By MARK SHERMAN and LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump and the conservative interests that helped him reshape the Supreme Court got most of what they wanted this term, from substantial help for Trump’s political and legal prospects to sharp blows against the administrative state they revile.

The decisions reflected a deep and sometimes bitter divide on a court in which conservatives, including three justices appointed by Trump, have a two-to-one advantage over liberals, and seem likely to reinforce the views of most Americans that ideology, rather than a neutral application of the law, drives the outcome of the court’s biggest cases.

Chief Justice John Roberts, often viewed with suspicion by Trump and his allies over his concerns about judicial independence and worries about the court’s reputation, delivered the most consequential decisions. Those include the court’s grant of broad immunity from criminal prosecution to former presidents and its reversal of a 40-year-old case that had been used thousands of times to uphold federal regulations.

“He’s got competing inclinations. One is to be the statesman and institutionalist,” University of California at Los Angeles law professor Richard Hasen said. The other, Hasen said, is to dig in “when it is something that is important enough to him.”

The end of the court’s term marked a remarkable reversal of fortunes for Trump as he seeks a second term as president.

Six months ago, he was readying for a criminal trial in early March in Washington on charges of election interference following his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020 and he was in danger of being kicked off the presidential ballot in several states.

In the court’s final decision issued Monday, the justices handed him an indefinite trial delay and narrowed the election interference case against him. Last week, they separately limited the use of an obstruction charge he faces that should give him even more legal arguments, months after the court restored Trump to the presidential ballot.

Each of the three cases stemmed from Trump’s actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election, culminating in the attack on the Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. But Roberts’ opinions offered only dry accounts of the events of Jan. 6, insisting the court “can not afford to fixate … on present exigencies.”

The court also overturned the Chevron decision, stripped the SEC of a major fraud-fighting tool and opened the door to repeated, broad challenges to regulations that, in combination with the end of Chevron, could lead to what Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson described as a “tsunami of lawsuits.”

The decisions also provoked spirited, sometimes barbed, discussions of judicial modesty. “A rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial hubris,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent from overturning Chevron.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson chided Roberts for the “feigned judicial humility” of his opinion on immunity. Roberts mocked the dissenters’ “tone of chilling doom.”

In each of the Trump cases, the majority included Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, two of Trump’s three appointees, and two others, Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, who also rebuffed calls to sit out the Trump cases. Those same justices, plus Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, formed the majority in the cases about federal regulations. The conservatives also voted together on a major homelessness case that found outdoor sleeping bans aimed at homeless encampments don’t violate the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment – even when shelter space is lacking.

Roberts, though, has repeatedly defended the court from criticism that its justices were little more than politicians in robes.

Related Articles

Biden slams court decision on Trump in effort to shift age focus

Highlights from Supreme Court term: Rulings on Trump, regulation, abortion, guns and homelessness

Prosecutor won’t oppose Trump sentencing delay in hush money case after high court immunity ruling

‘Fox & Friends’ visits West Fargo diner as Gov. Doug Burgum lands on ‘short list’ for Trump’s vice president pick

Battleground Wisconsin: Voters feel nickel-and-dimed by health care costs

But the court’s public standing has taken a hit in recent years, particularly since Roe was overturned. Seven out of 10 Americans said the justices are more likely to be guided by their own ideology rather than serving as neutral arbiters of government authority, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that was conducted before the final round of decisions was issued.

Abortion was one issue in which the court sidestepped the liberal-conservative divide by avoiding major rulings in a presidential election year when abortion is an animating issue, mainly because of the justices’ 2022 decision that led to abortion bans or severe restrictions in most Republican-controlled states.

A one-sentence order in a case from Idaho cleared the way for emergency abortions to resume, despite the state’s strict abortion ban. But it didn’t end the court case or answer key questions about whether doctors can provide emergency abortions elsewhere, even in states where abortion bans would prohibit them.

In a second abortion case, the justices unanimously dismissed a lawsuit from anti-abortion doctors who sought to roll back decisions made by the Food and Drug Administration to ease access to mifepristone, a pill used in nearly two-thirds of abortions in the United States last year. The decision explicitly avoided any ruling on the FDA’s actions, focusing entirely on the doctors’ lack of legal standing to sue.

The mifepristone case was one of several from the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans that made the court seem the picture of moderation. The justices also reversed 5th Circuit rulings that would have struck down a federal gun control law intended to protect victims of domestic violence, overturned the funding structure for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and barred Biden administration officials from trying to persuade social media platforms to remove misinformation.

In a separate case involving guns, the court overturned a Trump-era Justice Department regulation that banned bump stocks, rapid-fire gun accessories used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The court was divided along ideological lines, with conservatives in the majority.

A term’s final days often produce a torrent of heated exchanges in the most contentious cases, and this year saw more than its share of big rulings that waited until the very end.

In May, Justice Sonia Sotomayor telegraphed what the recent days might look like for her and the other liberal justices. “There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” Sotomayor said after receiving an award from Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. “And there are likely to be more.”

Taste of Minnesota will return to its new home in downtown Minneapolis for a sophomore run with live music from Jakob Dylan’s band the Wallflowers, country star Martina McBride and the homegrown talents of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis along with Morris Day and the Time.

The free event takes place from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on Nicollet Mall and Washington Avenue. Four stages will host live music with more than 50 food vendors divided into five “neighborhoods” ranging from Jazz Junction to Prince Parkway.

There are three entrances to the festival: the corner of Washington and Hennepin Avenues and Nicollet Mall at both Fourth and Fifth Streets. No tickets are required, although organizers are asking attendees to RSVP online at tasteofmn.com in order to track attendance numbers and communicate updates before and during the event.

The late Ron Maddox founded Taste of Minnesota in 1983 on the state Capitol grounds. The idea was to provide a free, family friendly festival with live music and plenty of food options. It moved to Harriet Island in St. Paul in 2003 and Maddox continued to run it through 2008.

New owners attempted to reboot the festival in 2010 as a paid event with $20 and $30 tickets. It turned out to be a financial disaster and the owners filed for bankruptcy.

Maddox’s wife Linda revived Taste in 2014. But Harriet Island flooding forced her to move it at the last minute 40 miles west to the Carver County Fairgrounds in Waconia. It returned to Waconia for the final time in 2015.

In 2019, a new group of organizers acquired the Taste of Minnesota trademark with an eye toward a 2020 relaunch that was scuttled due to the pandemic.

The group looked at numerous options to stage the event before settling on the remodeled Nicollet Mall. Staged with the support of Mayor Jacob Frey and other city leaders, the 2023 comeback drew about 100,000 people over two days, setting the stage for this year’s expanded version of Taste.

Music and food lineups

Saturday’s main stage will feature: Koo Koo (noon), Belladiva (1 p.m.), Gear Daddies (2:30), Sophia Eris (3:45), the Wallflowers (4:45) and Martina McBride (6:30).

Sunday’s lineup includes: Sounds of Blackness (12:30 p.m.), Johnny Holm Band (2:30), Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis with guests (5) and Morris Day and the Time (6:45).

Other stages: More than 30 local and regional acts will fill three smaller stages with live music across the two days.

The five themed food “neighborhoods” include:

Magic Midway (Southern-style fried chicken, burgers and sides along with a range of contemporary barbecue)
Jazz Junction (French and other cuisines from “seasoned chefs, cocktail makers and dessert experts”)
The Belt Way (New Orleans cuisine)
Artist Avenue (street-style foods including a variety of seafoods, tacos, bahn mi and chicken and waffles)
Prince Parkway (Jamaican food committed to “natural, local and slow food philosophies”).

For the complete schedule and further details see tasteofmn.com, where attendees can download free Metro Transit passes to visit the event.

Related Articles

St. Paul: Breakaway Music Festival draws fans — and noise complaints

‘Head Over Boots’ hitmaker Jon Pardi rounds out Minnesota State Fair Grandstand lineup

Concert review: ‘Art of Joy’ shows how Waigwa’s direction helps One Voice Mixed Chorus to thrive

Concert review: Morgan Wallen goes big on first of two sold-out shows at U.S. Bank Stadium

The free Twin Cities Jazz Festival runs Friday and Saturday in and around Mears Park

By JULIA FRANKEL, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has approved the largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in over three decades, a settlement tracking group said Wednesday, a move that is likely to worsen already soaring tensions linked to the war in Gaza.

Israel’s aggressive expansion in the West Bank reflects the settler community’s strong influence in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the most religious and nationalist in the country’s history. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, has turbocharged the policy of expansion, seizing new authorities over settlement development and saying he aims to solidify Israel’s hold on the territory and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.

Authorities recently approved the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometers (nearly 5 square miles) of land in the Jordan Valley, according to a copy of the order obtained by The Associated Press. Data from Peace Now, the tracking group, indicate it was the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo accords at the start of the peace process.

Settlement monitors said the land grab connects Israeli settlements along a key corridor bordering Jordan, a move they said undermines the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state.

It is in an area of the West Bank where, even before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, settler violence was displacing communities of Palestinians. That violence has only surged since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack ignited the war in Gaza. Settlers have carried out more than 1,000 attacks on Palestinians since October in the West Bank, causing deaths and damaging property, according to the U.N.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The land seizure, which was approved late last month but only publicized on Wednesday, comes after the seizure of 8 square kilometers (roughly 3 square miles) of land in the West Bank in March and 2.6 square kilometers (1 square mile) in February.

That makes 2024 by far the peak year for Israeli land seizure in the West Bank, Peace Now said.

By declaring them state lands, the government opens them up to being leased to Israelis and prohibits private Palestinian ownership. This year’s land seizures are contiguous, linking two already existing settlements to create a solid block near the border with Jordan. The lands were declared to be closed Israeli military zones before they were declared state land.

The Palestinians view the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank as the main barrier to any lasting peace agreement, preventing any possibility of a cohesive state. Most of the international community considers settlements illegal or illegitimate.

Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for a future state. Israel’s current government considers the West Bank to be the historical and religious heartland of the Jewish people and opposes Palestinian statehood.

Israel has built well over 100 settlements across the West Bank, some of which resemble fully developed suburbs or small towns. They are home to over 500,000 Jewish settlers who have Israeli citizenship.

The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule. The Palestinian Authority administers enclaves scattered across the territory, but is barred from operating in 60% of the West Bank, which includes the settlements as well as areas with a population of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Related Articles

Strike kills family as Israeli evacuation order sparks panicked flight from southern Gaza city

Lawsuit accuses Iran, Syria and North Korea of providing support for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel

How should universities teach the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?

This is how the US-built pier to bring aid to Gaza has worked — or not

Israel lets 19 kids leave Gaza who are sick or wounded, first medical evacuation in nearly 2 months

Yoni Mizrachi, the head of settlement tracking at Peace Now, described the land grab announced Wednesday as part of a strategy to establish a buffer zone between Jordan and Palestinian lands and choke off the practical possibility of a Palestinian state. The aim, he believes, is to push Palestinians into isolated islands surrounded by Israeli land.

“They definitely see this area as a strategic area, as the first and one of the easiest ways to begin annexation,” he said.

Prominent human rights organizations have pointed to Israel’s rule over the West Bank in accusing it of the international crime of apartheid, allegations Israel rejects as an attack on its legitimacy.

Smotrich was granted expanded powers over Israel’s administration of the occupied territory under Netanyahu’s governing coalition. Smotrich laid out his plans for the West Bank at a conference for his ultranationalist Religious Zionism Party last month, a recording of which was obtained by Peace Now. He said he intended to appropriate up to 15 square kilometers (nearly 6 square miles) of land in the West Bank this year.

“We came to settle the land, to build it, and to prevent its division and the establishment of a Palestinian state, God forbid,” he said during the conference. He vowed to “change the map dramatically” by claiming more West Bank land than ever before as state land.

He also promised to expand the establishment of farming outposts, which hard-line settlers have used to extend their control of rural areas, and to crack down on Palestinian construction.

The proliferation of outposts has driven up settler violence in the West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, rights groups say, leading several Palestinian villages to pick up and leave their land.

Palestinians say the violence is geared toward putting wide swaths of land under Israeli control and pushing the prospect of a Palestinian state further from reach.

The U.S., E.U., UK and Canada have imposed high-level sanctions against violent settlers and settler organizations, but some of those targeted have told The AP that the measures have had little effect.

The declaration published Wednesday was signed under the authority of Hillel Roth, a deputy Smotrich appointed earlier this year to boost settlement expansion and state land declarations in the West Bank, Peace Now said.

The declaration came a day after Peace Now said Israeli authorities were scheduled to approve or advance construction of over 6,000 new settlement homes in the occupied West Bank in the coming days.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of civilian affairs in the West Bank, was not immediately available for comment.

Hamas cited the expansion of West Bank settlements as one of its justifications for the Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel, in which Palestinian terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostage. Israel has launched a massive offensive in response that has killed over 37,900 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were fighters.

The war has caused massive devastation across Gaza and displaced most of its 2.3 million people, often multiple times. Israeli restrictions, the ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order have curtailed humanitarian aid efforts, causing widespread hunger and sparking fears of famine.

By MATTHEW BROWN

To save the imperiled spotted owl from potential extinction, U.S. wildlife officials are embracing a contentious plan to deploy trained shooters into dense West Coast forests to kill almost a half-million barred owls that are crowding out their smaller cousins.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service strategy released Wednesday is meant to prop up declining spotted owl populations in Oregon, Washington state and California. The Associated Press obtained details in advance.

Documents released by the agency show a maximum of about 450,000 barred owls would be shot over three decades after the birds from the eastern U.S. encroached into the West Coast territory of two owls: northern spotted owls and California spotted owls. The smaller spotted owls have been unable to compete for food and habitat with the invaders.

Past efforts to save spotted owls focused on protecting the forests where they live, sparking bitter fights over logging but also helping slow the birds’ decline. The proliferation of barred owls in recent years is undermining that earlier work, officials said.

“Without actively managing barred owls, northern spotted owls will likely go extinct in all or the majority of their range, despite decades of collaborative conservation efforts,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Oregon state supervisor Kessina Lee.

The notion of killing one bird species to save another has divided wildlife advocates and conservationists. Some grudgingly accepted the proposal after a draft version was announced last year; others denounced it as reckless and a diversion from needed forest preservation.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service is turning from protector of wildlife to persecutor of wildlife,” said Wayne Pacelle with the advocacy group Animal Wellness Action. He predicted the program would fail because the agency won’t be able to keep more barred owls from migrating into areas where some are killed off.

The shootings would likely begin next spring, officials said.

Barred owls would be lured by the shooters using megaphones to broadcast recorded owl calls, then shot with shotguns. Carcasses would be buried on site.

Barred owls already are being killed by researchers in some spotted owl habitats, with about 4,500 removed since 2009, said Robin Bown, barred owl strategy leader for the Fish and Wildlife Service. Those targeted included barred owls in California’s Sierra Nevada region, where the animals have only recently arrived and officials want to stop populations from taking hold.

In other areas where barred owls are more established, officials aim to reduce their numbers but acknowledge shooting owls is unlikely to eliminate them entirely.

Public hunting of barred owls wouldn’t be allowed. The wildlife service would designate government agencies, landowners, American Indian tribes or companies to carry out the killings. Shooters would have to provide documentation of training or experience in owl identification and firearm skills.

The publishing in the coming days of a final environmental study on the proposal will open a 30-day comment period before a final decision.

That follows decades of conflict between conservationists and timber companies that cut down vast areas of older forests where spotted owls reside.

Early efforts to save the birds culminated in logging bans in the 1990s that roiled the timber industry and its political supporters in Congress.

Yet spotted owl populations continued declining after barred owls started showing up on the West Coast several decades ago.

Opponents say the mass killing of barred owls would cause severe disruption to forest ecosystems and could lead to other species — including spotted owls — being mistakenly shot. They’ve also challenged the notion that barred owls don’t belong on the West Coast, characterizing their expanding range as a natural ecological phenomenon.

Researchers say barred owls moved westward by one of two routes: across the Great Plains, where trees planted by settlers gave them a foothold in new areas; or via Canada’s boreal forests, which have become more hospitable as temperatures rise because of climate change.

Supporters of killing barred owls to save spotted owls include the American Bird Conservancy and other conservation groups.

“Our organizations stand in full support of barred owl removal as a necessary measure, together with increased habitat protections for all remaining mature and old-growth forests,” the groups said in comments on a draft proposal to remove barred owls that was released last year.

Northern spotted owls are federally protected as a threatened species. Federal officials determined in 2020 that their continued decline merited an upgrade to the more critical designation of “endangered.” But the Fish and Wildlife Service refused to do so at the time, saying other species took priority.

California spotted owls were proposed for federal protections last year. A decision is pending.

Under former President Donald Trump, government officials stripped habitat protections for spotted owls at the behest of the timber industry. Those were reinstated under President Joe Biden after the Interior Department said political appointees under Trump relied on faulty science to justify their weakening of protections.