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Trump readies to name ‘fearless’ conservative judges in second term

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By Nate Raymond (NS:)

(Reuters) – Republican President-elect Donald Trump is poised to build on his legacy of reshaping the federal judiciary with nominees who his allies and opponents predict could be even more conservative than the near-record 234 judges he put on the bench in his first stint in office.

With Republicans set to take back control of the Senate, which must confirm judicial nominees, Trump should enjoy an easy path to filling possible vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court and the expected 100-plus seats that will likely open up on lower courts across the nation.

“Trump remade the federal judiciary in his first term, and now he has the opportunity to cement that vision for an entire generation,” John Collins, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said in an email.

A new round of Trump-appointed, life-tenured judges would result in a more conservative federal judiciary that would be more likely to cast a skeptical eye on environmental, financial and other regulations and to uphold Trump’s agenda in the face of legal challenges.

Representatives for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.

During his first four years in office, Trump’s 234 judicial appointments included three U.S. Supreme Court justices, giving the high court its 6-3 conservative majority, and 54 judges named to 13 intermediate appeals courts. It marked the second-most judicial appointments of any president in a single term.

Those appointments shifted the judiciary to the right, with Republican appointees today making up half of all active appellate judges and having majorities on six circuit courts. Many had connections to the influential conservative legal group the Federalist Society and remain active with the organization.

Those judges often embrace “originalism,” a legal philosophy that seeks to interpret the U.S. Constitution based on the text as understood at the time of its drafting in the 18th century.

That legal doctrine has formed the backbone of a series of rulings favoring conservative litigants in cases that have curtailed abortion access, expanded gun rights and limited government regulation.

While Trump in his first term from 2017 to 2020 turned to the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo as an adviser on judicial nominees, the Republican this time has surrounded himself with different conservative allies focused on judicial nominees.

Those include Mike Davis, a Trump ally and founder of the conservative judicial advocacy group Article III Project, who during Trump’s first term was chief counsel for nominations to the then-chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who is set to resume that role.

‘BOLD AND FEARLESS JUDGES’

“I think that Trump’s biggest and most consequential accomplishment of his first term was the transformation of the federal judiciary, and I hope he builds upon that in his second term with even more bold and fearless judges,” Davis told Reuters in the run-up to Tuesday’s election.

Davis, who had worked to help confirm Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, posted on social media platform X on Thursday that anyone wanting his help landing a job during Trump’s presidency needed to provide “concrete evidence of your loyalty to Trump.”

Some of Trump’s appointees to the trial courts in his first term could be potential candidates to fill vacancies on key appeals courts, which often have the last word on cases given how few appeals the Supreme Court hears.

Davis has previously cited Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who dismissed the classified documents criminal case against the now-incoming president, as the type of “fearless” judge Trump should seek to appoint.

Other prominent conservative trial court judges who could be eligible for a promotion include U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, who suspended approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. The U.S. Supreme Court in June preserved access to the pill, overturning an appellate court ruling that partly upheld Kacsmaryk’s decision.

Another rising star among conservative judges is U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Trump appointee in Tampa, Florida, best known for declaring the Biden administration’s COVID-19 mask mandate for airlines and other public transportation was unlawful.

The scope of Trump’s ability to further reshape the judiciary will be limited by the number of vacancies he can fill.

He inherited 108 federal judicial vacancies when he took office in 2017, the most for an incoming president since Democratic then-President Bill Clinton in 1992.

Today, the federal judiciary has 47 seats currently vacant and 20 more that are expected to open up in the future, assuming their current occupants keep to their announced plans to move into semi-retirement. But outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden has nominees pending to fill 28 of those 67 seats.

Another 247 judges will be eligible to move into semi-retirement over the next four years, opening new vacancies, according to an analysis by the American Constitution Society, a progressive legal group.

© Reuters. Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump takes the stage following early results from the 2024 U.S. presidential election in Palm Beach County Convention Center, in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., November 6, 2024. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare

But only 116 were appointed by Republicans, and research has shown that the vast majority of judges today time their decisions to take “senior status” to when the White House is occupied by a president of the same party as the one who appointed them.

Even with fewer vacancies, though, law school professor Collins said Trump “will likely be able to both lock in conservative majorities for the foreseeable future on some courts and narrow or flip liberal majorities on others.”

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Romanians vote in presidential election focused on high living costs, Ukraine war

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By Luiza Ilie

BUCHAREST (Reuters) -Romanians started voting on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election that may give hard-right politician George Simion a chance of winning, with voters focused on high living costs and the country’s support for Ukraine.

Opinion surveys show leftist Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, 56, leader of Romania’s largest party, the Social Democrats, will make it into the run-off vote on Dec. 8, with Simion, 38, of the Alliance for Uniting Romanians the likely runner-up.

About 3.7 million Romanians, or 20.7% of registered voters in the European Union and NATO state, had cast their ballots across the country by 1045 GMT, data showed. Voting ends at 1900 GMT with exit polls to follow immediately.

Voting by Romanians abroad, who can influence the result and where the hard right leader is popular, began on Friday.

Analysts expect Ciolacu to win the second round against Simion, appealing to moderates and touting his experience running Romania during a war next door.

But the prospect of a Ciolacu-Simion run-off vote could mobilise centre-right voters in favour of Elena Lasconi, leader of opposition Save Romania Union, ranked third in opinion surveys, analysts said.

Simion has cast the election as a choice between an entrenched political class beholden to foreign interests in Brussels and himself, an outsider who will defend Romania’s economy and sovereignty.

He opposes military aid to Ukraine and supports a peace plan as envisioned by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, whom he admires, and would support a government that emulates that of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni.

“We want peace, the war must end so we stop being afraid,” 76-year-old Valentin Ion said after voting in Bucharest.

“Politicians must be more understanding and give money to the needy.”

Romania has the EU’s largest share of people at risk of poverty. Ciolacu’s coalition government of his Social Democrats (PSD) and centre-right Liberals has raised the minimum wage and increased pensions twice this year, but high budget spending has swollen deficits and kept inflation high.

“I am taking my parents and my children to go vote for PSD, it is the best party, Marcel Ciolacu gave us so much,” said Vasile Popa, 46.

Since Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022, Romania has enabled the export of millions of tons of grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta and provided military aid, including the donation of a Patriot air defence battery.

FAMILY VALUES

“The outcome is still very difficult to predict due to the high concentration of candidates and the splitting of the centre-right vote,” said Sergiu Miscoiu, a political science professor at Babes-Bolyai University.

Most candidates, he said, have campaigned on conservative messages such as protecting family values.

“Mainstream party candidates have a very catch-all message, on the one hand the nation, the army, religion and so on. On the other hand, we see a commitment to Europe, although it is seen more as a revenue source than an inspiration for values.”

© Reuters. A voter exits a voting booth, on the day of the first round of the presidential election in Bucharest, Romania, November 24, 2024. REUTERS/Andreea Campeanu

Outgoing two-term president Klaus Iohannis, 65, had cemented Romania’s strong pro-Western stance but was accused of not doing enough to fight corruption.

Romania’s president, limited to two five-year terms, has a semi-executive role which includes heading the armed forces.

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Israeli army orders Gaza City suburb evacuated, spurring new wave of displacement

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By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders to residents in areas of an eastern Gaza City suburb, setting off a new wave of displacement on Sunday, and a Gaza hospital director was injured in an Israeli drone attack, Palestinian medics said.

The new orders for the Shejaia suburb posted by the Israeli army spokesperson on X on Saturday night were blamed on Palestinian militants firing rockets from that heavily built-up district in the north of the Gaza Strip.

“For your safety, you must evacuate immediately to the south,” the military’s post said. The rocket volley on Saturday was claimed by Hamas’ armed wing, which said it had targeted an Israeli army base over the border.

Footage circulated on social and Palestinian media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed residents leaving Shejaia on donkey carts and rickshaws, with others, including children carrying backpacks, walking.

Families living in the targeted areas began fleeing their homes after nightfall on Saturday and into Sunday’s early hours, residents and Palestinian media said – the latest in multiple waves of displacement since the war began 13 months ago.

In central Gaza, health officials said at least 10 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the urban camps of Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij since Saturday night.

Adding to the miseries of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, most of whom have been repeatedly displaced, heavy winter rain flooded hundreds of tents across the enclave, spoiling food and sweeping away plastic and cloth sheeting that had protected them against the elements.

“We ran in the middle of the night, the rainwater flooded the tent, the food is gone, the kids screamed and I am afraid they will get sick,” Rami, 37, a Gaza City man displaced at a former soccer stadium, told Reuters via a messaging app.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said thousands of displaced people were impacted by the seasonal flooding and demanded new tents and caravans from aid donors to shield them.

HOSPITAL DIRECTOR WOUNDED BY GUNFIRE

In north Gaza, where Israeli forces have been operating against regrouping Hamas militants since early last month, health officials said an Israeli drone dropped bombs on Kamal Adwan Hospital, injuring its director Hussam Abu Safiya.

“This will not stop us from completing our humanitarian mission and we will continue to do this job at any cost,” Abu Safiya said in a video statement circulated by the health ministry on Sunday.

“We are being targeted daily. They targeted me a while ago but this will not deter us…,” he said from his hospital bed.

Israeli forces say armed militants use civilian buildings including housing blocks, hospitals and schools for operational cover. Hamas denies this, accusing Israeli forces of indiscriminately targeting populated areas.

Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in north Gaza that are barely operational as the health ministry said the Israeli forces have detained and expelled medical staff and prevented emergency medical, food and fuel supplies from reaching them.

In the past few weeks, Israel said it had facilitated the delivery of medical and fuel supplies and the transfer of patients from north Gaza hospitals in collaboration with international agencies such as the World Health Organization.

Residents in three embattled north Gaza towns – Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun – said Israeli forces had blown up hundreds of houses since renewing operations in an area that Israel said months ago had been cleared of militants.

Palestinians say Israel appears determined to depopulate the area permanently to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza, an accusation Israel denies.

© Reuters. Displaced Palestinian children stand near tents following rainfall, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Gaza City November 24, 2024. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,000 people, uprooted nearly the entire population at least once, according to Gaza officials, while reducing wide swathes of the narrow coastal territory to rubble.

The war erupted in response to a cross-border attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023 in which gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Green activists in S. Korea demand tough action on plastic waste at UN talks

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By Minwoo Park and Daewoung Kim

BUSAN, South Korea (Reuters) – Hundreds of environmental campaigners marched on Saturday in the South Korean city of Busan to demand stronger global commitments to fight plastic waste at U.N. talks in the city next week.

About a thousand people, including members of indigenous groups, young people and informal waste collectors, took part in the rally, the organiser said, with some carrying banners saying “Cut plastic production” and “Drastic plastic reduction now!”.

The activists marched around the Busan Exhibition and Convention Centre, where the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) will take place from Monday to discuss a legally binding global agreement on plastic pollution.

Debate is expected to focus on whether the deal should seek to slash production, while major producers such as Saudi Arabia and China have said in previous rounds that it should prioritise less contentious strategies, such as waste management.

“We are here with Greenpeace and our allies in the Break Free from Plastic movement to represent the millions of people around the world that are demanding that world leaders address plastic pollution by reducing the amount of plastic that we produce in the first place,” said Graham Forbes, global plastic campaign lead at Greenpeace.

People from different countries and of all ages took part in Saturday’s rally and some wore elaborate, decorated hats made from discarded plastic items.

“It looks like the Earth, and a living creature, because I wanted to say our living creatures are being affected by plastic pollution,” said Lee Kyoung-ah, 52, who was wearing a hat made of abandoned plastic buoy.

Lee Min-sung, 26, said he also hoped to see changes in everyday consumer habits.

© Reuters. Climate activists march on a street to demand stronger global commitments to fight plastic waste at the upcoming fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5), in Busan, South Korea, November 23, 2024.   REUTERS/Minwoo Park

“I hope the culture of using ‘reusables’ becomes a cool, trendy movement, as that will reduce (waste) little by little,” said Lee, who brought his lunch from home in a glass container.

“I will pick up trash more often, whenever I have time, and throw away less to save the Earth,” said fourth-grader Kim Seo-yul, who flew from her home in Jeju Island to join the march.

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