Supreme Court rules for Ted Cruz, strikes down limit on post-election gifts to winners
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has ruled for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Monday struck down the legal limit on how much candidates can collect from big donors after an election is over.
Siding with Cruz, the court's conservative majority said the $250,000 limit on post-election gifts to winning candidates violates their rights to free speech.
The court's conservatives said money in politics is a type of speech, which means that any restriction how much candidates collect or spend can be challenged under the 1st Amendment.
Candidates are free to spend their own money on their campaigns, including by taking out personal loans. But the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 put a $250,000 limit on how much they may collect from donors after the election to repay their loans.
Speaking for the court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called the limit on loan repayments a "drag on a candidate's 1st Amendment right to use his own money to facilitate political speech." Because the limit "burdens core political speech without proper justification," it is unconstitutional, he said.
—Los Angeles Times
Starbucks offers to reimburse employees for abortion travel
Starbucks Corp. is expanding its U.S. health care benefits to cover travel for abortion and gender-affirming procedures.
Employees and their dependents who don’t have access to those procedures within 100 miles of their home can be reimbursed for eligible travel expenses, Starbucks said Monday in a blog post.
“Like many of you, I’m deeply concerned by the draft Supreme Court opinion related to the constitutional right to abortion that was first established by Roe v. Wade,” said Sara Kelly, acting executive vice president for employee resources, in the blog post.
The Seattle-based coffee chain joins a growing list of companies offering to cover travel expenses for workers seeking abortions and other procedures that aren’t available in their home states.
—Bloomberg News
Denver Art Museum removes looted Benin Bronze from its collection
DENVER — The Denver Art Museum has formally removed a looted Benin plaque from its collection — the first step toward repatriating a prized relic that the British plundered in West Africa more than a century ago.
The move to “deaccession,” or remove, the item from the museum’s collection earlier this month comes as collections around the globe are reexamining, and outright returning, items in their possession that were pillaged during colonial rule.
Denver’s storied art museum in 1955 acquired the 16th- or 17th-century bronze plaque from the Carlebach Gallery in New York. It’s one of the so-called “Benin Bronzes” that once adorned the royal palace of the oba, or king, of Benin in what’s now southern Nigeria.
“Cast in the lost wax technique by a highly skilled artisan, this plaque has the figure of a court nobleman or possibly a chief showing details of his regalia, including his helmet, an elaborate coral necklace, embroidered skirt, belt and anklets,” the museum says on its website.
In November, the museum told The Denver Post that it had not displayed the plaque for years, and was working with experts to understand its complete provenance, or ownership history. But the museum at the time declined to formally remove the item from its collection or repatriate it to Nigeria.
—The Denver Post
Opposition gains threaten Hezbollah majority in Lebanon's parliament
BEIRUT — Lebanese opposition groups and critics of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah scored unexpected gains in the country's parliamentary elections on Sunday, leading some allies of the armed group to lose seats in parliament.
According to preliminary results cited by Lebanese media, Hezbollah lost major allies in Mount Lebanon, as well as south, north and east Lebanon, to members of opposition groups, suggesting that the movement could lose its majority in the 128-member parliament. The opposition managed to snatch around 10 seats.
In the 2018 elections, Hezbollah and its allies, among them the Christian Free Patriotic Movement, won a majority of 71 seats in parliament.
Gains were also reported by Hezbollah's staunch critics, the Christian Lebanese Forces, who said that they are now the largest Christian bloc in parliament, with more than 20 seats.
—dpa
