WASHINGTON: Donald Trump has already appointed three Supreme Court justices. In his second term, he could well have a chance to name two more, creating a high court with a Trump-appointed majority that could serve for decades.
The decisive outcome spares the court from having to wade into election disputes. It also seems likely to change the tenor of cases that come before the justices, including on abortion and immigration.
The two eldest justices — Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74 — could consider stepping down knowing that Trump, a Republican, would nominate replacements who might be three decades younger and ensure conservative domination of the court through the middle of the century, or beyond.
Trump would have a long list of candidates to choose from among the more than 50 men and women he appointed to federal appeals courts, including some of Thomas’ and Alito’s former law clerks.
If both men were to retire, they probably would not do so at once to minimize disruption to the court. Justices David Souter and John Paul Stevens retired a year apart, in the first two years of Barack Obama’s presidency.
Thomas has said on more than one occasion that he has no intention of retiring.
But Ed Whelan, a conservative lawyer who was once a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, wrote on the National Review’s Bench Memos blog that Thomas will realize that the best way to burnish his legacy is to have a like-minded justice replace him and retire before the midterm congressional elections.
If Thomas stays on the court until near his 80th birthday, in June 2028, he will surpass William O. Douglas as the longest-serving justice. Douglas was on the court for more than 36 years.
There’s no guarantee Republicans will have their Senate majority then, and Thomas saw what happened when one of his colleagues didn’t retire when she might have, Whelan wrote. “But it would be foolish of him to risk repeating Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s mistake — hanging on only to die in office and be replaced by someone with a very different judicial philosophy,” Whelan wrote.
Ginsburg died in September 2020, less than two months before Joe Biden’s election as president. Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy and majority Republicans rammed her nomination through the Senate before the election.
Barrett, along with Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s other two high court appointees, joined Thomas and Alito to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the national right to abortion.
Along with Chief Justice John Roberts, the conservatives also have expanded gun rights, ended affirmative action in college admissions, reined in Biden administration efforts to deal with climate change and weakened federal regulators by overturning a 40-year-old decision that had long been a target of business and conservative interests.
The court’s landmark decision didn’t end its involvement with abortion: the justices also considered cases this year on emergency abortions in states with bans and access to medication abortion.
The new administration seems likely to drop Biden administration guidance saying doctors need to provide emergency abortions if necessary to protect a woman’s life or health, even in states where abortion is otherwise banned. That would end a case out of Idaho that the justices sent back to lower courts over the summer.
Access to the abortion medication mifepristone is also facing a renewed challenge in lower courts. That suit could have an uphill climb in lower courts after the Supreme Court preserved access to the drug earlier this year, but abortion opponents have floated other ways a conservative administration could restrict access to the medication. That includes enforcement of a 19th century “anti-vice” law called the Comstock Act that prohibits the mailing of drugs that could be used in abortion, though Trump himself hasn’t stated a clear position on mifepristone.
Immigration cases also are bubbling up through the courts over the Obama era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump tried to end DACA in his first term, but he was thwarted by the Supreme Court. Now, the conservative appeals court based in New Orleans is considering whether DACA is legal.
One of the first Trump-era fights to reach the Supreme Court concerned the ban on visitors from some Muslim-majority countries. The justices ended up approving the program, after two revisions.
He spoke during the campaign about bringing back the travel ban.
Trump’s election could assure a conservative Supreme Court majority for decades
https://arab.news/b3smw
Trump’s election could assure a conservative Supreme Court majority for decades
- The decisive outcome spares the court from having to wade into election disputes. It also seems likely to change the tenor of cases that come before the justices, including on abortion and immigration
India rolls out strictest anti-pollution curbs as toxic smog engulfs Delhi
- Private monitors in several parts of northern Delhi recorded AQI spikes between 550 and 700s
- Authorities invoked stage four of the capital region’s emergency pollution-control framework
NEW DELHI: India’s capital choked under a thick blanket of smog on Sunday, with the government imposing anti-pollution curbs after monitoring stations in some areas recorded extremely hazardous air quality.
Home to 30 million people, Delhi has not recorded a single “clean air” day in 2025, with Air Quality Index readings hitting high above the 50 score throughout the year.
On the AQI scale from 0 to 500, good air quality is represented by levels below 50, while levels above 300 are dangerous.
Worsening since late October, official records over the weekend were in the severe to severe-plus range of 400–500, but as 24-hour averages, they did not capture the peaks. Private monitors in several parts of North and North West Delhi recorded AQI spikes above 550 and even into the 700s in real-time.
On Saturday evening, the Ministry of Environment’s Commission for Air Quality Management invoked stage four — the highest level — of the Graded Response Action Plan for Delhi and surrounding areas.
To “prevent further deterioration of air quality in the region,” the commission suspended all non-essential construction, shut stone crushers and mining operations, stopped entry of trucks into the capital region, and ordered schools to shift to hybrid classes or online, where possible.
While authorities blamed the pollution on “adverse meteorological conditions,” residents have been demanding more government action.
“The situation is so bad in Delhi that we don’t have any option but to force kids to do online classes. The government has failed us; it has not done anything to address the issue,” said Nabanita Nayak, who decided for her teenage children to attend school online only, despite concerns over their screen addiction.
“If the kids are too much in front of laptops, that’s also an issue. As a mother, I am worried.”
Delhi’s pollution has been worsening since Diwali in late October, when the average AQI has been above 370, or “very poor.” Since mid-November, it has been over 400, which means “severe” air quality, with certain areas recording 500 and above, which is classified as a “hazardous” level.
“I don’t feel proud living in Delhi. It’s the capital city of the country … We talk about being a developed nation by 2047 — we have deadlines,” said Jagriti Arora, who is keeping her 7-year-old daughter at home to prevent allergy flare-ups caused by air pollution.
“The government has to do something … China had a big problem with pollution, but now they’ve managed to bring it down.”
Delhi’s air quality deteriorates in winter due to local emissions and seasonal weather conditions. Cold temperatures and low wind speeds result in a temperature inversion, which traps pollutants close to the ground instead of letting them disperse. This allows emissions from millions of vehicles, ongoing construction, and nearby industrial activity to accumulate in the air. Urban waste burning and dust from construction sites further add to it.
“This is not a new thing. This has been happening now for over 10 years,” Arora said. “You can see it. You don’t need to actually look at an AQI meter to see how bad the pollution is these days.”
