Politics
Supreme Court rejects gun rights for people charged with domestic violence
The Supreme Court on Friday put new limits on the 2nd Amendment, ruling that dangerous people who have threatened a domestic partner may be denied their right to have guns.
The 8-1 decision upholds federal and state laws that take away guns from persons who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders.
“Since the founding, our nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms,” said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the court.
The outcome shows that the conservative justices are willing to restrict 2nd Amendment. The court reversed a ruling by the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which had struck down part of the Violence Against Women Act. The law authorizes judges to remove guns from persons who pose a “credible threat” to a domestic partner or a child.
In the past, gun rights advocates had argued that a responsible and law-abiding person has a right to have a gun for self-defense, and the Supreme Court had agreed. Two years ago, the justices ruled in favor of gun owners in New York and said they had a right to seek a permit to carry a concealed gun with them when leaving home.
But the justices were not willing to rule that the 2nd Amendment protects the rights of dangerous people who have threatened others.
“An individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the 2nd Amendment,” the chief justice said. Equally important, seven other justices were willing to sign on to his opinion.
Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of the New York opinion two years ago, dissented alone on Friday.
The defendant in the case before the court could not be easily described as law-abiding or responsible. Texas police said Zackey Rahimi was a drug dealer who had shot at people and cars five times within a month in December 2020.
They said he had fired into the house of a man who he said had been “talking trash” about him on social media. He also shot at a driver after getting into an auto accident, and fired wildly into the air “after a friend’s credit card was declined at a fast-food restaurant,” prosecutors said.
A year before the five shooting incidents, Rahimi had been brought before a judge in Arlington, Texas, because he had beaten and threatened a girlfriend who had a child with him. He grabbed her in a parking lot, forced her into his car and shot at a bystander who saw what happened. He later threatened to kill the woman if she reported the assault.
The federal Violence Against Women Act of 1994 said judges may enforce restraining orders that take away firearms from someone who has harassed or threatened an “intimate partner” or a child, and who poses a “credible threat.”
The judge issued a restraining order for two years that denied Rahimi the right to have firearms and warned him he would be guilty of a federal crime if he defied the order. Rahimi agreed, but then defied the order, including by threatening the woman again.
When police went to arrest Rahimi for the shooting incidents, they found a .45-caliber pistol, a .308-caliber rifle, magazines for both pistols and rifles, ammunition, approximately $20,000 in cash, and a signed copy of a court restraining order that prohibited him from having firearms.
He was indicted by a federal grand jury, pleaded guilty to violating the restraining order and was sentenced to six years in prison.
But last year,, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for Rahimi, overturning his conviction and declaring unconstitutional the part of the federal law that denied guns to those accused of domestic violence.
The three-judge panel, which included two Donald Trump appointees, agreed it was laudable to “protect vulnerable people in our society,” but said the “the 2nd Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans …. Rahimi, while hardly a model citizen, is nonetheless among the people entitled to the 2nd Amendment’s guarantees.”
Politics
Federal judge blocks Trump from cutting childcare funds to Democratic states over fraud concerns
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A federal judge Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from stopping subsidies on childcare programs in five states, including Minnesota, amid allegations of fraud.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, a Biden appointee, didn’t rule on the legality of the funding freeze, but said the states had met the legal threshold to maintain the “status quo” on funding for at least two weeks while arguments continue.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns.
The programs include the Child Care and Development Fund, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, and the Social Services Block Grant, all of which help needy families.
USDA IMMEDIATELY SUSPENDS ALL FEDERAL FUNDING TO MINNESOTA AMID FRAUD INVESTIGATION
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
“Families who rely on childcare and family assistance programs deserve confidence that these resources are used lawfully and for their intended purpose,” HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill said in a statement on Tuesday.
The states, which include California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, argued in court filings that the federal government didn’t have the legal right to end the funds and that the new policy is creating “operational chaos” in the states.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian at his nomination hearing in 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
In total, the states said they receive more than $10 billion in federal funding for the programs.
HHS said it had “reason to believe” that the programs were offering funds to people in the country illegally.
‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’: SENATE REPUBLICANS PRESS GOV WALZ OVER MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
The table above shows the five states and their social safety net funding for various programs which are being withheld by the Trump administration over allegations of fraud. (AP Digital Embed)
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.” (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital has reached out to HHS for comment.
In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.
“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”
“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”
WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.
That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.
Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.
Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.
WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.
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Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leveling a stunning accusation at Vice President JD Vance amid the national furor over this week’s fatal shooting in Minnesota involving an ICE agent.
“I understand that Vice President Vance believes that shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not,” the four-term federal lawmaker from New York and progressive champion argued as she answered questions on Friday on Capitol Hill from Fox News and other news organizations.
Ocasio-Cortez spoke in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good after she confronted ICE agents from inside her car in Minneapolis.
RENEE NICOLE GOOD PART OF ‘ICE WATCH’ GROUP, DHS SOURCES SAY
Members of law enforcement work the scene following a suspected shooting by an ICE agent during federal operations on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Video of the incident instantly went viral, and while Democrats have heavily criticized the shooting, the Trump administration is vocally defending the actions of the ICE agent.
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Vance, at a White House briefing on Thursday, charged that “this was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order.”
“That woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation,” the vice president added. “The president stands with ICE, I stand with ICE, we stand with all of our law enforcement officers.”
And Vance claimed Good was “brainwashed” and suggested she was connected to a “broader, left-wing network.”
Federal sources told Fox News on Friday that Good, who was a mother of three, worked as a Minneapolis-based immigration activist serving as a member of “ICE Watch.”
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Ocasio-Cortez, in responding to Vance’s comments, said, “That is a fundamental difference between Vice President Vance and I. I do not believe that the American people should be assassinated in the street.”
But a spokesperson for the vice president, responding to Ocasio-Cortez’s accusation, told Fox News Digital, “On National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, AOC made it clear she thinks that radical leftists should be able to mow down ICE officials in broad daylight. She should be ashamed of herself. The Vice President stands with ICE and the brave men and women of law enforcement, and so do the American people.”
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