The Trump administration on Thursday was dealt its first legal setback in its unprecedented effort to consolidate voter data traditionally held by states.
Federal district Judge David O. Carter dismissed a lawsuit in California that sought to give the Justice Department access to that state's unredacted voter file, which includes sensitive data like Social Security numbers and driver's license data. A district judge in Oregon also said in court Wednesday that he was tentatively planning to do the same there.
California and Oregon are two of 23 states, along with Washington, D.C., that have been sued by the Department of Justice for rebuffing requests for voter data. All states are led by Democrats, or were lost by President Trump in the 2020 election.
The DOJ has argued that it needs unfettered access to the state voter lists to determine whether states are maintaining their voter lists in accordance with federal law. State officials from both major political parties, however, have noted that the federal government has never had access to this data before, and expressed worries about what else the federal government could use the data for.
In an apparent attempt to win back Donald Trump’s favour, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado told reporters she had “presented” her gold Nobel peace prize medal to the US president during a private meeting at the White House on Thursday.
A federal judge on Thursday cleared the way for a New York offshore wind project to resume construction, a victory for the developer who said a Trump administration order to pause it would probably kill the project in a matter of days.
The death of a man who was being held at a federal detention camp in Texas in early January may be investigated as a homicide after the local medical examiner reportedly found the preliminary cause was “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression”.
European troops were arriving in Greenland on Thursday in a show of support, as leaders scrambling to respond to President Donald Trump’s threats were thrown another American curveball.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she presented President Donald Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal during their Jan. 15 meeting at the White House, an extraordinary gesture to try to earn Trump's backing.
With heavy hearts, Bedouins in a West Bank village dismantle their sheep pens and load belongings onto trucks, forced from their homes in the Israeli-occupied territory by rising settler violence.
