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The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, of her sex trafficking conviction.The top court rejected Maxwell’s appeal without comment.Maxwell, 63, was sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in prison for recruiting underage girls for Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.The authorities ruled the wealthy financier’s death a suicide, but it has fueled countless conspiracy theories among President Donald Trump’s voter base.Many of Trump’s supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and have held as an article of faith that “deep state” elites were protecting Epstein associates in the Democratic Party and Hollywood.Trump, a one-time close friend of Epstein, has sought to dampen the continuing political furor over the Epstein case, calling it a “Democrat hoax.”Maxwell had appealed her sex trafficking conviction in New York on the grounds that she should have been protected from prosecution by an agreement secured by Epstein in a 2007 case.Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, said he was “deeply disappointed” that the Supreme Court had declined to hear the case.”But this fight isn’t over,” Markus said in a statement. “Serious legal and factual issues remain, and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done.”The Supreme Court’s rejection of Maxwell’s appeal appears to leave a pardon or clemency from Trump as the former British socialite’s only potential avenue for release.Trump was asked by reporters on Monday if he would consider a pardon for Maxwell.”I wouldn’t consider it or not consider it. I don’t know anything about it,” he said, adding that he would have to speak to the Department of Justice.Maxwell, the only former Epstein associate criminally convicted in connection with his activities, was recently interviewed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer.Following that interview, Maxwell was moved from a prison in Florida to a minimum security facility in Texas.

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear a challenge by a Christian therapist to a Colorado law that bans “conversion therapy” for minors who are questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation.The case was brought by Kaley Chiles, a licensed mental health counselor who argues that the prohibition from holding such conversations with minors is a violation of her First Amendment free speech rights.Colorado’s Minor Conversion Therapy Law, passed in 2019, prohibits licensed mental health professionals from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of their patients under 18 years old.Chiles is represented in the case before the conservative-dominated Supreme Court by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal advocacy group.In her petition, Chiles’s lawyers said she “believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex.””Amidst a nationwide mental-health crisis, many minors struggling with gender dysphoria are seeking the counseling that Kaley Chiles would like to provide,” they said.”They want help aligning their mind and body rather than chasing experimental medical interventions and risking permanent harm.”Yet it is this desperately needed counseling — encouraging words between a licensed counselor and a consenting minor client — that Colorado forbids,” they said.Conversion therapy is banned in more than 20 US states and much of Europe, with both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association opposed to its use.In its brief with the Supreme Court, Colorado said there is “mounting evidence that conversion therapy is associated with increased depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts.”Two lower courts ruled in favor of Colorado, and Chiles brought her case before the nation’s top court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority.President Donald Trump, after taking office, said the government would henceforth only recognize two genders — male and female — and signed an executive order restricting gender transition medical procedures for people under the age of 19.In June, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold a Tennessee state law banning hormone therapy, puberty blockers and gender transition surgery for minors.The Supreme Court will also hear a challenge this term to state laws in Idaho and West Virginia that ban transgender girls from taking part in girls’ sports — another issue at the heart of the American culture wars.

The US government shutdown entered its second week on Monday, with no sign of a deal between President Donald Trump’s Republicans and Democrats to end the crisis.Democrats are refusing to provide the handful of votes the ruling Republicans need to reopen federal departments, unless an agreement is reached on extending expiring “Obamacare” health care subsidies and reversing some cuts to health programs passed as part of Trump’s signature “One Big Beautiful Bill.”With the government out of money since Wednesday and grinding to a halt, Senate Democrats looked set to vote against a House-passed temporary funding bill for a fifth time.The hard line taken by Democrats marks a rare moment of leverage for the opposition party in a period when Trump and his ultra-loyal Republicans control every branch of government and Trump himself is accused of seeking to amass authoritarian-like powers.With funding not renewed, non-critical services are being suspended.Salaries for hundreds of thousands of public sector employees are set to be withheld from Friday, while military personnel could miss their paychecks from October 15.And Trump has upped the ante by threatening to have large numbers of government employees fired, rather than just furloughed — placed on temporary unpaid leave status — as is normally done during shutdowns.The president said Sunday that workers were already being fired, but White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt walked back the comments a day later, saying he was only “referring to the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have been furloughed.”Republicans are digging in their heels, with House Speaker Mike Johnson telling his members not even to report to Congress unless the Democrats cave, insisting any health care negotiation be held after re-opening the government.”If he’s serious about lowering costs and protecting the health care of the American people, why wait?” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a challenge to Johnson on Monday.”Democrats are ready to do it now,” he wrote on X.- Shutdown impacts -The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which he signed into law on July 4, would strip 11 million Americans of health care coverage, mainly through cuts to the Medicaid program for low-income families. That figure would be in addition to the four million Americans Democrats say will lose health care next year if Obamacare health insurance subsidies are not extended — while another 24 million Americans will see their premiums double.Republicans argue the expiring health care subsidies have nothing to do with keeping the government open and can be dealt with separately before the end of the year.As the shutdown begins to bite, the Environmental Protection Agency, space agency NASA and the Education, Commerce and Labor departments have been the hardest hit by staff being furloughed — or placed on enforced leave — during the shutdown.  The Transport, Justice, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs Departments are among those that have seen the least effects so far, the contingency plans of each organization show.With members of Congress at home and no formal talks taking place in either chamber, a CBS News poll released Sunday showed the public blaming Republicans by a narrow margin for the gridlock. Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said Sunday layoffs would begin “if the president decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere.” Trump has already sent a steamroller through government since taking office for his second term in January.Spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, 200,000 jobs had already been cut from the federal workforce before the shutdown, according to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.

The Democratic-led US state of Illinois filed suit on Monday to block President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago.The lawsuit comes one day after a federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked the Republican president from sending soldiers to the state’s biggest city, Portland, as part of his crackdown on crime and undocumented migrants.Trump over the weekend authorized the deployment of 700 National Guard soldiers to Chicago despite the opposition of elected Democratic leaders including the mayor and Governor JB Pritzker.In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Illinois, the state Attorney General Kwame Raoul and counsel for Chicago accused Trump of using US troops “to punish his political enemies.””The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor,” they said.”Far from promoting public safety in the Chicago region,” they wrote, Trump’s “provocative and arbitrary actions have threatened to undermine public safety by inciting a public outcry.””Illinois asks this Court to declare these actions unlawful and enjoin them, immediately as well as permanently,” they added.Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has defended the plan to send troops to Chicago, claiming that the third-largest US city is “a war zone.”Pritzker, responding on CNN, accused Republicans of seeking to “create the war zone, so that they can send in even more troops.”A CBS poll released Sunday found that 58 percent of Americans oppose deploying the National Guard to US cities.But Trump, who spoke last week of using the military for a “war from within,” shows no sign of backing down.On Sunday he claimed, falsely, that “Portland is burning to the ground. It’s insurrectionists all over the place.”- ‘Constitutional law, not martial law’ -Trump’s campaign to use the military on home soil hit a roadblock Saturday in Portland when a federal court ruled the deployment was unlawful.Trump has repeatedly called Portland “war-ravaged,” but District Judge Karin Immergut issued a temporary block on troop deployment, saying “the president’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.””This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” wrote Immergut, a Trump appointee.Although Portland has seen scattered attacks on federal officers and property, the administration failed to demonstrate “that those episodes of violence were part of an organized attempt to overthrow the government as a whole,” she said.The Trump administration is appealing the ruling, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday.”With all due respect to that judge, I think her opinion is untethered in reality and in the law,” Leavitt said. “We’re very confident in the president’s legal authority to do this.””The president wants to ensure that our federal buildings and our assets are protected and that’s exactly what he’s trying to do,” she said.Days of tense scenes in Chicago turned violent on Saturday when a federal officer shot a motorist that the Department of Homeland Security said had been armed and rammed one of their vehicles.Illinois and Oregon are not the first states to file legal challenges against the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard.California filed suit after Trump sent troops to Los Angeles earlier this year to quell protests sparked by a crackdown on undocumented migrants.A district court judge ruled it unlawful but the deployment was upheld by an appeals court panel.

The inhalers people depend on to breathe are also warming the planet, producing annual emissions equivalent to more than half a million cars in the United States alone, researchers said Monday in a major new study.Using a national drug database, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles and Harvard analyzed global warming pollution from three types of inhalers used to treat asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) between 2014 and 2024.The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that inhalers used by US patients with commercial insurance and the government-run programs Medicaid and Medicare generated 24.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent over the decade.Metered-dose inhalers, or “puffers,” were by far the most damaging, accounting for 98 percent of emissions. They use pressurized canisters containing hydrofluoroalkane (HFA) propellants — potent greenhouse gases — to deliver medication.By contrast, dry powder and soft mist inhalers don’t use propellants. The former rely on a patient’s breath to release medicine, and the latter turn liquid into a fine spray — making both far less harmful to the planet.”Five hundred and thirty thousand cars on the road each year is a lot, and I think this is a really important topic because it’s fixable — there are easy ways to reduce emissions,” lead author William Feldman, a pulmonologist and researcher at UCLA, told AFP.Medically, only a small fraction of patients require metered-dose inhalers. Very young children need spacers — valved chambers that help deliver medicine to the lungs — and these only work with metered-dose devices. Frail older adults with weak lungs may also need puffers because they can’t generate enough inhalation force.”But the vast majority of people could use dry powder or soft mist inhalers,” Feldman said, noting that countries such as Sweden and Japan use alternative inhalers without any loss in health outcomes.- Insurance barriers -The slower US uptake of greener inhalers, he added, stems from insurance and market barriers. A dry-powder version of albuterol, the most commonly used inhaler drug, exists but is often not covered by insurance, making it more expensive. Another drug, budesonide-formoterol, is widely sold in dry-powder form in Europe, which is not available in the United States.Feldman emphasized that the goal of the research is not to blame patients but to highlight the need for policy and pricing reform.”We absolutely do not want to stigmatize patients with asthma and COPD,” he said.”I think it’s incumbent upon us as a society to get those medications to the patients in a sustainable way, and that ultimately falls to the highest levels.”A related JAMA commentary authored by Alexander Rabin of the University of Michigan and others echoed that insurers and policymakers must ensure lower-emission inhalers are affordable and accessible for all.They warned that several new low-global-warming metered-dose inhalers are expected to launch in the US as high-priced brand-name products, “raising the risk that patients without robust insurance coverage…could be left behind.”

The US government shutdown entered its second week on Monday, with no sign of a deal between President Donald Trump’s Republicans and Democrats to end the crisis. Democrats are refusing to provide the handful of votes the ruling Republicans need to reopen federal departments unless the two sides can agree on extending expiring “Obamacare” health care subsidies.With the government out of money since Wednesday and grinding to a halt, Senate Democrats looked set to vote against a House-passed temporary funding bill for a fifth time.The hard line taken by Democrats marks a rare moment of leverage for the opposition party in a period when Trump and his ultra-loyal Republicans control every branch of government — and Trump himself is accused of seeking to amass authoritarian-like powers.With funding not renewed, non-critical services are being suspended.Salaries for hundreds of thousands of public sector employees are set to be withheld from Friday, while military personnel could miss their paychecks from October 15.And Trump has radically upped the ante by threatening to fire large numbers of government employees, rather than place them on temporary unpaid leave status as has been done in every other shutdown over the years.Republicans are digging in their heels, with House Speaker Mike Johnson telling his members not even to come to Congress unless the Democrats cave.”House Republicans think protecting the health care of everyday Americans is less important than their vacation,” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement.”We strongly disagree.”- Red herring -But Johnson said health funding was a red herring Democrats had wielded to force a shutdown, claiming to have addressed the issue in a sprawling domestic policy bill signed into law by Trump in July.”Republicans are the party working around the clock every day to fix health care. It’s not talking points for us. We’ve done it,” Johnson told reporters at the US Capitol.The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” would in fact strip 11 million Americans of health care coverage, mainly through cuts to the Medicaid program for low-income families. That figure would be in addition to the four million Americans Democrats say will lose health care next year if Obamacare health insurance subsidies are not extended — while another 24 million Americans will see their premiums double.Republicans argue the expiring health care subsidies are nothing to do with keeping the government open and can be dealt with separately before the end of the year.As the shutdown begins to bite, the Environmental Protection Agency, space agency NASA and the Education, Commerce and Labor departments have been the hardest hit by staff being furloughed — or placed on enforced leave — during the shutdown.  The Transport, Justice, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs Departments are among those that have seen the least effects so far, the contingency plans of each organization show.With members of Congress at home and no formal talks taking place in either chamber, a CBS News poll released Sunday showed the public blaming Republicans by a narrow margin for the gridlock. Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said Sunday layoffs would begin “if the president decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere.” Trump has already sent a steamroller through government since taking office for his second term in January.Spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, 200,000 jobs had already been cut from the federal workforce before the shutdown, according to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.

The United Nations refugee agency has shed nearly 5,000 jobs this year following swingeing cuts in international aid, its chief said Monday, decrying the “disastrous” political choices behind the crisis. The UNHCR is grappling with surging global displacement, while under President Donald Trump the United States — traditionally the world’s top donor — has heavily slashed foreign aid, causing havoc across the globe.The agency’s chief Filippo Grandi said the cuts constituted more than a quarter of the agency’s workforce, with more to come — and no country or sector left unscathed. “Critical programmes and lifesaving activities have to be stopped, gender-based violence prevention work, psychosocial support to survivors of torture, stopped,” Grandi said. “Schools were closed, food assistance decreased, cash grants cut, resettlement ground to a halt. This is what happens when you slash funding by over $1 billion in a matter of weeks.”The UN refugee chief said the humanitarian system was facing “political choices with disastrous financial implications”.Washington previously accounted for more than 40 percent of the UNHCR’s budget, and its pull-back, along with belt-tightening by other major donor countries, has left the agency facing “bleak” numbers, Grandi said.UNHCR had an approved budget for 2025 of $10.6 billion, Grandi said, stressing though that the agency in recent years had only received “approximately half of our budget requirements” — or around $5 billion.”As things stand, we projected we will end 2025 with $3.9 billion in funds available — a decrease of $1.3 billion compared to 2024,” he said.An agency spokesman told AFP that both full-time staff and people on temporary or consultancy contracts had lost their jobs.The United States has been paying a “disproportionate” share of UNHCR’s costs, Washington’s UN representative told the annual meeting of the agency’s executive committee on Monday.Calling for reform, Tressa Rae Finerty also blamed economic migration for the strain on asylum systems around the world.”Abuse of the asylum system by economic migrants seeking to undermine immigration law has reached epidemic proportions and now threatens support for the asylum principle itself,” she warned.A cornerstone of the right to seek asylum is the principle of non-refoulement, which guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.Grandi warned that putting that principle on the table “would be a catastrophic error”.Dismantling the system put in place after World War II would not rein in mass migration, but would instead make it more difficult to address, Grandi said.”By putting pressure on refugees, on refugee hosting countries and on the humanitarian system all at once, you risk creating a domino effect of instability, (worsening) the very displacement we are all working to resolve,” he said. 

An Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fight planned at the White House will take place on Donald Trump’s 80th birthday, the president said, despite the much-hyped event being previously announced for July 4.”On June 14 next year, we’re going to have a big UFC fight at the White House — right at the White House, on the grounds of the White House,” Trump told a crowd of Navy sailors at the huge naval base Norfolk in Virginia.He did not mention that June 14 is his birthday or that next year will be his 80th.On Trump’s 79th birthday this year, he held a military parade that was meant to commemorate the founding of the US Army.In August, UFC boss Dana White said the mixed martial arts bout at the White House would be held on July 4 next year, the day the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding.Trump has been a regular guest at the often-bloody UFC contests, where fighters punch, kick and grapple with their opponent in a no-holds-barred battle to submission or knockout.Bringing the brutal combat sport to the center of US political power will mark a historic first.At a press conference shared on UFC’s YouTube channel, White said that early next year “we’ll start looking at building the White House card, which I will right now tell you will be the greatest fight card ever assembled in the history of definitely this company.”Ultimate Fighting Championship is the largest and most successful organization in the burgeoning world of MMA, a blend of martial arts disciplines like jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, boxing and wrestling.Bouts take place in an eight-sided ring — dubbed “The Octagon” — bounded by a chainlink fence.With few exceptions — such as eye-gouging — male and female fighters are allowed to employ almost any technique to attack their opponent.The sport’s popularity with young men — a key demographic in the 2024 US election — and Trump’s long association with the UFC, have made the president a regular fixture at some of its more high-profile events, where he is greeted like a rock star.Its brutal nature and high injury rate mean the sport is controversial, with doctors decrying the potential for brain damage amongst fighters who are repeatedly hit in the head, though it has gained increasing mainstream acceptance in recent years.

The Trump administration branded Chicago a “war zone” Sunday as a justification for deploying soldiers against the will of local Democratic officials, while a judge blocked the White House from sending troops to another Democrat-run city.An escalating political crisis across the country pits President Donald Trump’s anti-crime and migration crackdown against opposition Democrats who accuse him of an authoritarian power grab.In the newest flashpoint, Trump late Saturday authorized deployment of 300 National Guard soldiers to Chicago, the third-largest city in the United States, despite the opposition of elected leaders including the mayor and state Governor JB Pritzker.Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the move on Sunday, claiming on Fox News that Chicago is “a war zone.”But Pritzker, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” show, accused Republicans of aiming to sow “mayhem on the ground. They want to create the war zone, so that they can send in even more troops.”In a statement, the governor called the proposed deployment “Trump’s invasion,” saying “there is no reason” to send troops into Illinois or any other state without the “knowledge, consent, or cooperation” of local officials.A CBS poll released Sunday found that 58 percent of Americans oppose deploying the National Guard to cities.Trump — who last Tuesday spoke of using the military for a “war from within” — shows no sign of backing off his hardline campaign.On Sunday, he claimed falsely that “Portland is burning to the ground. It’s insurrectionists all over the place.”Key ally Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, echoed the president’s rhetoric Sunday, telling NBC that National Guard troops deployed in the US capital Washington had responded to a “literal war zone” — a characterization at odds with reality.- No to ‘martial law’ -Trump’s campaign to use the military on home soil hit a roadblock late Saturday in Portland, Oregon, when a court ruled the deployment was unlawful.Trump has repeatedly called Portland “war-ravaged,” but US District Judge Karin Immergut issued a temporary block, saying “the president’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.””This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” Immergut wrote in her ruling.Although Portland has seen scattered attacks on federal officers and property, the Trump administration failed to demonstrate “that those episodes of violence were part of an organized attempt to overthrow the government as a whole” — thereby justifying military force, she said.One of Trump’s key advisors, Stephen Miller, called the judge’s order “legal insurrection.”Another court order issued late Sunday blocked the deployment of National Guard soldiers from other states, according to Oregon’s attorney general and California Governor Gavin Newsom, who earlier announced he was suing to stop the mobilization.”A federal judge BLOCKED Donald Trump’s unlawful attempt to DEPLOY 300 OF OUR NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS TO PORTLAND,” said Newsom, whose press office has deliberately copied the president’s abrasive, all-capitals style.”Trump’s abuse of power won’t stand,” Newsom added.- Chicago shooting -The Trump crackdown is being spearheaded by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The department is being rapidly expanded both in personnel and duties.ICE raids around the country — primarily in cities run by Democrats — have seen groups of masked, armed men in unmarked cars and armored vehicles target residential neighborhoods and businesses, sparking protests.Days of tense scenes in Chicago turned violent Saturday when a federal officer shot a motorist that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said had been armed and rammed one of their patrol vehicles.DHS officials have said that ICE officers also shot and killed 38-year-old immigrant Silverio Villegas Gonzalez during a traffic stop on September 12, accusing him of allegedly trying to flee the scene and dragging an ICE officer with the vehicle.

Donald Trump’s unprecedented expansion of the powers of the US presidency will be put to the test when the Supreme Court returns for its fall term on Monday.”The crucial question will be whether it serves as a check on President Trump or just a rubber stamp approving his actions,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley Law School.If past is prologue, the Republican leader is in line to notch up more legal victories from a conservative-dominated bench that includes three of his own appointees.On the docket are voting rights, state bans on the participation of transgender athletes in girls’ sports and a religious freedom case involving a Rastafarian who had his knee-length dreadlocks forcibly shorn while in prison.But the blockbuster case this term concerns Trump’s levying of hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs on imports and whether he had the statutory authority to do so.Lower courts have ruled he did not.But the Supreme Court has overwhelmingly sided with Trump since he returned to office, allowing, for example, mass firing of federal workers, the dismissal of members of independent agencies, the withholding of funds appropriated by Congress and racial profiling in his sweeping immigration crackdown.”You’ve seen the court go out of its way, really bend over backwards, in order to green-light Trump administration positions,” said Cecillia Wang, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).- ‘Legal equivalent of fast food’ -Many of those decisions have come on the controversial emergency or “shadow” docket, where the court hands down orders after little briefing, without oral arguments and with paltry explanation.Samuel Bray, a University of Chicago law professor, described it as the “legal equivalent of fast food” and the court’s three liberal justices have condemned the increasing use of the emergency docket.Chemerinsky noted in an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times that using the shadow docket, the six conservative justices have “repeatedly and without exception… voted to reverse lower court decisions that had initially found Trump’s actions to be unconstitutional.”The high-stakes tariffs case, on the other hand, will involve full briefing and oral arguments and will be heard on November 5.Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to unilaterally impose his extensive tariffs, bypassing Congress by claiming the country was facing an emergency due to the trade deficit.”At least hundreds of billions of dollars or more are at stake and they may need to refund those billions of dollars if they lose in the Supreme Court,” said Curtis Bradley, a University of Chicago law professor.Other high-profile cases involving the power of the president are to be heard in December and January when the court weighs in on Trump’s bid to fire members of the independent Federal Trade Commission and Lisa Cook, a governor of the interest-rate setting Federal Reserve Board.- Voting rights -On October 15, the Supreme Court will hear a voting rights case in which “non-African American” voters are contesting the creation of a second Black majority congressional district in Louisiana, claiming it is the result of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.A victory for the plaintiffs in the case would deal a severe blow to a section of the Voting Rights Act that allows for creation of majority-minority districts to make up for racial discrimination.”The stakes are incredibly high,” said the ACLU’s Sophia Lin Lakin. “The outcome will not only determine the next steps for Louisiana’s congressional map, but may also shape the future of redistricting cases nationwide.”Another notable case on the docket concerns challenges to state laws in Idaho and West Virginia that ban transgender girls from taking part in girls’ sports.A religious freedom case to be heard on November 10 has unusually brought together legal advocates on both the left and the right.  Damon Landor is a devout Rastafarian whose hair was forcibly cut while he was in prison in Louisiana.He is seeking permission to sue individual officials of the Louisiana Department of Corrections for monetary damages for violating his religious rights.The Supreme Court is generally hostile to approving damages actions against individual government officials, Bray said.At the same time, he noted, the right-leaning court has tended to side with the plaintiffs in religious liberty cases.