-Trump rally citing event conflict

CBS News

time24 minutes ago

  • CBS News

Colorado town orders organizers to cancel "No Kings" anti-Trump rally citing event conflict

This Saturday, June 14, hundreds of "No Kings" rallies are expected to take place across the country, including in Colorado, protesting authoritarianism and coinciding with President Trump's birthday, the U.S. Army's 250th birthday, and Flag Day. But in Douglas County, one woman says the Town of Parker stopped her from organizing the event because it coincided with the Parker Days festival a half-mile away. Town officials cite safety as the reason the rally can't occur at the same time as its largest festival, but organizers say it violates their free speech rights. Signs inside Carolyn Williamson's Parker home make it clear how she feels about the Trump administration. "The evil, evil terrifying king," Williamson said, while gesturing to a papier-mâché Trump head she made, before moving to a pile of homemade signs. "I try to make more than one of each kind of theme." Carolyn Williamson, of Parker, Colorado, discusss her efforts to organize a protest in town and being denied a permit by town officials, which she says is a violation of her free speech rights. CBS "He claims to love the Constitution, but he only picks and chooses the things that he likes," Williamson said, citing concerns over recent immigration policy under Trump's leadership. When she learned of plans for "No Kings" rallies across the country on Trump's birthday, she decided to organize one in her community. "We need one in Parker," Williamson said. "We have to use our White privilege and speak up for those who can't while we can." Soon, nearly 400 people had signed up to attend, and Williamson began planning for their safety. "I took some safety and de-escalation training online," Williamson said. "The Boulder thing is at the forefront of everybody's mind. So I reached out to the Parker police." After initially being told she'd need a permit for an event of more than 100 people and would not be able to get one due to Parker Days, Williamson changed plans to host several small gatherings Saturday at intersections across town. But then Williamson says the town's attorney and police chief called to say the rally would need to be canceled because the town didn't have the resources to ensure its safety during Parker Days. "I said, 'well, what about our First Amendment rights?' And they said, 'Well, you're welcome to say anything you want, but you cannot be on public sidewalks that day. You can do it on another weekend,'" Williamson said. "I don't think that they have the constitutional right to deny us the right to protest." "In general, you don't need a permit to demonstrate on a public sidewalk," said Philip Chen, associate professor of political science at the University of Denver. "It's public land." Chen says governments can place some restrictions on the time, place, and manner of speech, as long as those restrictions are content-neutral. "The Supreme Court has said it has to be not subject to the content of the speech. It has to be very narrowly tailored to what the government's sort of interest is, and they have to provide some sort of alternative way for that message to be communicated," said Chen. "Content neutrality is going to be the important thing," he continued. "If somebody stood on the sidewalk with a sign for the rally and was told to leave, and another person stood there with a sign saying, 'I love Parker Days,' they would have to also tell that person to leave, or else it wouldn't be what would be considered sort of content-neutral enforcement." While Chen says restricting the time and place of the demonstration for safety reasons likely does not violate First Amendment protections, he says the idea that even a small rally would not be allowed could be an overly restrictive use of time, place and manner allowances, especially if the gathering was small enough to not require a permit. According to the ACLU, "you don't need a permit to march in the streets or on sidewalks, as long as marchers don't obstruct car or pedestrian traffic. If you don't have a permit, police officers can ask you to move to the side of a street or sidewalk to let others pass or for safety reasons." The organization also says, "police may not break up a gathering unless there is a clear and present danger of riot, disorder, interference with traffic, or other immediate threat to public safety." The Town of Parker said in a statement: "The Town of Parker became aware of a rally that had been scheduled to occur within the Town on June 14, 2025, during the same time the Parker Days Festival is being held in the Town. Based on the considerable resources that the Town provides to ensure the safety of Parker Days attendees and event organizers, the remaining resources available to serve the rest of the Town and all residents and visitors is extremely limited. The Town would be unable to allocate sufficient staff and resources to ensure the safety and needs of the rally participants along with the residents and other visitors to the Town. The Town takes very seriously the safety and well-being of all residents and visitors and wants to ensure that everyone in the Town has the best possible resources available to them. While the Town is supportive of individuals' First Amendment rights, those rights must be balanced with the rights and safety of all other individuals and may be limited under the law if there are concerns related to things such as the timing of events. The Town is truly unable to accommodate another event during the weekend of Parker Days, as it will negatively impact the Town's ability to safely and properly respond to the routine matters within the Town. The Town did offer the rally organizer the ability to work with the Town to determine another possible date to hold the rally." O'Brien Park in Parker, Colorado is seen on Monday, June 9, 2025. CBS The town offered to find another date for the No Kings rally, but Williamson says the message can't wait. "Civil disobedience doesn't always align conveniently with current events," Williamson said. Other No Kings rallies will be held across the metro area, including in Castle Rock, Littleton, and Denver. Monday night, after her interview with CBS News Colorado, Williamson said she decided to still host the event. She says it will be a block-by-block rally Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Williamson plans to organize peaceful demonstrators along Parker Road intersections from Lincoln Avenue to Hess Road. They will skip Mainstreet so as not to interfere with Parker Days.

Hundreds rallying at Supreme Court demand Trump return disappeared gay asylum-seeker Andry Hernández Romero
Hundreds rallying at Supreme Court demand Trump return disappeared gay asylum-seeker Andry Hernández Romero

Yahoo

time39 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Hundreds rallying at Supreme Court demand Trump return disappeared gay asylum-seeker Andry Hernández Romero

In front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Friday, about 300 people gathered to demand the return of someone the U.S. government erased. Keep up with the latest in + news and politics. Andry Hernández Romero — a 31-year-old gay Venezuelan asylum-seeker, actor, and makeup artist — fled to the United States legally in 2024 to escape homophobic persecution. He passed a credible fear interview and was preparing for his asylum hearing. But before that hearing could take place, the Trump administration deported him under a 2025 executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act — a law from 1798 once used to imprison Japanese Americans during WWII. Related: Rachel Maddow sees Americans' active resistance as key to overcoming Donald Trump's strongman game Hernández Romero was sent to CECOT, El Salvador's notorious mega-prison, accused of gang affiliation based on two crown tattoos above the names of his mother and father. His attorneys say he had no criminal history. Immigration authorities never gave him a chance to respond. He was last seen in chains, crying out, 'I'm gay. I'm a stylist.' Since that day, there has been no proof of life. 'Andry is a son, a brother. He's an actor, a makeup artist. He is a gay man who fled Venezuela because it was not safe for him to live as his authentic self,' Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, which is representing Hernández Romero, told the crowd. 'He's a dedicated member of a theater troupe that he has been in since he was seven years old… someone who put nothing but beauty and light into this world.' Related: 'We believe at this moment that he sits in a torture prison, a gulag in El Salvador,' she continued. 'We say 'believe' because we have not had any proof of life for him since the day he was put on a U.S. government-funded plane, forcibly disappeared.' HRC national press secretary Brandon Wolf, Immigrant Defenders Law Center executive director Lindsay Toczylowski, HRC senior VP Jonathan Lovitz and Crooked Media co-founder Jon Lovett speak at the U.S. Supreme Wiggins for The Advocate 'Andry is not alone,' she added. 'He is one of more than 235 men who were disappeared and rendered to CECOT with no due process… Many of them, like Andry, were in the middle of their asylum cases. They were denied their day in court. In an attempt to erase their very existence, they were sent to suffer in a prison that officials in El Salvador have bragged that people only leave in a coffin.' Jon Lovett, the Crooked Media co-founder and Pod Save America host, warned the crowd that the deportation program isn't over — and its logic is meant to desensitize the public. 'They're going to try to say it proves whatever bullshit they've been saying,' Lovett said, referring to the administration's claim, despite an order from the U.S. Supreme Court to return him, that deportees were out of the federal government reach. On Friday, the administration returned Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. from El Salvador to face criminal charges that his attorney says are dubious. Related: 'What that tells us is two things. One, it means the pressure matters. They can pretend they're immune to politics and democracy — they are not. That's one. And two: they can send people back at any time they want. They can bring Andry back anytime they fucking want," Lovett said. He blasted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem for refusing to confirm whether Hernández Romero is alive. 'Kristi Noem, a mother, is asked to give proof of life. That's it. Proof of life that Andry, this innocent person who'd only touched the immigration system because he followed the rules, is alive — and she wouldn't do it.' Gay California U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia pleaded with Noem during a recent House hearing, during which she refused to acknowledge the concern about Hernández Romero. Sarah Longwell, the lesbian publisher of The Bulwark and a former longtime Republican political strategist, said the outrage many former conservatives feel over Hernández Romero's disappearance is rooted in values their party abandoned. 'The Republican Party that we grew up in understood that immigrants added tremendous value to our country,' she said. 'Ronald Reagan used to say… 'if you had freedom in your heart and you wanted to follow our laws, anybody can come to America from anywhere and become an American.'' Related: Kristi Noem won't say if gay asylum-seeker deported to El Salvador's 'hellhole' prison is still alive 'But the other thing we were raised on as young conservatives was fidelity to the Constitution,' she added. 'It was a belief in the rule of law and due process and equal treatment… And so what I want from us… is to remind Republicans that they're Americans first… and that the values this country was founded on, they still have to abide by.' Supporters gather at the U.S. Supreme Court in suport of the "Free Andry" movmement. Christopher Wiggins for The Advocate 'That's what we do when we don't forget about people like Andry,' Longwell said. 'They know it's wrong. And we should never let them forget what they're doing.' Tim Miller, her colleague at The Bulwark, issued a blunt indictment. 'We did this to Andry — not some crooked cop or some corporation or some foreign country. We did it,' he said. 'And so it is up to us to get him back.' He described scrolling through Hernández Romero's Instagram. 'It's a fucking tough scroll, to be honest, thinking about this nightmare that we put him through. But there's one caption that he wrote on one story. He said this: 'Always give more than what's expected of you because 80 percent of success is simply persistence. So, do not be afraid of failure. Be afraid of not trying.'' 'Donald Trump wants to dehumanize these folks,' Miller said. 'He wants to say that they are vermin, that they're thugs, that they're bringing fentanyl into the country, and he wants people to not care about them… but he's wrong about that.' Related: Longwell, Lovett, and Miller joined forces to host a joint The Bulwark and Crooked Media fundraising event and podcast taping on Friday evening at the Lincoln Theatre in D.C. to support the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in its fight for the rights of wrongfully deported Venezuelans, such as Hernández Romero. Rep. Mark Takano, a California Democrat who was the first gay person of color elected to Congress, invoked his family's own forced removal. 'The Alien Enemies Act was once used, along with other evil laws, to imprison my own parents and grandparents during World War II,' he said. 'Their only crime being Japanese American. No charges, no trial, just locked up and stripped of their dignity. And the trauma didn't end when the war did. It echoed through my family for generations.' Related: 'Now we see it happening again,' Takano said. 'The same fear, the same injustice, repackaged and rebranded, but just as cruel.' The Bulwark's Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell speak at the U.S. Supreme Court rally for Andry Wiggins for The Advocate He called Hernández Romero's deportation 'scapegoating,' not safety. 'Let's be crystal clear,' he said. 'We must repeal the Alien Enemies Act… because none of us gets to sit this out.' Jonathan Lovitz, the Human Rights Campaign's new senior vice president for campaigns and communications, delivered one of the rally's most impassioned speeches — honoring Hernández Romero while indicting the system that disappeared him. 'He's a vibrant soul who made the world beautiful just by being in it,' Lovitz said. 'You heard that in 2024, he fled Venezuela — not for opportunity, not for handouts — for survival. He was beaten, he was abused, and he was targeted for being an outspoken gay man. That was his crime.' Related: Lovitz condemned the weaponization of bureaucracy: 'No hearing, no justice — just vanished. That is cruelty. That is cowardice. And it is the product of a broken and weaponized system, one that treats human dignity like a paperwork error.' 'Our Constitution does not say due process only for citizens,' he added. 'It does not say only for the lucky. And it certainly does not say only for the white, the straight, and the tattoo-free. It says that all people — all people — deserve justice.' But in front of the Court, the message was simpler: Bring Andry home. 'If Andry isn't safe,' Lovitz said, 'none of us are. Not immigrants, not asylum-seekers, not gay or trans people, not any of us.' And as the chants of 'Free Andry' swept through the crowd, Lovitz's final words rang out: 'These colors don't run.'

Homeless people may be arrested after refusing offers of shelter in Silicon Valley

timean hour ago

Homeless people may be arrested after refusing offers of shelter in Silicon Valley

SAN FRANCISCO -- Homeless people who reject three offers of shelter could be arrested under a controversial proposal before the city council of the most populous city in California's Silicon Valley on Tuesday. The proposal being pushed by San Jose Mayor Matt Mahon is eye-opening because it comes from a liberal city headed by a Democrat in the left-leaning San Francisco Bay Area. It is among the stricter anti-encampment deterrents proposed by elected officials since the Supreme Court in 2023 made it easier to ban homeless people from camping on public property. And it's another sign of just how frustrated people have become with squalid tents lining sidewalks and riverbanks, and erratic behavior of those using drugs or in distress in a state with an estimated 187,000 homeless people. California is home to roughly a quarter of all homeless people in the country. Mahan says most people do accept offers of shelter. But he wants to make clear to the small percentage of people who refuse, that as the city builds more shelter and interim housing, they have a responsibility to move indoors. 'I think we need a cultural change, a culture of accountability for everyone involved,' said Mahan. 'I don't want to use the criminal justice system to make vulnerable people's lives harder. I want to use it as a last resort.' California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and former mayor of San Francisco, has repeatedly urged cities to ban encampments. Arrests for illegal lodging have soared in San Francisco, and its current mayor, Daniel Lurie, has reiterated that it is not appropriate for people to live outdoors. Advocates for homeless people say cracking down on encampments is traumatizing and even counterproductive. Forcing a person to clear out sets them back in their search for stability as they could lose important documents needed to apply for work and housing, they said. 'Pushing people with mental health needs or drug addiction into incarceration — without any crime committed — is both inhumane and ineffective,' said Otto Lee, president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, in a written statement emailed Monday to The Associated Press. Lee and other county leaders are opposed to the mayor's proposal. They say they need more housing, beds and services, and not punishment. The 'responsibility to shelter' proposal does not mandate an arrest after three rejected offers. After talking with the city attorney's office and police, Mahan said it made more sense to give front-line outreach workers and police officers discretion to decide when to escalate or prioritize a situation. The city will set up a new six-officer quality of life unit within the police department. 'We don't want to overly tie their hands and tell them this is the only way to do it,' the mayor said. People who repeatedly violate the city's encampment code of conduct — which also includes keeping tents free of trash and not blocking the public right of way — could be sent to a recovery center for detox or petitioned for court-mandated treatment to mental health and substance use disorder care, Mahan said. San Jose has nearly 1,400 shelter spots and hopes to add another 800 by the end of the year. Officials are aware they do not have enough beds, and Mahan said that people will not be punished if beds are unavailable or the only options are unsuitable.

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