The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked President Obama’s immigration executive actions, in a tie decision that delivers a win to states challenging his plan to give a deportation reprieve to millions of illegal immigrants.

The justices' one-sentence opinion on Thursday marks a major setback for the administration, effectively killing the plan for the duration of Obama's presidency.

The judgment could have significant political and legal consequences in a presidential election year highlighted by competing rhetoric over immigration. As the ruling was announced, pro-immigration activists filled the sidewalk in front of the court, some crying as the ruling became public. Critics of the policy touted the decision as a strong statement against "executive abuses."

"The Constitution is clear: The president is not permitted to write laws—only Congress is. This is another major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers," House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement, adding that the ruling rendered Obama's actions "null and void."

Obama, though, said the decision “takes us further from the country that we aspire to be.”
He stressed that earlier changes his administration made to immigration policy are not affected, but acknowledged his most recent 2014 changes cannot go forward and additional executive actions are unlikely.

While Obama accepted the ruling, he also made his own full-court press, saying the split decision underscores the importance of the current court vacancy and the appointment of a successor to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, to "break this tie." So far, Senate Republicans have not considered Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland.

"The court's inability to reach a decision in this case is a very clear reminder of why it's so important for the Supreme Court to have a full bench," he said Thursday at the White House.

The 4-4 tie vote sets no national precedent but leaves in place the ruling by the lower court. In this case, the federal appeals court in New Orleans said the Obama administration lacked the authority to shield up to 4 million immigrants from deportation and make them eligible for work permits without approval from Congress.

Texas led 26 Republican-dominated states in challenging the program Obama announced in November 2014. Congressional Republicans also backed the states' lawsuit.

The decision lands in the middle of a heated election season in which immigration is a central issue. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, won the primaries while railing against Obama administration immigration policies as dangerous.

Democrats have, in turn, called his rhetoric racially divisive while defending the administration's move to expand existing programs that would effectively give temporary legal status to some undocumented residents.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton countered Ryan's statement saying the decision was "purely procedural" and leaves "no doubt" the programs were within the president's authority. Referencing the 4-4 split on the court, she again urged the Senate to give Obama's nominee to fill the remaining court vacancy a vote.

"Today’s deadlocked decision from the Supreme Court is unacceptable, and show us all just how high the stakes are in this election," Clinton said in a statement.


The immigration case dealt with two separate Obama programs. One would allow undocumented immigrants who are parents of either U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents to live and work in the U.S. without the threat of deportation. The other would expand an existing program to protect from deportation a larger population of immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

Obama decided to move forward after Republicans won control of the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections, and the chances for an immigration overhaul, already remote, were further diminished.
The Senate had passed a broad immigration bill with Democratic and Republican support in 2013,
but the measure went nowhere in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

The states quickly went to court to block the Obama initiatives.

Their lawsuit was heard initially by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas. Hanen previously had criticized the administration for lax immigration enforcement. Hanen sided with the states, blocking the programs from taking effect. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled for the states, and the Justice Department rushed an appeal to the high court so that it could be heard this term.

Texas officials hailed the decision Thursday.

“The action taken by the President was an unauthorized abuse of presidential power that trampled the Constitution, and the Supreme Court rightly denied the President the ability to grant amnesty contrary to immigration laws," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement. "Today's ruling is also a victory for all law-abiding Americans—including the millions of immigrants who came to America following the rule of law."

12:48

German police killed a masked man who stormed a movie theater Thursday afternoon and was believed to have fired shots and taken hostages, authorities said.

The unidentified man was killed after police commandoes gathered around the the Kinopolis complex in Viernheim, about 40 miles south of Frankfurt, following reports that shots had been fired inside, police said.

"The police thought that the gunman was holding hostages and because of that he was shot dead," Hessen State Interior Minister Peter Beuth told local lawmakers.

Beuth said it wasn't clear whether the weapon was real, but also said he believed four "shots" were fired. Unconfirmed reports said the gun may have shot blanks.

The incident began around lunchtime, and ended with the police action some three hours later.
"We believe that there were no injured people, and that the people who were in the cinema with the perpetrator could be freed uninjured," Beuth said.

Police spokesman Bernd Hochstaedter, said that "there are no indications at present of an Islamist background."

The Associated Press reported no one was shot by the gunman, but German media said dozens were treated for exposure to tear gas. It was unclear if the tear gas was released by the suspect or by police.

Before going inside, investigators described it as a "threat situation."

Police in the nearby city of Mannheim sent officers to support the operation, spokesman Norbert Schaetzle told reporters.

The incident evoked the July 2012 incident in Aurora, Colo., in which James Holmes killed 12 and wounded dozens at a screening of the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises."

12:35

The Pentagon announced Wednesday the transfer of Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to Balkan nation of Montenegro.

Al-Rahabi arrived at the naval base from Yemen in Cuba in 2002 after being accused of serving as the body guard for former Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden. He was cleared for release in March 2014 after an intense security review. But the White House doesn’t send Guantanamo prisoners back to Yemen because of the country’s ongoing civil war.

“The United States is grateful to the Government of Montenegro for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “The United States coordinated with the Government of Montenegro to ensure this transfer took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.”

This was the second prisoner this year resettled in Montenegro amid a renewed push by the Obama administration to whittle down the number of men held at Guantanamo even as Congress continues to prevent the closure of the detention center with a prohibition on transferring prisoners to the U.S.

There are still 79 prisoners that remain at Guantanamo, including 29 who have been cleared to be sent home or to other countries for resettlement.

Officials expect to release most of those cleared in the coming weeks, leaving mostly men who have been charged or convicted by military commission for war crimes or who authorities believe are too dangerous to release.

The U.S. opened the detention center in January 2002 to hold foreign fighters suspected of links to the Taliban or the Al Qaeda terrorist organization. At its peak, the facility held about 680 prisoners. There were 242 when Obama took office pledging to close the detention center within a year.

Al-Rahabi had been at Guantanamo since shortly after it opened. A Pentagon profile released before he appeared before a review board in 2013 said he had traveled from his homeland to Afghanistan and "almost certainly" became a member of Al Qaeda. But he was never charged with a crime, and authorities ultimately decided he did not pose a security threat and could be released.

While in custody, al-Rahabi studied English, worked with military officials to help ease tensions in the detention center and worked with several fellow prisoners on an extensively detailed plan for a post-Guantanamo agricultural enterprise, the "Yemen Milk and Honey Farms Limited," according to his lawyer, David Remes.

He was desperate to get out of Guantanamo and reunite with his wife and daughter. "He's been waiting for this for a long time," Remes said.

The lawyer, who has represented more than two dozen prisoners at Guantanamo over the years, said there has been a notable sense of relief among men he has met with at the base in recent weeks.

"It's no longer a question of whether, or even a question of when, it's a question of how soon," Remes said.

12:23

Democratic U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah resigned from Congress on Thursday, two days after his conviction in a Philadelphia racketeering case.

Fattah, who served on the powerful Appropriations Committee during 11 terms in office, said he hastened his exit out of respect for House leadership and to avoid being a distraction.

"I am honored to have had the privilege to serve," he wrote in a resignation letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Fattah, 59, had said this week he would leave office when he is sentenced in October. He had run for a 12th term, but lost the primary to state Rep. Dwight Evans weeks before his trial began.

A jury on Tuesday convicted him on all 22 counts in a case that centered on his misuse of federal grants and nonprofit funds to repay an illegal $1 million campaign loan from his 2007 run for mayor.
The eight-year, on-again, off-again FBI investigation that followed his mayoral bid also brought down many people close to Fattah. His son was convicted of bank fraud in a related case and sent to prison for five years. Two political consultants who let him move money through their businesses pleaded guilty and testified against the congressman. Four trusted associates, two of whom had worked on his congressional staff, were convicted with him at trial.

And Fattah's wife, Philadelphia TV anchor Renee Chenault-Fattah, left her job after the indictment described her as a participant in one of the bribery schemes. She was never charged and denied wrongdoing.

Fattah, raised by community activists in West Philadelphia, had been in Congress since 1995 after a decade in the Pennsylvania Statehouse. His U.S. House term was to end Jan. 2, two months after his Oct. 4 sentencing.

Fattah's undoing largely stemmed from his decision to join the Philadelphia mayor's race in 2007. New campaign funding laws in the city hampered his effort, and led him to seek out the illegal $1 million loan from a wealthy friend, former Sallie Mae chairman Albert Lord. Fattah came in fourth in the primary, as city councilman Michael Nutter won the race and eventually the mayor's seat.

Fattah was left scrambling to repay the loan. He routed federal grant money through a consultant and on to Lord, the jury found.

In a resignation letter Thursday to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Fattah noted his successes in steering federal funds to education, housing, city infrastructure and other pressing needs.

He thanked colleagues on both sides of the aisle, along with his staff, his family and voters in his 2nd Congressional district.

12:15

It isn't usually news for a singer to show their face during a concert – but Sia isn't like most singers. The 40-year-old Australian has gone to great lengths to preserve her anonymity in recent years, declining to appear in her own music videos and obscuring her visage with elaborate wigs and masks during public outings.

This strategy had been working out pretty well, until she was betrayed by Mother Nature Wednesday night during a concert in Colorado. Sia's attempts at privacy were foiled when a particularly strong gust of wind blew back her trademark hairpiece, giving fans a glimpse of her face for the first time in ages and dashing any potential conspiracy theories involving her being replaced by a body double.

How did it look, you ask? It looked kind of like … well, Sia's face before, but framed by a wig.

 

The monumental moment went unnoticed by the artist herself, who appeared too wrapped up in the music to notice, let alone care. Then, like a shooting star streaking across the night sky, Sia’s face was gone just as quickly as it arrived.

The secretive star explained the desire to mask her mug during a visit to The Ellen DeGeneres Show last December. "Well, it's so that I can go to Target and buy a hose if I want to. Or if I'm in need of a restroom and I can't find one, I could go by the side of the road." We've all been there, right?

12:02

The plaintiff sued in 2014 for more than $50 million, claiming that he was defamed in the film.

A federal judge has ordered actor Leonardo DiCaprio to be deposed in a defamation lawsuit brought by a former Stratton Oakmont executive over his alleged depiction in the 2013 Martin Scorsese film “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Locke in Central Islip, New York, on Thursday said DiCaprio must be made available for questioning, which was opposed by Viacom Inc’s Paramount Pictures Corp, DiCaprio’s Appian Way Productions and other defendants.

The plaintiff, Andrew Greene, sued in 2014 for more than $50 million, claiming that he was defamed in the film through the portrayal by actor P.J. Byrne of a morally and ethically challenged character named Nicky “Rugrat” Koskoff.

Paramount has said Koskoff was a “composite character” inspired by multiple individuals, including Greene.

DiCaprio, 41, played Jordan Belfort, a stock swindler who founded Stratton Oakmont and whose 2007 memoir was a basis for the film. Greene was a childhood friend of Belfort.

In opposing a deposition, defense lawyers said DiCaprio did not write the screenplay, and that there was no claim he had any role in deciding whether alleged defamatory content should be included in or excluded from the film.

Greene’s lawyers said they had already questioned Scorsese and screenwriter Terence Winter, and that both testified that they met regularly with DiCaprio to discuss the “Wolf” script.
Louis Petrich, a lawyer for the defendants, declined to comment.

The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including DiCaprio as best actor, Scorsese as best director and Winter for the screenplay, but did not win any.

Locke’s order does not say when DiCaprio will be questioned.

The case is Greene v Paramount Pictures Corp et al, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, No. 14-01044.

10:51

This past Sunday’s Game of Thrones featured a surprising resolution to one of the biggest storylines of the past couple years. But when I reached the end of the episode, I had to rewind and watch it a few times. I couldn’t shake a feeling that something was off.

Here Come Some Spoilers

I’m referring, of course, to Arya, the younger daughter of House Stark. She’s spent the past couple years in the free city of Braavos studying to be an assassin with the death cult known as the Faceless Men. Her mentor, the assassin formerly known as Jaqen H’ghar, has pushed Arya to prove that she can give up her identity and become “no one” in the service of the Many-Faced God.

The story of Arya’s time with the Faceless Men is one of her failing at this. She hides her sword, Needle, instead of giving it up with all the other trappings of her old life. She murders someone without the Many-Faced God’s blessing (Ser Meryn Trant, a Westerosi who was on Arya’s oft-chanted shit list) and then refuses to kill one of her assigned targets, an actor known as Lady Crane. It’s pretty clear Arya is and always will be Arya—she can’t even hide her emotions when watching a play about her family’s downfall. Though to be fair, we’re all still sad about Ned.

Not assassinating Lady Crane is Arya’s second and final strike (there’s no baseball in Braavos, I guess), and when he finds out about it, Jaqen reluctantly orders the Waif to kill her. The trainee assassin, who’s been bullying Arya since she moved into the temple, tracks down the Little Wolf and stabs her in the stomach repeatedly. The next day, she chases Arya all over town, Terminator-style.

At last, at the end of the aptly-named “No One,” Arya gets the Waif alone in the room where she’s stashed her sword, strikes a dramatic pose, and slices the flame off the room’s lone candle with a flourish that would make Syrio Forel proud. The room goes black.

The next thing we see, Arya has hung the Waif’s face on House of Black and White’s trophy wall, and she tells Jaqen she’s reclaiming her identity and going home. Jaqen is like, “A man is super chill and accepting about this development.” The end. Uh, OK.

WTF?

So… how did Arya, who has multiple stab wounds in the stomach, score a kill on an opponent she’s never bested? (The darkness couldn’t have helped too much—she didn’t get that good at fighting while she was blind.) She’s not even staggering a little in that last scene. Why is Jaqen H’ghar suddenly OK with Arya traipsing back home to Westeros, after telling her earlier that there are no third chances? What happened to Arya’s idea of finding out what lays to the west of Westeros? Etc. etc.

Here’s the theory: Arya Stark is dead. She died in that dark room, and the Waif is wearing her face. Every time I re-watched the episode, I became more convinced.

Faceless

In the final scene, Jaqen H’ghar enters his temple to find a trail of blood leading to a face on the wall. “You told her to kill me,” Arya says, accusingly. Yes, he responds, “but there she is, and there you are.” Then he adds something odd: “Finally, a girl is no one.” Why would Arya be “no one” if she killed in self-defense, wielding a weapon given to her by her family? The very notion of “self-defense” implies that there’s a self to defend.

Jaqen’s compliment makes no sense (unless he’s just trying to placate her because she’s holding a sword to his chest). If anything, Arya’s method of killing the Waif is the final proof that she never became “no one.”

But maybe he’s not speaking to Arya. The Waif has also been trying to prove that she can be “no one” while training at the temple. And maybe the fact that she not just killed Arya, but took her place so convincingly is the ultimate proof that she’s accomplished her goal.

That little smile that Jaqen gives “Arya” when she says she’s going home sealed it for me. Having a reliable member of the Faceless Men masquerading as Arya Stark would be worth a great deal to the Many-Faced God. Just think of how many targets she can take out before anybody catches on.

There is, of course, the question of whose face “Arya” pinned to the wall? It could be anybody’s, really. It doesn’t look that much like Faye Marsay, who played the Waif, but it’s also possible that Waif herself was not the original owner of that face. It could also be simple misdirection; what you learn from reading George R.R. Martin—especially the sample chapter from The Winds of Winter—is that the Faceless Men do a lot of method acting to get into character.

Clues from the Future

In that chapter, Arya is impersonating an actress named Mercy for the Faceless Men. We see her internal monologue as she’s completely submerged in Mercy’s thoughts. Mercy doesn’t understand the Westerosi Common Tongue, so when Arya hears it, she thinks she doesn’t either—until she does. Mercy has no understanding of Westerosi politics, so Arya doesn’t understand any of it either. (She sees Ser Harys Swift’s crest, a bantam rooster, and wonders why he has a chicken on his chest.)
So maybe that whole performance is just the Waif creating a believable scenario in which Arya walks away from the House of Black and White, to help herself get into the role?

I did some Googling after I saw the episode, just to see if anybody else had thought of this first, and I didn’t find anything. Which probably means I’m wrong. (Although apparently some people believed the Waif was a figment of Arya’s imagination, or an aspect of Arya’s personality, which would leave the House of Black and White even more deserted than it already looks.) If I’m right, though, we’ll probably find out soon.

Talking to the Hollywood Reporter, Marsay said that she was sad to be “off the show,” but also added that there’s a reason we didn’t see Arya kill the Waif: “It would have been amazing to do a final fight scene, but the creators of this show are so good at making people second-guess things.” I can’t help wondering: What exactly are we supposed to be second-guessing?

OK, so my theory is admittedly crazypants. And you can just imagine the howls of rage ringing out across America if it turned out that Arya Stark was killed off screen. It would be the Red Wedding times a thousand.

On the other hand, the alternative is that the Faceless Men are not only faceless, but a little spineless, too.

10:24