Justice Stephen Breyer celebrated his 83rd birthday over the weekend, sustaining his position as the oldest current justice. Here’s a look back into some of his most notable decisions 1/8
A member of the court’s liberal wing, Breyer helped advance LGBT rights by joining the landmark 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage and most recently the 2020 decision protecting gay and transgender employees from workplace discrimination reut.rs/37Uz521 2/8
Justice Breyer helped uphold the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, in Republican-backed challenges to its legality reut.rs/3D9kxKq 3/8
Breyer authored two high-profile rulings in 2016 and 2020 striking down Republican-backed laws in Texas and Louisiana that sought to impose restrictions on clinics and doctors who perform abortions reut.rs/3ANMTHY 4/8
In 2015, Breyer questioned the constitutionality of capital punishment, noting among other things that the death penalty has been marred by racial discrimination and politics, and that often times the sentence was imposed arbitrarily reut.rs/37SeFXo 5/8
In 2005, Breyer was the swing vote in a pair of cases questioning whether religious displays on public property violated the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which bars governmental endorsement of religion 6/8
Liberal activists urged Breyer to announce his retirement this year voicing their frustration that he didn’t bear in mind the precarious nature of Democratic control of the Senate, a suggestion that Breyer has shown no desire to fulfill at this point reut.rs/3srDKls 7/8
Which historical Justice Breyer decisions resonated with you the most? Let us know in the comments 👇 8/8
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Former US President Donald Trump's election interference case in Georgia may not conclude until the winter of 2024 or early 2025 - during the final run-up to or perhaps even after the next election - the prosecutor leading the case said on Nov. 14 1/6 reut.rs/3uhsyNi
Voters will begin casting their ballots in the fall in the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden 2/6
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis dismissed concerns about the campaign, saying she does not 'consider an election cycle or an election season' when bringing criminal cases 3/6
Billionaire Elon Musk renamed social media network Twitter as X on July 24 and unveiled a new logo for the social media platform, a stylized black-and-white version of the letter 1/5 https://t.co/ZJ3Txn6iOhreut.rs/4770A5E
But his decision to rebrand Twitter as X could be complicated legally: companies including Meta and Microsoft already have intellectual property rights to the same letter 2/5
X is so widely used and cited in trademarks that it is a candidate for legal challenges - and the social media company formerly known as Twitter could face its own issues defending its X brand in the future 3/5
The US Supreme Court handed President Joe Biden a painful defeat, blocking his plan to cancel $430 billion in student loan debt, a move intended to benefit 43 million Americans and fulfill a campaign promise 1/5 https://t.co/qjN4Ei0dUQreut.rs/44n2mO0
In a 6-3 decision, the justices ruled against Biden favoring six conservative-leaning states that objected to the policy. The court's action dealt a blow to the 26 million US borrowers who applied for relief after Biden announced the plan in August 2022 2/5
Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina challenged Biden's debt relief, as did two individual borrowers opposed to the plan's eligibility requirements. The court acted on its final day of rulings in its term that began in October 3/5
In a rare move to block a large pharmaceutical deal, the US Federal Trade Commission said it filed a lawsuit to stop Amgen’s $27.8 billion acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics reut.rs/430DZoz 1/5
In its complaint, the FTC said Amgen would be able to leverage the powerful position it has with insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers who want access to its blockbuster drugs to pressure them into favorable terms for Horizon's two key products 2/5
Amgen announced plans to buy Horizon in December, saying that its rare disease drugs would offer it some protection from the drug pricing provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which are aimed drugs most widely used by the government's Medicare health plan 3/5
The U.S. Forest Service can go ahead with a plan to shoot dozens of feral cattle from helicopters in New Mexico's Gila Wilderness after a federal judge on Feb. 22 refused a request by ranchers for an emergency order to stop the cull reut.rs/41nkh6I@ClarkMindock 1/5
Cattle ranchers and local business owners told U.S. District Judge James Browning that the four-day hunt of about 150 stray or unbranded cows, due to start today, would violate federal laws and Forest Service regulations and likely kill cows they own 2/5
Judge Browning told the plaintiffs that they were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their case and that of the approximately 300 cattle removed or killed over the last several decades 'only one has been branded, and it was removed rather than killed' 3/5
A 2-1 panel of the 4th Circuit ruled that a pair of South Carolina laws that allowed elementary and secondary school students to be criminally charged for behaviors like cursing or acting in a 'disorderly' or 'boisterous' were unconstitutional reut.rs/3ExGaWZ 1/5
The federal appeals court held the laws failed to provide students notice of what behaviors might expose them to criminal charges and lacked sufficient safeguards to prevent arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement 2/5
U.S. Circuit Judge Toby Heytens, writing for the majority, said the laws were too vague to provide elementary and secondary school students due process under the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment 3/5