Wisconsin
State Supreme Court’s liberal majority strikes down 176-year-old abortion ban
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority struck down the state’s 176-year-old abortion ban on Wednesday, ruling 4-3 that it was superseded by a newer state law that criminalizes abortions only after a fetus can survive outside the womb.
State lawmakers adopted the ban in 1849, making it a felony when anyone other than the mother “intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child.”
It was in effect until 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide nullified it. Legislators never officially repealed the ban, however, and conservatives argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe reactivated it.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit that year arguing that the ban was trumped by abortion restrictions legislators enacted during the nearly half-century that Roe was in effect. Kaul specifically cited a 1985 law that essentially permits abortions until viability. Some babies can survive with medical help after 21 weeks of gestation.
Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski, a Republican, defended the ban in court, arguing that the 1849 ban could coexist with the newer abortion restrictions, just as different penalties for the same crime coexist.
Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled in 2023 that the 1849 ban outlaws feticide — which she defined as the killing of a fetus without the mother’s consent — but not consensual abortions. Abortions have been available in the state since that ruling but the state Supreme Court decision gives providers and patients more certainty that abortions will remain legal in Wisconsin.
Urmanski asked the state Supreme Court to overturn Schlipper’s ruling without waiting for a decision from a lower appellate court. It was expected as soon as the justices took the case that they would overturn the ban. Liberals hold a 4-3 majority on the court and one of them, Janet Protasiewicz, openly stated on the campaign trail that she supports abortion rights.
Democratic-backed Susan Crawford defeated conservative Brad Schimel for an open seat on the court in April, ensuring liberals will maintain their 4-3 edge until at least 2028. Crawford has not been sworn in yet and was not part of Wednesday’s ruling. She’ll play pivotal role, though, in a separate Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin lawsuit challenging the 1849 ban’s constitutionality. The high court decided last year to take that case. It’s still pending.
Bangkok
U.S. judge says China’s Huawei Technologies must face criminal case for racketeering and other charges
BANGKOK (AP) — A U.S. judge has ruled that China’s Huawei Technologies, a leading telecoms equipment company, must face criminal charges in a wide reaching case alleging it stole technology and engaged in racketeering, wire and bank fraud and other crimes.
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly on Tuesday rejected Huawei’s request to dismiss the allegations in a 16-count federal indictment against the company, saying in a 52-page ruling that its arguments were premature.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. accuses Huawei and some of its subsidiaries of plotting to steal U.S. trade secrets, installing surveillance equipment that enabled Iran to spy on protesters during 2009 anti-government demonstrations in Iran, and of doing business in North Korea despite U.S. sanctions there.
During President Donald Trump’s first term in office, his administration raised national security concerns and began lobbying Western allies against including Huawei in their wireless, high-speed networks.
In its January 2019 indictment, the Justice Department accused Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions and charged its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, with fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, was arrested in Canada in late 2018 on a U.S. extradition request but released in September 2021 in a high-stakes prisoner swap that freed two Canadians held by China and allowed her to return home.
Chinese officials have accused the U.S. government of “economic bullying” and of improperly using national security as a pretext for “oppressing Chinese companies.” In their motion to dismiss the broad criminal case, among other arguments Huawei’s lawyers contended that the U.S. allegations were too vague and some were “impermissibly extraterritorial,” and do not involve domestic wire and bank fraud.
The biggest maker of network gear, Huawei struggled to hold onto its market share under sanctions that have blocked its access to most U.S. processor chips and other technology. The limits led it to ramp up its own development of computer chips and other advanced technologies.
The company also shifted its focus to the Chinese market and to network technology for hospitals, factories and other industrial customers and other products that would not be affected by U.S. sanctions.
New York
Judge blocks Trump from ending temporary legal status for many Haitians
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge in New York on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary legal status for more than 500,000 Haitians who are already in the United States.
District Court Judge Brian M. Cogan in New York ruled that moving up the expiration of the temporary protected status, or TPS, by at least five months for Haitians, some of whom have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, is unlawful.
The Biden administration had extended Haiti’s TPS status through at least Feb. 3, 2026, due to gang violence, political unrest, a major earthquake in 2021 and several other factors, according to court documents.
But last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was terminating those legal protections as soon as Sept. 2, setting Haitians up for potential deportation. The department said the conditions in the country had improved and Haitians no longer met the conditions for the temporary legal protections.
The ruling comes as President Donald Trump works to end protections and programs for immigrants as part of his mass deportations promises.
The judge’s 23-page opinion states that the Department of Homeland Security ‘s move to terminate the legal protections early violates the TPS statute that requires a certain amount of notice before reconsidering a designation.
“When the Government confers a benefit over a fixed period of time, a beneficiary can reasonably expect to receive that benefit at least until the end of that fixed period,” according to the ruling.
The judge also referenced the fact that the plaintiffs have started jobs, enrolled in schools and begun receiving medical treatment with the expectations that the country’s TPS designation would run through the end of the year.
Manny Pastreich, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, which filed the lawsuit, described the ruling as an “important step” but said the fight is not over.
“We will keep fighting to make sure this decision is upheld,” Pastreich said in a statement. “We will keep fighting for the rights of our members and all immigrants against the Trump Administration – in the streets, in the workplace, and in the courts as well. And when we fight, we win.”
DHS did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press requesting comment. But the government had argued that TPS is a temporary program and thus “the termination of a country’s TPS designation is a possibility beneficiaries must always expect.”
Haiti’s TPS status was initially activated in 2010 after the catastrophic earthquake and has been extended multiple times, according to the lawsuit.
Gang violence has displaced 1.3 million people across Haiti as the local government and international community struggle with the spiraling crisis, according to a report from the International Organization for Migration. There has been a 24% increase in displaced people since December, with gunmen having chased 11% of Haiti’s nearly 12 million inhabitants from their home, the report said.
In May, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to strip Temporary Protected Status from 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially exposing them to deportation. The order put on hold a ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that kept the legal protections in place.
The judge’s decision in New York also comes on the heels of the Trump administration revoking legal protections for thousands of Haitians who arrived legally in the U.S. through a humanitarian parole program.
Washington
Trump asks Supreme Court to remove three Democrats on the Consumer Product Safety Commission
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to remove three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, who were fired by President Donald Trump and then reinstated by a federal judge.
Trump has the power to fire independent agency board members, the Justice Department argued in its filing to the high court, pointing to a May ruling by the Supreme Court that endorsed a robust view of presidential power.
The administration asked the court for an immediate order to allow the firings to go forward, over the objections of lawyers for the commissioners.
The commission helps protect consumers from dangerous products by issuing recalls, suing errant companies and more. Trump fired the three Democrats on the five-member commission in May. They were serving seven-year terms after being nominated by President Joe Biden.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox in Baltimore ruled in June that the dismissals were unlawful. Maddox sought to distinguish the commission’s role from those of other agencies where the Supreme Court has allowed firings to go forward.
A month earlier, the high court’s conservative majority declined to reinstate members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board finding that the Constitution appears to give the president the authority to fire the board members “without cause.” The three liberal justices dissented.
The administration has argued that all the agencies are under Trump’s control as the head of the executive branch.
Maddox, a Biden nominee, noted that it can be difficult to characterize the product safety commission’s functions as purely executive.
The fight over the president’s power to fire could prompt the court to consider overturning a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision known as Humphrey’s Executor. In that case from 1935, the court unanimously held that presidents cannot fire independent board members without cause.
The decision ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination, the airwaves and much else. But it has long rankled conservative legal theorists who argue the modern administrative state gets the Constitution all wrong because such agencies should answer to the president.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission was created in 1972. Its five members must maintain a partisan split, with no more than three representing the president’s party. They serve staggered terms.
That structure ensures that each president has “the opportunity to influence, but not control,” the commission, attorneys for the fired commissioners wrote in court filings. They argued the recent terminations could jeopardize the commission’s independence.
State Supreme Court’s liberal majority strikes down 176-year-old abortion ban
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority struck down the state’s 176-year-old abortion ban on Wednesday, ruling 4-3 that it was superseded by a newer state law that criminalizes abortions only after a fetus can survive outside the womb.
State lawmakers adopted the ban in 1849, making it a felony when anyone other than the mother “intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child.”
It was in effect until 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide nullified it. Legislators never officially repealed the ban, however, and conservatives argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe reactivated it.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit that year arguing that the ban was trumped by abortion restrictions legislators enacted during the nearly half-century that Roe was in effect. Kaul specifically cited a 1985 law that essentially permits abortions until viability. Some babies can survive with medical help after 21 weeks of gestation.
Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski, a Republican, defended the ban in court, arguing that the 1849 ban could coexist with the newer abortion restrictions, just as different penalties for the same crime coexist.
Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled in 2023 that the 1849 ban outlaws feticide — which she defined as the killing of a fetus without the mother’s consent — but not consensual abortions. Abortions have been available in the state since that ruling but the state Supreme Court decision gives providers and patients more certainty that abortions will remain legal in Wisconsin.
Urmanski asked the state Supreme Court to overturn Schlipper’s ruling without waiting for a decision from a lower appellate court. It was expected as soon as the justices took the case that they would overturn the ban. Liberals hold a 4-3 majority on the court and one of them, Janet Protasiewicz, openly stated on the campaign trail that she supports abortion rights.
Democratic-backed Susan Crawford defeated conservative Brad Schimel for an open seat on the court in April, ensuring liberals will maintain their 4-3 edge until at least 2028. Crawford has not been sworn in yet and was not part of Wednesday’s ruling. She’ll play pivotal role, though, in a separate Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin lawsuit challenging the 1849 ban’s constitutionality. The high court decided last year to take that case. It’s still pending.
Bangkok
U.S. judge says China’s Huawei Technologies must face criminal case for racketeering and other charges
BANGKOK (AP) — A U.S. judge has ruled that China’s Huawei Technologies, a leading telecoms equipment company, must face criminal charges in a wide reaching case alleging it stole technology and engaged in racketeering, wire and bank fraud and other crimes.
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly on Tuesday rejected Huawei’s request to dismiss the allegations in a 16-count federal indictment against the company, saying in a 52-page ruling that its arguments were premature.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. accuses Huawei and some of its subsidiaries of plotting to steal U.S. trade secrets, installing surveillance equipment that enabled Iran to spy on protesters during 2009 anti-government demonstrations in Iran, and of doing business in North Korea despite U.S. sanctions there.
During President Donald Trump’s first term in office, his administration raised national security concerns and began lobbying Western allies against including Huawei in their wireless, high-speed networks.
In its January 2019 indictment, the Justice Department accused Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions and charged its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, with fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, was arrested in Canada in late 2018 on a U.S. extradition request but released in September 2021 in a high-stakes prisoner swap that freed two Canadians held by China and allowed her to return home.
Chinese officials have accused the U.S. government of “economic bullying” and of improperly using national security as a pretext for “oppressing Chinese companies.” In their motion to dismiss the broad criminal case, among other arguments Huawei’s lawyers contended that the U.S. allegations were too vague and some were “impermissibly extraterritorial,” and do not involve domestic wire and bank fraud.
The biggest maker of network gear, Huawei struggled to hold onto its market share under sanctions that have blocked its access to most U.S. processor chips and other technology. The limits led it to ramp up its own development of computer chips and other advanced technologies.
The company also shifted its focus to the Chinese market and to network technology for hospitals, factories and other industrial customers and other products that would not be affected by U.S. sanctions.
New York
Judge blocks Trump from ending temporary legal status for many Haitians
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge in New York on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary legal status for more than 500,000 Haitians who are already in the United States.
District Court Judge Brian M. Cogan in New York ruled that moving up the expiration of the temporary protected status, or TPS, by at least five months for Haitians, some of whom have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, is unlawful.
The Biden administration had extended Haiti’s TPS status through at least Feb. 3, 2026, due to gang violence, political unrest, a major earthquake in 2021 and several other factors, according to court documents.
But last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was terminating those legal protections as soon as Sept. 2, setting Haitians up for potential deportation. The department said the conditions in the country had improved and Haitians no longer met the conditions for the temporary legal protections.
The ruling comes as President Donald Trump works to end protections and programs for immigrants as part of his mass deportations promises.
The judge’s 23-page opinion states that the Department of Homeland Security ‘s move to terminate the legal protections early violates the TPS statute that requires a certain amount of notice before reconsidering a designation.
“When the Government confers a benefit over a fixed period of time, a beneficiary can reasonably expect to receive that benefit at least until the end of that fixed period,” according to the ruling.
The judge also referenced the fact that the plaintiffs have started jobs, enrolled in schools and begun receiving medical treatment with the expectations that the country’s TPS designation would run through the end of the year.
Manny Pastreich, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, which filed the lawsuit, described the ruling as an “important step” but said the fight is not over.
“We will keep fighting to make sure this decision is upheld,” Pastreich said in a statement. “We will keep fighting for the rights of our members and all immigrants against the Trump Administration – in the streets, in the workplace, and in the courts as well. And when we fight, we win.”
DHS did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press requesting comment. But the government had argued that TPS is a temporary program and thus “the termination of a country’s TPS designation is a possibility beneficiaries must always expect.”
Haiti’s TPS status was initially activated in 2010 after the catastrophic earthquake and has been extended multiple times, according to the lawsuit.
Gang violence has displaced 1.3 million people across Haiti as the local government and international community struggle with the spiraling crisis, according to a report from the International Organization for Migration. There has been a 24% increase in displaced people since December, with gunmen having chased 11% of Haiti’s nearly 12 million inhabitants from their home, the report said.
In May, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to strip Temporary Protected Status from 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially exposing them to deportation. The order put on hold a ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that kept the legal protections in place.
The judge’s decision in New York also comes on the heels of the Trump administration revoking legal protections for thousands of Haitians who arrived legally in the U.S. through a humanitarian parole program.
Washington
Trump asks Supreme Court to remove three Democrats on the Consumer Product Safety Commission
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to remove three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, who were fired by President Donald Trump and then reinstated by a federal judge.
Trump has the power to fire independent agency board members, the Justice Department argued in its filing to the high court, pointing to a May ruling by the Supreme Court that endorsed a robust view of presidential power.
The administration asked the court for an immediate order to allow the firings to go forward, over the objections of lawyers for the commissioners.
The commission helps protect consumers from dangerous products by issuing recalls, suing errant companies and more. Trump fired the three Democrats on the five-member commission in May. They were serving seven-year terms after being nominated by President Joe Biden.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox in Baltimore ruled in June that the dismissals were unlawful. Maddox sought to distinguish the commission’s role from those of other agencies where the Supreme Court has allowed firings to go forward.
A month earlier, the high court’s conservative majority declined to reinstate members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board finding that the Constitution appears to give the president the authority to fire the board members “without cause.” The three liberal justices dissented.
The administration has argued that all the agencies are under Trump’s control as the head of the executive branch.
Maddox, a Biden nominee, noted that it can be difficult to characterize the product safety commission’s functions as purely executive.
The fight over the president’s power to fire could prompt the court to consider overturning a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision known as Humphrey’s Executor. In that case from 1935, the court unanimously held that presidents cannot fire independent board members without cause.
The decision ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination, the airwaves and much else. But it has long rankled conservative legal theorists who argue the modern administrative state gets the Constitution all wrong because such agencies should answer to the president.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission was created in 1972. Its five members must maintain a partisan split, with no more than three representing the president’s party. They serve staggered terms.
That structure ensures that each president has “the opportunity to influence, but not control,” the commission, attorneys for the fired commissioners wrote in court filings. They argued the recent terminations could jeopardize the commission’s independence.
