Ukrainians in the United States are making donations, sending money to relatives and mulling how they could get family out of a war zone, as they call on President Joe Biden and the wider world to do more to thwart Russia’s invasion.

Around 1 million people in America are of Ukrainian descent with communities dotted around the country, including in Los Angeles, where hundreds have demonstrated against Moscow’s attack.

The Los Angeles diaspora boasts churches, both Catholic and Orthodox, a culture center, delicatessen and other businesses run and used by people both born and raised in Ukraine, alongside their descendents.

Holding a Ukrainian flag and wearing a sweatband and clothes in the blue and yellow of her native land, Oryssia Prokopovych, 57, who has been in the United States for decades, said she was doing whatever she can to help.

“I’m sending money to support the medical groups in Ukraine so they can buy necessary things for people that will be wounded because there are already casualties,” she said during a protest.

Her relatives in the west of the country did not want to leave, a message received by other diaspora Ukrainians Reuters spoke with, but she said that it could yet be necessary.

“They are close to the Polish border,” she said, referring to the city of Lviv, where the United States and others moved their embassy staff as fears grew about their safety in Kyiv.

“In the worst case, they possibly can go to Poland and then we will think about moving them to the States,” she said.

The logistics of leaving a country when roads are choked with traffic trying to flee, airports are closed, and the financial system has been hit by cyberattacks are ridden with obstacles.

“A lot of my friends and family stay over there right now because it is hard to leave,” said Olga Zimakova, 31, an aesthetician, who was born in Ukraine and now lives in America. “Right now, it’s hard to get money out of the bank.”

Others are resigned to their inability to fly out and are eying what they can do from the other side of the world to help.

“Maybe in the near future … we will send some things and we will help our families,” said a 37-year-old who gave his name as Andrew, his young child strapped to him in a baby carrier.

With family in Ukraine and Russia, Thursday’s invasion brings back memories of past expulsions, which have hit peoples in the former Soviet Union for many decades in the past.

“The Soviet regime in the 1940s, 1950s, sent out my family from Crimea,” said Andrew. “They are native Crimeans. My grandmother, she married a Russian guy … so my mother is half Crimean and half Russian.”

Crimea, which was part of the Soviet empire until the early 1990s, was controlled by the Ukrainian government until 2014, when it was annexed by Russia.

‘SANCTIONS ARE A JOKE’

After President Vladimir Putin recognized two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine as independent earlier this week, Western nations applied more sanctions but wanted to stop an invasion by holding back the strictest measures as a deterrent.

“I think they need to go all-out. Everything they can right now,” said Lily Berg, 41, a software engineer, who said she was attending a protest for the first time in her life.

“If they just tighten little by little it’s not going to do enough.”

The Biden administration has announced new sanctions and sweeping export restrictions, hammering Russia’s access to global exports of goods from commercial electronics and computers to semiconductors and aircraft parts.

But for some Ukrainians in Los Angeles, the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two prompted them to draw parallels with Adolf Hitler’s invasions across the continent and said the world’s response to Russia’s leader must be stronger.

“Sanctions is a joke for Putin,” said Ivan Galt, 26, who runs an appliance repair businesses and has been in the United States for six years. “He already announced war to the world. How can you stop Hitler only by blocking his banks?”

“We need big military support. We need guns to defend our country.”

SOURCE: REUTERS

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 Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Coons, who chairs the Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign aid, said on Friday he would support an emergency spending bill of $10 billion or more to address the crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It would be a wild guess on my part, but I would be supportive of an emergency supplemental of at least $10 billion, if not more, to meet these vital security and humanitarian needs,” Coons told a call with journalists just after returning from a weeklong trip to Europe.

Listing issues, including millions of refugees who may flood into other countries, the cost of enacting and enforcing sanctions, humanitarian support for Ukraine and military support for Ukraine and NATO states in eastern Europe, Coons said, “So $10 billion is probably on the low end, because I’m not factoring in what may be a robust defense-side request.

“There is strong enthusiasm to provide ongoing resupply and training and whatever other covert and overt support is necessary and appropriate for the Ukrainian resistance,” he said.

Coons stressed that he would not support shifting billions from existing programs to cover Ukraine-related costs, given the ongoing global coronavirus health crisis and international food insecurity issues, funding for which needs to be replenished.

Coons is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee that handles funding for diplomatic and aid programs. Departing from recent party divisions, both President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats and opposition Republicans have expressed strong support for sharp increases in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, with some calling for passage of an emergency supplemental spending bill as soon as next week.

The Biden administration has not yet said how much money it would like Congress to appropriate for the crisis.

Russian missiles pounded Kyiv on Friday, families cowered in shelters and authorities told residents to prepare Molotov cocktails to defend Ukraine’s capital from an assault that the mayor said had already begun with saboteurs in the city.

SOURCE: REUTERS

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Ketanji Brown Jackson, the federal appeals court judge who President Joe Biden is poised to nominate to become the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, brings a diverse set of experiences to the bench, including a stint representing low-income criminal defendants.

Jackson, 51, who Biden last year appointed to an influential Washington-based appellate court, served early in her career as a Supreme Court clerk for Justice Stephen Breyer, whose retirement announced in January opens up a vacancy on the nation’s top judicial body.

As a member of the federal judiciary, Jackson has earned respect from liberals and conservatives alike and is well-connected in the close-knit Washington legal community. Progressives favored her nomination over the other leading candidates: South Carolina-based U.S. District Court judge J. Michelle Childs and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger.

The Senate voted 53-44 in June last year to confirm Jackson as a member of the U.S. Court of the Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In her short time on the appeals court, she has authored two majority opinions, including one in favor of public sector unions challenging a regulation issued during Republican former President Donald Trump’s administration that restricted their bargaining power.

She was part of a three-judge panel that ruled in December against Trump’s bid to prevent White House records from being handed over to the House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters. The Supreme Court on Jan. 20 declined to block that decision.

Jackson also was part of a three-judge panel that refused last August to block the Biden administration’s COVID-19 pandemic-related residential eviction moratorium, a decision that was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

‘PRESIDENTS ARE NOT KINGS’

Jackson previously won Senate confirmation in 2013 after Democratic former President Barack Obama nominated her as a Washington-based federal district judge. In her eight years in that role, she handled a number of high-profile cases including one in which she ruled that Trump’s one-time chief White House lawyer, Donald McGahn, had to comply with a congressional subpoena for testimony about potential Trump obstruction of a special counsel investigation.

“The primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings,” Jackson wrote.

The ruling was appealed and, after Biden took office, a settlement was reached. McGahn testified behind closed doors.

In other decisions, Jackson in 2019 blocked Trump’s plan to expedite removal of certain immigrants and in 2018 ruled against his administration’s proposal to make it easier to fire federal employees – decisions later reversed by the appellate court on which she now serves.

Biden had pledged during the 2020 presidential election campaign to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court. It has had only two Black justices, both men: Clarence Thomas, appointed in 1991 and still serving, and Thurgood Marshall, who retired in 1991 and died in 1993.

During her April 2021 confirmation hearing for her current job, Jackson said her background, both personal and professional, would “bring value” to the bench, though she rejected suggestions by Republican senators that race could affect her rulings.

“I’ve experienced life in perhaps a different way than some of my colleagues because of who I am,” Jackson said.

Three Republican senators joined Biden’s fellow Democrats in voting to confirm Jackson.

Jackson would become the sixth woman ever to serve on the Supreme Court, joining current members Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, the retired Sandra Day O’Connor and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

‘PROFESSIONAL VAGABOND’

Biden has sought to bring more women and minorities and a broader range of backgrounds to a federal judiciary dominated by jurists who had been corporate lawyers or prosecutors.

Jackson was raised in Miami and attended Harvard University, where she once shared a scene in a drama class with future Hollywood star Matt Damon, before graduating from Harvard Law School in 1996.

Jackson in 2017 described herself as a “professional vagabond” earlier in her legal career, moving from job to job as she sought a work-life balance while raising a family. She and husband Patrick Jackson, a surgeon, have two daughters.

She worked from 2005 to 2007 as a court-appointed lawyer paid by the government to represent criminal defendants who could not afford counsel. Among her clients was Khi Ali Gul, an Afghan detainee at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The United States sent him back to Afghanistan in 2014 when she was no longer involved in the case.

Jackson worked from 2002 to 2004 for Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer known for overseeing compensation programs including one for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

She also had two separate stints at the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which issues guidance to judges on criminal sentencing, including a four year stint starting in 2010 as the Senate-confirmed vice chair.

Jackson in 2020 paid tribute to Breyer during a virtual conference in which they both participated, saying he “opened doors of opportunities” not just through his judicial decisions but also by hiring a diverse group of law clerks.

“As a descendant of slaves,” Jackson added, “let me just say that, Justice (Breyer), your thoughtfulness in that regard has made a world of difference.”

Republican former House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, whose brother-in-law is her husband’s twin brother, is among Jackson’s fans.

“Now our politics may differ,” Ryan said at her 2013 Senate confirmation hearing, “but my praise for Ketanji’s intellect, for her character, for her integrity, it is unequivocal.”

SOURCE: REUTERS

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 A new prosecutor has been chosen to lead a criminal probe into former U.S. President Donald Trump, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said on Friday, after the departures of two top lawyers threw the investigation’s future into question.

Susan Hoffinger will now lead the probe into Trump and the practices of his family business, the Trump Organization, according to Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman for Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney.

This week Special Counsel Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz – who had been leading the probe begun by former District Attorney Cyrus Vance – resigned. The New York Times reported they left after Bragg indicated to them he had doubts about pursuing a case against Trump.

Reuters has not been able to reach Dunne or Pomerantz for comment. Ron Fischetti, a lawyer for Trump, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Hoffinger’s appointment. On Wednesday, Fischetti said the departures indicated “the case is over” and that Bragg would not bring charges against Trump.

Both Bragg’s probe and a separate civil investigation by New York State Attorney General Letitia James focus on whether Trump misrepresented the value of his real estate properties. Investigators are looking into whether values were inflated to obtain bank loans and reduced to lower tax bills.

Trump, a Republican who left office in January 2021, has previously denied wrongdoing and said both the state and city investigations were politically motivated. He has not ruled out seeking the presidency again in 2024.

Both Bragg and James are Democrats, as is Vance, who did not seek re-election.

The criminal probe resulted last July in tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization and its longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg. Both Weisselberg and the company pleaded not guilty.

Neither the Trump Organization nor its lawyer Alan Futerfas immediately responded to requests for comment.

Last week, a state judge overseeing James’ probe directed Trump and two of his adult children, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump, to answer questions under oath in depositions. The Trump family will appeal that ruling, their lawyer said.

James said on Friday that the appeal would not affect her team’s investigation.

“Make no mistake: My office will continue to pursue this case without fear or favor because no one is above the law,” James said in a statement.

Hoffinger worked at a private law firm focusing on criminal defense before joining Bragg’s office as executive assistant district attorney and chief of investigations in February, according to her LinkedIn profile. She had previously served in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in the 1990s.

SOURCE: REUTERS

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Three former Minneapolis police officers were found guilty by a federal jury on Thursday of depriving George Floyd of his civil rights by failing to give aid to the handcuffed Black man pinned beneath a colleague’s knee.

The jury also found that the conduct of officers Tou Thao, 36; J. Alexander Kueng, 28; and Thomas Lane, 38, during the arrest on May 25, 2020, caused Floyd’s death, a finding that can affect the severity of their sentence.

It is a rare instance of police officers being held criminally responsible for a colleague’s excessive force. All three men were convicted of denying Floyd’s constitutional right to medical care while in police custody.

Thao and Kueng were also convicted on a charge of denying Floyd’s right to not face excessive force by failing to stop their colleague Derek Chauvin from kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. Chauvin was convicted last year in a state court of Floyd’s murder.

Thao, Kueng and Lane will remain free on bail pending their sentencing hearing, which has yet to be scheduled. Prosecutors have not yet said what sentence they will request, but the men may face years in prison.

“This is just accountability,” Philonise Floyd told reporters after the verdict was read. “It could never be justice because I can never get my brother back.”

The verdict marked a second victory this week for prosecutors in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, coming just two days after a jury in Georgia found three white men guilty of federal hate crimes in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young Black man who was gunned down while running through a mostly white neighborhood.

“That’s historic for our country, because oftentimes officers kill Black and brown men and women, and we get little to no consequences,” said Brandon Williams, George Floyd’s nephew. “A lot of times we don’t even get charges, let alone convictions.”

KILLING SPARKED PROTESTS

Federal prosecutors argued in the U.S. District Court in St. Paul that the men knew from their training and from “basic human decency” that they had a duty to help Floyd as he begged for his life before falling limp beneath Chauvin’s knee.

Floyd’s killing sparked protests in cities around the world against police brutality and racism.

It also led lawmakers to propose such measures as restricting chokeholds, banning “no-knock warrants,” and legislating to curtail the U.S. Supreme Court doctrine known “qualified immunity” that limits lawsuits over police use of excessive force.

Those proposals were included in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed in the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives last year. Philonise Floyd on Thursday again urged lawmakers to pass the measure that has stalled in the Senate, where Democrats are unlikely to get the necessary Republican votes.

Chauvin, who is white, was sentenced to 22-1/2 years in prison last year after a state murder trial. Although race was not part of the state or federal charges, Chauvin’s conviction was seen as a landmark rebuke of the disproportionate use of police force against Black Americans. In December, Chauvin pleaded guilty to the federal charge of violating Floyd’s rights.

Under Chauvin’s plea agreement, federal prosecutors will seek a 25-year sentence, concurrent with his state prison sentence. His three former colleagues are also due to stand trial in Minneapolis in June on state charges of aiding and abetting Floyd’s murder.

BYSTANDER VIDEO

Widely seen cellphone video showed Thao stood steps away from Floyd, rebuffing the demands by horrified onlookers that Chauvin get off Floyd’s neck. Kueng and Lane were to Chauvin’s right, pinning down Floyd’s buttocks and legs.

All three testified in their own defense. Each acknowledged they knew they had a duty of care to people in their custody. But they and their lawyers told jurors they did not realize at the time that Floyd was in dire need of medical aid or that Chauvin’s use of force was excessive.

Prosecutors repeatedly played videos showing Floyd’s distress was plain to bystanders, including children and an off-duty firefighter, who shouted that Floyd was passing out and begging the police to check his pulse.

The three defendants all described deferring to the authority of Chauvin, the most senior officer at the scene with 19 years at the Minneapolis Police Department.

Kueng and Lane, who first handcuffed Floyd on suspicion of using a fake $20 bill in a nearby store, also noted they were rookies only a few days out of training, which lasted more than a year. Thao had been on the force for eight years.

Medical experts have testified that Floyd almost certainly would have survived the arrest if he had been rolled onto his side once the officers restrained him, as the officers acknowledged they had been taught to do.

SOURCE: REUTERS

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 The White House on Thursday announced 10 new steps as part of its year-long drive to strengthen U.S. supply chains against climate shocks and geopolitical tensions, and ensure that China or others cannot weaponize supply chains against the United States.

Senior administration officials said the United States had made good progress since President Joe Biden signed an executive order one year ago that kicked off efforts to bolster domestic production of semiconductor chips, batteries for electric vehicles, rare earth minerals, and pharmaceuticals.

But they said more work was needed to address lingering supply chain challenges and strengthen the domestic industrial base – a process they said would yield some short-term gains but was also focused on longer-term structural changes.

Biden has been personally focused on rebuilding U.S. supply chains after acute supply shortages at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic squeezed the availability of masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment, and a dearth of semiconductors jacked up the cost of cars and sent inflation to 40-year highs.

While the push is aimed at yanking back from China the production of technology and other goods once dominated by the United States, it is also meant to make U.S. supply chains more resilient to climate change and other disruptions, natural or manmade, one of the officials said.

Seven Cabinet agencies were due to publish six reports mapping out plans to address weaknesses in some of the nation’s most crucial supply chains, including transportation, health care, defense and food, the White House said.

One common thread is the need to help small and medium-sized businesses compete and break up the domination by a few large corporations of businesses including meatpacking and distribution, the White House said.

Key steps planned include:

– an Export-Import Bank initiative to boost financing for domestic production of semiconductors, biotech and biomedical products, renewable energy, and energy storage.

– expanding access to capital for small manufacturers through new and existing programs at the Department of the Treasury and the Small Business Administration, including $10 billion in American Rescue Plan funds.

– opening a $450 million Department of Transportation program to pay for improvements at U.S. ports, and funding for other transportation infrastructure projects under the bipartisan infrastructure law.

– a new “Buy American” rule due out in coming weeks that will offer enhanced price preferences and raise the domestic content threshold for a new category of critical products

– use of the Defense Production Act to build and expand the health resources industrial base and reduce the current “critical dependence” on imports for key pharmaceutical products and active pharmaceutical ingredients.

SOURCE: REUTERS

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 A bipartisan group of 22 governors Thursday urged leaders in Congress to move quickly to finalize $52 billion in government funding to subsidize the production of semiconductor chips.

A persistent industry-wide shortage of chips has disrupted production in the automotive and electronics industries, in particular, forcing some firms to scale back production.

“We can all point to industries in our states that have been impacted – from auto manufacturing to consumer electronics, home appliances, medical devices, agriculture, defense and more,” the governors wrote in a letter.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, led the letter, including the governors of California, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, Nevada, North Carolina, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Idaho, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Washington.

The U.S. House on Feb. 4 narrowly passed a bill aimed at increasing American competitiveness with China and $52 billion to boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.

The bill’s passage sets up negotiations with the Senate on compromise legislation, which must pass both chambers before it can be sent to the White House for President Joe Biden’s signature.

The Senate voted 68-32 to pass its own bill – the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act – in June, which includes $52 billion for chips and authorizes $190 billion for U.S. technology and research to compete with China.

“We urge you to take swift bipartisan action to reconcile the two bills to get to the president’s desk for signature. Now is the time for a comprehensive solution to this national

security and economic crisis,” the governors wrote, saying the $52 billion “will help the United States regain our leadership in semiconductor manufacturing.”

The funding includes $2 billion to incentivize production of “mature node” semiconductors used by the auto industry and in medical devices, agricultural machinery and some national defense applications.

Whitmer said in a statement that chips funding is needed because “thousands of jobs up and down the auto supply chain and across multiple industries are at risk.”

SOURCE: REUTERS

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Florida’s House of Representatives was expected to take a final vote on Thursday on a Republican-backed bill that prohibits classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, a measure Democrats denounced as being anti-LGBTQ.

The legislation, referred to by its opponents as the ‘Don’t say gay’ bill, has stirred national controversy as the debate over what schools should teach children about race and gender has grown increasingly partisan.

“Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” the bill states. Parents can sue school districts in violation.

A companion bill also is being considered by the state Senate. If passed by both chambers, it would need to receive Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ signature to become law and take effect in July.

DeSantis, a Republican, seemed to signal his support for the bills formally titled “Parental Rights in Education” at a public event earlier this month.

“Injecting these concepts about choosing your gender…that is just inappropriate for our schools,” he told reporters.

The governor’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

Republican politicians nationally say they want to prevent schools from promoting liberal ideologies to kids, while Democrats argue that policies like the bill proposed in Florida are discriminatory and hateful against minority groups.

Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democratic representative who is gay, called the bill “deeply personal” in a Florida House session on Tuesday.

“Telling schools they can’t say gay or can’t say trans as part of instruction means that we are slowly being erased,” he said.

U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, criticized the bill earlier this month, pledging that his administration would fight to protect the LGBTQ community.

“I want every member of the LGBTQI+ community — especially the kids who will be impacted by this hateful bill — to know that you are loved and accepted just as you are,” the president wrote on Twitter.

Representative Joe Harding, the Republican who introduced the bill, addressed the White House’s criticism in a video statement on Twitter on Feb. 9.

“The bill is designed to keep school districts from talking about these topics before kids are ready to process them,” he said.

SOURCE: REUTERS

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President Joe Biden’s climate-related agenda, already under threat due to congressional failure to pass key legislation, now faces the prospect of a hostile reception at the U.S. Supreme Court that could have lasting consequences on the use of federal power to tackle environmental issues.

The court’s 6-3 conservative majority, suspicious of broad federal agency power, will weigh at oral arguments next Monday the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal- and gas-fired power plants under the landmark Clean Air Act.

An eventual ruling restricting EPA authority could hobble the administration’s ability to curb the power sector’s emissions – representing about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gases.

“Could it be damaging? If it’s an adverse decision, of course it could be,” John Kerry, the Biden administration’s special envoy on climate change, told Reuters.

The United States, trailing only China in greenhouse gas emissions, is a crucial player in global efforts to combat climate change.

The case before the Supreme Court was brought by Republican-led states led by coal producer West Virginia. Other challengers include coal companies and coal-friendly industry groups. Coal is among the most greenhouse gas-intensive fuels.

Democratic-led states and major power companies including Consolidated Edison Inc(ED.N), Exelon Corp (EXC.O) and PG&E Corp (PCG.N) sided with Biden’s administration, as did the Edison Electric Institute, an investor-owned utility trade group. The utility industry believes regulatory certainty will help companies devise investment plans.

The justices will review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s 2021 ruling striking down Republican former President Donald Trump’s Affordable Clean Energy rule. That regulation would have imposed limits on a Clean Air Act provision called Section 111 that gives the EPA authority to regulate emissions from existing power plants.

The rule proposed by Trump, a supporter of the U.S. coal industry who also questioned climate change science, was meant to replace Democratic former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan requiring big cuts in carbon emissions from the power industry.

The Supreme Court blocked implementation of the Clean Power Plan in 2016 without ruling on its lawfulness.

Coal-aligned groups now want the justices to rule that Biden’s administration cannot take a sweeping approach to regulating carbon emissions under Section 111. Such a decision would prevent the EPA from enforcing industry-wide changes, confining it to measures targeting individual plants.

That would be a huge blow for Biden’s administration, which has a goal of decarbonizing the U.S. power sector by 2035. The White House’s incentive-base proposal to achieve that goal was rejected in Congress during budget and infrastructure legislation negotiations.

INDIRECT CURBS?

The Supreme Court already has shown hostility to broad agency actions, most recently on Jan. 13 by blocking Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine-or-test mandate for large employers. The court said congressional authorization was required for any policy imposing “a significant encroachment on the lives – and health – of a vast number of employees.”

The court previously has cited what is called the “major questions” doctrine in blocking other government actions, including a 2014 ruling limiting an earlier EPA regulation aimed at reducing carbon emissions from new plants.

The challengers in the latest case are making similar arguments that Congress did not explicitly empower the EPA to issue sweeping regulations under Section 111.

“Major policy choices affecting the national economy should not be made by unelected agency officials,” lawyers for the North American Coal Corporation, one of the challengers, wrote in court papers.

The court could stop short of a “serious check” on the power of the EPA and other federal agencies while reaching “a more technical result that says something along the lines of ‘you can’t do ambitious climate policy under Section 111,'” said University of South Carolina law professor Nathan Richardson.

The justices also could dismiss the appeal altogether if they conclude the challengers lack proper legal standing considering there is no regulation currently on the books.

If Biden’s administration loses the case, Congress would need to pass new legislation for the government to impose sweeping climate-related regulations – an unlikely prospect in the near-term given the deep divisions among lawmakers.

Climate experts have said the EPA meanwhile could attempt to regulate carbon emissions from power plants indirectly by ramping up efforts to curb other air pollutants like soot that tend to rise and fall with carbon dioxide, or by requiring efficiency upgrades.

Biden’s administration also could seek action from other agencies and departments like fast-tracking electric transmission projects that could connect far-flung solar and wind farms to consumers.

“A number of different agencies have pieces of the decarbonization puzzle,” said Kyle Danish, a lawyer who represents companies on environmental issues.

Such efforts on their own are insufficient to reach the administration’s emission-reduction targets, which is why broad EPA authority to regulate power plants remains important, said David Doniger, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the environmental groups that challenged Trump’s rule.

“The target that they set is not going to be achieved by a silver bullet,” Doniger said. “It’s going to be a lot of silver buckshot.”

(This story corrects date of arguments, Monday instead of Tuesday)

SOURCE: REUTERS

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A jury met to deliberate for a second day on Thursday on whether three former Minneapolis police officers denied George Floyd his civil rights by failing to come to the aid of the handcuffed Black man pinned beneath another officer’s knee.

Tou Thao, 36; J. Alexander Kueng, 28; and Thomas Lane, 38, all testified in their own defense in the federal trial at the U.S. District Court in St. Paul, which began on Jan. 20. They have told jurors they did not realize at the time that Floyd was in dire need of medical care, which it was their duty to provide.

Their lawyers say prosecutors failed to prove the men acted with deliberate indifference during the May 2020 arrest, even though they had what a prosecutor called “front-row seats” to Floyd’s killing beside a police car parked in a Minneapolis intersection.

Thao and Kueng are also charged with willfully breaching Floyd’s rights by not intervening in the use of excessive force by their colleague Derek Chauvin. A widely seen cellphone video showed Chauvin, who is white, kneeling on the neck of the prone Floyd for more than 9 minutes. Floyd begged for his life before falling limp, while horrified onlookers pleaded for the police to get off Floyd and check his pulse.

Floyd’s killing sparked protests in cities around the world against police brutality and racism. Thao is Asian American, Kueng describes himself as mixed race and Lane is white.

Chauvin, 45, was convicted of Floyd’s murder at a separate state trial last year and sentenced to 22-1/2 years in prison. In December, he pleaded guilty to the federal charge of violating Floyd’s rights.

Defense lawyers said the officers deferred to the authority of Chauvin, the most senior officer at the scene with 19 years at the Minneapolis Police Department.

Kueng and Lane, who first handcuffed Floyd on suspicion of using a fake $20 bill in a nearby store, have noted that they were rookies only a few days out of training, which lasted more than a year. They used their knees to pin down Floyd’s buttocks and legs while Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck. Thao, who had been on the force for eight years, stood to the side of Floyd, keeping back bystanders.

Medical experts have testified that Floyd almost certainly would have survived the arrest if he had been rolled onto his side once the officers restrained him, as the officers acknowledged that they had been taught to do.

All three men face years in prison if convicted, and are also due to stand trial in a Minneapolis court in June on state charges of aiding and abetting Floyd’s murder.

SOURCE: REUTERS

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