Washington
Supreme Court sides with Trump administration in lawsuit seeking records on Elon Musk’s DOGE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court, siding with the Trump administration, agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments in a watchdog’s lawsuit seeking public records about trillionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The high court is intervening for a second time in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s case, which seeks access to DOGE records from its operations in the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Last year, the high court reined in a district court’s order for the government to produce DOGE-related records to CREW. The high court’s conservative majority concluded in June 2025 that U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled too broadly in ordering documents to be turned over to the group.
CREW claims DOGE is a federal agency and therefore is subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
The Trump administration argues that DOGE is exempt from FOIA’s requirements as a presidential advisory body.
Cooper ruled in CREW’s favor and ordered expedited processing of the group’s records request. An appeals court panel also sided with CREW.
The administration claims the panel ignored the Supreme Court’s direction to consider separation-of-powers concerns and intruded on the “autonomy and confidentiality” of presidential advisers.
“Subjecting advisory bodies to intrusive discovery triggers the very concerns that Congress sought to avoid by excluding presidential advisory bodies from FOIA’s reach,” Justice Department attorneys wrote.
The administration also says the appeals court impermissibly authorized the plaintiffs to take a sworn deposition of DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason.
CREW says the appeals court fully complied with the Supreme Court’s previous order. The group also asserts that the public has a right to know how DOGE helped the administration carry out a sweeping overhaul of government operations in 2025.
“Undisputed facts in the public record — including the President’s statements — confirmed that (DOGE) was wielding enormous independent authority across the federal government,” its attorneys wrote.
Washington
Supreme Court will review asylum case of Nigerian man who cooked meals for terrorist leaders
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to consider if a Nigerian man is ineligible for asylum because he cooked meals at a camp for leaders of a group that the U.S. government considers to be a terrorist organization.
The high court, granting a request by President Donald Trump’s administration, will hear arguments on whether Izuchukwu Ozurumba’s cooking job for leaders of the Unknown Gunmen qualifies as providing “material support” for a terrorist group.
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to review a decision by the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate Ozurumba’s removal order. The Republican administration says the 4th Circuit decision conflicts with rulings by at least three other circuits and, if upheld, will hamper the government’s ability to deport immigrants with terrorism ties in many other cases.
“Providing meals to a terrorist organization’s members is no less a material form of support than providing gasoline for its vehicles,” they wrote.
Ozurumba testified that he didn’t know the true purpose of the camp until after he started working there. The Unknown Gunmen is believed to be a group of separatists operating in southern Nigeria. Ozurumba’s lawyers say the group’s leaders forced him to work without pay and repeatedly threatened him after he escaped from the camp.
His attorneys further argued that there is no circuit split for the Supreme Court to resolve. “No federal court has adopted the government’s rule, under which any interaction with a terrorist organization, no matter how attenuated or inconsequential, qualifies as ‘material’ support,” they wrote.
Ozurumba fled the camp near his home in Lagos, Nigeria, and traveled to Venezuela before entering the U.S. illegally in July 2023 and surrendered to Border Patrol. Several months later, an immigration judge ordered Ozurumba to be deported to Nigeria.
A divided 4th Circuit panel decided that Ozurumba’s work at the camp didn’t constitute material support of terrorism. The majority opinion says it appears that he was “simply a captive laborer” whose work had nothing to do with terrorist activities.
Washington
CVS agrees to pay $315 million to settle Justice Department case over opioid prescriptions
WASHINGTON (AP) — CVS Pharmacy Inc. and various subsidiaries have agreed to pay $315 million to resolve a Justice Department case alleging it unlawfully dispensed medically unnecessary prescriptions of highly addictive opioids, officials said Tuesday.
The settlement resolves a lawsuit brought in 2024 that accused the healthcare giant of providing massive amounts of opioids and other controlled substances “to fuel its own profits at the expense of public health and safety.”
It’s the latest effort by the federal government to hold accountable companies that officials have alleged helped fuel the U.S. addiction and overdose crisis.
“Today’s settlement is a significant milestone in the Justice Department’s efforts to combat the opioid epidemic by cracking down on pharmacies who unlawfully fulfill prescriptions for controlled substances,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in an emailed statement.
CVS said in a statement that its pharmacists were trained “in the safe and appropriate use of all medications” and that it had implemented “best-in-class” programs to help them “make the best decisions on behalf of patients.”
The company said it strongly disagreed with the claims made in the lawsuit and that the settlement admits no wrongdoing.
The company said in 2024 that pharmacists were being held to “vague, undefined, and ever-changing standards of practice” when it comes to filling prescription opioids.
The lawsuit filed under President Joe Biden’s administration accused CVS of violating the Controlled Substances Act by filling illegitimate prescriptions for high doses of potent opioids that “fed dependence and addiction.” The Justice Department alleged it dispensed large quantities of opioids based on prescriptions from known “pill mills,” or providers that hand out prescriptions for drugs without a legitimate medical purpose.
It alleged that poor staffing levels coupled with performance metrics and incentive compensation policies implemented by the company led to pharmacists racing to fill prescriptions without confirming they were legitimate. The prescriptions were often billed to and reimbursed by Medicaid and other federal healthcare programs, the lawsuit says.
Under the settlement, CVS must also “implement additional safeguards to ensure that prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances are dispensed only when medically appropriate,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said in a statement.
Over the last decade, drugmakers, wholesalers, pharmacies and other companies have agreed to settlements with governments in the U.S. totaling over $50 billion. Most of the money is intended to go to address the crisis, which has been linked to more than 100,000 deaths in the U.S. some years, though the numbers have fallen sharply recently.
Most of the settlements -- and dollars -- have been with state and local governments, but the U.S. has reached several deals, including in the last two years with the pharmacies Walgreens and Walmart.
Colorado
Players’ arguments in key college eligibility case draw skeptical note from judges
The attorney representing athletes in a key case regarding the NCAA’s new five-year eligibility rule took a series of questions Tuesday from federal judges who sounded skeptical about the players’ ability to pinpoint the depth of the economic harm they have suffered from the change.
A lower-court judge in the case, Wisne vs. NCAA, initially ruled in favor of the players, granting all NCAA athletes who graduated high school in 2022 a fifth year of eligibility for this school year after the NCAA had excluded them from the new rule.
An appeals court blocked that ruling and its full hearing came in front of a three-judge panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which will rule at a later date. All three asked multiple questions to plaintiff attorney Robert Shelquist over the plaintiffs’ attempts to define the market for the players.
That definition would be key to determining how the players are being harmed by being declared ineligible. It’s the benchmark the judges said was key to winning an antitrust lawsuit such as this.
“It doesn’t seem there’s been a definition of the market from a huge, huge division — golf, everything,” said U.S. Circuit Judge Paul Kelly, a nod to the wide difference in earning power between, say, a college football player and golfer. “And you’re lumping them all together and you never looked at commonality and interchangeability of the various buyers.”
Shelquist argued an analysis presented by the plaintiffs that was prepared by University of Mississippi legal scholar William Berry III provided a framework of what the market for the players would look like if they were deemed eligible.
Arguing for the NCAA, attorney Rakesh Kilaru argued the plaintiffs’ analysis takes all the players and “lumps all of those individuals together in a way that does not make economic sense.”
If the judges rule in favor of the NCAA, it would set what could be an important precedent but would not necessarily end the legal wrangling.
After they blocked the initial ruling, cases in state courts across the country went on — most notably one in Louisiana that led LSU to look into bringing on two football players who had spent time this summer in NFL training camps.
More recently, the NCAA has won cases in Kentucky, Ohio and Arizona.
The judges also asked both attorneys if they should delay their decision to see whether Congress passes the Protect College Sports Act, a bill that made it through the Senate last month that would limit these sorts of lawsuits in the future.
The bill would not preempt active lawsuits, and both attorneys urged the court not to wait, with Shelquist reminding the judges of the narrow window for this group of players who left high school in 2022, with this school year’s football season halfway over and basketball season about to begin.
Supreme Court sides with Trump administration in lawsuit seeking records on Elon Musk’s DOGE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court, siding with the Trump administration, agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments in a watchdog’s lawsuit seeking public records about trillionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The high court is intervening for a second time in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s case, which seeks access to DOGE records from its operations in the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Last year, the high court reined in a district court’s order for the government to produce DOGE-related records to CREW. The high court’s conservative majority concluded in June 2025 that U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled too broadly in ordering documents to be turned over to the group.
CREW claims DOGE is a federal agency and therefore is subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
The Trump administration argues that DOGE is exempt from FOIA’s requirements as a presidential advisory body.
Cooper ruled in CREW’s favor and ordered expedited processing of the group’s records request. An appeals court panel also sided with CREW.
The administration claims the panel ignored the Supreme Court’s direction to consider separation-of-powers concerns and intruded on the “autonomy and confidentiality” of presidential advisers.
“Subjecting advisory bodies to intrusive discovery triggers the very concerns that Congress sought to avoid by excluding presidential advisory bodies from FOIA’s reach,” Justice Department attorneys wrote.
The administration also says the appeals court impermissibly authorized the plaintiffs to take a sworn deposition of DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason.
CREW says the appeals court fully complied with the Supreme Court’s previous order. The group also asserts that the public has a right to know how DOGE helped the administration carry out a sweeping overhaul of government operations in 2025.
“Undisputed facts in the public record — including the President’s statements — confirmed that (DOGE) was wielding enormous independent authority across the federal government,” its attorneys wrote.
Washington
Supreme Court will review asylum case of Nigerian man who cooked meals for terrorist leaders
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to consider if a Nigerian man is ineligible for asylum because he cooked meals at a camp for leaders of a group that the U.S. government considers to be a terrorist organization.
The high court, granting a request by President Donald Trump’s administration, will hear arguments on whether Izuchukwu Ozurumba’s cooking job for leaders of the Unknown Gunmen qualifies as providing “material support” for a terrorist group.
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to review a decision by the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate Ozurumba’s removal order. The Republican administration says the 4th Circuit decision conflicts with rulings by at least three other circuits and, if upheld, will hamper the government’s ability to deport immigrants with terrorism ties in many other cases.
“Providing meals to a terrorist organization’s members is no less a material form of support than providing gasoline for its vehicles,” they wrote.
Ozurumba testified that he didn’t know the true purpose of the camp until after he started working there. The Unknown Gunmen is believed to be a group of separatists operating in southern Nigeria. Ozurumba’s lawyers say the group’s leaders forced him to work without pay and repeatedly threatened him after he escaped from the camp.
His attorneys further argued that there is no circuit split for the Supreme Court to resolve. “No federal court has adopted the government’s rule, under which any interaction with a terrorist organization, no matter how attenuated or inconsequential, qualifies as ‘material’ support,” they wrote.
Ozurumba fled the camp near his home in Lagos, Nigeria, and traveled to Venezuela before entering the U.S. illegally in July 2023 and surrendered to Border Patrol. Several months later, an immigration judge ordered Ozurumba to be deported to Nigeria.
A divided 4th Circuit panel decided that Ozurumba’s work at the camp didn’t constitute material support of terrorism. The majority opinion says it appears that he was “simply a captive laborer” whose work had nothing to do with terrorist activities.
Washington
CVS agrees to pay $315 million to settle Justice Department case over opioid prescriptions
WASHINGTON (AP) — CVS Pharmacy Inc. and various subsidiaries have agreed to pay $315 million to resolve a Justice Department case alleging it unlawfully dispensed medically unnecessary prescriptions of highly addictive opioids, officials said Tuesday.
The settlement resolves a lawsuit brought in 2024 that accused the healthcare giant of providing massive amounts of opioids and other controlled substances “to fuel its own profits at the expense of public health and safety.”
It’s the latest effort by the federal government to hold accountable companies that officials have alleged helped fuel the U.S. addiction and overdose crisis.
“Today’s settlement is a significant milestone in the Justice Department’s efforts to combat the opioid epidemic by cracking down on pharmacies who unlawfully fulfill prescriptions for controlled substances,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in an emailed statement.
CVS said in a statement that its pharmacists were trained “in the safe and appropriate use of all medications” and that it had implemented “best-in-class” programs to help them “make the best decisions on behalf of patients.”
The company said it strongly disagreed with the claims made in the lawsuit and that the settlement admits no wrongdoing.
The company said in 2024 that pharmacists were being held to “vague, undefined, and ever-changing standards of practice” when it comes to filling prescription opioids.
The lawsuit filed under President Joe Biden’s administration accused CVS of violating the Controlled Substances Act by filling illegitimate prescriptions for high doses of potent opioids that “fed dependence and addiction.” The Justice Department alleged it dispensed large quantities of opioids based on prescriptions from known “pill mills,” or providers that hand out prescriptions for drugs without a legitimate medical purpose.
It alleged that poor staffing levels coupled with performance metrics and incentive compensation policies implemented by the company led to pharmacists racing to fill prescriptions without confirming they were legitimate. The prescriptions were often billed to and reimbursed by Medicaid and other federal healthcare programs, the lawsuit says.
Under the settlement, CVS must also “implement additional safeguards to ensure that prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances are dispensed only when medically appropriate,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said in a statement.
Over the last decade, drugmakers, wholesalers, pharmacies and other companies have agreed to settlements with governments in the U.S. totaling over $50 billion. Most of the money is intended to go to address the crisis, which has been linked to more than 100,000 deaths in the U.S. some years, though the numbers have fallen sharply recently.
Most of the settlements -- and dollars -- have been with state and local governments, but the U.S. has reached several deals, including in the last two years with the pharmacies Walgreens and Walmart.
Colorado
Players’ arguments in key college eligibility case draw skeptical note from judges
The attorney representing athletes in a key case regarding the NCAA’s new five-year eligibility rule took a series of questions Tuesday from federal judges who sounded skeptical about the players’ ability to pinpoint the depth of the economic harm they have suffered from the change.
A lower-court judge in the case, Wisne vs. NCAA, initially ruled in favor of the players, granting all NCAA athletes who graduated high school in 2022 a fifth year of eligibility for this school year after the NCAA had excluded them from the new rule.
An appeals court blocked that ruling and its full hearing came in front of a three-judge panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which will rule at a later date. All three asked multiple questions to plaintiff attorney Robert Shelquist over the plaintiffs’ attempts to define the market for the players.
That definition would be key to determining how the players are being harmed by being declared ineligible. It’s the benchmark the judges said was key to winning an antitrust lawsuit such as this.
“It doesn’t seem there’s been a definition of the market from a huge, huge division — golf, everything,” said U.S. Circuit Judge Paul Kelly, a nod to the wide difference in earning power between, say, a college football player and golfer. “And you’re lumping them all together and you never looked at commonality and interchangeability of the various buyers.”
Shelquist argued an analysis presented by the plaintiffs that was prepared by University of Mississippi legal scholar William Berry III provided a framework of what the market for the players would look like if they were deemed eligible.
Arguing for the NCAA, attorney Rakesh Kilaru argued the plaintiffs’ analysis takes all the players and “lumps all of those individuals together in a way that does not make economic sense.”
If the judges rule in favor of the NCAA, it would set what could be an important precedent but would not necessarily end the legal wrangling.
After they blocked the initial ruling, cases in state courts across the country went on — most notably one in Louisiana that led LSU to look into bringing on two football players who had spent time this summer in NFL training camps.
More recently, the NCAA has won cases in Kentucky, Ohio and Arizona.
The judges also asked both attorneys if they should delay their decision to see whether Congress passes the Protect College Sports Act, a bill that made it through the Senate last month that would limit these sorts of lawsuits in the future.
The bill would not preempt active lawsuits, and both attorneys urged the court not to wait, with Shelquist reminding the judges of the narrow window for this group of players who left high school in 2022, with this school year’s football season halfway over and basketball season about to begin.
