$10B suit tossed, claimed gunmakers fueled violence

The Supreme Court on Thursday tossed out a $10 billion lawsuit Mexico filed against top firearms manufacturers in the U.S. that claimed the companies’ business practices were helping fuel cartel violence plaguing the country.

In a victory for the firearms industry, the unanimous ruling tossed out the case under a U.S. law that largely shields gunmakers from liability when their firearms are used in crime.

Congress passed the law two decades ago to halt a flurry of lawsuits against gunmakers that were similar to the case Mexico filed, Justice Elena Kagan wrote. Her opinion overturned a lower-court order that let the lawsuit go forward because the companies themselves were accused of violating the law.

Kagan wrote that Mexico’s lawsuit made no plausible argument that the companies knowingly helped gun trafficking in the country.

Justices side with Catholic charity in religious-rights case

The Supreme Court on Thursday handed down a unanimous ruling in a religious rights case, finding that a Catholic charity in Wisconsin can’t be required to pay unemployment taxes when other religious groups are exempt.

The high court said the state’s tax decisions created an advantage for groups with a more overtly religious tone in their daily work, a violation of the First Amendment.

Wisconsin argued the Catholic Charities Bureau has paid the tax for more than 50 years and doesn’t qualify for an exemption because its day-to-day work doesn’t involve religious teachings. Much of the groups’ funding is from public money, and neither employees nor people receiving services have to belong to any faith, according to court papers.

Catholic Charities, though, said that it qualifies because its services to people who are disabled, low-income or older are motivated by religious beliefs and that the state shouldn’t be making determinations about what work qualifies as religious.

AmeriCorps must restore grant funding, members to states

The Trump administration must restore hundreds of millions of dollars in AmeriCorps grant funding and thousands of service workers in about two dozen states, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman granted a temporary block on the agency’s cancellation of grants and early discharge of corps members, but only for the states that sued the administration in April.

The federal lawsuit, filed by Democratic state officials across the country — including Colorado — accused President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting efforts through the Department of Government Efficiency of reneging on grants funded through the AmeriCorps State and National program, which was budgeted $557 million in congressionally approved funding this year.

Student arrested by ICE on his way to practice is released

A Massachusetts high school student who was arrested by immigration agents on his way to volleyball practice has been released from custody after a judge granted him bail Thursday.

Marcelo Gomes da Silva, 18, who came to the U.S. from Brazil at age 7, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Saturday. Authorities have said the agents were looking for the Milford High School teenager’s father, who owns the car Gomes da Silva was driving at the time and had parked in a friend’s driveway.

Speaking with members of the media outside the detention center shortly after his release on $2,000 bail, Gomes da Silva described “humiliating” conditions and said his faith helped him through his six days of detention.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said this week ICE officers were targeting a “known public safety threat” and Gomes da Silva’s father “has a habit of reckless driving at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour through residential areas.”

U.S. hits judges with sanctions over probe into Israel

The Trump administration is slapping sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court over the tribunal’s investigation into alleged war crimes by Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza and in the West Bank.

The State Department said Thursday that it would freeze any assets that the ICC judges, who come from Benin, Peru, Slovenia and Uganda, have in U.S. jurisdictions. The move is just the latest step that the administration has taken to punish the ICC and its officials for investigations undertaken against Israel and the United States.

U.N. chief urges conference to push for two-state solution

The United Nations chief on Thursday urged world leaders and officials attending an upcoming U.N. conference on ending the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict “to keep the two-state solution alive.”

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that the international community must not only support a solution where independent states of Palestine and Israel live side by side in peace but “materialize the conditions to make it happen.”

France and Saudi Arabia are leading the conference, which the U.N. is holding June 17-20 in New York. French President Emmanuel Macron will attend, and other leaders are expected. But Israel will not be there.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the creation of a Palestinian state, a position that was overwhelmingly adopted by Israel’s parliament in a vote last year.

Trump taps senior Air Force commander for European Command

President Donald Trump is tapping an Air Force fighter pilot with extensive experience as a senior commander in the Middle East to be the next head of U.S. European Command.

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, currently the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would also take over as the supreme allied commander, Europe, if his nomination is confirmed by the Senate. NATO’s North Atlantic Council, in a statement Thursday, said it approved Grynkewich’s nomination as SACEUR.

The U.S. military’s presence in Europe is under scrutiny, as the Trump administration eyes cuts in the force even as the region continues to grapple with Russia’s war on Ukraine and the effects of the Israel-Hamas war.

— Denver Post wire services