The supreme court on Thursday allowed Donald Trump’s administration to enforce a policy blocking transgender and non-binary people from choosing passport sex markers that align with their gender identity.
The decision by the high court’s conservative majority is Trump’s latest win on the high court’s emergency docket, and it means his administration can enforce the policy while a lawsuit over it plays out. It halts a lower-court order requiring the government to keep letting people choose male, female or X on their passport to line up with their gender identity on new or renewed passports.
Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, hailed the decision, saying in a post on X: “Today’s stay allows the government to require citizens to list their biological sex on their passport. In other words: there are two sexes, and our attorneys will continue fighting for that simple truth.”
Meanwhile, the court’s three liberal justices dissented, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson calling the decision a “pointless but painful perversion”.
She added: “Such senseless sidestepping of the obvious equitable outcome has become an unfortunate pattern. So, too, has my own refusal to look the other way when basic principles are selectively discarded. This Court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification.
“What the Government needs (and what it does not have) is an explanation for why it faces harm unless the President’s chosen policy is implemented now. It suggests that there is an urgent foreign policy interest in dictating sex markers on passports, but does not elaborate as to what that interest might possibly be,” Jackson wrote.
A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to find the money to fully fund food stamps for 42 million low-income Americans in November by Friday, in a rebuke to the government’s plan to only provide reduced aid during the shutdown.
US district judge John J McConnell Jr criticized the administration’s plan to partly fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits in November, saying it had failed to comply with an order he issued on Saturday requiring the government to ensure Americans received full or partial benefits no later than Wednesday.
He also said the administration plowed ahead with a plan to partly cover benefits without addressing – as required– the fact that in many states, it could take weeks or months to implement the reduced benefits.
“The evidence shows that people will go hungry, food pantries will be overburdened, and needless suffering will occur,” McConnell said. “That’s what irreparable harm here means.”
The judge added: “This should never happen in America.”
McConnell gave the Trump administration until Friday to make the payments through Snap, though it is unlikely that the people who rely on it will see the money on the debit cards they use for groceries that quickly.
“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund Snap,” McConnell said. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial Snap payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”
This type of order is usually not subject to an appeal, but the Trump administration has challenged similar rulings before.
The plaintiffs want the Snap program, which is a major component of the nation’s social safety net and serves about one in eight Americans, to be fully funded. Some states, including New York, Oregon and Virginia, declared states of emergency last week to provide funds that would keep benefits available. But the amounts provided were expected to amount to a fraction of normal federal government funding. The federal costs of Snap amounts to about $8bn a month across the US.
Trump to meet Hungary's Orbán to discuss Russian oil
President Donald Trump will hold talks with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán on Friday, as the two leaders are expected to discuss Hungary’s reliance on Russian oil at a time when Trump has been working to wean nations off of it.
Orbán, a long-time Trump ally, will be meeting the US president for the first time bilaterally since Trump returned to the White House in January.
The two leaders are like-minded in their anti-immigration stances, but a potentially difficult topic involves Hungary’s reliance on Russian oil. Trump has been insisting that European nations stop buying it as a way to dry up Moscow’s funding for its invasion of Ukraine.
Hungary has maintained its reliance on Russian energy since the start of the 2022 conflict in Ukraine, prompting criticism from several European Union and Nato allies.
Updated
US airlines cancel flights after aviation agency directive to cut air traffic
Good morning and welcome to our coverage of US politics with the effects of the record-breaking government shutdown continuing to bite as flight reductions at 40 major US airports begin at 6am ET.
United, Southwest and Delta airlines already began cancelling flights last night with airports in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to be affected after the the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said air traffic must be reduced by 4% from this morning.
On Thursday evening, Delta said it will be cancelling 170 flights on today and “fewer” on Saturday because it is a lighter travel day. Southwest said it will cancel 120 flights for Friday and United said it plans to cut 4% of its flights Friday through Sunday.
There’s a full list of affected airports here.
On Thursday evening, Delta said it will be cancelling 170 flights on Friday and “fewer” on Saturday because it is a lighter travel day. Southwest said it will cancel 120 flights for Friday and United said it plans to cut 4% of its flights Friday through Sunday.
The FAA has said flights are being reduced to maintain air traffic control safety during the ongoing federal government shutdown, now the longest recorded and with no sign of a resolution between Republicans and Democrats to end the federal budget standoff, now in its 37th day.
Experts predict hundreds if not thousands of flights could be canceled. The cuts could represent as many as 1,800 flights and upwards of 268,000 seats combined, according to an estimate by the aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Read our full story here:
In other developments:
A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to find the money to fully fund food stamps for 42 million low-income Americans in November by Friday, in a rebuke to the government’s plan to only provide reduced aid during the shutdown. US district judge John J McConnell Jr criticized the administration’s plan to partly fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits in November, saying it had failed to comply with an order he issued on Saturday requiring the government to ensure Americans received full or partial benefits no later than Wednesday.
The supreme court on Thursday allowed Donald Trump’s administration to enforce a policy blocking transgender and non-binary people from choosing passport sex markers that align with their gender identity. The decision by the high court’s conservative majority is Trump’s latest win on the high court’s emergency docket, and it means his administration can enforce the policy while a lawsuit over it plays out.
As the US federal shutdown enters its second month, government workers are accusing the Trump administration of being “out of control” and bullying people who are “simply trying to do their best”. About 700,000 federal employees are furloughed without pay, and about 700,000 additional federal workers have been working without pay through the shutdown.
Nancy Pelosi, a California Democratic representative and the first woman to serve as speaker, announced on Thursday she will retire from Congress, two years after stepping down from House leadership. Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco in Congress for nearly 40 years, said in a video address to her constituents that she would “not be seeking re-election”.
Donald Trump announced a plan on Thursday to reduce the costs of some weight loss drugs for certain patients and expand access to them for people on public health insurance. The agreement will make oral versions of GLP-1s, which aren’t yet to market but are expected to be approved in the coming months, available at $150 per month for starting doses.
The US Senate on Thursday blocked a Democratic war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to seek congressional approval to launch strikes in Venezuela, allowing the president to remain unchecked in his ability to expand his military campaign against the country.
