Latest news with #Boston-based
Axios
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Axios
The great undoing: Trump's presidency reeled in by courts
No modern president has done more in his first 130 days than President Trump — only to have much of it undone, at least temporarily, by the courts. The big picture: Trump is testing the limits of presidential power at every turn, and the courts are just about the only thing standing in his way. The inevitable showdowns between Trump and the judiciary are only going to get more intense. Judges have issued dozens of orders blocking Trump from doing something he wants to do, and the flood seems to grow every day. The headlines are constant: Judge blocks X; Judge freezes Y; Court allows Z to continue. This week's ruling against Trump's tariffs — handed down by the usually sleepy Court of International Trade — was one of the biggest shockwaves yet, striking at the centerpiece of his economic agenda and efforts to exert leverage on the world stage. That ruling was quickly put on ice, temporarily, by an appeals court. But there will be more tariff litigation, and more litigation on just about everything else. On education, a federal judge in Boston this week said Trump could not stop Harvard from enrolling international students, at least for now. A separate Boston-based judge last week froze Trump's plans to largely eliminate the Department of Education. That added to an absolute mountain of litigation over Trump's various efforts to gut the federal bureaucracy. Courts have stopped or slowed some DOGE-led cuts across the government, the firing of people who serve on independent boards, and the laying off of other government workers. Immigration has been the most explosive flashpoint of all. Every court that's considered Trump's executive order redefining the rules of American citizenship has ruled against it. The administration has pointedly refused to bring back the man it wrongly deported to El Salvador, despite even the Supreme Court telling it to "facilitate" his return. Judges in lower courts have blocked similar deportations or ordered the government to provide some sort of hearing before deporting people. Between the lines: To some extent, this is the system working the same way it always works. The big things presidents do, at least in the modern era, end up in court. Obamacare was a big thing, done by both the president and Congress. It's been before the Supreme Court no less than three times. Forgiving student loans and trying to impose COVID vaccine mandates were, for better or worse, big things President Biden attempted. The Supreme Court said both were too big. Trump has made no bones about wanting to go as big as possible, all the time, on everything — and to do it mostly through executive action. Everyone knew before this administration began that myriad legal challenges were inevitable. And, well, they were. Unlike previous presidents, Trump and his allies have relentlessly attacked judges whose rulings block parts of his agenda. As these battles progress, Trump will win some and lose some. Every single person Trump has tried to fire may not end up fired. But if and when all of those one-off challenges coalesce into a real, big-picture Supreme Court referendum on the president's power to fire federal workers, the smart money says that's a fight Trump will most likely win. On the other hand, eliminating birthright citizenship is a long shot. The Justice Department is trying to persuade the Supreme Court that it's been misinterpreting the Constitution for 100 years. That is (a) obviously going to end up in court; and (b) a hard sell. What's next: Almost none of this — on any issue — has reached the point yet where judges are actually striking down or upholding Trump's policies. This is why the headlines you see all use words like "block" or "freeze" or "temporarily." For now, what's being decided is mainly whether Trump can go ahead and enact X or Y policy while the courts figure out whether that policy is legal. As explosive as these legal battles already are, we haven't even touched the highest-stakes chapters in the ongoing saga of Trump vs. the courts.
The Herald Scotland
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Supreme Court lets Trump revoke migrants' temporary status
Jackson wrote that the court "plainly botched" its assessment of whether the government or the migrants would suffer the greater harm if the migrants' legal status ends while the case is being litigated. Jackson said the majority undervalued "the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending." The administration wants to cut short a program that provided a two-year haven for immigrants because of economic, security, political and health crises in their home countries. Lawyers for the migrants said half a million people lawfully in the country will become subject to deportation, what it called the "largest mass illegalization event in modern American history." Labor unions and communities that have welcomed the migrants said they've filled gaps in key industries, including healthcare, construction and manufacturing. Nearly 20% of the workers at one automotive parts manufacturer are in the temporary program, according to labor unions. The Trump administration said it's determined the migrants' presence in the United States is "against the national interests" and the courts don't get to decide otherwise. The move is part of the President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration and push to ramp up deportations, including of noncitizens previously granted a legal right to live and work in the United States. The Biden administration hoped the program would deter migrants from those countries from trying to enter the country illegally. But the Trump administration cancelled people's work permits and deportation protections, arguing the program failed as a deterrent and makes it harder to enforce immigration laws for those already in the country. Immigrant rights groups challenged the change on behalf of the immigrants and their sponsors. A federal judge in Massachusetts said the abrupt curtailing of the program was based on a legal error, as the administration wrongly concluded that letting the temporary status naturally expire would foreclose the Homeland Security Department's ability to legally expedite their deportations. District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, also said early cancellation of protections requires a case-by-case review for each participant. A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals backed Talwani's decision to temporarily block mass cancellation. All three judges were appointed by Democratic presidents. The Justice Department argued the lower courts are "undoing democratically approved policies that featured heavily in the November election." Lawyers for a group of cities and counties said the abrupt cancellation of the program "would case severe economic and societal harms."
Time Business News
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time Business News
Inside Stathamism: The New Film Exploring a Reddit Cult That Idolized Jason Statham
In the vast digital sprawl of Reddit, strange subcultures are not unusual—but few are as bizarre and dangerous as the cult that emerged around the 2006 action film Crank. Known as Stathamism, this now-defunct online community centered around the belief that mimicking Jason Statham's character, Chev Chelios, was a path to true spiritual awakening. The subreddit r/stathamism was launched in 2019 by a user under the handle u/sohobreadsticks, also known as 'Opal.' What began as an apparent parody quickly spiraled into something more serious. Adherents of the group believed that the modern world was a simulation—one that could only be disrupted or escaped by maintaining constant adrenaline, just as Chelios does in Crank. Members claimed that if your heart rate dropped, so did your consciousness. Initially filled with memes and movie quotes, the subreddit rapidly evolved into a repository of increasingly risky behavior. Users posted videos of themselves engaging in high-stakes stunts, from street fights to reckless driving and rooftop jumps. One user uploaded footage of a self-inflicted electrocution. Another discussed using medical defibrillators for 'ritual clarity.' While Reddit eventually banned the community in 2023, traces of it persist. Reports linked the group to multiple hospitalizations and at least one fatality that remains under investigation. The term 'performance suicide' began appearing in user-generated posts and eventually in law enforcement briefings. Despite Reddit's efforts to scrub the content, remnants of the group's activity linger through screenshots, reuploads, and whispers of a surviving Discord server. Now, Boston-based filmmakers Caden Ahmad and Aryan Chaudhari are bringing this story to the screen. Their upcoming film, Stathamism, is currently in production and has already begun attracting attention from internet communities that remember the subreddit's eerie rise and fall. 'I thought it was just another weird Reddit joke,' says Ahmad. 'But then I found this PDF floating around called The Crank Testament. That was when I realized people had taken this way too far.' The film combines real archival Reddit content with dramatizations, capturing the surreal energy and unfiltered chaos that defined early 2010s internet horror. But it is not just a shock piece. It is a darkly comedic examination of how irony and fandom can spiral into dangerous ideology. 'We're interested in what happens when satire stops being interpreted as satire,' says Chaudhari. 'This film explores how easily performance becomes belief, and belief becomes extremism.' Stathamism aims to critique the broader cultural obsession with true crime and cult narratives, particularly in the United States. With streaming platforms increasingly leaning into sensationalist documentaries, the filmmakers argue that society has blurred the line between entertainment and danger. 'There's a market for chaos,' Ahmad notes. 'And when it becomes a spectacle, it stops being questioned.' Though the subreddit is long gone, online echoes remain. Slowed-down versions of the Crank soundtrack have surfaced on TikTok. A YouTube video tagged with #ChevAscension re-emerged recently. And on obscure forums, users claim to be part of a continuing movement—one they say Reddit could not kill. Whether or not Stathamism was a genuine belief system, a viral parody, or a tragic blend of both, the film seeks to hold a mirror up to the internet age's most absurd and dangerous tendencies. At its core, Stathamism is not just a film about a cult. It is a reflection on the digital landscapes we inhabit, and how belief can grow unchecked in the strangest of places. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
AsiaOne
13 hours ago
- Politics
- AsiaOne
US Supreme Court lets Trump revoke humanitarian legal status for migrants, World News
The US Supreme Court on Friday (May 30) let President Donald Trump's administration revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States, bolstering the Republican president's drive to step up deportations. The court put on hold Boston-based US District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration "parole" granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal, while the case plays out in lower courts. Immigration parole is a form of temporary permission under American law to be in the country for "urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit," allowing recipients to live and work in the United States. Biden, a Democrat, used parole as part of his administration's approach to deter illegal immigration at the US-Mexican border. Trump called for ending humanitarian parole programs in an executive order signed on January 20, his first day back in office. The Department of Homeland Security subsequently moved to terminate them in March, cutting short the two-year parole grants. The administration said revoking the parole status would make it easier to place migrants in a fast-track deportation process called "expedited removal." As with many of the court's orders issued in an emergency fashion, Friday's decision was unsigned and gave no reasoning. Two of the nine-member court's three liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, publicly dissented. The court botched its decision by failing to account for its impact, Jackson wrote in an accompanying opinion. The outcome, Jackson wrote, "undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending." The case is one of many that Trump's administration has brought in an emergency fashion to the nation's highest judicial body seeking to undo decisions by judges impeding his sweeping policies, including several targeting immigrants. The Supreme Court on May 19 also let Trump end a deportation protection called temporary protected status that had been granted under Biden to about 350,000 Venezuelans living in the United States, while that legal dispute plays out. Biden starting in 2022 let Venezuelans who entered the United States by air request a two-year parole if they passed security checks and had a US financial sponsor. Biden expanded that to Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans in 2023. A group of migrants granted parole and Americans who serve as their sponsors sued, claiming the administration violated federal law governing the actions of government agencies. Talwani in April found that the law governing such parole did not allow for the programme's blanket termination, instead requiring a case-by-case review. The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put the judge's decision on hold. 'Traumatic impact' Guerline Jozef, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, one of the plaintiffs, expressed dismay at Friday's decision. "Once again, the Trump administration blatantly proves their disregard for the lives of those truly in need of protection by taking away their status and rendering them undocumented. We have already seen the traumatic impact on children and families afraid to even go to school, church or work," Jozef said. The administration called Friday's decision a victory, asserting that the migrants granted parole had been poorly vetted. Ending the parole programs "will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety and a return to America First," Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. [[nid:718316]] While many of those with parole status are at risk of deportation, at least 250,000 had pending applications for another legal status, according to Karen Tumlin, director of the Justice Action Center, one of the groups suing over the parole termination. Those applications had been frozen by Trump's administration but the freeze was lifted this week, said Tumlin, adding: "Those should be processed right now." Migrants with parole status reacted to Friday's decision with sadness and disappointment. Fermin Padilla, 32, waited two years in Chile to receive parole status and paid for his work permit. "We complied with all the requirements the United States government asked for," said Padilla, who lives in Austin, Texas, and delivers Amazon packages. "Now I'm left without security because we don't know what will happen. We're without anything after so much sacrifice. It's not fair." Retired university professor Wilfredo Sanchez, 73, has had parole status for a year and a half, living in Denver with his US citizen daughter, a doctor. "I was alone in Venezuela, with diabetes and hypertension," Sanchez said. "I have been relaxed here, happy with (my daughter), her husband and my grandkids. I have all my medical treatment up to date." "To return to Venezuela is to die, not just because of my medical conditions, but from loneliness," Sanchez added. Carlos Daniel Urdaneta, 30, has lived in Atlanta for three years with parole status, working in a restaurant, since coming to the United States to earn money to send to his ill mother in Venezuela. "If I have to work triple in my country, I will," said Urdaneta, whose wife and son are still in Venezuela. "I won't risk staying here undocumented with this government."
Deccan Herald
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Deccan Herald
US Supreme Court lets Trump revoke humanitarian legal status for migrants
The court put on hold Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration "parole" granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal, while the case plays out in lower courts.
