Washington
Trump administration moves to block climate change lawsuit against oil companies
President Donald Trump’s administration moved Monday to block a lawsuit Minnesota officials filed almost six years ago alleging oil companies and a petroleum trade group deceived state residents about climate change.
The U.S. Department of Justice, the administration’s law enforcement arm, filed an action in federal court in Minneapolis arguing that the federal government has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, not states, and that Minnesota officials are trying to improperly impose their policy preferences on the rest of the country.
“The Constitution does not tolerate such a conflict,” Justice Department attorneys argued in the filing. “Nor does it allow Minnesota to national its regulatory powers.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit in state court in June 2020 against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute and refinery company Flint Hills Resources, a Koch subsidiary, accusing them of consumer fraud and deceptive trade practices. At least 15 other states brought similar lawsuits, including Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.
Ellison issued a statement Monday calling the Justice Department’s action meritless.
ExxonMobil officials said when Ellison sued in 2020 that the action was baseless. The American Petroleum Institute said then that the industry provides reliable energy to U.S. consumers while substantially reducing its environmental footprint.
Trump has called for boosting domestic energy production. The administration in February revoked a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the most aggressive move by the Republican president to roll back climate regulations. The rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency rescinded a 2009 government declaration known as the endangerment finding that determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare.
Georgia
DOJ seeks the names of 2020 election workers in Fulton County
ATLANTA (AP) — The Department of Justice is seeking the names of every person who worked in the 2020 election in Georgia’s Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that Donald Trump has long accused of widespread voter fraud he says cost him victory against Joe Biden in the state that year.
Lawyers for the county filed a motion on Monday night to quash a grand jury subpoena that asks for the names and contact information of county employees and volunteer poll workers. This latest action comes after the FBI in January went to a Fulton County elections warehouse and seized ballots and other documents from the 2020 election, which Georgia’s certified totals showed Trump lost in the state to Biden by 11,779 votes out of nearly 5 million cast. Trump still insists the 2020 election was stolen from him even though judges and his own attorney general concluded otherwise.
Monday’s court filing says the subpoena is meant to “target, harass and punish the President’s perceived political opponents.” The request is “grossly overbroad and untethered to any reasonable need,” the county’s lawyers argue.
The January seizure of the ballots and other records from Fulton County was the first in a string of moves by Trump’s Republican administration to obtain past election records from critical swing states. The FBI in March used a subpoena to get records related to an audit of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County in Arizona. And the Justice Department in April demanded that Michigan’s Wayne County turn over its ballots from the 2024 election, which Trump won against Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris.
The Justice Department is also fighting numerous states in court for access to voter data that includes sensitive personal information. Election officials, including some Republicans, have said handing over the information would violate state and federal privacy laws.
Massachusetts
DOE opens probe into Smith College for admitting trans women
The U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation Monday into Smith College, an all-women’s institution in Massachusetts, for admitting transgender women.
The probe by the department’s Office of Civil Rights will look at whether the college violated Title IX, a 1972 law forbidding discrimination based on sex in education.
The move is the latest by the Trump administration — whose rhetoric has frequently included attacks on trans people — to limit transgender rights in the U.S. The administration has said that Title IX prevents trans women from participating in women’s sports, suing several states and launching investigations into schools for not complying.
Smith College, a private liberal arts school founded in 1871, has admitted trans women since 2015, along with many other elite women’s colleges.
The school’s admission policies drew attention and sparked on-campus activism in 2013, when a trans high school senior was denied acceptance because her gender identity did not match the one on her financial aid forms.
Its website now says that “any applicants who self-identify as women; cis, trans, and nonbinary women” are eligible to apply to the school. Advocates have supported the shift over the years, saying that women’s colleges were founded to educate those marginalized because of their gender.
The number of women’s colleges in the U.S. has declined from more than 200 to just 30 as of fall of 2023, according to the Women’s College Coalition.
A college spokesperson did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
According to the Department of Education in a news release, Title IX contains an exception that allows colleges to be all-male or all-female, but it only applies “on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity.”
The investigation into Smith College stems from a complaint filed with the Office of Civil Rights in June 2025 by the conservative legal group Defending Education.
“DE and its members oppose, among other things, discrimination on the basis of sex in America’s K-12 schools and institutions of higher education,” the organization said in a news release.
During the Biden administration, new Title IX regulations were issued to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. However, those were struck down by a federal judge in January 2025 who decided the rules had legal shortcomings.
Trump administration moves to block climate change lawsuit against oil companies
President Donald Trump’s administration moved Monday to block a lawsuit Minnesota officials filed almost six years ago alleging oil companies and a petroleum trade group deceived state residents about climate change.
The U.S. Department of Justice, the administration’s law enforcement arm, filed an action in federal court in Minneapolis arguing that the federal government has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, not states, and that Minnesota officials are trying to improperly impose their policy preferences on the rest of the country.
“The Constitution does not tolerate such a conflict,” Justice Department attorneys argued in the filing. “Nor does it allow Minnesota to national its regulatory powers.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit in state court in June 2020 against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute and refinery company Flint Hills Resources, a Koch subsidiary, accusing them of consumer fraud and deceptive trade practices. At least 15 other states brought similar lawsuits, including Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.
Ellison issued a statement Monday calling the Justice Department’s action meritless.
ExxonMobil officials said when Ellison sued in 2020 that the action was baseless. The American Petroleum Institute said then that the industry provides reliable energy to U.S. consumers while substantially reducing its environmental footprint.
Trump has called for boosting domestic energy production. The administration in February revoked a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the most aggressive move by the Republican president to roll back climate regulations. The rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency rescinded a 2009 government declaration known as the endangerment finding that determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare.
Georgia
DOJ seeks the names of 2020 election workers in Fulton County
ATLANTA (AP) — The Department of Justice is seeking the names of every person who worked in the 2020 election in Georgia’s Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that Donald Trump has long accused of widespread voter fraud he says cost him victory against Joe Biden in the state that year.
Lawyers for the county filed a motion on Monday night to quash a grand jury subpoena that asks for the names and contact information of county employees and volunteer poll workers. This latest action comes after the FBI in January went to a Fulton County elections warehouse and seized ballots and other documents from the 2020 election, which Georgia’s certified totals showed Trump lost in the state to Biden by 11,779 votes out of nearly 5 million cast. Trump still insists the 2020 election was stolen from him even though judges and his own attorney general concluded otherwise.
Monday’s court filing says the subpoena is meant to “target, harass and punish the President’s perceived political opponents.” The request is “grossly overbroad and untethered to any reasonable need,” the county’s lawyers argue.
The January seizure of the ballots and other records from Fulton County was the first in a string of moves by Trump’s Republican administration to obtain past election records from critical swing states. The FBI in March used a subpoena to get records related to an audit of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County in Arizona. And the Justice Department in April demanded that Michigan’s Wayne County turn over its ballots from the 2024 election, which Trump won against Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris.
The Justice Department is also fighting numerous states in court for access to voter data that includes sensitive personal information. Election officials, including some Republicans, have said handing over the information would violate state and federal privacy laws.
Massachusetts
DOE opens probe into Smith College for admitting trans women
The U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation Monday into Smith College, an all-women’s institution in Massachusetts, for admitting transgender women.
The probe by the department’s Office of Civil Rights will look at whether the college violated Title IX, a 1972 law forbidding discrimination based on sex in education.
The move is the latest by the Trump administration — whose rhetoric has frequently included attacks on trans people — to limit transgender rights in the U.S. The administration has said that Title IX prevents trans women from participating in women’s sports, suing several states and launching investigations into schools for not complying.
Smith College, a private liberal arts school founded in 1871, has admitted trans women since 2015, along with many other elite women’s colleges.
The school’s admission policies drew attention and sparked on-campus activism in 2013, when a trans high school senior was denied acceptance because her gender identity did not match the one on her financial aid forms.
Its website now says that “any applicants who self-identify as women; cis, trans, and nonbinary women” are eligible to apply to the school. Advocates have supported the shift over the years, saying that women’s colleges were founded to educate those marginalized because of their gender.
The number of women’s colleges in the U.S. has declined from more than 200 to just 30 as of fall of 2023, according to the Women’s College Coalition.
A college spokesperson did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
According to the Department of Education in a news release, Title IX contains an exception that allows colleges to be all-male or all-female, but it only applies “on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity.”
The investigation into Smith College stems from a complaint filed with the Office of Civil Rights in June 2025 by the conservative legal group Defending Education.
“DE and its members oppose, among other things, discrimination on the basis of sex in America’s K-12 schools and institutions of higher education,” the organization said in a news release.
During the Biden administration, new Title IX regulations were issued to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. However, those were struck down by a federal judge in January 2025 who decided the rules had legal shortcomings.
