Latest news with #JohnRoberts
Washington Post
3 hours ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Chief justice delivers traditional toast to president at Historical Society dinner
Inside the Supreme Court's main corridor known as the Great Hall, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. rose from his chair Monday night to formally open the Historical Society's annual dinner with a traditional toast to the president. For decades, the sitting chief justice has delivered the same seven-word toast at the start of the society's dinners he attends no matter who is in the White House. 'To the president of the United States,' Roberts boomed, his glass raised as his voice echoed through the hall lined with monolithic marble columns that lead to the courtroom. Veterans of the Historical Society's annual gathering had heard it before and were unfazed. But the chief justice's toast — his only remarks of the evening — were somewhat jarring to the law firm summer associates, young lawyers and others in attendance for the first time. They exchanged quizzical looks after Roberts spoke, asking each other if the chief justice had really said what they heard. Roberts's salutation seemed discordant with his recent assertions of judicial independence and at a time when the Supreme Court is being pulled into a slew of challenges to President Donald Trump's initiatives to upend the federal bureaucracy, immigration policy and to dramatically expand presidential power. In March, the chief justice issued a stern statement rejecting Trump's calls for the impeachment of a federal judge who ruled against the administration and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson forcefully condemned what she characterized as the relentless attacks, disregard and disparagement that judges around the country are facing on a daily basis. Carter G. Phillips, the president of the Historical Society who was a law clerk to the late Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, said Tuesday the toast from Roberts was all about tradition. Every formal meal Phillips has attended at the Supreme Court dating to 1978 has opened with the same tribute to the president. 'It's not a political statement. It's just respect for the office,' said Phillips, a Supreme Court litigator who attended the dinner and sat one table over from the chief justice. 'It would have been stranger not to do that; that would have been political.' The annual Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner for D.C.'s political and media elite has long closed with the same toast to the president. Trump did not attend this year and the evening instead ended with 'A toast to the First Amendment.' James Duff, executive director of the Historical Society, did not know the exact origins of the toast that he first learned about in the 1970s. When asked whether there was talk of updating the tribute, he said, 'it's just more consistent to stick with tradition.' Nichole Francis Reynolds, a new trustee with the society, observed first-time guests at Monday's dinner initially surprised when they heard the toast. The tradition 'underscores the profound respect accorded to the nation's highest office,' she wrote in an email. 'The Society's mission is to educate the public about the Supreme Court's rich history, including such time-honored customs.' 'These traditions remind us of the reverence for our constitutional framework and important relationship among our three co-equal branches of government,' she wrote. Burger created the nonprofit charity in 1974 to preserve and increase public awareness of the court's history through lectures, research, educational activities and court displays. The annual dinner for members, which cost $500 a ticket, celebrates the society's work and its donors, including large law firms and lawyers. In past years, several justices have attended the dinner or stopped by the reception held either in the court's elegant conference rooms or on the ground floor amid elaborate displays of the court's landmark cases. The dinner has also been the subject of controversy. Last year, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and his wife Martha Ann Alito were secretly recorded by a liberal documentary filmmaker discussing the nation's political divide and ethics controversies surrounding the couple. The organization and its annual dinner were also the subject of a 2022 article in the New York Times detailing how donors have sought to use it to gain access to the justices. This year, none of the justices showed up for lobster rolls at the reception with several telling organizers they are crunched for time as they finish writing and preparing to announce around 30 remaining opinions before the court's term ends in late June. Roberts was the only one of his colleagues to attend the event in which guests dined on a choice of seared rockfish or thyme roasted sirloin served on blue-and-gold rimmed China. The Washington Post purchased a ticket and membership for a reporter to attend the dinner. The email confirming attendance at the society's meeting and dinner came with a bolded note prohibiting guests from using recording devices, cameras and cellphones — and a warning that using such devices 'will result in forfeiture' of membership.
Time of India
2 days ago
- Health
- Time of India
Lives at risk: Trump cuts slash safety funds for nation's most dangerous work
More than a dozen workplace safety training centres across the United States could be forced to close by the end of the summer, as sweeping job cuts at a key federal health agency take effect under the Trump administration's cost-cutting drive. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which supports training and research for some of the country's most hazardous jobs, has lost nearly 90% of its workforce. Out of around 1,000 employees, only about 125 were left after job cuts on April 1, according to union data seen by Reuters. Although 300 employees were rehired in May, the team managing the 12 Centres for Agricultural Safety and Health, which support fishing, farming, and logging workers, was not part of this. Because of this, several centres are getting ready to close as their funding runs out. Training programmes run by groups like the Fishing Partnership Support Services (FPSS) and the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association face potential shutdowns by July or September. These programmes have provided critical hands-on safety training to thousands of workers, including how to handle fires, administer first aid, deploy life rafts, and use emergency radio equipment. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch CFD với công nghệ và tốc độ tốt hơn IC Markets Đăng ký Undo Without these federally funded courses, experts warn that more workers will be at risk and the burden on rescue services could increase. 'The return on investment of the government is huge,' said John Roberts, a retired Coast Guard officer and FPSS safety instructor. 'If they give us this money to do this training, it's going to lessen how much money has to be spent to rescue the untrained.' The US department of health and human services, which oversees NIOSH, said in a statement, 'The work will continue. HHS supports America's farmers, fishmen, and logging workers.' Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr defended the staff reductions in March, citing the need to streamline bureaucracy. NIOSH is now set to be absorbed into a new body called the Administration for a Healthy America. The decision comes despite the fact that fishing, farming and logging remain the deadliest industries in the US. Combined, they represent a small portion of the national workforce but recorded a fatal injury rate of 24.4 per 100,000 workers in 2023, seven times the national average. Many of the affected workers operate in remote locations where access to emergency medical care can be delayed by hours. Over the years, the NIOSH-backed centres have helped reduce those risks through safety research, direct education, and public health outreach. In 2024 alone, the Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety trained more than 5,600 workers. Other centres have introduced mobile health clinics, mental health support, and opioid overdose prevention in rural areas. But with grant funding set to expire between July and September, many of these initiatives are under threat. At the Southeastern Coastal Center for Agricultural Health and Safety in Florida, staff have already begun closing research programmes and worker outreach efforts. 'We're shutting down the direct education to the workers, we're shutting down the research,' said director J Glenn Morris. Although some industry groups offer private training, the cost remains a barrier for many. Without continued federal support, safety experts fear that many vulnerable workers will lose access to life-saving resources.
Fox News
5 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Harvard DHS lawsuit revives Supreme Court conflict of interest questions
Harvard University's lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for moving to ban foreign students at the Ivy League school could be on a fast track to the Supreme Court, reviving a longstanding debate over when justices should recuse themselves from cases. Four Supreme Court justices attended Harvard. While being an alumnus of a university involved in litigation does not typically warrant recusal from a case, other factors, such as deeper involvement with a school, could change matters. Professor James Sample, a constitutional law professor at Hofstra University, told Fox News Digital recusals from every case involving universities justices attended or were linked to would be "untenable," but recusals could be appropriate in certain circumstances. A recusal is "entirely subjectively applied by the justice in his or her own case, and, rightly or wrongly — and I'm among those who have criticized the practice — the practice on the Supreme Court is that only the justice in his or her own case, and no one else, makes that determination," Sample said. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan attended Harvard Law School. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson attended Harvard for both their undergraduate and law degrees. Kagan served as dean of Harvard Law School. Ed Whelan, a legal scholar who clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, told Fox News Digital the fact that a justice "went to Harvard or loved University of Alabama football is never going to be a reason for recusal." Jackson's ties to Harvard run perhaps the deepest though. The justice, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, served a six-year term on the Harvard Board of Overseers through 2022, and one of her daughters is a student there and preparing to graduate next year. Whether Jackson should recuse herself from Harvard litigation that comes before the high court can, "legally speaking," only be determined by her, Sample said, pointing to the open-ended language in the statute governing judicial recusal. Harvard's latest lawsuit, filed Friday in Massachusetts, alleges the Trump administration's decision to ban international students at Harvard by stripping them of their visas is unconstitutional. Harvard's attorneys made an emergency request for a restraining order, and Judge Allison Dale Burroughs, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, granted the order within hours. The order brought the DHS's visa operation against Harvard to a temporary halt and opened the door for the government to turn to higher courts for relief, meaning it could be on an expedited path to the Supreme Court. In 2023, Jackson recused herself from Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, a landmark affirmative action case, while the three other justices affiliated with Harvard did not. Some legal experts have said that in that instance it was necessary for Jackson to recuse because her tenure on the board, a governing body at the university, was current when the case hit the high court's docket. But Harvard's new cases could be a different story. "The specificity of the particular nexus that connects the justice to the specific interest at stake in litigation, as that gets more specific, as that nexus gets closer and closer, the potential for an appearance of conflict increases," Sample told Fox News Digital. Harvard's visa case is one of two lawsuits the school has brought against the Trump administration this year. In the second, brought in April, Harvard alleged the Trump administration improperly froze grant money and contracts totaling more than $2 billion. That case is moving at a slower pace than the visa lawsuit. Justice Amy Coney Barrett's decision to recuse herslef in an unrelated case recently made headlines after the high court issued a deadlocked decision, 4-4, leaving in place a block on the creation of a religious charter school in Oklahoma. If Barrett had weighed in, the case could have had the far-reaching effect of allowing or banning public funding for religious schools across the country. Barrett did not explain why she recused herself, and judges are not required to. The Associated Press reported that the justice is close friends with law professor Nicole Garnett, who was connected to the case. Last week, because of recusals, the Supreme Court declined to take up Baker v. Coates, a copyright case involving plagiarism allegations against activist Ta-Nehisi Coates. The high court noted in an order list that five justices opted not to take part in the case and that it therefore lacked a quorum to consider it. The nonpartisan group Fix the Court speculated that four of the five recused themselves because they had published or plan to publish books with Penguin Random House, whose parent company was named in the suit. Democrats repeatedly urged conservative Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from Trump's 2020 election subversion case because of Thomas' wife's work attempting to reverse the results of the election in favor of Trump, but the justice ignored those calls. Gorsuch attended Columbia University, another school under fire from the Trump administration and involved in litigation, but he likely would not step away from cases brought by the school solely because he went there.
Wall Street Journal
5 days ago
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Vance Courts Trouble for Trump
If the British coined the term 'too clever by half,' Vice President JD Vance might own the political update of 'too smart by 99%.' And Donald Trump might wonder at what point he asks his veep: Please stop helping—at least when it comes to Mr. Trump's greatest legacy and biggest asset, the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Vance recently offered his own take on the 'role' of that body, in particular Chief Justice John Roberts's 'profoundly wrong sentiment' that the judiciary exists to 'check the excesses of the executive.' The vice president finger-wagged that this was 'one-half' of the job; the 'other half' was to stop a 'small but substantial number' of courts from telling 'the American people they're not allowed to have what they voted for,' namely 'immigration enforcement.' Also, to be 'extremely deferential' to the 'political judgment' made by 'the people's elected president of the United States.'
Washington Post
6 days ago
- General
- Washington Post
Supreme Court walks a tightrope as it confronts Trump's power moves
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is navigating a fraught path, legal analysts say, trying to avert a direct confrontation between the Trump administration and a Supreme Court that has steadily expanded presidential power — but not without limits. The stakes are as high as any time in Roberts's 20-year tenure. He is committed to protecting the independence of the courts to 'check the excesses of Congress or the executive,' as he said recently, amid attacks by President Donald Trump and his allies on federal judges, including the justices.
