It was a day of environmental setbacks across the US on Friday after the Trump administration moved to keep two Michigan coal plants open and the US supreme court handed a win to fossil fuel firms in an emissions case.
Already, the US Department of Energy (DoE) has ordered the JH Campbell coal plant on Lake Michigan to remain open beyond its 31 May closure date, while the administration is expected to prolong the life of the Monroe power plant on Lake Erie, scheduled to begin closing in 2028.
The plants emit about 45% of the state’s greenhouse gas pollution.
Opponents say the order has little support in Michigan, could cost ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars and is ideologically driven. The state’s utilities have said they did not ask for the plants to stay online, and the Trump administration did not communicate with stakeholders before the order, a spokesperson for the Michigan Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities and manages the state’s grid, told the Guardian.
Here are the key stories at a glance:
US supreme court hands win to fossil fuel firms in emissions case
Fossil fuel companies are able to challenge California’s ability to set stricter standards reducing the amount of polluting coming from cars, the US supreme court has ruled in a case that is set to unravel one of the key tools used to curb planet-heating emissions in recent years.
The conservative-dominated court voted by seven to two to back a challenge by oil and gas companies, along with 17 Republican-led states, to a waiver that California has received periodically from the federal government since 1967 that allows it to set tougher standards than national rules limiting pollution from cars.
Mahmoud Khalil released from Ice detention after judge's order
Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil was released from US immigration detention, where he has been held for more than three months over his activism against Israel’s war in Gaza.
The release came after an order from a federal judge who said during a hearing on Friday that Khalil was not a flight risk and “is not a danger to the community, period, full stop”.
US deports teen soccer star to Honduras
A teenage student and soccer standout was arrested by immigration authorities four days after his high school graduation ceremony in Ohio and deported to Honduras this week, his family has said. Emerson Colindres, 19, had no criminal record and was attending a regularly scheduled appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Cincinnati when he was detained on 4 June, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Elizabeth Warren demands answers over reports of $500m deal for Gaza Health Foundation
Elizabeth Warren has confronted the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, over reports that the state department is considering redirecting $500m from USAID to the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the Israel- and US-backed Gaza food delivery group.
California challenges Trump’s troop deployment
California’s challenge to the Trump administration’s military deployment on the streets of Los Angeles returned to a federal courtroom in San Francisco on Friday after an appeals court handed Donald Trump a key procedural win in the case.
Trump fails to mark Juneteenth
The president failed to mark Juneteenth, commemorating the ending of slavery in the US, until he posted on Thursday night that there are “too many non-working holidays” in the country.
What else happened today:
Experts fear the US is now in worse shape to respond to a pandemic than before 2020 amid controversial dismissals at health agencies and lacklustre responses to the bird flu and measles outbreaks.
The Trump administration has terminated 639 employees at Voice of America and its parent organisation in the latest round of sweeping cuts that have reduced the international broadcasting service to a fraction of its former size.
The US supreme court declined to speed up consideration of whether to take up a challenge to Trump’s tariffs even before lower courts have ruled in the dispute.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 19 June 2025.
