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The Supreme Court on Wednesday left in place a rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in May to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by power plants. In a brief order, the justices turned down a request from states, energy companies, and other industry groups to put the rule on hold while their challenge in a federal appeals court moves forward.

Defending the rule, the EPA says that it would lead to significant reductions in carbon pollution over the next two decades – “equivalent to preventing the annual emissions of 328 million gasoline cars.” And that in turn, the EPA argues, could provide nearly $400 billion in benefits to the climate and public health.

Trump again trying to buy Stormy Daniels' silence, documents and recorded phone call suggest

Now, a new U.S. rule will require retailers, gyms and other businesses to make canceling subscriptions as easy as enrolling in them, and to make the subscription process more transparent.

The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday released a final rule called "click to cancel," which says online subscriptions should require the same number of clicks to end as they do to sign up, and in-person signups should have an option to cancel online or over the phone.

The new rule also directs companies to give people a clearer idea of the exact terms before they sign up, so they don't feel "tricked or trapped into subscriptions," as FTC Chair Lina Khan has told NPR.

A group of anti-abortion advocates is trying to force Florida’s abortion amendment off the ballot this November or void any votes cast for it, citing a report from the DeSantis administration that said there was “widespread” fraud in the petition gathering for the effort.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday in the Ninth Judicial Circuit argues that the sponsors behind Amendment 4 failed to meet the required signature threshold to get on the ballot when that alleged fraud is considered. The anti-abortion plaintiffs are being represented by former Florida Supreme Court Justice Alan Lawson.

Amendment 4 proposes protecting abortion access until viability, about 24 weeks of pregnancy, and would undo the state’s ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Gov. Ron DeSantis has vowed to defeat the initiative.

The original public health order in September 2023 ignited a furor of public protests, prompted Republican calls for the governor's impeachment and widened divisions among top Democratic officials. It also sought to strengthen oversight of firearms sales and monitor illicit drug use at public schools through the testing of wastewater — before expiring on Saturday without renewal.

"I have decided to allow the public health order to expire, but our fight to protect New Mexico communities from the dangers posed by guns and illegal drugs will continue," Lujan Grisham said. 1722182413229.png New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on "Face the Nation" on July 28, 2024. CBS News

Gun rights advocates filed an array of lawsuits and court motions aimed at blocking gun restrictions that they say would deprive Albuquerque-area residents of 2nd Amendment rights to carry in public for self-defense. The implications for pending lawsuits in federal court were unclear.

The standoff was one of many in the wake of a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision expanding gun rights, as leaders in politically liberal-leaning states explore new avenues for restrictions.

One day after a Georgia judge invalidated the state's controversial "hand count" rule, a separate judge Wednesday evening invalidated even more rules that were passed by the Republican-led state election board, declaring them "unlawful and void."

Fulton County Judge Thomas Cox ruled after an hours-long hearing to invalidate seven rules total, including the hand count rule, finding in part that the board did not have the authority to enact them.

The Biden administration announced a milestone Thursday in its effort to cancel Americans' student debt: It has provided relief to more than 1 million borrowers who work in public service.

Through the Education Department's Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, the administration approved about $4.5 million in additional student loan relief for more than 60,000 borrowers, bringing the total relief through that program to $74 million for more than 1 million people.

That brings the total amount of student debt relief under the administration to $175 billion for more than 4.8 million borrowers over the nearly four years President Joe Biden has been in office, the department said.

The parallels were more than coincidence. The company was being run by former Santander executives who had left that bank amid the investigation. By 2020, most of Exeter’s corporate leadership — including its CEO and its operations chief — was composed of people who had overseen Santander during the period that the state attorneys general said it was “misleading, failing to disclose material information, or otherwise confusing consumers.”

Those elected officials, however, have taken a decidedly different approach with Exeter. In fact, in 12 states that participated in the Santander agreement, officials have taken little or no action in dozens of cases alleging nearly identical behavior, according to a ProPublica investigation.

Trump said: “Are you ready? John Deere, great company. They announced about a year ago they’re gonna build big plants outside of the United States. Right? They’re going to build them in Mexico … I said, ‘If John Deere builds those plants, they’re not selling anything into the United States.’ They just announced yesterday they’re probably not going to build the plants, OK? I kept the jobs here.”

But a search of news articles and corporate press releases showed nothing about any such John Deere announcement the day prior. And in response to Trump’s story, a John Deere spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News that it had not changed its plans or announced any such changes.

Harris’s comments went significantly further than her previous day’s attack on Trump’s increasingly authoritarian rhetoric, when she called him “unstable and unhinged” and “dangerous” in response to his branding of Democratic opponents as “the enemy within”. Trump had also advocated using the military against opponents he accused of plotting “chaos” on election day, although – as an opposition candidate – he has no power to do so.

A newly published book by the journalist Bob Woodward quotes the retired chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, as calling Trump a “total fascist” and “a fascist to the core”.

The lawsuit centers on cease-and-desist letters the Florida Department of Health sent Oct. 3 to at least two Florida TV stations, telling the stations to take down an ad in favor of the amendment and threatening prosecution if the stations did not.

The ad features a woman, Caroline, who was diagnosed with brain cancer two years ago while pregnant with her second child. In the advertisement, the woman said that if she did not get an abortion, she would not be able to receive cancer treatment and could have died and been unable to be there for her daughter.

The Nebraska Supreme Court court ruled that convicted felons who served their sentences are allowed to vote, after the state's top election official sought to keep them from casting ballots ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

Nebraska has historically restored the voting rights of former felons two years after they completed the terms of their sentences. Earlier this year, state legislators voted on a bipartisan basis to eliminate the two-year waiting period. Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers later argued that only the state’s board of pardons could restore voting rights, and Nebraska Secretary of State Robert Evnen ordered local registrars to stop letting all people with previous felony convictions vote, arguing the laws enfranchising them were unconstitutional.