Washington
Judge rejects request to block White House from building $400M ballroom project
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday rejected a preservationist group’s request to block the Trump administration from continuing construction of a $400 million ballroom where it demolished the East Wing of the White House.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that the National Trust for Historic Preservation was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its bid to temporarily halt President Donald Trump’s project. He said the privately funded group based its challenge on a “ragtag group of theories” under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution, and would have a better chance of success if it amended the lawsuit.
“Unfortunately, because both sides initially focused on the President’s constitutional authority to destruct and construct the East Wing of the White House, Plaintiff didn’t bring the necessary cause of action to test the statutory authority the President claims is the basis to do this construction project without the blessing of Congress and with private funds,” the judge wrote.
The preservationists sought an order pausing the ballroom project until it undergoes multiple independent reviews and wins approval from Congress.
Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation said the group was “disappointed” that no injunction was issued but “pleased that Judge Leon ruled that the National Trust has standing to bring this lawsuit, as we have asserted from the start.”
“We are also pleased that he encouraged us to amend our complaint — specifically, to assert that the president has acted beyond his statutory authority — and we plan to do so promptly,” Quillen said in a statement. “The judge indicated he will rule expeditiously once we do so, and we will await his decision.”
The White House announced the ballroom project over the summer. By late October, the Republican president had demolished the East Wing to make way for a ballroom that he said will fit 999 people. The White House said private donations, including from Trump himself, would pay for the planned construction of a 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) ballroom.
Trump proceeded with the project before seeking input from a pair of federal review panels, the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. Trump has stocked both commission with allies.
The arts panel approved the project at a meeting last week. The planning commission is set to discuss it further at a March 5 meeting.
During a preliminary hearing in December, Leon warned the administration to refrain from making decisions on underground work, such as the routing of plumbing and gas lines, that would dictate the scope of future ballroom construction above ground.
The group challenging the project argued that Trump could be emboldened to go further — and possibly demolish the White House’s West Wing or Executive Mansion — if the court did not intervene.
“The losers will be (the) American public, who will be left with a massive ballroom that not only overwhelms what is perhaps the nation’s most historically important building, but will have been built in violation of an astonishingly wide range of laws,” plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote.
The administration said in a court filing that above-ground construction on the ballroom would not begin until April. In the meantime, government lawyers argued, the preservationist group’s challenge was premature because the building plans were not final.
The administration also argued that other presidents did not need congressional approval for previous White House renovation projects, large and small.
Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, said the White House office behind the project is not an agency covered under the jurisdiction of the Administrative Procedure Act. The judge also said the preservationists,
who argued that the ballroom usurped the authority of Congress, did not have the basis to invoke the power of the courts.
As a result, “I cannot reach the merits of the National Trust’s novel and weighty statutory arguments” at this time, Leon said.
Tennessee
State’s felony law when local officials vote for ‘sanctuary’ policies is ruled unconstitutional
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee law that threatens local officials with felony charges and possible imprisonment if they vote for so-called “sanctuary policies” on immigration has been ruled unconstitutional after the state declined to defend it in court.
On Wednesday, Nashville Chancellor Russell Perkins signed an agreed order involving the Tennessee attorney general’s office, the local district attorney and the seven Nashville-Davidson County metro council members who are plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the policy.
For months, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office has made it clear that it would not defend the provision. Skrmetti, a Republican, told reporters in September that the Constitution has “absolute immunity for all legislative votes, whether at the federal, state, or local levels” even though it is illegal for Tennessee cities and counties to enact sanctuary laws.
Council member Clay Capp said in a news release that the case’s outcome ensures that Tennessee elected officials can represent their constituents “without looking over their shoulder at criminal penalties.”
“This settlement affirms a basic American principle: the government cannot prosecute you for how you vote,” Capp said in a news release from the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, one of the legal groups representing the plaintiffs. “Tennessee tried to gag local officials with threats of prison time, but the Constitution doesn’t allow that.”
Earlier last year, the GOP-supermajority Legislature and Republican Gov. Bill Lee approved legislation to aid the Trump administration with immigration enforcement. It includes the potential Class E felony — punishable by up to six years in prison — against any local elected official voting for or adopting a so-called sanctuary policy, as defined in state law. This could include voting in favor of local government restrictions that impede ICE efforts to detain migrants in the U.S. without permission.
Republican lawmakers kept the provision in a broader immigration bill despite warnings from legislative counsel that the penalty could be unconstitutional.
Legislative GOP leaders defended the penalty, including House Majority Leader William Lamberth, who has called it “the easiest felony in the world to avoid.”
In 2019, sanctuary cities became illegal in Tennessee, threatening governments that don’t comply with the loss of state economic development money.
Oregon
Jury orders PacifiCorp to pay $305M to wildfire victims in latest class-action verdict
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon jury has ordered PacifiCorp to pay $305 million to 16 victims of the state’s devastating 2020 wildfires in the latest verdict in a class-action lawsuit against the utility that includes thousands of members.
PacifiCorp has now been ordered by juries to pay over $1 billion in damages to members of the class following a 2023 trial in which it was found liable for negligently failing to cut power during a windstorm despite warnings from top fire officials.
PacifiCorp’s appeal of the case is making its way through state court. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 class members have cases set for trial in 2026 and 2027.
The 2020 Labor Day weekend fires were among the worst natural disasters in Oregon’s history. They killed 11 people, burned more than 1,560 square miles (4,040 square kilometers) and destroyed thousands of homes.
The amounts awarded by a Multnomah County Circuit Court jury Wednesday were to 16 victims of the Santiam Canyon fire in northwest Oregon.
“This verdict is a meaningful acknowledgment of the devastation they’ve endured and reaffirms the irreversible losses they’ve suffered as a result of the fires,” Shawn Rabin, who led the trial team representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
In an emailed statement, PacifiCorp said the verdict was an “irresponsible outcome related to damages caused by a fire that PacifiCorp did not start or contribute to as determined by the Oregon Department of Forestry.”
“This is why we have been and will continue to challenge these verdicts,” the utility said.
In a report released last year, the Oregon Department of Forestry found that 12 of 19 fires in Santiam Canyon in September 2020 were caused by embers from another fire. The other seven fires were caused by downed power lines but were determined not to have contributed to the spread of large fires in the canyon, and they were suppressed by residents or firefighters, according to the report.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys have described the report as flawed and missing evidence.
Separately, PacifiCorp has agreed to pay over $2 billion to settle claims stemming from a series of lawsuits it has faced over the 2020 blazes, including $575 million to the federal government for wildfire damages on federal land in Oregon and California.
Georgia
School shooter’s father testifies in trial that he gave son a gun as a gift
ATLANTA (AP) — The father of accused school shooter Colt Gray testified Friday that he gave his son the rifle that was used in the attack as a Christmas present in hopes of bonding with the boy over hunting and outings at the gun range.
In one of the latest cases in which parents are being put on trial after their children are accused in fatal shootings, defense lawyers called Colin Gray to the witness stand. Prosecutors say he should be held accountable for giving his son the weapon used in the shooting as a Christmas gift despite alleged threats and warning signs that the boy was mentally unstable.
After the family had opened presents, Colin Gray said he walked down the hallway and told Colt, “I have one more thing for you.” He presented the gun, hoping it would encourage Colt to succeed in school.
“This is a weapon that I want you to shoot when we go to the range, and if you keep doing really good in school, going to school and doing all the things you should, you graduate and you’re 18, this will be your gun,” Colin Gray said he told his son.
Colt, who was 14 years old at the time of the shooting, faces 55 counts, including murder in the deaths of four people and 25 counts of aggravated assault. He’s accused of carefully planning the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at Apalachee High School that left two teachers and two students dead and several others wounded at the school in Winder, northeast of Atlanta.
The father faces 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter.
The trial of Colin Gray has included testimony from the boy’s mother, Marcee Gray, who testified that she urged her husband to lock up the guns so that Colt could not access them. But in the days before the school shooting, Colt kept the gun in his bedroom, witnesses have testified at his father’s trial.
The parents were separated for much of the time leading up to the shooting, and Marcee Gray was not charged with any crimes.
In dramatic testimony last week, several Georgia high school students testified in court about being shot during their algebra class. They recounted through tears seeing a classmate in a pool of blood, then seeing blood on their own bodies and fearing they might die.
There has also been testimony about what prosecutors describe as a “shrine” to a Florida school shooter that Colt kept on a wall next to his computer at home.
Colt had an interest in Nikolas Cruz, convicted of the 2018 shooting that left 14 students and three staff members dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Marcee Gray testified this week.
Judge rejects request to block White House from building $400M ballroom project
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday rejected a preservationist group’s request to block the Trump administration from continuing construction of a $400 million ballroom where it demolished the East Wing of the White House.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that the National Trust for Historic Preservation was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its bid to temporarily halt President Donald Trump’s project. He said the privately funded group based its challenge on a “ragtag group of theories” under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution, and would have a better chance of success if it amended the lawsuit.
“Unfortunately, because both sides initially focused on the President’s constitutional authority to destruct and construct the East Wing of the White House, Plaintiff didn’t bring the necessary cause of action to test the statutory authority the President claims is the basis to do this construction project without the blessing of Congress and with private funds,” the judge wrote.
The preservationists sought an order pausing the ballroom project until it undergoes multiple independent reviews and wins approval from Congress.
Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation said the group was “disappointed” that no injunction was issued but “pleased that Judge Leon ruled that the National Trust has standing to bring this lawsuit, as we have asserted from the start.”
“We are also pleased that he encouraged us to amend our complaint — specifically, to assert that the president has acted beyond his statutory authority — and we plan to do so promptly,” Quillen said in a statement. “The judge indicated he will rule expeditiously once we do so, and we will await his decision.”
The White House announced the ballroom project over the summer. By late October, the Republican president had demolished the East Wing to make way for a ballroom that he said will fit 999 people. The White House said private donations, including from Trump himself, would pay for the planned construction of a 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) ballroom.
Trump proceeded with the project before seeking input from a pair of federal review panels, the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. Trump has stocked both commission with allies.
The arts panel approved the project at a meeting last week. The planning commission is set to discuss it further at a March 5 meeting.
During a preliminary hearing in December, Leon warned the administration to refrain from making decisions on underground work, such as the routing of plumbing and gas lines, that would dictate the scope of future ballroom construction above ground.
The group challenging the project argued that Trump could be emboldened to go further — and possibly demolish the White House’s West Wing or Executive Mansion — if the court did not intervene.
“The losers will be (the) American public, who will be left with a massive ballroom that not only overwhelms what is perhaps the nation’s most historically important building, but will have been built in violation of an astonishingly wide range of laws,” plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote.
The administration said in a court filing that above-ground construction on the ballroom would not begin until April. In the meantime, government lawyers argued, the preservationist group’s challenge was premature because the building plans were not final.
The administration also argued that other presidents did not need congressional approval for previous White House renovation projects, large and small.
Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, said the White House office behind the project is not an agency covered under the jurisdiction of the Administrative Procedure Act. The judge also said the preservationists,
who argued that the ballroom usurped the authority of Congress, did not have the basis to invoke the power of the courts.
As a result, “I cannot reach the merits of the National Trust’s novel and weighty statutory arguments” at this time, Leon said.
Tennessee
State’s felony law when local officials vote for ‘sanctuary’ policies is ruled unconstitutional
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee law that threatens local officials with felony charges and possible imprisonment if they vote for so-called “sanctuary policies” on immigration has been ruled unconstitutional after the state declined to defend it in court.
On Wednesday, Nashville Chancellor Russell Perkins signed an agreed order involving the Tennessee attorney general’s office, the local district attorney and the seven Nashville-Davidson County metro council members who are plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the policy.
For months, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office has made it clear that it would not defend the provision. Skrmetti, a Republican, told reporters in September that the Constitution has “absolute immunity for all legislative votes, whether at the federal, state, or local levels” even though it is illegal for Tennessee cities and counties to enact sanctuary laws.
Council member Clay Capp said in a news release that the case’s outcome ensures that Tennessee elected officials can represent their constituents “without looking over their shoulder at criminal penalties.”
“This settlement affirms a basic American principle: the government cannot prosecute you for how you vote,” Capp said in a news release from the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, one of the legal groups representing the plaintiffs. “Tennessee tried to gag local officials with threats of prison time, but the Constitution doesn’t allow that.”
Earlier last year, the GOP-supermajority Legislature and Republican Gov. Bill Lee approved legislation to aid the Trump administration with immigration enforcement. It includes the potential Class E felony — punishable by up to six years in prison — against any local elected official voting for or adopting a so-called sanctuary policy, as defined in state law. This could include voting in favor of local government restrictions that impede ICE efforts to detain migrants in the U.S. without permission.
Republican lawmakers kept the provision in a broader immigration bill despite warnings from legislative counsel that the penalty could be unconstitutional.
Legislative GOP leaders defended the penalty, including House Majority Leader William Lamberth, who has called it “the easiest felony in the world to avoid.”
In 2019, sanctuary cities became illegal in Tennessee, threatening governments that don’t comply with the loss of state economic development money.
Oregon
Jury orders PacifiCorp to pay $305M to wildfire victims in latest class-action verdict
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon jury has ordered PacifiCorp to pay $305 million to 16 victims of the state’s devastating 2020 wildfires in the latest verdict in a class-action lawsuit against the utility that includes thousands of members.
PacifiCorp has now been ordered by juries to pay over $1 billion in damages to members of the class following a 2023 trial in which it was found liable for negligently failing to cut power during a windstorm despite warnings from top fire officials.
PacifiCorp’s appeal of the case is making its way through state court. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 class members have cases set for trial in 2026 and 2027.
The 2020 Labor Day weekend fires were among the worst natural disasters in Oregon’s history. They killed 11 people, burned more than 1,560 square miles (4,040 square kilometers) and destroyed thousands of homes.
The amounts awarded by a Multnomah County Circuit Court jury Wednesday were to 16 victims of the Santiam Canyon fire in northwest Oregon.
“This verdict is a meaningful acknowledgment of the devastation they’ve endured and reaffirms the irreversible losses they’ve suffered as a result of the fires,” Shawn Rabin, who led the trial team representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
In an emailed statement, PacifiCorp said the verdict was an “irresponsible outcome related to damages caused by a fire that PacifiCorp did not start or contribute to as determined by the Oregon Department of Forestry.”
“This is why we have been and will continue to challenge these verdicts,” the utility said.
In a report released last year, the Oregon Department of Forestry found that 12 of 19 fires in Santiam Canyon in September 2020 were caused by embers from another fire. The other seven fires were caused by downed power lines but were determined not to have contributed to the spread of large fires in the canyon, and they were suppressed by residents or firefighters, according to the report.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys have described the report as flawed and missing evidence.
Separately, PacifiCorp has agreed to pay over $2 billion to settle claims stemming from a series of lawsuits it has faced over the 2020 blazes, including $575 million to the federal government for wildfire damages on federal land in Oregon and California.
Georgia
School shooter’s father testifies in trial that he gave son a gun as a gift
ATLANTA (AP) — The father of accused school shooter Colt Gray testified Friday that he gave his son the rifle that was used in the attack as a Christmas present in hopes of bonding with the boy over hunting and outings at the gun range.
In one of the latest cases in which parents are being put on trial after their children are accused in fatal shootings, defense lawyers called Colin Gray to the witness stand. Prosecutors say he should be held accountable for giving his son the weapon used in the shooting as a Christmas gift despite alleged threats and warning signs that the boy was mentally unstable.
After the family had opened presents, Colin Gray said he walked down the hallway and told Colt, “I have one more thing for you.” He presented the gun, hoping it would encourage Colt to succeed in school.
“This is a weapon that I want you to shoot when we go to the range, and if you keep doing really good in school, going to school and doing all the things you should, you graduate and you’re 18, this will be your gun,” Colin Gray said he told his son.
Colt, who was 14 years old at the time of the shooting, faces 55 counts, including murder in the deaths of four people and 25 counts of aggravated assault. He’s accused of carefully planning the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at Apalachee High School that left two teachers and two students dead and several others wounded at the school in Winder, northeast of Atlanta.
The father faces 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter.
The trial of Colin Gray has included testimony from the boy’s mother, Marcee Gray, who testified that she urged her husband to lock up the guns so that Colt could not access them. But in the days before the school shooting, Colt kept the gun in his bedroom, witnesses have testified at his father’s trial.
The parents were separated for much of the time leading up to the shooting, and Marcee Gray was not charged with any crimes.
In dramatic testimony last week, several Georgia high school students testified in court about being shot during their algebra class. They recounted through tears seeing a classmate in a pool of blood, then seeing blood on their own bodies and fearing they might die.
There has also been testimony about what prosecutors describe as a “shrine” to a Florida school shooter that Colt kept on a wall next to his computer at home.
Colt had an interest in Nikolas Cruz, convicted of the 2018 shooting that left 14 students and three staff members dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Marcee Gray testified this week.
