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Meta explores stake in Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica

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Meta explores stake in Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica

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Facebook owner Meta has explored a multibillion-euro investment in eyewear group EssilorLuxottica, as the social media platform intensifies its push to develop smart glasses.

The Silicon Valley company has considered taking a small stake in the €87bn Franco-Italian group, according to multiple people with knowledge of its thinking.

The move comes as Meta has been holding talks with EssilorLuxottica to deepen their existing collaboration following the successful launch of a revamped version of their “Ray-Ban Meta” smart glasses last year, some of the people said.

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Meta’s chief Mark Zuckerberg has spent billions of dollars in recent years to enter the wearable technology market, such as by creating virtual reality headsets. Meanwhile, Paris-listed EssilorLuxottica has also pushed for deals that can attract a new generation of shoppers.

There is no guarantee that any investment will take place, said the people close to the talks. Meta has been working with Morgan Stanley on the matter, according to one of the people.

EssilorLuxottica’s share price jumped nearly 5 per cent on Thursday following the FT’s report.

Meta, EssilorLuxottica and Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

The first Ray-Ban Meta glasses were launched in 2021, but the newest generation launched in October last year sold more in a few months than the previous ones did in two years, EssilorLuxottica’s chief executive Francesco Milleri said at an event earlier this week.

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The latest version of the glasses allows users to livestream what they see directly on to Facebook and Instagram. In the US, the glasses are integrated with Meta’s artificial intelligence assistant, giving owners the ability to ask the glasses for more information about what is in front of them.

This week, EssilorLuxottica agreed to buy US streetwear label Supreme for $1.5bn. People close to the deal said the eyewear group aimed to launch a new version of Supreme smart sunglasses in partnership with Meta, to better target young consumers.

Meta and rival Apple are vying to build unintrusive augmented reality glasses that could one day replace the smartphone as the next-generation computing device, but the technology is nascent and consumers have been reluctant to wear cumbersome devices on their face.

Zuckerberg said on an April earnings call that the company’s outlook for smart glasses had “improved quite a bit” and that it was one of the “bigger areas” that the company was investing into in its AR and virtual reality department, Reality Labs.

Previously, he had said glasses would need “full holographic displays to be a large market”, but that the success of the Meta Ray-Bans had proven otherwise.

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“If we want everyone to be able to use wearable AI, I think eyewear is a bit different from phones or watches in that people are going to want very different designs,” he added. “So I think our approach of partnering with leading eyewear brands will help us serve more of the market.”

EssilorLuxottica, which was created seven years ago through a complex €50bn merger of late Italian billionaire Leonardo Del Vecchio’s eyewear group Luxottica and French lens manufacturer Essilor, has steadily grown larger to become the world’s largest eyewear manufacturer.

Over the past few years, acquisitions of technology and engineering companies have been at the core of its strategy. In 2022 the group acquired Israeli hearing technology start-up Nuance Hearing to develop glasses fitted with its acoustic beamforming technology.

This week, EssilorLuxottica also took an 80 per cent stake in Heidelberg Engineering, a German company specialising in eye surgery technologies, as part of its push into medtech.

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Federal judge bars Trump from implementing proof of citizenship requirement to vote

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Federal judge bars Trump from implementing proof of citizenship requirement to vote

A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote.

The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston effectively converts a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago, in which she temporarily blocked many of Trump’s efforts to overhaul elections, into a permanent ban.

Casper rejected the Republican administration’s argument that the lawsuit to block the changes brought by Democratic state attorneys general was premature because the rules had yet to be put in place. Instead, she agreed that the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to regulate elections, and that Trump’s requirements violated the separation of powers.

The Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” wrote Casper.

Among other proposed changes, Trump’s order would have required people to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote, prevented mail ballots from being counted if they arrive after Election Day, even if they were postmarked by then, and punished states that failed to comply by withholding certain federal money.

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In a statement, New York Attorney General Letitia James said she was grateful the court had blocked Trump’s “unconstitutional attempt to seize control of our elections” and would continue to defend voting rights in this year’s midterm elections.

“Generations of Americans fought tirelessly for the right to vote, and we honor their legacy by protecting that right against anyone who tries to undermine it,” said James, a Democrat.

A voter casts a ballot during New York’s primary election on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

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California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose state was the lead plaintiff in the case, said the ruling reaffirmed the constitutional principle that it s up to the states and Congress to set election rules.

“While we are proud of this result, we are clear-eyed that President Trump’s attacks on voting rights and our elections show no signs of slowing down,” Bonta, a Democrat, said in a statement. “So let me be clear: we will keep fighting back every step of the way.”

Requests for comment sent to the White House and he U.S. Department of Justice were not immediately returned.

The ruling was the latest in a series against the elections executive order Trump signed just months after taking office for his second term. The Republican president has since signed another executive order on elections that seeks to create a national voter list and limit mail balloting. That directive also faces multiple legal challenges.

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Last fall, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., overseeing a separate challenge to the first election executive order by civil rights and Democratic Party-aligned groups blocked the government from taking steps to include the proof-of-citizenship requirement on the federal voter registration form. That judge later barred Trump’s defense secretary from requiring documentary proof of citizenship when military personnel register to vote or request ballots.

In an apparent nod to the difficulty of implementing a proof-of-citizen requirement by executive order, Trump is pushing legislation in the Republican-controlled Congress to create such a mandate. The SAVE America Act has passed the House but has stalled in the Senate, leading Trump to advocate for eliminating the filibuster that is blocking the legislation.

On Wednesday, he abruptly canceled the expected signing of a bipartisan housing bill, saying he would not sign legislation until Congress passes his proof of citizenship requirement for voting.

The president and many of his Republican allies have been promoting the narrative that voting by noncitizens is a major problem, when in fact it’s quite rare. The federal voter registration form already requires people to attest that they are U.S. citizens. Violating that is punishable as a felony that can lead to prison or deportation.

In another major voting case, the U.S. Supreme Court is due to issue an opinion soon on whether mail ballots must arrive by Election Day. That could immediately change the rules in 14 states that allow grace periods ranging from days to weeks if the ballots are postmarked by Election Day.

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Casper, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, is the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

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Video: Mamdani Allies Sweep New York Primaries

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Video: Mamdani Allies Sweep New York Primaries

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Mamdani Allies Sweep New York Primaries

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s progressive coalition had a big night on Tuesday. Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez won their Democratic House primaries.

“I see a New York that we can all afford. I see a New York that truly invests in its babies, not bombs.” Reporter: “What’s the first thing you’re looking forward to doing in Congress?” “Well, tomorrow — thank you — I mean, tomorrow morning, you know, I’m going to be back at 26 Federal Plaza doing court watching, and we want to carry that into Congress as well.”

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s progressive coalition had a big night on Tuesday. Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez won their Democratic House primaries.

By Julie Yoon

June 24, 2026

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Appeals court allows Trump administration expanded use of speedy deportations

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Appeals court allows Trump administration expanded use of speedy deportations

A massive 826,780-square-foot warehouse sits illuminated Feb. 12, 2026, in the El Paso suburb of Socorro, Texas, that was recently purchased by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for $122.8 million.

Morgan Lee/AP


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Morgan Lee/AP

A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to resume carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants throughout the United States, not just near the border.

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out a lower court decision that temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s expanded use of expedited removal. The ruling was a big victory for the Republican administration, which views the expansion of so-called expedited removal as a key tool for carrying out its mass deportation policy.

Expedited removal — quick deportation without a chance to appear before a judge — has previously been applied to migrants arriving by sea or caught at or near the border shortly after crossing.

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In January, Trump expanded its use to undocumented migrants all over the United States. Immigration agents began whisking migrants away from courthouses where they had gone for immigration proceedings and then removing them from the country within days.

“The Trump administration’s push for fast-track deportations will subject people to an unfair and error-prone system,” Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.

Balakrishnan represented plaintiffs in arguments before the appellate panel and said its ruling “undermines the fundamental principle that people receive due process when the government seeks to deport them.”

DC Circuit Judge Justin R. Walker, one of the judges on the panel, said the plaintiffs had not shown the expanded use of expedited removal violated due process rights. Immigrants received notice of removal proceedings and were given a chance to respond, he wrote in his opinion.

Walker and the second judge in the majority, Neomi Rao, were appointed by Trump. The third judge on the panel was appointed by President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

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Walker said there was no requirement that the administration inform immigrants that they can avoid expedited removal if they can show they have been in the United States for more than two years.

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