News briefs

Tribune News Service on Jul 6, 2026

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In Congress, a bipartisan annoyance with the Supreme Court

WASHINGTON — The most recent Supreme Court term has left Congress grappling with how to respond to a court that experts say has grabbed considerably more power for itself.

Conservatives were rankled by a Supreme Court decision quashing President Donald Trump’s effort to limit birthright citizenship, for example. Democrats, meanwhile, were outraged by a decision allowing Trump to fire officials at independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission.

Despite that, analysts say, Congress isn’t likely to take action to respond to either case.

With a closely divided Congress more wired to respond to the presidency, Casey Burgat, director of the legislative affairs program at the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University, said Congress is unlikely to pass legislation to respond to this term’s Supreme Court decisions.

—CQ-Roll Call

NYC fights lawsuit demanding 9/11 toxin documents even after Mamdani promises to release them

NEW YORK — Hours after Mayor Zohran Mamdani vowed to release New York City documents about the toxins swirling above ground zero in the days after 9/11 in time for the 25th anniversary of the attacks, city lawyers asked a judge to quash a lawsuit requesting the same papers, the New York Daily News has learned.

In court documents filed in Manhattan Supreme Court last Tuesday, city attorneys said the Freedom of Information Law lawsuit should be dismissed against the mayor’s office and the city Law Department because “both agencies conducted reasonable and diligent searches” and “no responsive records were located following those searches.”

The city’s response also claims that the lawsuit, filed by attorney Andrew Carboy for 9/11 Health Watch, survivors of 9/11 illnesses and families of those who died of 9/11 illnesses, is premature because the search for the documents “remains ongoing.”

“(The lawsuit) seeks judicial review before the agency has completed its administrative review and rendered a final determination,” city attorneys said in their motion to dismiss. City officials said they filed the motion to dismiss after Carboy and his team wouldn’t agree to a continuance.

—New York Daily News

Charlotte-area Catholic church among targets of Vatican’s excommunication

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- As thousands of worshipers prayed in an open field in Écône, Switzerland on Wednesday, the ceremony came to an abrupt halt.

At the moment the priest elevated the host during the consecration — the most sacred moment of the Catholic Mass, when Catholics believe bread becomes the body of Christ — thunder cracked loudly overhead. Rain began to pour down. Organizers suspended the Mass, and roughly 15,000 Catholics waited out the storm, allowing themselves to be drenched by rain while they prayed the rosary aloud together.

Among them was Jim De Piante, a longtime member of St. Anthony of Padua, a church in Mount Holly. He and over a dozen others traveled from the Charlotte area to witness what he believed would be “one of the most important events in the history of the church”: the Society of St. Pius X’s consecration of four bishops without approval from the pope.

When the skies cleared, the ceremony resumed and attendees knelt in the mud to receive Communion. The Vatican on Thursday declared the SSPX bishops, priests and certain laypeople to be in schism after the group went forward with the consecrations despite repeated warnings from Pope Leo XIV.

—The Charlotte Observer

Russia strike exposes Ukraine air defense gap before NATO summit

A deadly overnight attack on the eve of the NATO summit highlighted Kyiv’s growing vulnerability as shortages of U.S.-made Patriot air defenses become acute and peace talks remain stalled.

Eleven people were killed and 60 injured in the overnight strikes on Kyiv that caused destruction in several districts of the city, damaging multiple residential buildings, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X Monday. Three others were killed in the surrounding capital region, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.

Ukraine didn’t shoot down any of the 23 Iskander-M ballistic missiles or the six high-speed Zircon and Oniks missiles launched by Russia, according to a Ukrainian Air Force tally published on Telegram. It had more success with slower-flying cruise missiles.

“As long as Patriot missiles remain in our allies’ stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep ‘vanquishing’ residential buildings,” Zelenskyy said. “The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror.”

—Bloomberg News