Supreme court rules Rastafari man can’t sue Louisiana prison officials who cut his dreadlocks
The supreme court has barred a former Louisiana inmate from suing prison officials who cut off his dreadlocks in violation of his Rastafari religious beliefs.
The justices condemned what happened to the former prisoner, Damon Landor. But they ruled that a federal law designed to protect the religious rights of prisoners does not permit lawsuits for money damages even when rights are violated.
The high court agreed with lower courts that without exception had ruled that the law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, can’t be used to hold those who violate prisoners’ rights financially responsible.
The justices refused to apply the rationale from their decision in 2020 that allowed Muslim men to sue over their inclusion on the FBI’s no-fly list under a sister statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The justice department, which argued against the plaintiffs in the no-fly list case in the first Trump administration, had sided with Landor.
No one defended what happened to Landor during his five-month prison term in 2020. When he entered the prison system, he carried a copy of an appeals court ruling in another prisoner’s case holding that cutting religious prisoners’ dreadlocks violated the federal law.
At his first two stops, officials respected his beliefs. But things changed when he got to the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center in Cottonport, about 80 miles northwest of Baton Rouge, for the final three weeks of his term.
A prison guard took the copy of the ruling Landor carried and tossed it in the trash, according to court records. Then the warden ordered guards to cut his dreadlocks. While two guards restrained him, a third shaved his head to the scalp, the records show.
Landor sued after his release, but lower courts dismissed the case. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals lamented Landor’s treatment but said the law doesn’t allow him to hold prison officials liable for damages.
“When I was strapped down and shaved, it felt like I was raped,” Landor said in a statement to ABC at the time. “And the guards, they just didn’t care. They will treat you any kind of way. They knew better than to cut my hair, but they did it anyway. That’s what they do. They were just using their authority.”
Louisiana wrote that “the state has amended its prison grooming policy to ensure that nothing like petitioner’s alleged experience can occur”.
With the Associated Press.
Key events
Donald Trump is now claiming that six people have been arrested and seven cited for alleged damage to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. That’s up from the five arrests and another five federal citations CBS reported yesterday.
Trump’s ill-fated renovation of the reflecting pool – aimed at turning the water “American flag blue” – has been thwarted by algal blooms and peeling paint and liner. But the president has not acknowledged any issues with the $14m renovation of the pool that he ordered to be completed in time for the Fourth of July holiday, and has instead resorted to blaming “vandals”.
Yesterday, he claimed there was one alleged gash that was 300 ft long in the lining at the bottom of the pool, having previously claimed it was 250 ft.
Providing no evidence for the allegations, Trump went on, writing on Truth Social: “The 350 foot gash, made by a very sharp knife or razors, is actually numerous slashes over a very long 350 foot length. It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night, to create such a condition. Likewise, the small area at the bottom of the Pool was cut and powerfully lifted off the surface leaving very jagged, uneven edges.”
He went on: “The large areas of grass are being replaced. In any event, even prior to fixing those areas, the Reflecting Pool is as beautiful as it can be. We will drain some of the water, either immediately before or after the Fourth of July, to do the permanent repair.”
The president also posted a series of photos in an apparent attempt to demonstrate that the water is back to being blue.
Trump administration can expand fast-track deportation process, US appeals court rules
A federal appeals court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to expand a fast-track deportation process that would allow for the expedited removal of migrants who are living far away from the border.
A 2-1 panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned a decision by a lower-court judge who in August 2025 blocked the administration’s move to expand who qualifies for expedited removal.
Patrick Wintour
Marco Rubio is to meet Gulf allies today and tomorrow in an attempt to reassure them that the US remains committed to their security and the 60-day ceasefire deal struck with Iran last week will not embolden Tehran.
The Gulf is divided over the deal. While Qatar has played a central role in mediating the agreement, some countries – notably the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain – are fearful it hands Iran substantial sums that may be ploughed into its military.
Donald Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform today that the unfrozen assets would be under US control and used to buy food and medical supplies from the US. The US president also claimed Iran had agreed to allow nuclear inspections long into the future, despite statements from Iran that it has not done so.
In his first trip to the region since the US and Israel started the war on 28 February, Rubio will visit the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain, the state department said. He is also likely to meet officials from the Gulf Cooperation Council regional body.
All three countries, which house large US military bases, have been hit by Iranian missiles, but the US has declined to detail the scale of the impacts. Severe penalties have been imposed on those using social media to reveal the damage.
Trump last week disclosed that the UAE played an active part in mounting counterattacks against Iran, and the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, said Iran believed the UAE, Kuwait and Jordan all helped the US attack Iran.
Supreme court sides with Trump administration on immigration case dealing with green card holders
The supreme court has sided with the Trump administration in an immigration case dealing with the government’s power over green card holders.
The 6-3 decision centers around an immigration officers’ 2012 decision to put green-card holder Muk Choi Lau on immigration parole when he returned from a short trip abroad because he had been accused of a counterfeiting crime.
Lau argued that overstepped the officer’s authority, and the decision wrongly allowed the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly begin deportation proceedings after he pleaded guilty to trademark counterfeiting.
The Trump administration argued that suspicion of a crime is enough to put a lawful permanent resident, also known as a green-card holder, on immigration parole. Federal attorneys urged the court to take an expansive view of executive authority over immigration.
With the Associated Press.
Supreme court rules Rastafari man can’t sue Louisiana prison officials who cut his dreadlocks
The supreme court has barred a former Louisiana inmate from suing prison officials who cut off his dreadlocks in violation of his Rastafari religious beliefs.
The justices condemned what happened to the former prisoner, Damon Landor. But they ruled that a federal law designed to protect the religious rights of prisoners does not permit lawsuits for money damages even when rights are violated.
The high court agreed with lower courts that without exception had ruled that the law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, can’t be used to hold those who violate prisoners’ rights financially responsible.
The justices refused to apply the rationale from their decision in 2020 that allowed Muslim men to sue over their inclusion on the FBI’s no-fly list under a sister statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The justice department, which argued against the plaintiffs in the no-fly list case in the first Trump administration, had sided with Landor.
No one defended what happened to Landor during his five-month prison term in 2020. When he entered the prison system, he carried a copy of an appeals court ruling in another prisoner’s case holding that cutting religious prisoners’ dreadlocks violated the federal law.
At his first two stops, officials respected his beliefs. But things changed when he got to the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center in Cottonport, about 80 miles northwest of Baton Rouge, for the final three weeks of his term.
A prison guard took the copy of the ruling Landor carried and tossed it in the trash, according to court records. Then the warden ordered guards to cut his dreadlocks. While two guards restrained him, a third shaved his head to the scalp, the records show.
Landor sued after his release, but lower courts dismissed the case. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals lamented Landor’s treatment but said the law doesn’t allow him to hold prison officials liable for damages.
“When I was strapped down and shaved, it felt like I was raped,” Landor said in a statement to ABC at the time. “And the guards, they just didn’t care. They will treat you any kind of way. They knew better than to cut my hair, but they did it anyway. That’s what they do. They were just using their authority.”
Louisiana wrote that “the state has amended its prison grooming policy to ensure that nothing like petitioner’s alleged experience can occur”.
With the Associated Press.
Supreme court boosts Exxon’s bid to get compensation from Cuba for property seized by Fidel Castro’s government
The supreme court has also made it easier for US companies to seek compensation from Cuba’s government for property seized decades ago by former leader Fidel Castro’s government, ruling in favor of ExxonMobil in its lawsuit against Cuban state-owned firm Corporación CIMEX.
In a 6-3 decision, the court said a legal defense called foreign sovereign immunity, which generally prohibits US lawsuits against foreign governments and their agents, is not available in cases like the one Exxon brought against CIMEX under a 1996 US law called the Helms-Burton Act.
The court reversed a lower court’s 2024 ruling that CIMEX could invoke the sovereign immunity defense.
The six conservative justices were in the majority, while the court’s three liberal justices dissented from the ruling.
The decision removes a major obstacle Exxon faced in its 2019 lawsuit that accused CIMEX of unlawfully using a refinery and service stations that once belonged to Standard Oil, Exxon’s corporate predecessor. The case will return to a lower court for further deliberations on CIMEX’s potential liability.
A Helms-Burton Act provision called Title III permits lawsuits to be filed in US courts against anyone who “traffics” in property confiscated by Cuba’s communist government after the 1959 revolution that brought Castro to power. Donald Trump’s administration supported Exxon’s appeal to the supreme court.
With Reuters.
Supreme court ends suit alleging Cisco helped China pursue Falun Gong
The supreme court has further limited the reach of a federal law used to hold corporations liable for human rights abuses committed abroad, as it issued a ruling ending a lawsuit by members of the Falun Gong movement accusing Cisco Systems of facilitating religious persecution in China.
The justices reversed a lower court’s decision that had breathed new life into the 2011 lawsuit, which was brought under the Alien Tort Statute of 1789. The suit had alleged that Cisco knowingly developed technology that allowed China’s government to surveil and persecute Falun Gong members.
The statute had been dormant for nearly two centuries before lawyers began using it in the 1980s to bring international human rights cases in US courts. The Cisco case posed the question of whether the law creates liability for corporations that “aid and abet” human rights abuses, a form of what is called accomplice liability.
The lawsuit accused Cisco of knowingly designing and implementing the “Golden Shield”, an internet surveillance system used by the Chinese Communist Party to target dissidents. The plaintiffs said China used the system to track and then torture Falun Gong members.
Cisco called the allegations unfounded and offensive.
Donald Trump’s administration sided with Cisco in the case.
With Reuters.
Supreme court to release opinions with several high-stakes rulings to come, including birthright citizenship
In the next few minutes, the US supreme court is expected to render at least one judgment as the term is set to come to an end later this month. There are a series of high-stakes cases yet to be decided, including on Donald Trump’s attempt to limit birthright citizenship and plan to remove legal protection from Haitian and Syrian immigrants.
Marjorie Taylor Greene joins Tucker Carlson in ditching ‘America LAST’ Republican party
Crucially, Carlson added in that interview: “And if I’m out, I think a lot of other people are out.”
Indeed, his dramatic split from the Republican party reflects a deeper fracture inside the US political right over Trump’s war on Iran and US-Israel relations.
Former representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said that Carlson is “not the only one” done supporting the GOP, arguing that many conservatives feel the party has “betrayed its voters and country”.
She wrote on X yesterday:
Tucker is not the only one who is done supporting the Republican Party. There is A LOT of us that are absolutely fed up and will not support a party that betrays its voters and country. That does not mean we are turning into Democrats either. But we are DONE with the America LAST Republican Party.
Greene resigned from Congress earlier this year after a massive falling out with Donald Trump over his handling of the Epstein files. A former Trump loyalist, she had by then also broken with the party in other areas, becoming the first Republican to label Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide”, as well as casting doubt on economic, healthcare and foreign policy positions that she said do not prioritize working-class Americans and were not “America first”.
She told the New York Times in December that that series of ruptures with the president culminated in a total breach after conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was killed in September.
The third-term Georgia congresswoman said she was watching Kirk’s memorial service on TV when his widow, Erika, said she forgave her husband’s killer. But then Trump took the stage to say that unlike Charlie Kirk – “a missionary with a noble spirit” who did not “hate” his opponents – he had no Christian charity.
“I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them,” Trump said.
Greene said: “That was absolutely the worst statement. It just shows where his heart is. And that’s the difference, with her having a sincere Christian faith, and proves that he does not have any faith.”
Greene said that her turn away from unrepentant Maga acolyte came in that moment and she abandoned her training “to never apologize and to never admit when you’re wrong”.
“As a Christian, I don’t believe in doing that,” she said. “I agree with Erika Kirk, who did the hardest thing possible and said it out loud.” Greene said she later told a friend that after Charlie Kirk died, “I realized that I’m part of this toxic culture. I really started looking at my faith. I wanted to be more like Christ.”
‘I’m out’: Tucker Carlson says ‘there’s no chance’ he would support the Republican party
Longtime conservative commentator Tucker Carlson has officially broken with the Republican party after defending it as a pundit for decades, including as one of Fox News Channel’s most popular hosts.
Speaking on the Can’t Be Censored podcast late last week, Carlson said, “There’s no chance I would support the Republican party” ahead of the November midterm elections, “I’m out.”
“Not gonna support the Democratic party,” he added. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” (Here’s the clip).
After defending the GOP for 35 years and supporting Trump in 2024, Carlson later decisively broke with the president over his war against Iran and wider foreign policy, arguing that the Republican party bowed to pressure from Benjamin Netanyahu to back the war, which he also said the US has “effectively lost already”.
In doing that, he told the podcast, the GOP has “betrayed” Americans by prioritizing the interests of the Israeli government over its own citizens.
How could I or any American voter support a political party that’s not loyal to the United States. That puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens. It’s not possible to vote for people like that, and I’m not going to.
They are making decisions on the basis of other criteria, what’s best for this company, what’s best for Israel, what’s best for our donors. That’s not just, like, they are off in the wrong direction, like, that is unacceptable, that’s treasonous, it’s immoral, it can’t continue.
There’s no defending this because it’s immoral. And it’s exactly the opposite of what a political party in a democracy is charged with doing, which is representing its own voters, its own citizens, its own nation. And they’re not doing that.
Efforts to repair the peeling liner on the freshly renovated Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool won’t have concluded by the Fourth of July celebrations, Politico reports.
“It will not be before the celebrations, that’s for sure,” Francois Rivard, vice president of Rhino Linings, the company that supplied the waterproof coating, told Politico in an interview yesterday. “It would be up to [the National Park Service] to tell you exactly when they plan … but it’s in a matter of weeks, not years.”
Per my colleague Rachel Leingang, the reflecting pool drama has thrown a spanner in the works for Trump’s plans to complete several “beautification” projects around Washington in time for the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations next month, with his ill-fated $14m attempt to renovate the reflecting pool – including repainting the floor of the pool “American flag blue” – thwarted by algae, peeling paint and a ballooning price tag.
Trump has acknowledged “real problems” with the site, which he said he had examined himself, this week. But he has not acknowledged any issues with the renovation he ordered, instead blaming the ongoing saga on “vandals”, who he claimed had taken “some form of knife or blade” and delivered a 250ft gash into the pool’s facade.
He was still posting about this yesterday, with the alleged damage morphing into a “300 foot long gash”.
Reporters at the Washington Post who visited the pool on Sunday, could see no evidence of such damage, it reported, despite Trump’s claims.
Trump also claimed that unidentified vandals had poured “corrosive and destructive chemicals” into the pool. Contractors would probably have to drain the water to do repairs, he said.
Government workers were seen pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water to tackle the algae.
Five people had been arrested for vandalizing the pool and another five were issued federal citations as of Saturday, CBS News reported yesterday, citing an unnamed administration official.
It’s not clear if any committed acts of vandalism. Washington Post reporters witnessed people interacting with police after pulling objects from the water. Peeling paint has been floating on the surface at times.
Trump said over the weekend that contractors “will probably be forced to release and drain much of the water” to repair the pool.
“Work will begin immediately on fixing the seriously vandalized Reflecting Pool,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I just inspected it, and could only say to myself, and those gathered around me, WOW, who would do such a thing? SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE! We will fix it?”
Meanwhile, an interior department spokesperson told this morning’s Politico Playbook that no events around the reflecting pool have been canceled. [Yet].
Primary voting begins in New York, Maryland and Utah
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Today is the state primary elections in New York, Maryland and Utah. Here are some of the races to watch:
New York state has more than twice as many registered Democrats than Republicans as of 2025 – but with the success of the progressive New York city mayor Zohran Mamdani, the question now is how blue can this blue state go.
Mamdani has thrown his support behind three congressional candidates who are challenging incumbents or incumbent-backed candidates supported by the Democratic establishment: former city comptroller Brad Lander who is up against two-term incumbent Democrat Dan Goldman in NY-10, political newcomer Darializa Avila Chevalier who is challenging incumbent Democrat Adriano Espaillat in NY-13, and Claire Valdez who is facing off against Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso – the handpicked successor of Nydia Velázquez, the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in Congress who is considered a progressive giant of New York City politics – in NY-7.
Elsewhere in New York, AI-focused Super Pacs have been pouring money into a single Manhattan race: the Democratic congressional primary in the district of NY-12.
That money has primarily been going toward taking down Democratic assembly member Alex Bores, who a year ago had sponsored the Raise Act, the second-ever US state law requiring major AI developers to publish public safety plans.
Challenging Bores for the Democratic nomination to represent New York’s 12th district in the House of Representatives is Jack Schlossberg, the very online grandson of John F Kennedy, and George Conway, the Republican turned vocal Trump critic.
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