The Supreme Court seemed ready on Monday to limit the reach of a federal statute that makes it a crime for state and local officials, along with institutions that receive federal money, to accept gifts and payments meant to influence or reward their actions. In a lively argument studded with hypothetical questions about gifts as…
Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a hard-right Republican from Florida, has proudly described herself as a “pro-life extremist.” “My husband is a byproduct of rape,” she told a conservative student group in 2022, explaining her support for abortion bans with no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Nobody, she said, deserves “to be the…
The 13 federal appeals courts across the country sit just below the U.S. Supreme Court. In theory, the appeals courts, each covering a judicial circuit, are equals. But often enough, one circuit court has taken on an outsize role in shaping seminal constitutional questions that end up before the Supreme Court. After Sept. 11, it…
The appeals court that initially let an aggressive Texas immigration law come into force in a one-sentence order without a hint of reasoning — before later blocking it again in a similarly brief order — has a reputation for issuing decisions too conservative even for the Supreme Court, which is itself tilted to the right…
A week after Justice Amy Coney Barrett chastised Justice Sonia Sotomayor for choosing “to amplify disagreement with stridency” in a Supreme Court decision on former President Donald J. Trump’s eligibility to hold office, the two women appeared together on Tuesday to discuss civics and civility. They gave, for the most part, a familiar account of…
The Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to hear a challenge to new admissions criteria at an elite public high school in Virginia that eliminated standardized tests, clearing the way for the use of a policy intended to diversify the school’s student body. As is its custom, the court gave no reasons for turning down the…
Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting former President Donald J. Trump on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, urged the Supreme Court on Wednesday to reject a request from Mr. Trump to put the case on hold while he pursues appeals. “Delay in the resolution of these charges threatens to frustrate the public…
In December, when a federal appeals court agreed to hear former President Donald J. Trump’s sweeping claims to be immune from charges of plotting overturn the 2020 election, it laid out a lightning-fast briefing schedule, asking the defense and prosecution to file their papers on successive Saturdays during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. A…
Former President Donald J. Trump urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to reverse a ruling barring him from the primary ballot in Colorado and to declare him eligible to seek and hold the office of the presidency. Mr. Trump’s brief, his main submission in an extraordinary case with the potential to alter the course of…
The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether former President Donald J. Trump is eligible for Colorado’s Republican primary ballot, thrusting the justices into a pivotal role that could alter the course of this year’s presidential election. The sweep of the court’s ruling is likely to be broad. It will probably resolve not only…