Justices reject appeal from CEO, who said requirement amounts to ‘prior restraint’ on his speech in violation of first amendment

The supreme court on Monday rejected an appeal from Elon Musk over a settlement with securities regulators that requires him to get approval in advance of some tweets that relate to Tesla, the electric vehicle company he leads.

The justices did not comment in leaving in place lower-court rulings against Musk, who complained that the requirement amounts to “prior restraint” on his speech in violation of the first amendment. The ruling comes a day after he made an unannounced visit to China aimed at sealing a deal to roll out Tesla’s driver assistance features there.

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The liberal justice has been called the supreme court’s conscience but we can’t afford a repeat of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

A month ago Josh Barro (a man) at the Atlantic wrote a piece headlined Sonia Sotomayor Should Retire Now . Around the same time the Guardian’s Mehdi Hasan (a man) similarly opined that “for the sake of all of us, Sonia Sotomayor needs to retire from the US supreme court.” The University of Colorado Boulder law professor Paul Campos (a man) also went on CNN to argue that 69-year-old Sotomayor should consider stepping down as a justice in order to give Joe Biden time to fill the seat with another liberal judge should the worst happen. And pundit Nate Silver (you guessed it … another man) said much the same thing .

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Oral arguments over former president’s claim of immunity seem to have left Trump happier than the justice department

“Well,” said one reporter to another as they left the supreme court chamber, sometime after noon on Thursday. “Looks like we’re getting a king.”

Notwithstanding a certain mordant hyperbole on a momentous day in American history, the sentiment seemed within bounds.

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Justices heard immunity arguments – and the conservative majority seemed determined to talk about anything but the case at hand

It took two hours and 24 minutes for the elephant in the room to be mentioned at Thursday’s US supreme court hearing. “The special counsel has expressed some concern for speed, and wanting to move forward,” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

That was shorthand for the gargantuan stakes at play in Trump v United States. The court was being asked to consider one of the most consequential prosecutions in US history – the four federal charges brought against former president Donald Trump accusing him of attempting to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election – and whether the case can conceivably go to trial.

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US supreme court hears three hours of oral arguments on whether ex-president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution

The US supreme court on Thursday heard roughly three hours of oral arguments about whether Donald Trump enjoyed absolute immunity from criminal prosecution because the acts included in the indictment alleging he plotted to subvert the 2020 election involved his duties as president.

The court did not seem inclined to grant total immunity to Trump. But a majority of the justices suggested there should be some level of protection , and expressed an interest in having a lower court decide whether the indictment included “official” acts that could be expunged.

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Idaho’s law requires doctors to treat pregnant women’s health as disposable – and the loss of their lives as an acceptable risk

The risk of stating plainly what Idaho argued at the US supreme court on Wednesday morning is that it is so sadistic and extreme that people might not believe you. Idaho has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. Prohibiting all abortions at any stage of gestation, with no exceptions for rape or incest, the Idaho law allows doctors to perform abortions in cases where the life – but not “merely” the health – of the pregnant woman is at risk.

In practice, this has wound up being a ban on abortions needed to save women’s lives: according to Idaho hospitals, six pregnant women experiencing medical emergencies have had to be airlifted across state lines to hospitals in states with life and health exemptions in the months since Idaho began enforcing its abortion ban. One way to describe this state of affairs is to say that Idaho’s abortion law has come into conflict with medical best practice. Another way to describe it is to say that the law has forced pregnant women to flee the state for their lives.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

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The former president claims immunity in his federal election subversion case – is the court indulging his bid for a delay?

The US supreme court will on Thursday hear oral arguments in Donald Trump v United States , the former president’s appeal in his federal election subversion case, in which he claims presidents are immune from prosecution for acts committed in office.

In briefs to the court, lawyers for Trump said “a denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future president”.

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If court curtails use of statute in connection with January 6, it could eliminate two of the four charges against Donald Trump

The US supreme court expressed concern on Tuesday with prosecutors using an obstruction statute to charge hundreds of January 6 Capitol riot defendants, with the justices leaning towards a position that could jeopardize those prosecutions and the criminal case against Donald Trump .

The Trump case was not mentioned at the argument. But a decision curtailing the use of the obstruction statute in connection with the Capitol attack could eliminate two of the four charges against the former president.

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Supreme court ruling left more than 90% of state’s surface waters with no pollution protections, since they don’t run continuously

New Mexico’s rivers, which include the Rio Grande, Gila, San Juan and Pecos, are America’s most threatened waterways, according to a new report. This is largely due to a 2023 US supreme court decision that left more than 90% of the state’s surface waters without federal protections from industrial pollution, according to state officials.

“Virtually all the rivers in New Mexico are losing clean water protections,” said Matt Rice, the south-west regional director of American Rivers, the conservation group that publishes the annual list . “It has the most to lose, and the threat is particularly acute there.”

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