Washington
Supreme Court settles long-running water dispute over Rio Grande
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has approved a settlement package designed to rein in groundwater pumping along one of North America’s longest rivers and ensure enough water reliably makes it from New Mexico to Texas, ending a long-running dispute over management of the Rio Grande.
In a brief order Tuesday, the court accepted the recommendation of a special master to move forward with agreements first proposed last year by New Mexico, Texas and Colorado.
The settlement calls for reducing groundwater pumping along the dwindling river and retiring water rights from irrigated farmland in southern New Mexico. The states held up the proposal as a promise to restore order to an elaborate system of storing and sharing water between two vast irrigation districts in southern New Mexico and western Texas.
Researchers have warned that unsustainable use of the Rio Grande — which originates in Colorado and stretches south into Mexico — threatens water security for millions of people who rely on the binational river basin.
Farmers in southern New Mexico increasingly have turned to groundwater to irrigate pecan orchards and chile crops as hotter, drier conditions have reduced river flows and storage over recent decades. That pumping is what prompted Texas to sue in 2013, claiming the practice was cutting into water deliveries.
While the Colorado River gets all the headlines, experts say the situation along the Rio Grande is just as dire. Stretches of the river as far north as Albuquerque are expected to go dry again this year, marking the third time in five years.
Officials with the New Mexico Department of Justice and the state engineer’s office did not immediately answers emails Wednesday about the court’s order. They have previously said the agreements will allow water conservation decisions to be made locally while avoiding a doomsday scenario of billion-dollar payouts on water shortfalls.
The settlement package provides for a detailed accounting system for sharing water with Texas. New Mexico could rely on credits and debits from year to year to navigate through drought and wet periods, though it could be responsible for additional water-sharing obligations if deliveries are deferred too long.
Under the settlement, New Mexico must reduce annual groundwater depletions by 18,200 acre-feet, or about 5.9 billion gallons (22.3 billion liters).
Officials expect to achieve most of the necessary reductions from buying water rights from willing sellers, meaning more than 14 square miles (36 square kilometers) of farmland would be retired.
Other details — and the price tag — still are being worked out, but top water managers have repeatedly told New Mexico lawmakers that it will take “an all hands on deck approach.”
“The problems that we face with water are problems we can’t face unless we work together,” Hannah Riseley-White, director of the Interstate Stream Commission, told a group of water experts during a meeting in March.
She mentioned a combination of long-term fallowing programs, water conservation and more efficient irrigation infrastructure.
Washington
Biden sues DOJ to stop release of audio recordings and transcripts tied to special counsel probe
WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden sued the Justice Department on Tuesday in an effort to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of the former president’s interview with a ghostwriter that were obtained by the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified documents.
Biden’s lawyers said in a lawsuit filed in Washington’s federal court that the Justice Department plans to release the files to Congress and a conservative group, the Heritage Foundation, after the department had previously argued that they were exempt from disclosure under the public records law.
Biden’s lawyers argued that the disclosure would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of President Biden’s privacy.”
“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” his attorneys wrote. “And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.”
At issue in the case are audio recordings and transcripts of Biden’s interviews at his home in 2016 and 2017 with Mark Zwonitzer, who worked with Biden on his two memoirs. The files were scrutinized by special counsel Robert Hur as part of his investigation into the president’s improper retention of classified documents, from his time as a senator and as vice president.
Hur’s yearlong investigation led to a 345-page report that questioned Biden’s age and mental competence but recommended no criminal charges against the then-81-year-old. Hur said he found insufficient evidence to successfully prosecute a case in court.
Biden has separately fought the release of the audio of his interview with Hur. The House in 2024 voted to hold Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over that audio after the White House exerted executive privilege, shielding it from Congress.
The transcripts of five hours of Biden interviews with federal prosecutors was released that same year. While Biden was adamant that he treated classified information seriously, the transcript shows that he was at times fuzzy about dates and details and he said he was unfamiliar with the paper trail for some of the sensitive documents he handled.
Republicans have argued Biden was being given a pass by his own Justice Department and that Trump had been unfairly victimized by prosecutors. Democrats, for their part, stressed Biden’s cooperation in the investigation and strongly contrasted that with the separate criminal case against Trump, who was accused of refusing to return classified documents requested by the National Archives that he had at his Florida estate.
Washington
Supreme Court rejects Meta’s appeal in Vermont social media addiction case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a push to avoid a lawsuit alleging that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users, a decision that comes as social media companies increasingly face legal scrutiny.
Parent company Meta Platforms Inc. appealed after Vermont’s highest court allowed a suit filed by its attorney general in 2023 to move forward. The company is facing similar lawsuits from states across the country, accusing it of knowingly designing addictive features.
Meta had argued that it can’t be sued in Vermont court because neither the company nor the app design has specific ties to the state. Vermont countered that the sites’ large number of teen users gives its courts jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. The procedural decision comes after court losses for Meta and YouTube in social media addiction lawsuits in California and New Mexico.
Vermont’s lawsuit was filed after an investigation by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general in several states. Newspaper reports based on Meta’s own research also found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues. One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.
Almost all teens ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with about a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center.
Meta, for its part, has said that it has already introduced dozens of tools to support teens and their families and suggested it would have worked with the states on standards for youth social media use.
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark applauded the decision, saying it affirms “that companies that choose to do business in Vermont, like Meta, can be held accountable when they harm kids.”
Hawaii
Lawyer says tourist accused of hurling rock at Hawaiian monk seal has been doxed and threatened
HONOLULU (AP) — The defense attorney for a tourist from Washington state accused of hurling a coconut-sized rock at an endangered Hawaiian monk seal says his client was trying to protect sea turtles and has since been physically assaulted, threatened and doxed.
Igor Lytvynchuk, 38, of Covington, Washington, is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Honolulu Wednesday on charges of harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal.
Earlier this month, a witness recorded what prosecutors say was a video of him throwing the rock at a Hawaiian monk seal at a Maui beach. He later made arrangements to surrender in the Seattle area as special agents with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were seeking to arrest him, prosecutors said.
The video drew widespread condemnation and demands for prosecution in Hawaii, including from Maui’s mayor. Scientists identified the seal as an adult male known as “R404,” NOAA said.
According to prosecutors, a state Department of Land and Natural Resources officer investigated a report of Hawaiian monk seal harassment in Lahaina, the community that was largely destroyed by a deadly wildfire in 2023. A witness showed the officer video of the seal swimming in shallow water while a man watched from shore.
The video showed Lytvynchuk throwing the rock, described by a witness as the size of a coconut, directly at the seal, narrowly missing its head, prosecutors said in a criminal complaint.
When a witness confronted Lytvynchuk, he said “he did not care and was ‘rich’ enough to pay any fines,” according to the complaint.
Afterward, a man “brutally assaulted” Lytvynchuk, his defense attorney Myles Breiner told The Associated Press. Lytvynchuk declined to file a police report on the assault, the attorney said.
Breiner explained his client had been to Hawaii previously and was familiar with sea turtles, but not Hawaiian monk seals. Lytvynchuk is a fisherman and thought the seal was an aggressive sea lion, the lawyer said.
“So his response was not to hurt this monk seal, but to get it away from the turtles,” Breiner said.
The incident shows NOAA must do more to educate the public about protecting Hawaiian monk seals, Hawaii’s U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Since the video surfaced, Lytvynchuk has faced death threats and doxing, including receiving a package at his home containing what appeared to be feces, Breiner said.
He said his client is being treated unfairly because he’s a white outsider. “The vast majority of attacks on monk seal and turtle are by locals,” he said.
Lytvynchuk is charged with violations of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Hawaiian monk seals are a critically endangered species. Only 1,600 remain in the wild.
If convicted, he faces up to one year in prison for each charge. He also faces a fine of up to $50,000 under the Endangered Species Act and a fine of up to $20,000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Supreme Court settles long-running water dispute over Rio Grande
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has approved a settlement package designed to rein in groundwater pumping along one of North America’s longest rivers and ensure enough water reliably makes it from New Mexico to Texas, ending a long-running dispute over management of the Rio Grande.
In a brief order Tuesday, the court accepted the recommendation of a special master to move forward with agreements first proposed last year by New Mexico, Texas and Colorado.
The settlement calls for reducing groundwater pumping along the dwindling river and retiring water rights from irrigated farmland in southern New Mexico. The states held up the proposal as a promise to restore order to an elaborate system of storing and sharing water between two vast irrigation districts in southern New Mexico and western Texas.
Researchers have warned that unsustainable use of the Rio Grande — which originates in Colorado and stretches south into Mexico — threatens water security for millions of people who rely on the binational river basin.
Farmers in southern New Mexico increasingly have turned to groundwater to irrigate pecan orchards and chile crops as hotter, drier conditions have reduced river flows and storage over recent decades. That pumping is what prompted Texas to sue in 2013, claiming the practice was cutting into water deliveries.
While the Colorado River gets all the headlines, experts say the situation along the Rio Grande is just as dire. Stretches of the river as far north as Albuquerque are expected to go dry again this year, marking the third time in five years.
Officials with the New Mexico Department of Justice and the state engineer’s office did not immediately answers emails Wednesday about the court’s order. They have previously said the agreements will allow water conservation decisions to be made locally while avoiding a doomsday scenario of billion-dollar payouts on water shortfalls.
The settlement package provides for a detailed accounting system for sharing water with Texas. New Mexico could rely on credits and debits from year to year to navigate through drought and wet periods, though it could be responsible for additional water-sharing obligations if deliveries are deferred too long.
Under the settlement, New Mexico must reduce annual groundwater depletions by 18,200 acre-feet, or about 5.9 billion gallons (22.3 billion liters).
Officials expect to achieve most of the necessary reductions from buying water rights from willing sellers, meaning more than 14 square miles (36 square kilometers) of farmland would be retired.
Other details — and the price tag — still are being worked out, but top water managers have repeatedly told New Mexico lawmakers that it will take “an all hands on deck approach.”
“The problems that we face with water are problems we can’t face unless we work together,” Hannah Riseley-White, director of the Interstate Stream Commission, told a group of water experts during a meeting in March.
She mentioned a combination of long-term fallowing programs, water conservation and more efficient irrigation infrastructure.
Washington
Biden sues DOJ to stop release of audio recordings and transcripts tied to special counsel probe
WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden sued the Justice Department on Tuesday in an effort to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of the former president’s interview with a ghostwriter that were obtained by the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified documents.
Biden’s lawyers said in a lawsuit filed in Washington’s federal court that the Justice Department plans to release the files to Congress and a conservative group, the Heritage Foundation, after the department had previously argued that they were exempt from disclosure under the public records law.
Biden’s lawyers argued that the disclosure would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of President Biden’s privacy.”
“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” his attorneys wrote. “And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.”
At issue in the case are audio recordings and transcripts of Biden’s interviews at his home in 2016 and 2017 with Mark Zwonitzer, who worked with Biden on his two memoirs. The files were scrutinized by special counsel Robert Hur as part of his investigation into the president’s improper retention of classified documents, from his time as a senator and as vice president.
Hur’s yearlong investigation led to a 345-page report that questioned Biden’s age and mental competence but recommended no criminal charges against the then-81-year-old. Hur said he found insufficient evidence to successfully prosecute a case in court.
Biden has separately fought the release of the audio of his interview with Hur. The House in 2024 voted to hold Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over that audio after the White House exerted executive privilege, shielding it from Congress.
The transcripts of five hours of Biden interviews with federal prosecutors was released that same year. While Biden was adamant that he treated classified information seriously, the transcript shows that he was at times fuzzy about dates and details and he said he was unfamiliar with the paper trail for some of the sensitive documents he handled.
Republicans have argued Biden was being given a pass by his own Justice Department and that Trump had been unfairly victimized by prosecutors. Democrats, for their part, stressed Biden’s cooperation in the investigation and strongly contrasted that with the separate criminal case against Trump, who was accused of refusing to return classified documents requested by the National Archives that he had at his Florida estate.
Washington
Supreme Court rejects Meta’s appeal in Vermont social media addiction case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a push to avoid a lawsuit alleging that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users, a decision that comes as social media companies increasingly face legal scrutiny.
Parent company Meta Platforms Inc. appealed after Vermont’s highest court allowed a suit filed by its attorney general in 2023 to move forward. The company is facing similar lawsuits from states across the country, accusing it of knowingly designing addictive features.
Meta had argued that it can’t be sued in Vermont court because neither the company nor the app design has specific ties to the state. Vermont countered that the sites’ large number of teen users gives its courts jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. The procedural decision comes after court losses for Meta and YouTube in social media addiction lawsuits in California and New Mexico.
Vermont’s lawsuit was filed after an investigation by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general in several states. Newspaper reports based on Meta’s own research also found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues. One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.
Almost all teens ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with about a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center.
Meta, for its part, has said that it has already introduced dozens of tools to support teens and their families and suggested it would have worked with the states on standards for youth social media use.
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark applauded the decision, saying it affirms “that companies that choose to do business in Vermont, like Meta, can be held accountable when they harm kids.”
Hawaii
Lawyer says tourist accused of hurling rock at Hawaiian monk seal has been doxed and threatened
HONOLULU (AP) — The defense attorney for a tourist from Washington state accused of hurling a coconut-sized rock at an endangered Hawaiian monk seal says his client was trying to protect sea turtles and has since been physically assaulted, threatened and doxed.
Igor Lytvynchuk, 38, of Covington, Washington, is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Honolulu Wednesday on charges of harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal.
Earlier this month, a witness recorded what prosecutors say was a video of him throwing the rock at a Hawaiian monk seal at a Maui beach. He later made arrangements to surrender in the Seattle area as special agents with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were seeking to arrest him, prosecutors said.
The video drew widespread condemnation and demands for prosecution in Hawaii, including from Maui’s mayor. Scientists identified the seal as an adult male known as “R404,” NOAA said.
According to prosecutors, a state Department of Land and Natural Resources officer investigated a report of Hawaiian monk seal harassment in Lahaina, the community that was largely destroyed by a deadly wildfire in 2023. A witness showed the officer video of the seal swimming in shallow water while a man watched from shore.
The video showed Lytvynchuk throwing the rock, described by a witness as the size of a coconut, directly at the seal, narrowly missing its head, prosecutors said in a criminal complaint.
When a witness confronted Lytvynchuk, he said “he did not care and was ‘rich’ enough to pay any fines,” according to the complaint.
Afterward, a man “brutally assaulted” Lytvynchuk, his defense attorney Myles Breiner told The Associated Press. Lytvynchuk declined to file a police report on the assault, the attorney said.
Breiner explained his client had been to Hawaii previously and was familiar with sea turtles, but not Hawaiian monk seals. Lytvynchuk is a fisherman and thought the seal was an aggressive sea lion, the lawyer said.
“So his response was not to hurt this monk seal, but to get it away from the turtles,” Breiner said.
The incident shows NOAA must do more to educate the public about protecting Hawaiian monk seals, Hawaii’s U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Since the video surfaced, Lytvynchuk has faced death threats and doxing, including receiving a package at his home containing what appeared to be feces, Breiner said.
He said his client is being treated unfairly because he’s a white outsider. “The vast majority of attacks on monk seal and turtle are by locals,” he said.
Lytvynchuk is charged with violations of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Hawaiian monk seals are a critically endangered species. Only 1,600 remain in the wild.
If convicted, he faces up to one year in prison for each charge. He also faces a fine of up to $50,000 under the Endangered Species Act and a fine of up to $20,000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
