The Supreme Court on Saturday blocked, for now, the deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under an 18th century wartime law.

In a brief order, the court directed the Trump administration not to remove Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center “until further order of this court.”

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

The high court acted in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union contending that immigration authorities appeared to be moving to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The Supreme Court had said earlier in April that deportations could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given “a reasonable time” to contest their pending removals.

“We are deeply relieved that the Court has temporarily blocked the removals. These individuals were in imminent danger of spending the rest of their lives in a brutal Salvadoran prison without ever having had any due process,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said in an email.

On Friday, two federal judges refused to step in as lawyers for the men launched a desperate legal campaign to prevent their deportation, even as one judge said the case raised legitimate concerns. Early Saturday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also refused to issue an order protecting the detainees from being deported.

The administration is expected to return to the Supreme Court quickly in an effort to persuade the justices to lift their temporary order.

The ACLU had already sued to block deportations of two Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet facility and sought an order barring removals of any immigrants in the region under the Alien Enemies Act.

In an emergency filing early Friday, the ACLU warned that immigration authorities were accusing other Venezuelan men held there of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which would make them subject to President Donald Trump’s use of the act.

The act has only been invoked three previous times in U.S. history, most recently during World War II to hold Japanese-American civilians in internment camps. The Trump administration contended it gave them power to swiftly remove immigrants they identified as members of the gang, regardless of their immigration status.

Following the unanimous high court order on April 9, federal judges in Colorado, New York and southern Texas promptly issued orders barring removal of detainees under the AEA until the administration provides a process for them to make claims in court.

But there had been no such order issued in the area of Texas that covers Bluebonnet, which is located 24 miles north of Abilene in the far northern end of the state.

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, this week declined to bar the administration from removing the two men identified in the ACLU lawsuit because Immigration and Customs Enforcement filed sworn declarations that they would not be immediately deported. He also balked at issuing a broader order prohibiting removal of all Venezuelans in the area under the act because he said removals hadn’t started yet.

But the ACLU’s Friday filing included sworn declarations from three separate immigration lawyers who said their clients in Bluebonnet were given paperwork indicating they were members of Tren de Aragua and could be deported by Saturday. In one case, immigration lawyer Karene Brown said her client, identified by initials, was told to sign papers in English even though the client only spoke Spanish.

“ICE informed F.G.M. that these papers were coming from the President, and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it,” Brown wrote.

Gelernt said in a Friday evening hearing before District Judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, D.C., that the administration initially moved Venezuelans to its south Texas immigration facility for deportation. But since a judge banned deportations in that area, it has funneled them to the Bluebonnet facility, where no such order exists. He said witnesses reported the men were being loaded on buses Friday evening to be taken to the airport.

With Hendrix not agreeing to the ACLU’s request for an emergency order, the group turned to Boasberg, who initially halted deportations in March. The Supreme Court ruled the orders against deportation could only come from judges in jurisdictions where immigrants were held, which Boasberg said made him powerless Friday.

“I’m sympathetic to everything you’re saying,” Boasberg told Gelernt. “I just don’t think I have the power to do anything about it.”

Boasberg this week found there’s probable cause that the Trump administration committed criminal contempt by disobeying his initial deportation ban. He was concerned that the paper that ICE was giving those held did not make clear they had a right to challenge their removal in court, which he believed the Supreme Court mandated.

Drew Ensign, an attorney for the Justice Department, disagreed, saying that people slated for deportation would have a “minimum” of 24 hours to challenge their removal in court. He said no flights were scheduled for Friday night and he was unaware of any Saturday, but the Department of Homeland Security said it reserved the right to remove people then.

ICE said it would not comment on the litigation.

Also Friday, a Massachusetts judge made permanent his temporary ban on the administration deporting immigrants who have exhausted their appeals to countries other than their home countries unless they are informed of their destination and given a chance to object if they’d face torture or death there.

Some Venezuelans subject to Trump’s Alien Enemies Act have been sent to El Salvador and housed in its notorious main prison.

NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein has been moved to a New York City hospital after a judge approved the ailing ex-studio boss’s request to stay there rather than in jail when he’s not in court for his #MeToo retrial.

Judge Paul Goetz late Thursday ordered that Weinstein be immediately relocated from the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex to the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan so he can receive necessary medical treatment.

Weinstein’s lawyers lobbied for the move as jury selection got underway this week.

They argued in court papers that being locked up in a sometimes freezing jail cell was exacerbating the Oscar-winning producer’s health issues, which include chronic myeloid leukemia, diabetes and walking difficulties that require a wheelchair to get in and out of court.

Goetz’s order will remain in effect at least until next Thursday, when he is set to hold a hearing to discuss the matter further.

A different judge, Curtis Farber, is presiding over Weinstein’s retrial. The case will resume Monday with more jury selection after nine jurors were picked this week. In all, 12 jurors and six alternates need to be seated.

Weinstein is being tried again on rape and sexual assault charges after New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, last year overturned his 2020 conviction and 23-year prison sentence and ordered a new trial, finding that improper rulings and prejudicial testimony tainted the original one.

Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies raping or sexually assaulting anyone.

Weinstein has been back and forth numerous times to Bellevue in recent months for treatment of various maladies. At a pretrial hearing in January, he railed against his treatment at Rikers, telling Farber he wanted to “get out of this hellhole as quickly as possible.”

Weinstein’s lawyers filed a legal claim against New York City last November, alleging he was receiving substandard medical treatment in unhygienic conditions at Rikers. The claim, which seeks $5 million in damages, argues that Weinstein has been returned to Rikers each time before fully recovering at the hospital.

The troubled jail complex has faced growing scrutiny for its mistreatment of detainees and dangerous conditions. Last year, a federal judge cleared the way for a possible federal takeover, finding the city had placed inmates in “unconstitutional danger.”

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with a truck driver who wants to sue for triple damages over a CBD hemp product he says was falsely advertised as being free from marijuana’s active ingredient and resulted in him getting fired.

The 5-4 opinion clears the way for the trucker to seek triple damages under an anti-mob law. It doesn’t decide his underlying claims that the product’s THC content got him fired.

Douglas Horn said he wanted to treat chronic shoulder and back pain after a serious accident. He chose the product because it was advertised as being free from THC, which gives marijuana its high. CBD is a generally legal hemp compound that is widely sold as a dietary supplement.

But lab tests taken after Horn was fired for failing a routine drug test confirmed the product did have THC, he claimed.

Horn sued the Vista, California-based Medical Marijuana Inc. and sought triple damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, often known as RICO.

The company pushed back, disputing Horn’s account and saying he can’t sue for higher damages because he’s claiming a personal injury rather than harm to his business.

Horn says his firing was a business injury and he’s been financially ruined, and an appeals court allowed Horn’s claim to go forward.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

MADISON, Wis. — Judge Susan Crawford preserved liberals’ narrow majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday by defeating conservative Brad Schimel, but in a way the real loser of the election was billionaire Elon Musk.

Musk and his affiliated groups sunk at least $21 million into the normally low-profile race and paid three individual voters $1 million each for signing a petition in an effort to goose turnout in the pivotal battleground state contest. That made the race the first major test of the political impact of Musk, whose prominence in President Donald Trump’s administration has skyrocketed with his chaotic cost-cutting initiative that has slashed federal agencies.

Crawford and the Democrats who backed her made Musk the focus of their arguments for holding the seat, contending he was “buying” the election, which set records for the costliest judicial race in history.

“Today Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy, our fair elections and our Supreme Court,” Crawford said in her victory speech. “And Wisconsin stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price, our courts are not for sale.”

Trump endorsed Schimel as the race turned into a proxy fight over national political issues. The state’s high court can rule on cases involving voting rights and redistricting in a state likely to be at the center of both next year’s midterm elections and the 2028 presidential contest.

But Musk’s involvement dialed those dynamics up to 11: “A seemingly small election could determine the fate of Western civilization,” the billionaire said Tuesday in a last-ditch call to voters on his social media site X. “I think it matters for the future of the world.”

Notably, America PAC, the super PAC backed by Musk, spent at least $6 million on vendors who sent door-to-door canvassers across the state, according to the non-partisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. It was a reprise of what the group did across the seven most competitive presidential battleground states, including Wisconsin, which were carried by Trump in November.

But the end results this time were not good for Musk. Despite the millions he spent on Schimel, as of late Tuesday night the Supreme Court candidate was losing by four percentage points more than the other Republican-backed statewide candidate, Brittany Kinser, who also fell short in her bid for superintendent of public instruction.

Musk’s court race defeat wasn’t only because of crushing Democratic margins in deep blue cities like Madison and Milwaukee. Crawford’s margins were higher in places where the Musk-backed group America PAC had been active, including Sauk County, just north of Madison, which Crawford was carrying by 10 points after Trump won it by less than 2 points in November.

In Brown County, the home of Green Bay where Musk headlined a campaign rally with 2,000 people on Sunday, Crawford beat Schimel. Trump won the county by 7 percentage points last year.

Overnight, Musk posted on his X platform that “The long con of the left is corruption of the judiciary.” In another comment, he seemed to take solace from voters’ approval to elevate the state’s photo ID requirement from state law to constitutional amendment. The platform was rife with criticism from Trump opponents for his involvement in the race.

“Please send @elonmusk to all the close races!” Jon Favreau, former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, wrote.

“Elon Musk is not good at this,” J.B. Pritzker, Illinois’ Democratic governor and a billionaire himself who donated to support Crawford, posted on X.

Voters definitely had Musk on their minds.

“There’s an insane situation going on with the Trump administration, and it feels like Elon Musk is trying to buy votes,” said Kenneth Gifford, a 22-year-old Milwaukee college student, as he cast his ballot on Tuesday. “I want an actual, respectable democracy.”

Others may not have had their vote decided by the billionaire but were all-too aware of the money pouring into their state.

Jim Seeger, a 68-year-old retiree who previously worked in communications and marketing, said he voted for Schimel because he wants Republicans to maintain their outsized majority in Wisconsin’s congressional delegation, which could be at risk if Crawford wins and the court orders the maps redrawn. But, he added, he was disappointed the election had become a “financial race.”

“I think it’s a shame that we have to spend this much money, especially on a judicial race,” Seeger said as he voted in Eau Claire.

Wisconsin’s Democratic Attorney General, Josh Kaul, sued to bar Musk from making his payments to voters if they signed a petition against “activist judges.” The state Supreme Court unanimously declined to rule on the case over a technicality.

Musk swooped into the race shortly after Trump’s inauguration. Republicans were pessimistic about being able to win the seat. They lost a longtime conservative majority on the state high court in 2023, and Democrats have excelled in turning out their educated, politically tuned-in coalition during obscure elections such as the one in Wisconsin.

Musk duplicated and expanded on some of the methods he used in the final weeks of last year’s presidential race, when he spent more than $200 million on Trump’s behalf in the seven swing states, including Wisconsin.

This time, in addition to the $1 million checks, Musk offered to pay $20 to anyone who signed up on his group’s site to knock on doors for Schimel and posted a photo of themselves as proof. His organization promised $100 to every voter who signed the petition against liberal judges and another $100 for every signer they referred.

Democrats were happy to make Musk a lightning rod in the race.

“People do not want to see Elon Musk buying election after election after election,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said Monday. “If it works here, he’s going to do it all over the country.”

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Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Washington contributed to this report.

PARIS — A French court on Monday barred Marine Le Pen from seeking public office for five years, with immediate effect, for embezzlement — a hammer blow to the far-right leader’s presidential hopes and an earthquake for French politics.

Although Le Pen can appeal the verdict, such a move won’t suspend her ineligibility, which could rule her out of the 2027 presidential race.

The court ruling was a political as well as a judicial temblor for France, hobbling one of the leading contenders to succeed President Emmanuel Macron at the end of his second and final term, scheduled to last into 2027. So broad were the political implications that even some of Le Pen’s political opponents reacted by saying that court had gone too far.

Le Pen herself wasn’t around to hear the chief judge pronounce the sentence that threw her career into a tailspin. By then, she’d already strode out of the courtroom, when the judge first indicated that Le Pen would be barred from office, without saying straight away for how long.

Although Le Pen didn’t immediately comment, her supporters were quick to express disapproval. Jordan Bardella, her 29-year-old protégé who could replace her on the ballot in 2027 if she can’t stand, said on X that Le Pen “is being unjustly condemned” and that French democracy “is being executed.”

Hungary’s populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán quickly took to social media to express his support, posting “Je suis Marine!” — I am Marine — on X.

Among political opponents of Le Pen who expressed unease was conservative lawmaker Laurent Wauquiez, who said the court ruling put “a very heavy weight on our democracy.”

The sentence could prevent her from running for president in 2027, a scenario she has previously described as a “political death.”

Only an appeal ruling that overturns the ban on public office could restore her hopes of standing. But with the election just two years away, time is running out and there’s no guarantee that an appeals court would rule more favorably.

The verdict was a resounding defeat for Le Pen’s party. The judge also handed down guilty verdicts for embezzling public funds to eight other current or former members of her party who, like her, previously served as European Parliament lawmakers. Also convicted were 12 other people who served as parliamentary aides for Le Pen and what is now the National Rally party, formerly the National Front.

The judge said Le Pen had been at the heart of “a system” that her party used to siphon off EU parliament money. The judge said Le Pen and other co-defendants didn’t enrich themselves personally. But the ruling described the embezzlement as “a democratic bypass” that deceived the parliament and voters.

From the front row of the court, Le Pen had initially shown no immediate reaction when the judge first declared her guilty. But she grew more agitated as the verdict was then delivered in greater detail. She nodded her head in disagreement as the judge said Le Pen’s party had illegally used European Parliament money for its own benefit.

“Incredible,” Le Pen she whispered at one point. She then abruptly left without warning, picking up her bag and striding out, her heels click-click-clicking on the hardwood floor, leaving disbelief in her wake.

The court sentenced Le Pen to two years’ imprisonment under house arrest, but it was the political ramifications of ineligibility that dealt the biggest blow to her foreseeable political future.

Le Pen and 24 other officials from the National Rally were accused of having used money intended for EU parliamentary aides to pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the 27-nation bloc’s regulations. Le Pen and her co-defendants denied wrongdoing.

Le Pen, 56, was runner-up to President Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, and her party’s electoral support has grown in recent years.

During the nine-week trial that took place in late 2024, she argued that ineligibility “would have the effect of depriving me of being a presidential candidate” and disenfranchise her supporters.

“There are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent. So tomorrow, potentially, millions and millions of French people would see themselves deprived of their candidate in the election,” she told the panel of three judges.

Le Pen’s seeming natural successor in 2027 elections would be Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s 29-year-old protégé who succeeded her at the helm of the party in 2021.

Le Pen denied accusations she was at the head of the system meant to siphon off EU parliament money to benefit her party, which she led from 2011 to 2021. She argued instead that it was acceptable to adapt the work of the aides paid by the European Parliament to the needs of the lawmakers, including some political work related to the party.

Hearings showed that some EU money was used to pay for Le Pen’s bodyguard — who was once her father’s bodyguard — as well as her personal assistant.

Prosecutors requested a two-year prison sentence and a five-year period of ineligibility for Le Pen.

Le Pen said she felt they were “only interested” in preventing her from running for president.

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Leicester reported from Le Pecq, France. Thomas Adamson in Paris and Justin Spike in Budapest contributed.

GREEN BAY, Wis. — GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Elon Musk and his political operatives have tried to shape the closely watched Wisconsin Supreme Court race in ways that are not immediately obvious but could be critical to Tuesday’s outcome.

Musk’s America PAC has sent paid canvassers across Wisconsin since early February, before conservative Brad Schimel advanced in a nonpartisan primary to face liberal Susan Crawford for an open seat on the state’s highest court, where liberal justices hold a 4-3 majority and retirement this year of a liberal justice puts majority control of the court in play.

Over the eight weeks since, canvassers are expected to have reached hundreds of thousands of potential Schimel voters, based on the more than $4.3 million alone that spending records a week before the election showed America PAC had poured into this labor-intensive aspect of the campaign.

“As I travel around the state, I’ve been hearing from quite a few folks who say they’ve got America PAC knocks at their doors,” said Brian Schimming, the state Republican chairman. “And it’s not just in the big areas.”

Though the group has been aggressive in GOP-heavy Waukesha County in suburban Milwaukee, Schimming and others report hearing that America PAC canvassers have appeared in Racine County, a blue-collar area south of Milwaukee and areas such as Sauk County northwest of Madison.

“They have been on this more than anybody,” Schimming said.

Musk played up the stakes at an America PAC event Sunday night in Green Bay, saying Schimel was in danger of losing and calling for a movement to “dragnet the state.”

“Everybody’s going to mobilize everywhere like crazy for the next 48 hours,” he said. “And I think this will be important for the future of civilization. It’s that significant. You don’t hear me saying that very often. It’s a big deal.”

He encouraged attendees to sign up at America PAC’s website to be a “block captain,” for which they could earn $20 for knocking on doors in their neighborhoods and uploading a photo as proof.

“It’s … thumbs up and hold a picture of Judge Schimel. And that’s it, and you get $20,” he said.

Though America PAC declined to discuss details of its work, the group’s commitment confirms Musk’s uniquely powerful role in Republican politics as someone working closely with President Donald Trump and willing to spend tens of millions of dollars to boost Trump and his allies.

During the 2024 presidential election, Musk, the world’s richest person, committed more than $200 million to America PAC’s work on Trump’s behalf in the seven most competitive states, including Wisconsin, where Trump won by fewer than 30,000 votes, less than a percentage point.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court comes as the court is expected to rule on abortion rights, congressional redistricting, union power and voting rules that could affect the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. Musk and America PAC are trying to elevate Schimel, who has attached himself publicly to Trump and Musk.

America PAC representatives were working the crowd Friday at a Schimel rally in Beaver Dam, northeast of Madison. They were seeking petition signatures to oppose “activist judges.” The political action committee promised $100 for each Wisconsin voter who signed the petition and another $100 for each signer they referred.

Musk has become a Democratic target and the center of the party’s messaging against Schimel. Crawford, who is backed by liberal billionaires including George Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, referred to her opponent in their debate as “Elon Schimel.”

Many standing nearby waved signs in protest to Musk.

“Musk Hates Judges Who Do Their Job!,” said one man’s cardboard sign, held over his head. The man next to him held one that simply said, “NO DOGE,” referring to the Department of Government Efficiency, Trump’s government cost-cutting effort, which Musk directs.

Musk drew widespread attention with the Sunday rally in Green Bay and his $1 million giveaways to people who sign the petition decrying judicial activism. Groups linked to Musk have spent more than $17 million to support Schimel in what’s become the most expensive judicial race in American history.

A significant portion of that money is going into the tedious but critical work of voter turnout.

As of one week before the election, America PAC had spent $4.3 million on canvassing alone, according to figures compiled by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates for transparency in campaign spending.

Americans for Prosperity, a group founded by anti-tax billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, is also canvassing in the supreme court race and also was active in Wisconsin during the 2024 campaign. But the group also was a distant second in the Supreme Court race, having spent only about a sixth of America PAC — $712,000 — on canvassing, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

While the millions America PAC has spent on canvassing are far beyond what other groups have committed, America PAC also had spent as of last week at least another $4 million on mail, printing, online advertising, phone-banking, text messaging and other organizing costs, also far ahead of other groups.

The group was canvassing this month in Sauk County, where the presidential candidate who took the state has won in five straight elections.

Trump last year won Sauk — split between Democratic-leaning areas closer to Madison and a more conservative rural northwest — by 626 votes after Democrat Joe Biden won the county by 615 votes in 2020.

America PAC canvassers were in Sauk County knocking on doors last fall, trying to reach voters who had voted Republican in the past but had not been reliably active.

“America PAC is in our neck of the woods,” said Jerry Helmer, the county’s Republican chairman. “They were up knocking on doors in the Wisconsin Dells this month. America PAC has been doing a really good job in our area. They are just killing it in Sauk County.”

SANTA FE, N.M. — A New Mexico court is weighing whether to block the disclosure of an array of records from an investigation into the deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, at the request of the couple’s estate.

Santa Fe-based Judge Matthew Wilson scheduled a hearing Monday to consider a request from estate representative Julia Peters to seal photos, video and documents to protect the family’s constitutional right to privacy. The court put a temporary hold on the release of records pending the hearing.

The partially mummified remains of Hackman and Arakawa were found in their Santa Fe home on Feb. 26, when maintenance and security workers showed up at the home and alerted police. Authorities have confirmed Hackman, 95, died of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease about a week after his wife’s death. Hackman may have been unaware Arakawa, 65, was dead.

Her cause of death was listed as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which is a rare, rodent-borne disease.

New Mexico’s open records law blocks public access to sensitive images, including depictions of dead bodies. Experts also say some medical information is not considered public record under the state Inspection of Public Records Act.

Peters has emphasized the possibly shocking nature of photographs and video in the investigation and potential for their dissemination by media in the bid to block them from being released.

The Hackman family estate’s lawsuit also seeks to block the release of autopsy reports by the Office of the Medical Investigator and death investigation reports by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office.

The bulk of death investigations by law enforcement and autopsy reports by medical investigators are typically considered public records under state law in the spirit of ensuring government transparency and accountability.

Authorities unraveled the mysterious circumstances of the couple’s deaths and described their conclusions at a March 7 news conference without releasing most related written and photographic records.

One of the couple’s three dogs, a kelpie mix named Zinna, also was found dead in a crate in a bathroom closet near Arakawa. Two other dogs survived.

The written request to seal the records notes the couple placed “a significant value on their privacy and took affirmative vigilant steps” to safeguard it during their lives, including after they moved to Santa Fe and Hackman retired. The state capital is known as a refuge for celebrities, artists and authors.

Arakawa had no children, while Hackman is survived by three children from a previous marriage. Privacy likely also will play a role as the couple’s estate is settled. According to probate court documents, Hackman signed an updated will in 2005 leaving his estate to his wife, while the will she signed that same year directed her estate to him. With both of them dying, management of the estate is in Peters’ hands.

A request is pending to appoint a trustee to administer assets in two trusts associated with the estate. Without trust documents being made public, it’s unclear who the beneficiaries are and how the assets will be divided.

Attorneys who specialize in estate planning in New Mexico say it’s possible more details could come out if there were any legal disputes over the assets. Even then, they said, the parties likely would ask the court to seal the documents.

MILWAUKEE — As the candidates for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat squared off in a recent debate before early voting, one issue came up first and dominated at the start.

“Let’s talk about abortion rights,” the moderator said.

The winner of the April 1 election could hold the power to determine the fate of any future litigation over abortion because the outcome of the race for a vacancy on the state’s highest court will decide whether liberals or conservatives hold a majority.

Abortion has become a central plank of the platform for the Democratic-backed candidate, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, in part because of its effect on voter turnout, although to a lesser extent than during a heated 2023 state Supreme Court race that flipped the court to a liberal majority. Brad Schimel, a former state attorney general, is the Republican-supported candidate.

“Abortion of course remains a top issue,” said Charles Franklin, a Marquette University political scientist. “But we haven’t seen either candidate be as outspoken on hot-button issues as we saw in 2023.”

Democrats are hoping voters will be motivated by the potential revival of an abortion ban from 1849, which criminalizes “the willful killing of an unborn quick child.” The Wisconsin Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to reactivate the 175-year-old ban.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin filed a separate lawsuit in February asking the court to rule on whether a constitutional right to abortion exists in the state.

The 19th century law was enacted just a year after Wisconsin became a state, when lead mining and the lumber industry formed the bedrock of the state’s economy as white settlers rushed into areas left vacant by forced removals of Native American tribes.

It also was a time when combinations of herbs stimulating uterine contractions were the most common abortion method, said Kimberly Reilly, a history and gender studies professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

“During this time, there were no women in statehouses,” Reilly said. “When a woman got married, she lost her legal identity. Her husband became her legal representative. She couldn’t own property in her name. She couldn’t make a contract.”

This is the latest instance of long-dormant restrictions influencing current abortion policies after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, which had granted a federal right to abortion.

The revival of an 1864 Arizona abortion law, enacted when Arizona was a territory, sparked a national outcry last year. Century-old abortion restrictions passed by all-male legislatures during periods when women could not vote — and scientific knowledge of pregnancy and abortion were limited — have also influenced post-Roe abortion policies in Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia.

Those laws tend to be more severe. They often do not include exceptions for rape and incest, call for the imprisonment of providers and ban the procedure in the first few weeks of pregnancy. Some have since been repealed, while others are being challenged in court.

During the state Supreme Court debate March 12, Crawford declined to weigh in directly on the 1849 abortion case but promoted her experience representing Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and “making sure that women could make their own choices about their bodies and their health care.” In an ad released Wednesday, she accused Schimel of not trusting “women to make their own healthcare decisions.”

Schimel calls himself “pro-life” and has previously supported leaving Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban on the books. He dodged questions about abortion during the debate, saying he believes the issue should be left up to voters, although Wisconsin does not have a citizen-led ballot initiative process, which voters in several other states have used to protect abortion rights.

Anthony Chergosky, a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse political scientist, said Schimel has been “borrowing from the Republican playbook of avoiding the issue of abortion” by leaving the question to voters in individual states.

The message has still gotten across to many Democratic voters, who cited abortion as a top issue while waiting in line for early voting this past week.

Jane Delzer, a 75-year-old liberal voter in Waukesha, said “a woman’s right to choose is my biggest motivator. I’m deeply worried about what Schimel may do on abortion.”

June Behrens, a 79-year-old retired teacher, spoke about a loved one’s abortion experience: “Everyone makes their own choice and has their own journey in life, and they deserve that right.”

Republican voters primarily cited immigration and the economy as their top issues, essentially the same ones that helped propel Republican Donald Trump’s win over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris last November in the presidential election. But others said they also wanted conservative social views reflected on the court.

Lewis Titus, a 72-year-old volunteer for the city of Eau Claire, said restricting abortion was his top issue in the Supreme Court race: “I believe that Brad Schimel is the one to carry that on.”

While it’s one of the key issues this year, abortion played a much larger role two years ago, when a race for Wisconsin’s highest court demonstrated how expensive and nationalized state Supreme Court races have become.

This year’s campaigns have focused primarily on “criminal sentencing and attempting to paint one another as soft on crime,” said Howard Schweber, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor emeritus.

Crawford also has tried to make the race a referendum on Trump after his first months in office and tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is running Trump’s massive federal cost-cutting initiative and has funded two groups that have together spent more than $10 million to promote Schimel.

“Two years ago, abortion was a hugely mobilizing issue, and we saw that clearly in the lead-up to the election,” Schweber said. “We’re seeing some of this but not to the same extent, which really makes no sense. The issues and stakes are exactly the same.”

The decision to elevate other issues might be the result of anxiety among Democrats that abortion may not resonate as deeply as they once believed after significant election losses in November, despite Harris using abortion as a pillar of her campaign, several Wisconsin politics experts said.

Charles Franklin, a Marquette University political scientist, said he believes abortion will motivate Democrats, but the issue may not rank high in the priorities of independent voters, who he says will be central to the race’s outcome.

“In the early days after Roe v. Wade was overturned, it was still a very hot issue for voters,” he said. “But as states have codified their abortion laws, the issue doesn’t seem to motivate voters to the same extent. In the fall, many Democrats believed abortion was still this magic silver bullet and would win them the presidential and Senate races. But the outcomes didn’t seem to support that.”

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Associated Press video journalist Mark Vancleave in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s shoot-from-the-lip style kept Americans on the edge of their seats during last year’s campaign. But now that he’s speaking as a president and not as a candidate, his words are being used against him in court in the blizzard of litigation challenging his agenda.

The spontaneity is complicating his administration’s legal positions. Nowhere has this been clearer than in cases involving Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, the driving force in Trump’s efforts to downsize and overhaul the federal government.

The latest example came earlier this week, when U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled that Musk had likely violated the Constitution by dismantling the United States Agency for International Development.

The lawsuit turned on the question of whether the billionaire entrepreneur had overstepped his authority. Justice Department lawyers and White House officials insist that Musk is merely a presidential adviser, not the actual leader of DOGE.

But Trump has said otherwise — in speeches, interviews and public remarks — and Chuang quoted him extensively in his decision.

Trump most notably boasted of creating DOGE during his primetime address to a joint session of Congress and said it was “headed by Elon Musk.” Republicans gave Musk a standing ovation, who saluted from the gallery above the House chamber.

“Trump’s words were essential, central and indispensable,” said Norm Eisen, one of the lawyers for USAID employees who filed the lawsuit. “His admissions took what would have been a tough case and made it into a straightforward one.”

The looseness with words is a shift from predecessors like President Barack Obama, who used to say that he was careful because anything he said could send troops marching or markets tumbling.

Trump has no such feeling of restraint, and neither do other members of his administration like Musk.

Chuang, who is based in Maryland and was appointed by Obama, also cited social media posts from Musk, who writes frequently on X, the platform that he owns.

For example, Musk posted “we spent the weekend feeding USAID to the woodchipper” on Feb. 3. The agency was being brought to a standstill at that time, with staff furloughed, spending halted and headquarters shut down.

“Musk’s public statements and posts … suggest that he has the ability to cause DOGE to act,” Chuang wrote in his ruling.

Harrison Fields, principal deputy press secretary at the White House, said Trump was fulfilling his campaign promise “to make the federal government more efficient and accountable to taxpayers.”

“Rogue bureaucrats and activist judges attempting to undermine this effort are only subverting the will of the American people and their obstructionist efforts will fail,” he said.

Anthony Coley, who led public affairs at the Justice Department during President Joe Biden’s administration, said statements involving civil litigation were always coordinated between his office and the West Wing.

“The words could be used to support what we’re doing or undermine what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s a carefully choreographed effort to make sure there was no daylight between what was said in the court of public opinion and what could ultimately play out in the court of law.”

In comparison to how things were done in the past, Coley said, Trump has a “ready-fire-aim approach of doing business.”

Trump doesn’t usually let legal disputes force him to turn down the volume. During a criminal investigation over his decision to keep classified records at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House following his first term, Trump spoke extensively about the case in an interview with Fox News.

Longtime defense lawyers were startled — defendants are usually encouraged to keep mum while facing an indictment. But the situation panned out for Trump. His legal team delayed the case, and the special counsel’s office dropped the charges after he won the election because presidents can’t be prosecuted while in office.

DOGE has been the focus of nearly two dozen lawsuits. It’s often prevailed so far in cases involving access to government data, where several plaintiffs have struggled to convince judges to block the organization’s actions.

But it’s also run into challenges, such as a lawsuit over whether DOGE must comply with public records requests. The Trump administration asserted in court that DOGE is part of the White House, meaning it’s exempt.

Judge Christopher Cooper, also appointed by Obama, disagreed, siding with a government watchdog group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW.

“Musk and the President’s public statements indicate that USDS” — the original acronym for the organization that was renamed as DOGE — “is in fact exercising substantial independent authority,” wrote Cooper, who is based in Washington.

Cooper concluded that DOGE can “identify and terminate federal employees, federal programs, and federal contracts. Doing any of those three things would appear to require substantial independent authority; to do all three surely does.”

He ordered DOGE to start responding to requests about the team’s role in mass firings and disruptions to federal programs. The administration unsuccessfully asked the judge to reconsider, saying the judge “fundamentally misapprehended” the agency’s structure.

Just because Musk claims credit online for deep agency cuts, doesn’t necessarily translate to DOGE having authority in the eyes of the law, Stanford Law School professor Michael McConnell argued in a recent debate on the issue.

DOGE is recommending changes, he said, but it’s the agency heads who are actually putting them into effect.

“And that’s all that the courts are going to care about as to what the Supreme Court is going to do,” McConnell said at the debate hosted by the National Constitution Center.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati will hear arguments Wednesday in a legal dispute that pits a suburban Ohio school district’s policy requiring use of students’ preferred pronouns against the free speech rights of classmates who believe there are only two genders.

The lawsuit brought by Parents Defending Education, a national Christian organization, against the Olentangy Local School District in 2023 has captured broad national attention from groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the conservative Manhattan Institute. Ohio’s solicitor general has asked to participate in oral arguments on behalf of 22 U.S. states that have interests in the case.

A lower court rejected the group’s arguments that the policies violated students’ First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit affirmed that decision in July.

The full court will reconsider that decision in a rare en banc hearing Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know:

The lawsuit takes issue with overlapping district policies that prohibit the use of gender-related language that other students might deem insulting, dehumanizing, unwanted or offensive and call for the use of peers’ “preferred pronouns.”

The district’s electronic devices policy — which applies both on and off school time — prohibits transmitting “disruptive” material or material that could be seen as harassing or disparaging other students based on their gender identity or sexual orientation, among other categories.

A separate antidiscrimination policy prohibits students from engaging in “discriminatory language” during times when they’re under the school’s authority. That is defined as “verbal or written comments, jokes, and slurs that are derogatory towards an individual or group based on one or more of the following characteristics: race, color, national origin, sex (including sexual orientation and transgender identity), disability, age, religion, ancestry, or genetic information.”

The district’s code of conduct echoes many of the same themes a third time.

Parents Defending Education, founded in 2021 amid the culture wars over schools’ teachings on race, diversity and sexuality, argues that the policies compel students and parents who belong to their group to “affirm an idea that gender is fluid” in contradiction of their religious beliefs.

“These students have views that the District disfavors,” the group wrote in a court filing. “Specifically, they believe that people are either male or female, that biological sex is immutable, and that sex does not change based on someone’s internal feelings. Accordingly, they ‘d(o) not want to be forced to ‘affirm’ that a biologically female classmate is actually a male — or vice versa — or that a classmate is ’nonbinary’ and neither male nor female.”

The group argues that the policies unconstitutionally compel “viewpoint-based” speech by forcing students who believe in only two genders to use pronouns that suggest otherwise. They say that violates the First Amendment’s guarantees to free speech and similar protections contained in the 14th Amendment, particularly since students are subject to punishment for violating the policies.

Parents Defending Education further challenges the electronic devices policy for applying outside school hours and off school property. The ACLU has sided with the parents’ group on this point, arguing the district’s policies are overbroad.

Olentangy Local School District outside Columbus, one of the state’s largest districts, maintains the policies protect students against abuse and harassment and asserts that Parents Defending Education represents “Christian, cisgender” students “seeking dispensation under the free speech clause of the First Amendment to harass other students based on their gender identity.”

“They are not illegal immigrants subject to deportation. They are not gay soldiers under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. They’re not African Americans in the Jim Crow south. They’ve not been systematically oppressed,” the district’s lawyers told the lower court. “They’re members of the majority who want to — under the guise of the First Amendment — openly voice their opposition to an historically maligned minority group, transgendered people.”

Olentangy argues that Parents Defending Education has failed to provide evidence of injury — as the lawsuit was filed before disciplinary action had been brought against any student. The district also says that its policies leave open other options for students who don’t wish to use someone’s preferred pronouns. That includes calling the person by their first name, using a gender-neutral pronoun or simply not referring to them at all.

The availability of such options, an argument against the policies unconstitutionally compelling students to say certain things, played a role in the three-judge panel’s 2-1 ruling in favor of the district last summer.