Washington
Supreme Court sends closely watched Native American voting rights decision back to lower court
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court acted in a Voting Rights Act case brought by Native American tribes on Monday, saying a closely watched ruling needs to be reconsidered after the high court weakened the Civil Rights-era law.
The justices ordered lower courts to take another look at the decision that went against the tribes and undercut a key enforcement mechanism: lawsuits from voters and advocacy groups.
Advocacy groups are key players because they bring most of the lawsuits filed under the provision of the Voting Rights Act known as Section 2.
But in a North Dakota case brought by two Native American tribes, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that only the federal government can sue to enforce the law.
The decision conflicted with decades of case law. The Supreme Court blocked it in July, allowing the tribes’ preferred maps to temporarily stay in place.
The appeals court’s finding has nevertheless been cited elsewhere, with Mississippi making a similar argument in another appeal over its state legislative map. The court also sent that case back for reconsideration on Monday.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the decision, writing that both rulings should have been reversed.
The conservative majority, meanwhile, has already diluted enforcement power with their April decision that struck down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana and made future cases much harder to win.
In that case, the high court’s conservative majority ruled that map relied too heavily on race with a district aimed at giving Black voters a chance to elect a candidate of their choice. The decision effectively limited Voting Rights claims to maps that are intentionally designed to discriminate, a very high standard.
Washington
Supreme Court rejects appeals from drug manufacturers over Medicare price negotiations
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected appeals from pharmaceutical companies that object to negotiating Medicare drug prices with the federal government.
The justices did not comment in leaving in place rulings from the federal appeals court in Philadelphia that dismissed the drug manufacturers’ claims.
The negotiation program was created as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which capped years of debate over whether the federal government should be allowed to haggle directly with pharmaceutical companies over the prices of drugs in Medicare.
The law required the government to negotiate prices for certain high-cost drugs in the federal insurance program for older adults on an annual basis, with the first deals going into effect in 2026.
Not a single Republican voted for the legislation, which was signed by Democratic President Joe Biden. Republicans have been harshly critical of aspects of the law, and Republican President Donald Trump has rolled back programs favoring alternative energy sources.
But the administration has embraced the authority to bring drugmakers to the negotiating table.
So far, the government has negotiated prices for 25 prescription drugs covered by Medicare, including the massively popular GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs, Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy. In January, the Trump administration announced drugs targeted for a third round of the program, which would bring the total number of drugs with lower prices for Medicare enrollees to 40.
Pharmaceutical companies have forcefully pushed back on the program, arguing policymakers wanting to lower costs should instead rein in insurers and third-party pharmacy benefit managers.
But in the absence of court intervention, stopping the program may require an act of Congress. The statute creating the program doesn’t specify an end date.
New York
Iraqi man accused of NYC synagogue plot after attacks in Europe, Canada
NEW YORK (AP) — An Iraqi national accused of plotting at least 18 terror attacks in Europe in retaliation for the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, including firebombing a bank in Amsterdam and stabbing Jewish men in London, has been arrested and charged with supporting Iran-backed terrorist organizations.
According to a complaint unsealed Friday in federal court in Manhattan, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi sought to attack a New York City synagogue last month and provided an undercover law enforcement officer with photos and maps of Jewish centers in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Arizona, that he planned to target.
Al-Saadi is also accused of involvement in two recent attacks in Canada: an attack on a synagogue and a shooting at the U.S. consulate in Toronto in March. U.S. prosecutors said he directed and urged other people to attack U.S. and Israeli interests, including by killing Americans and Jews.
Al-Saadi posted about the attacks on Snapchat and Telegram and spoke about them in phone calls recorded by an FBI informant whose help he solicited in planning attacks in the U.S., the complaint said. Al-Saadi told the informant he was willing to kill people in any such attacks, the complaint said.
Al-Saadi, 32, is charged with conspiracy to provide material support to Kata’ib Hizballah, an Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militant group, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, both of which have been designated by the U.S. government as foreign terrorist organizations. U.S. prosecutors said Al-Saadi was a Kata’ib Hizballah commander.
He is also charged with conspiring and providing material support for acts of terrorism and conspiring to bomb a place of public use. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
Al-Saadi smiled throughout his initial court appearance but did not speak.
Through his lawyer, he called himself a political prisoner and a prisoner of war and said the U.S. is persecuting him for his relationship with Qasem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2020.
Al-Saadi was not required to enter a plea. He will remain jailed but could request bail.
His lawyer, Andrew Dalack, said Al-Saadi was arrested in Turkey and turned over to U.S. authorities. In his statement, Patel thanked U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, calling him “instrumental in bringing this successful mission home to the United States.”
Al-Saadi has been kept in solitary confinement since he arrived at a federal jail in Brooklyn on Thursday night, Dalack said, adding that such treatment was “unusual given the nature of charges in the complaint.”
According to the complaint, Al-Saadi and unnamed associates planned, coordinated, and claimed responsibility for a barrage of attacks in the name of Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, a component of Kata’ib Hizballah, since the war started on Feb. 28.
They include the bombing of a Bank of New York Mellon building in Amsterdam in mid-March and a thwarted bomb attack on a Bank of America office in Paris on March 28, the complaint said. Teenage suspects were previously arrested in both cases.
The Amsterdam attack caused a fire and significant damage to the building, but no injuries, according to local media reports. It followed an explosion outside a Jewish school in Amsterdam, which Al-Saadi celebrated on Snapchat with an Ashab al-Yamin-branded video showing the blast and the assailants fleeing on a motorcycle, the criminal complaint said.
In Paris, police found a homemade bomb consisting of a gasoline-filled container taped to a powerful firework. Forensic experts said the device contained 650 grams (about 23 ounces) of explosives and that it could have produced a large fireball and ignited a significant blaze.
Last month, Al-Saadi set his sights on bombing Jewish sites in the U.S. and offered the undercover law enforcement officer $10,000 in cryptocurrency for what he envisioned as simultaneous attacks on the New York synagogue and the Jewish centers in Arizona and California, the criminal complaint said.
After paying the officer an initial installment of $3,000 for the synagogue attack, Al-Saadi encouraged him to strike as soon as possible, telling him in an April 6 text message: “I wanna see good news tonight . . . not tomorrow bro,” the complaint said.
Tennessee
Man pleads guilty in shooting death of rapper Young Dolph at a Memphis bakery
MEMPHIS, Tenn, (AP) — A Tennessee man pleaded guilty on Friday in the shooting death of Young Dolph during a daytime ambush at a Memphis bakery, marking an end to courtroom battles stemming from the rapper and music label owner’s shocking killing in his hometown more than four years ago.
Cornelius Smith Jr., 36, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a Memphis courtroom under an agreement with prosecutors that dropped other charges against him, according to a press release from the district attorney’s office. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison as part of the plea deal.
Smith and another man, Justin Johnson, were charged with first-degree murder in the November 2021 killing of Young Dolph at his favorite cookie shop, located near his childhood home in a working-class Memphis neighborhood.
Smith was the main witness in the trial of Johnson, who was convicted of first-degree murder in 2024 after Smith named him as the second shooter. Johnson was sentenced in September 2024 to life in prison. Johnson was later sentenced for two other convictions from the trial: conspiracy to commit murder and possession of a gun as a felon.
Smith also testified at the trial of Hernandez Govan, who was acquitted in August of charges that he organized the killing.
Young Dolph, whose legal name is Adolph Thornton Jr., was a rapper, independent label owner and producer who grew up in Memphis and was admired in the city for his charitable works. The 36-year-old was in his hometown to hand out Thanksgiving turkeys to families when he was killed.
The shooting stunned the entertainment world as another death of a rap star killed in their prime, like Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G. and Nipsey Hussle.
Authorities said two men exited a white Mercedes-Benz and began shooting at the rapper at the bakery. He died after being shot about 20 times, according to a medical examiner’s report.
Prosecutors have portrayed the killing as part of an effort by Anthony “Big Jook” Mims to get revenge on Young Dolph for diss tracks aimed at Big Jook and the record label he helped run for his brother, rapper Yo Gotti. Smith has testified that Big Jook put out a $100,000 hit on Young Dolph as well as smaller bounties on all the artists at Young Dolph’s record label, Paper Route Empire.
At the trial of Justin Johnson, a prosecutor told jurors that Cocaine Muzik Group (now known as Collective Music Group), a rival record label founded by Yo Gotti, wanted Young Dolph to work for them, but he turned them down.
Big Jook was shot and killed outside a restaurant in January 2024. No arrests have been made in his death, and he was never charged in Young Dolph’s killing.
Smith has testified that, “I didn’t know anything about Paper Route having no hits,” before Govan told him about them. He said Govan hired him to “do the hits” and was going to take $10,000 as his cut.
But the jury in Govan’s trial was not convinced that he organized the killings.
Supreme Court sends closely watched Native American voting rights decision back to lower court
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court acted in a Voting Rights Act case brought by Native American tribes on Monday, saying a closely watched ruling needs to be reconsidered after the high court weakened the Civil Rights-era law.
The justices ordered lower courts to take another look at the decision that went against the tribes and undercut a key enforcement mechanism: lawsuits from voters and advocacy groups.
Advocacy groups are key players because they bring most of the lawsuits filed under the provision of the Voting Rights Act known as Section 2.
But in a North Dakota case brought by two Native American tribes, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that only the federal government can sue to enforce the law.
The decision conflicted with decades of case law. The Supreme Court blocked it in July, allowing the tribes’ preferred maps to temporarily stay in place.
The appeals court’s finding has nevertheless been cited elsewhere, with Mississippi making a similar argument in another appeal over its state legislative map. The court also sent that case back for reconsideration on Monday.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the decision, writing that both rulings should have been reversed.
The conservative majority, meanwhile, has already diluted enforcement power with their April decision that struck down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana and made future cases much harder to win.
In that case, the high court’s conservative majority ruled that map relied too heavily on race with a district aimed at giving Black voters a chance to elect a candidate of their choice. The decision effectively limited Voting Rights claims to maps that are intentionally designed to discriminate, a very high standard.
Washington
Supreme Court rejects appeals from drug manufacturers over Medicare price negotiations
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected appeals from pharmaceutical companies that object to negotiating Medicare drug prices with the federal government.
The justices did not comment in leaving in place rulings from the federal appeals court in Philadelphia that dismissed the drug manufacturers’ claims.
The negotiation program was created as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which capped years of debate over whether the federal government should be allowed to haggle directly with pharmaceutical companies over the prices of drugs in Medicare.
The law required the government to negotiate prices for certain high-cost drugs in the federal insurance program for older adults on an annual basis, with the first deals going into effect in 2026.
Not a single Republican voted for the legislation, which was signed by Democratic President Joe Biden. Republicans have been harshly critical of aspects of the law, and Republican President Donald Trump has rolled back programs favoring alternative energy sources.
But the administration has embraced the authority to bring drugmakers to the negotiating table.
So far, the government has negotiated prices for 25 prescription drugs covered by Medicare, including the massively popular GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs, Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy. In January, the Trump administration announced drugs targeted for a third round of the program, which would bring the total number of drugs with lower prices for Medicare enrollees to 40.
Pharmaceutical companies have forcefully pushed back on the program, arguing policymakers wanting to lower costs should instead rein in insurers and third-party pharmacy benefit managers.
But in the absence of court intervention, stopping the program may require an act of Congress. The statute creating the program doesn’t specify an end date.
New York
Iraqi man accused of NYC synagogue plot after attacks in Europe, Canada
NEW YORK (AP) — An Iraqi national accused of plotting at least 18 terror attacks in Europe in retaliation for the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, including firebombing a bank in Amsterdam and stabbing Jewish men in London, has been arrested and charged with supporting Iran-backed terrorist organizations.
According to a complaint unsealed Friday in federal court in Manhattan, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi sought to attack a New York City synagogue last month and provided an undercover law enforcement officer with photos and maps of Jewish centers in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Arizona, that he planned to target.
Al-Saadi is also accused of involvement in two recent attacks in Canada: an attack on a synagogue and a shooting at the U.S. consulate in Toronto in March. U.S. prosecutors said he directed and urged other people to attack U.S. and Israeli interests, including by killing Americans and Jews.
Al-Saadi posted about the attacks on Snapchat and Telegram and spoke about them in phone calls recorded by an FBI informant whose help he solicited in planning attacks in the U.S., the complaint said. Al-Saadi told the informant he was willing to kill people in any such attacks, the complaint said.
Al-Saadi, 32, is charged with conspiracy to provide material support to Kata’ib Hizballah, an Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militant group, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, both of which have been designated by the U.S. government as foreign terrorist organizations. U.S. prosecutors said Al-Saadi was a Kata’ib Hizballah commander.
He is also charged with conspiring and providing material support for acts of terrorism and conspiring to bomb a place of public use. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
Al-Saadi smiled throughout his initial court appearance but did not speak.
Through his lawyer, he called himself a political prisoner and a prisoner of war and said the U.S. is persecuting him for his relationship with Qasem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2020.
Al-Saadi was not required to enter a plea. He will remain jailed but could request bail.
His lawyer, Andrew Dalack, said Al-Saadi was arrested in Turkey and turned over to U.S. authorities. In his statement, Patel thanked U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, calling him “instrumental in bringing this successful mission home to the United States.”
Al-Saadi has been kept in solitary confinement since he arrived at a federal jail in Brooklyn on Thursday night, Dalack said, adding that such treatment was “unusual given the nature of charges in the complaint.”
According to the complaint, Al-Saadi and unnamed associates planned, coordinated, and claimed responsibility for a barrage of attacks in the name of Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, a component of Kata’ib Hizballah, since the war started on Feb. 28.
They include the bombing of a Bank of New York Mellon building in Amsterdam in mid-March and a thwarted bomb attack on a Bank of America office in Paris on March 28, the complaint said. Teenage suspects were previously arrested in both cases.
The Amsterdam attack caused a fire and significant damage to the building, but no injuries, according to local media reports. It followed an explosion outside a Jewish school in Amsterdam, which Al-Saadi celebrated on Snapchat with an Ashab al-Yamin-branded video showing the blast and the assailants fleeing on a motorcycle, the criminal complaint said.
In Paris, police found a homemade bomb consisting of a gasoline-filled container taped to a powerful firework. Forensic experts said the device contained 650 grams (about 23 ounces) of explosives and that it could have produced a large fireball and ignited a significant blaze.
Last month, Al-Saadi set his sights on bombing Jewish sites in the U.S. and offered the undercover law enforcement officer $10,000 in cryptocurrency for what he envisioned as simultaneous attacks on the New York synagogue and the Jewish centers in Arizona and California, the criminal complaint said.
After paying the officer an initial installment of $3,000 for the synagogue attack, Al-Saadi encouraged him to strike as soon as possible, telling him in an April 6 text message: “I wanna see good news tonight . . . not tomorrow bro,” the complaint said.
Tennessee
Man pleads guilty in shooting death of rapper Young Dolph at a Memphis bakery
MEMPHIS, Tenn, (AP) — A Tennessee man pleaded guilty on Friday in the shooting death of Young Dolph during a daytime ambush at a Memphis bakery, marking an end to courtroom battles stemming from the rapper and music label owner’s shocking killing in his hometown more than four years ago.
Cornelius Smith Jr., 36, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a Memphis courtroom under an agreement with prosecutors that dropped other charges against him, according to a press release from the district attorney’s office. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison as part of the plea deal.
Smith and another man, Justin Johnson, were charged with first-degree murder in the November 2021 killing of Young Dolph at his favorite cookie shop, located near his childhood home in a working-class Memphis neighborhood.
Smith was the main witness in the trial of Johnson, who was convicted of first-degree murder in 2024 after Smith named him as the second shooter. Johnson was sentenced in September 2024 to life in prison. Johnson was later sentenced for two other convictions from the trial: conspiracy to commit murder and possession of a gun as a felon.
Smith also testified at the trial of Hernandez Govan, who was acquitted in August of charges that he organized the killing.
Young Dolph, whose legal name is Adolph Thornton Jr., was a rapper, independent label owner and producer who grew up in Memphis and was admired in the city for his charitable works. The 36-year-old was in his hometown to hand out Thanksgiving turkeys to families when he was killed.
The shooting stunned the entertainment world as another death of a rap star killed in their prime, like Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G. and Nipsey Hussle.
Authorities said two men exited a white Mercedes-Benz and began shooting at the rapper at the bakery. He died after being shot about 20 times, according to a medical examiner’s report.
Prosecutors have portrayed the killing as part of an effort by Anthony “Big Jook” Mims to get revenge on Young Dolph for diss tracks aimed at Big Jook and the record label he helped run for his brother, rapper Yo Gotti. Smith has testified that Big Jook put out a $100,000 hit on Young Dolph as well as smaller bounties on all the artists at Young Dolph’s record label, Paper Route Empire.
At the trial of Justin Johnson, a prosecutor told jurors that Cocaine Muzik Group (now known as Collective Music Group), a rival record label founded by Yo Gotti, wanted Young Dolph to work for them, but he turned them down.
Big Jook was shot and killed outside a restaurant in January 2024. No arrests have been made in his death, and he was never charged in Young Dolph’s killing.
Smith has testified that, “I didn’t know anything about Paper Route having no hits,” before Govan told him about them. He said Govan hired him to “do the hits” and was going to take $10,000 as his cut.
But the jury in Govan’s trial was not convinced that he organized the killings.
