WORLD NEWS
Mum brutally kills retired nurse for money ‘to fund daughter’s cheerleading camp’
Mum-of-two Cherie Townsend was found to have stabbed 66-year-old Susan Leeds to death more than seven years after her phone was recovered from the grisly scene in California
Cherie Townsend was found guilty of killing 66-year-old retired nurse Susan Leeds(Image: MediaNews Group via Getty Images)
A mum-of-two stabbed a retired nurse to death so she could score the money she needed to send her daughter to cheerleading camp, a court has found.
Cherie Townsend, 47, killed 66-year-old Susan Leeds on May 3, 2018, after descending on her in the parking structure of a shopping mall in Rolling Hills Estates, California. Townsend plunged the knife into her victim 17 times in what has been described as a “brutal” attack following an attempted robbery.
Townsend has now been convicted following a mammoth seven-year legal battle, with the mum having initially claimed she was innocent and being unfairly targeted by law enforcement.
READ MORE: Moment knifeman pretends to be victim after stabbing woman eight times in her homeREAD MORE: Putin sends man who ‘skinned wife over soup’ to frontline as killer dodges trial
Jurors found that Townsend had personally wielded a knife in Leeds’ killing(Image: MediaNews Group via Getty Images)
The mum was arrested for the first time following the killing in May 2018 after her phone was found at the scene, but was released six days later after prosecutors requested additional evidence from investigators. As the investigation unfolded, Townsend suded the Los Angeles county Sheriff’s Department, claiming in October 2018 that she had been subject to racial discrimination and intentional infliction of emotional distress while being falsely imprisoned and detained.
“I live my life in hiding, afraid that the police are going to come or that I’m gonna be unjustly targeted like I was before,” she said in an interview conducted at the time. She was rearrested five years later in August 2023 and charged with murder, resulting in her conviction on Thursday, December 4 for murder in the first degree.
Townsend had claimed she was at the shopping mall at the time of Ms Leeds’ death in aid of her son’s prom, but was unable to explain why her phone was found underneath the car where the dead former nurse was found stabbed to death. In a criminal complaint, it was stated that Townsend had at the time been looking for ways to put $2,000 (£1,501) together, and had said in a note on her phone that she was “completely broken” because she had been unable to come up with the cash.
At one point during the long legal process, Leeds sued California sheriffs(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Townsend has long maintained her innocence, claiming she had dropped her phone while at the mall, and her public defender noted during the trial that no direct evidence had linked her client to the killing, including fingerprints, DNA, witnesses or video footage. While Ms Leeds’ purse was missing, she was still wearing her jewelry, and there was no evidence someone had tried to use her cards, cash or cheques following her death.
However Jurors ultimately decided she had personally used a knife to end Ms Leeds’ life. Fred Leeds, Ms Leeds’ stepson, told local outlet KTLA that “so many lives were impacted by this murder”, adding his stepmother “lived a great life”.
Mr Leeds said: “She lived a great life… a kind human being that would have done anything for anyone, and to be so brutally murdered, there’s just no explanation for it. ” I want to first start out by thanking the police and sheriff’s department in the pursuit of this murder. She didn’t have to be murdered for her purse.”
Townsend, who faces more than 20 years behind bars, will be sentenced on January 23, 2026.
WORLD NEWS
Israeli government accused of intimidation and harassment after raid on UN building in Jerusalem | World News
The Israeli government has been accused of intimidation, harassment and a “blatant disregard” of its obligations by the United Nations after Israeli officials raided a UN building in Jerusalem.
Police officers, along with officials from the town council, entered the East Jerusalem compound of UNRWA, the UN agency that provides services to Palestinian refugees.
The compound has been empty since January, when the Israeli government ordered UNRWA to close the building, accusing the agency of being “infested” with members of Hamas.
The United Nations denied that accusation vehemently.
Read more: What were UNRWA workers in Gaza accused of?
Having gained entry to the compound, the officials filled vehicles with possessions, including office furniture, and raised an Israeli flag in place of the United Nations flag.
They claimed that the building had been raided because UNRWA owed around hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of local taxes.
However, under the UN charter, UN buildings are exempt from such taxes and are also considered “inviolable”, meaning that, rather than raiding the building, Israel has an obligation to protect it.
Since its staff were told to leave, there have been attempts to break into the compound, which has been secured by a team of guards employed by the UN.
Sky News has been told that, when the Israeli officials arrived on Monday morning, the security guards were detained in a room within the compound.
“We didn’t let them in when they first came to the compound, but they cut the chains and the locks and took control,” said George, the head of security, who was standing outside the front gate when we arrived.
“They told my guards to stay in one room, took their phones from them, and told them they couldn’t leave.”
‘The false accusations led to this’
UNRWA’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, said the raid was “a blatant disregard of Israel’s obligation as a United Nations Member State to protect and respect the inviolability of UN premises”.
He said that failing to cooperate with UN agencies “represent a new challenge to international law, one that creates a dangerous precedent anywhere else the UN is present across the world”.
His anger was not isolated. Outside the gates of the UNRWA compound, we met Hakam Shahwam, who used to work here as UNRWA’s chief of staff. It was, he said, “a very sad day”.
Shahwam says the claims that UNRWA was a breeding ground for Hamas had led to the raid.
He told me: “The false accusations led to this. This is a shameful day, not only for the United Nations but also for the government of Israel.
“There must be a strong protest, and a response from the international community. This is unacceptable.”
Read more from Adam Parsons:
Gaza longs for normality, but quasi-anarchy reigns
Israeli forces kill two Palestinians after apparent surrender
‘It is time for UNRWA to be dismantled’
The Israeli government remains adamant that its criticism of UNRWA is justified.
When I asked Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, about the raid, she said: “UNRWA is a stain on the United Nations.”
She added: “It is time for UNRWA to be dismantled. It is not part of the solution for Gaza, it is part of the problem.”
She did not comment on the legality of the raid, or on Israel’s ongoing commitment to the UN Charter.
NewsFeed
Footage shows Thai civilians huddling in bunkers and Cambodian children fleeing classrooms after Thailand launched dawn airstrikes on Cambodian border forces on Monday. Both nations accuse the other of breaching a ceasefire brokered by Donald Trump. At least four Cambodian civilians were killed.
Published On 8 Dec 2025
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David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is not giving up in its aggressive campaign to acquire Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), launching a hostile bid for the entertainment company despite the announcement on Friday that Netflix had agreed to buy its studio and streaming operation.
Netflix’s bid for WBD’s storied Hollywood movie studio, as well as its premier HBO cable network, valued the company at $82.7bn. But it did not agree to acquire WBD’s traditional television assets, including the news network CNN and the Discovery channel.
Paramount’s all-cash tender offer sent directly to shareholders on Monday morning would be for the entire company, and puts a total enterprise value of $108.4bn on WBD, a major premium to its stock price.
In making its case to shareholders, Paramount claimed its acquisition of the company provides significantly better value for shareholders, and would be much likelier to survive regulatory scrutiny. WBD said it would “carefully review and consider” the bid, and advise its shareholders on how to respond within two weeks.
David Ellison and his father, the billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, whose family is financially backing the offer, are both friendly with the Trump administration, which had previously indicated that it supported a Paramount purchase of WBD. Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, had even had early conversations with a senior Trump aide about what changes he might want to see at CNN.
Donald Trump has praised recent changes at Paramount since its acquisition by the Ellisons, including the selection of the heterodox writer Bari Weiss as editor in chief of CBS News. Paramount is also bringing back the Rush Hour franchise for a fourth film, reportedly at the request of Trump.
Shortly before the Ellisons won regulatory approval for their takeover of Paramount, the firm agreed to pay $16m to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump, who had claimed a pre-election interview with the 2024 Democratic candidate for president, Kamala Harris, was falsely edited. Many legal experts had dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment.
A regulatory filing on Monday revealed that the Ellisons’ bid for WBD was backed by outside funders including Affinity Partners, an investment fund founded by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund; and the Qatar Investment Authority.
In a statement, David Ellison called the Netflix deal “an inferior proposal which exposes shareholders to a mix of cash and stock, an uncertain future trading value of the Global Networks linear cable business and a challenging regulatory approval process”.
“WBD shareholders deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer for their shares in the entire company,” he said. “Our public offer, which is on the same terms we provided to the Warner Bros Discovery board of directors in private, provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion.”
Ellison’s Paramount Skydance had already made several offers that were rejected during the bidding process for WBD. The company said on Monday it was concerned that shareholders “were not presented [the] most compelling and superior transaction”.
Last week, attorneys for Paramount sent a letter to WBD suggesting the company was not fairly considering its offer. “It has become increasingly clear, through media reporting and otherwise, that WBD appears to have abandoned the semblance and reality of a fair transaction process, thereby abdicating its duties to stockholders, and embarked on a myopic process with a predetermined outcome that favors a single bidder,” they wrote.
Netflix’s proposed acquisition of the studio and streaming assets of WBD fleetingly provided some relief for some employees at CNN, who had been concerned about the prospects of a merger between the network and CBS News, now led by Weiss.
“I think this is the best outcome for CNN for sure,” a senior network producer told the Guardian after the Netflix acquisition was announced, describing a “palpable sense of relief” at the network. But, the person added, “there is still a hell of a lot of anxiety around the Discovery Global spin-off and what comes next”.
In a memo to CNN employees on Friday, the network’s CEO, Mark Thompson, framed the deal as a positive. “I’ve been asked by many of you what today’s news means for us,” he wrote. “And the answer is that it will enable us to continue to roll out our strategy to secure a great future for CNN by successfully navigating our digital transition.”
Some employees at CBS News had also feared a merger with CNN’s parent company, and that a tie-up could lead to significant job losses. “A merger with CNN is the one thing that would make me genuinely worried about losing my job,” one CBS News staffer said. (Paramount’s offer on Monday noted that the combination of television networks would “dramatically improve cash flow and increase efficiencies, leading to a division more capable of managing structural declines”.)
Paramount’s offer on Monday for WBD could re-ignite those concerns for employees at both networks. If the Netflix deal moves forward, however, CNN will be spun off – as planned – into a standalone company, encompassing WBD’s traditional television networks, from Cartoon Network to TLC.
On a conference call with analysts, David Ellison did not answer a question about whether he would be interested in acquiring the television group by itself if the greater Netflix deal goes through.
On Sunday evening, before Paramount tabled its hostile bid, Trump had said he would be personally involved in the review for the Netflix-WBD transaction, which he said would have implications for competition considering Netflix’s “big market share”. But he had kind words for Netflix’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos, who visited the White House recently.
Several US politicians, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, and entertainment unions, however, had expressed strong reservations about the deal.
Because no television licenses would be transferred in a potential acquisition, the acquisition of WBD is very unlikely to be subject to the review of the Federal Communications Commission and its Trump-picked chair, Brendan Carr. But anti-trust concerns around any such deal would be reviewed by the Department of Justice.
“Paramount is highly confident in achieving expeditious regulatory clearance for its proposed offer,” the company said on Monday, “as it enhances competition and is pro-consumer, while creating a strong champion for creative talent and consumer choice.”
The Ellisons’ offer is set to expire at 5pm on 8 January, unless it is extended.
On the Monday call, David Ellison said the company’s offers for WBD had not received a response. “We’re here to fight for value – for our shareholders and for WBD shareholders,” he said. “This transaction is about building more, not cutting back … Our proposal is superior to Netflix’s in every dimension.”
While Trump has been very supportive of the Ellisons’ takeover of CBS News, he lashed out at the network and its new management on Monday morning for a 60 Minutes broadcast the night before, featuring the outgoing GOP House member Marjorie Taylor Greene, who told correspondent Lesley Stahl that many Republican legislators privately mocked Trump.
“My real problem with the show, however, wasn’t the low IQ traitor, it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME! Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!”
Watch: CCTV shows moment earthquake hits Japan
A major earthquake of magnitude 7.6 has hit Japan’s north-eastern region.
The quake occurred at 23:15 (14:15 GMT) at a depth of 50km (31 miles), about 80km off the coast of the Aomori region, the Japan Meteorological Agency said,
It prompted tsunami warnings which have now been downgraded to advisories, while waves of 40cm (16in) were seen in some places.
Local media reports that some people in the region have been injured, while trains have been suspended as a precaution.
Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, with a tremor occurring at least every five minutes.
Orders were issued for about 90,000 residents to evacuate, according to Reuters news agency.
Japanese public broadcaster NHK quoted a hotel employee in Hachinohe as saying a number of people had been injured.
The government has set up a response office within the prime minister’s crisis management centre and convened an emergency team, chief cabinet secretary Minoru Kihara has said.
“We are making every effort to assess the damage and implement emergency disaster response measures, including rescue and relief operations,” he added.
AFP via Getty Images
Japanese TV broadcast mesages which said “Tsunami! Run!” and “Tsunami warning issued for central Hokkaido’s Pacific Coast”
No irregularities were reported at the Higashidori and Onagawa nuclear power plants as a result of the quake, Tohoku Electric Power said.
None were detected either at the disabled Fukushima nuclear power station site, the Japanese authorities told the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Fukushima was damaged when a magnitude 9.0 quake struck off the country’s eastern coast on 11 March 2011.
That quake, the most powerful ever recorded in Japan, triggered a tsunami which swept over the main island of Honshu, killing more than 18,000 people and wiping entire towns off the map.
NEED TO KNOW
- Leona Lewis is in the midst of her Las Vegas residency, A Starry Night
- In this week’s issue of PEOPLE, Lewis opens up about her marriage to husband Dennis Jauch and their 3-year-old daughter Carmel
- Lewis recalls meeting Jauch when he was a dancer on her 2010 Labrynth Tour
Leona Lewis’ life is full of love.
The British singer-songwriter is currently in the midst of her 33-date A Starry Night residency at the Venetian Resort Las Vegas, for which she’s relocated to the Nevada city with husband Dennis Jauch and their 3-year-old daughter Carmel.
Taking the stage feels different for Lewis as a wife and mother, especially when she sings her chart-topping hit “Bleeding Love,” as its meaning has changed for her since its release in 2007. “To me it was about a romantic love,” she reflects to PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “When I sing it now, I think about [Carmel] and what she’s opened me up to and how deep that love goes.”
It’s a full-circle moment for performing to now make Lewis think about her family, as she met Jauch — who won the German TV series You Can Dance in 2007 — when he was a dancer on her 2010 Labyrinth Tour.
“I think we connected because we’d been through two very similar shows,” says Lewis, who won the U.K. version of The X Factor in 2006. “Plus, he saved me on stage.”
During a show on the Labrynth Tour, Jauch caught Lewis after she nearly fell into a hole on stage. “So I had to marry him,” she quips.
The pair tied the knot in July 2019, and their bond remains strong to this day. “You can have these little disagreements and arguments and things, but at the end of the day, we always say this to each other: ‘Remember we’re on the same team,’” says Lewis.
They welcomed Carmel three years after marrying, which dramatically changed her perspective on everything — not just her breakout hit. “I am a different woman to who I was before I had Coco,” she says. “Now I have to make sure this human is okay in the world and also hopefully making a positive impact.”
Dennis Jauch, Leona Lewis and Carmel Jauch.
Leona Lewis/Instagram
Carmel saw her first concert last year when Lewis took her to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour, and she’s already looking to follow in her mom’s footsteps. “Last night she was like, ‘Mama, I’m going to come onstage with you,’” Lewis says. “I’m like, ‘Okay, what are you going to do—dance, sing?’ She’s like, ‘I want to do both.’”
Connecting with fans in Las Vegas has inspired Lewis to start working on a new album, her first since 2015’s I Am. But the pressure will be easier to navigate living under the same roof as her two biggest fans.
“No matter what’s going on, when you’re at your peak and everyone’s playing your song, and then when you’re just quiet and things are more still,” she says, “they are always the constant to me.”
A woman with family ties to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has been released on bond by a U.S. immigration from ICE detention center in Louisiana.
The judge released Brazilian woman Bruna Ferreira, 33, on a $1,500 bond as she continues to argue her case against a potential deportation.
Ferreira shares custody of an 11-year-old son with her former fiancé Michael Leavitt, the brother of Trump’s press secretary.
ICE agents arrested Ferreira on November 12 while she was on her way to pick up her son from school. She has been detained at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center for the last month.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Leavitt’s White House for comment.
Immigration Judge Cynthia Goodman released Ferreira on the lowest possible bail amount on Monday.
Ferreira’s attorney Jason Thomas told the judge that the government’s claims that his client is a ‘criminal illegal alien’ with a prior arrest for battery is ‘both unfair and untrue.’
Ferreira claimed in a recent interview with Washington Post that Karoline Leavitt was chosen to be the child’s godmother.
Bruna Ferreira, seen here with her son Michael, has been left to languish inside an ICE Processing Center in Louisiana since her arrest
Ferreira said that she once saw White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as a younger sister
Bruna Ferreira was nabbed by officers on November 12 while attempting to leave her condo in Revere, Massachusetts
The attorney representing the Department of Homeland Security, Lucas Vega, did not argue against the judge releasing Ferreira from ICE detention on bond.
The Trump administration typically has sought to limit bond for illegal immigrants in past cases.
Vega agreed with her defense council that Ferreira is not a danger to society or a flight risk.
Ferreira’s attorneys argued she still shares custody of her son with Karoline’s brother, and often is in frequent contact with the Leavitt family.
Ferreira has no prior criminal convictions and has been a longtime resident in Massachusetts.
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Karoline Leavitt’s family member is freed after ICE arrest
DISTRESSING CONTENT Rafis Khuzin has been accused of killing and then attempting to dismember his own wife during a brutal attack in Berezovsky, near Yekaterinburg in Russia
Rafis Khuzin allegedly killed and tried to dismember his wife(Image: Social media/east2west news)
Vladimir Putin has sent a man alleged to have killed and skinned his own wife after she refused to cook him chicken soup to the Ukraine frontline instead of a murder trial in a desperate bid to beef up Russian ranks in Ukraine.
Rafis Khuzin, 56, will not face justice for his twisted alleged crimes due to Russian battlefield losses, with the accused murderer set to join troops on the frontlines. The pardon will mean he is exempt from facing a murder trial, with Russian laws rewarding prisoners and would-be convicts conscripted during the war effort.
Khuzin, however, was accused of the particularly gruesome murder of his own wife, Olga Blinova, 49, who he reportedly stabbed to death with a large kitchen knife, before attempting to skin her.
READ MORE: NATO deploys fighter jets as ‘unidentified aircraft’ enters alliance’s airspaceREAD MORE: ‘Unpredictable’ Donald Trump could walk away from Ukraine peace deal, warns son
Khuzin allegedly killed his wife when she refused to help him chop chicken(Image: Social media/east2west news)
According to local reports, after killing Blinova, Khuzin is alleged to have skinned the upper part of her corpse before stashing it in his garden shed. He is said to have waited five days before eventually reporting the killing to law enforcement in Berezovsky, near Yekaterinburg.
The news outlet Baza reported that he had descended on his wife after she refused to cut up pieces of chicken while making a soup. After stabbing her, the outlet added that he had then attempted to dismember her lifeless body, but was unable to do so.
Instead, he was only able to “remove the skin from the upper part of her body”, it was alleged. Police attending the scene were “shocked by what they found” despite having “seen plenty of horrifying scenes over the course of their careers”, a police spokesperson said.
Blinova was allegedly killed by Khuzin as he made chicken soup(Image: Social media/east2west news)
Police spokesman Valery Gorelykh said: “Even the detectives, who have seen plenty of horrifying scenes over the course of their careers, were shocked by what they found when they arrived first at the scene.”
Additional reports claimed Khuzin’s wife had expected him to make the chicken soup while she was out. Alexander Shulga, of the Russian Investigative Committee, said the conflict arose after the woman came home from work and “criticised him for not preparing dinner”.
He demanded that she cut the chicken and make the soup but she refused. A source close to the investigation said the alleged killer had quickly conscripted before the murder trial could begin.
Khuzin took up a conscription deal before his trial began(Image: Social media/east2west news)
They claimed: “He didn’t wait for the trial and signed a contract with the military.” He had already pleaded guilty to a crime which could have seen him jailed for 15 years, but due to Russian laws passed following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he will not face trial or any prison time.
After serving in the war, he will be a free man. The Russian Investigative Committee in Sverdlovsk declined to comment.
More than 100 people including 63 children were killed in attacks on a kindergarten and hospital in Sudan, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The attacks on 4 December began with repeated strikes on the kindergarten in South Kordofan state.
It continued even as parents and caretakers rushed to the wounded in a nearby hospital, WHO added.
It comes as Sudan‘s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said today it had taken control of the strategic Heglig oilfield in the South Kordofan province, two and a half years into the country’s civil war.
WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X: “Repeated strikes in Sudan’s South Kordofan state hit a kindergarten and, at least three times, the nearby Kalogi Rural Hospital, killing 114 people, including 63 children, and injuring 35 people, according to WHO’s Attacks on Health Care monitoring system.
“Survivors from the 4 December attacks have been moved to Abu Jebaiha, in South Kordofan, for treatment, and urgent calls are being made for blood donations and other medical support.
“Disturbingly, paramedics and responders came under attack as they tried to move the injured from the kindergarten to the hospital.”
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‘Horrifying’ war in Sudan continues
Heglig, lying along Sudan’s south border, houses the main processing facility for South Sudanese oil, which makes up much of the revenue for South Sudan’s government.
Government forces and workers at the oil field withdrew from the area on Sunday to avoid clashes that could have damaged oil facilities, government sources told the news agency Reuters.
Read more:
Sudan’s RSF says it has captured Babanusa
Genocide unfolding in Darfur, warns Sudan government
As oil is transported through the Greater Nile pipeline system to Port Sudan on the Red Sea for export, it makes the Heglig site essential for Sudan’s hard-currency earnings – and for South Sudan.
The WHO added that a massacre also occurred in October in the city of al-Fashir.
Sudan’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attacks, which it says were carried out by the Rapid Support Forces using drones.
The WHO said a total of 114 people, including 63 children, were killed in the attacks, with heavy weapons used. 35 were also wounded.
The toll combines casualties from the kindergarten strikes, the transfer of patients to the adjacent rural hospital and attacks at the facility itself.
The RSF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
WORLD NEWS
Ukraine firefighters rush to rescue people, pets after Russian strike | Russia-Ukraine war
NewsFeed
Firefighters evacuated residents and their pets from a nine-storey apartment building in Ukraine’s Sumy region after a Russian drone strike. The strikes come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with leaders of the UK, France and Germany in London to discuss the US peace plan.
Published On 8 Dec 2025
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WORLD NEWS
US supreme court hears arguments in case that tests Trump’s ability to fire officials – live | US supreme court
Trump administration argues that decision stopping president from removing officers must be overruled
Arguments in the case that will decide whether Donald Trump can fire officials from independent agencies have started.
First up is solicitor general D John Sauer, arguing on behalf of the Trump administration.
He kicks off his opening remarks by arguing that the key 90-year precedent, known as the Humphrey’s Executor, “must be overruled”.
He describes the ruling as a “decaying husk with bold, and particularly dangerous pretensions” that ultimately creates a “headless fourth branch insulated from political accountability and democratic control”.
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Updated at 16.23 CET
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Justice Sotomayor says that most of the original powers of the FTC when Humphrey’s was decided are the same powers that exist today. She points out that the district judge outlined this as well.
The only power she’s identified that might be different is that the FTC’s cease and desist orders now have binding effect immediately, she says.
“So I think your point in response to Justice Alito is, if there’s a power that the FTC is wielding now that trenches inappropriately, the answer is not to do away with the ‘for cause’ removal; the answer is to eliminate that individual power,” she says. “So that should be the answer if there’s been an expansion of the powers inappropriately.”
Agarwal says that is correct and that is their position.
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Updated at 18.09 CET
A quick reminder that, in September, the supreme court granted a justice department request to block a lower court’s order that shielded Rebecca Slaughter, from being dismissed from the consumer protection and antitrust agency before her term expires in 2029. She will remain fired until the court issue their decision.
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While answering questions from justices today, Agarwal said that the “real world danger” if the administration is successful, is that “everything is on the chopping block”.
He added that there was “absolutely no principled basis” for “carving out” independent agencies from Congress’s purview.
“We’re talking about more than two dozen traditional independent agencies that have been established by statutes enacted by the people’s elected representatives and signed into law, all of them by democratically elected presidents,” Agarwal said.
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Updated at 17.44 CET
The bench just wrapped its questions to the administration’s lawyer, solicitor general D John Sauer.
Arguing on behalf of Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the fired Democratic member of the FTC, is Amit Agarwal.
“Multi-member commissions with members enjoying some kind of removal protection have been part of our story since 1790,” Agarwal said in his opening remarks. “So if petitioners are right, all three branches of government have been wrong from the start.”
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Updated at 17.24 CET
Justice Jackson is now pushing back against the administration’s claims that these independent agencies aren’t answerable to Congress – which delegates their creation, oversight, budgets and laws.
“Part of your argument seemed to revolve around this notion that there’s some kind of thing happening with the independent agency that the reason why the president needs to control it is because they don’t answer to anybody,” she said.
“What I don’t understand from your overarching argument is why that determination of Congress, which makes perfect sense given its duty to protect the people of the United States, why that is subjugated to a concern about the president not being able to control everything.”
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Updated at 17.13 CET
As he responds to questions from justices today, Sauer has repeatedly argued that independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are a “headless fourth branch” with limited government oversight.
When responding to questions from justice Brett Kavanaugh, the solicitor general said that these agencies exercise “a great deal of control over individuals and business” but “ultimately do not answer to the president”.
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Speaking now is the third liberal justice on the bench, Elena Kagan.
She says that what the administration is asking for would give the president “massive, unchecked, uncontrolled power” over independent agencies. It’s a role that Congress, with its Article I power, has controlled for 9o years.
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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, also pushed back on the administration’s premise – in line with justice Sotomayor’s line of questioning.
“I appreciate that Article II has some language in it that you’re pointing to, but as Justice Sotomayor pointed out, the constitution does not speak specifically to removal,” she said. “I don’t know why we’d make that inference when the power to create agencies and set everything up lies with Congress.”
She went on to probe the solicitor general as to why he thought that Congress was “somehow less democratically accountable” for the way in which it constructs agencies and determines the terms of its officers.
“You seem to think that there’s something about the president that requires him to control everything as a matter of democratic accountability, when on the other side, we have Congress saying we’d like these particular agencies and officers to be independent of presidential control for the good of the people,” Jackson said.
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Updated at 16.53 CET
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of three liberal justices on the bench, seemed unconvinced with the administration’s argument off the bat.
“You’re asking us to destroy the structure of government,” she told solicitor general D John Sauer. “To take away from Congress its ability to protect its idea that a government is better structured with some agencies that are independent.”
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Updated at 16.41 CET
Trump administration argues that decision stopping president from removing officers must be overruled
Arguments in the case that will decide whether Donald Trump can fire officials from independent agencies have started.
First up is solicitor general D John Sauer, arguing on behalf of the Trump administration.
He kicks off his opening remarks by arguing that the key 90-year precedent, known as the Humphrey’s Executor, “must be overruled”.
He describes the ruling as a “decaying husk with bold, and particularly dangerous pretensions” that ultimately creates a “headless fourth branch insulated from political accountability and democratic control”.
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Updated at 16.23 CET
Supreme court to hear arguments in case testing Trump’s ability to fire officials
In less than an hour, the supreme court will here arguments in a landmark case that tests Donald Trump’s ability to fire officials.
Earlier this year, the president moved to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission. Trump actually appointed her to the position back in 2018, and she was re-confirmed for a second term under Joe Biden that was set to expire in 2029.
Rebecca Slaughter during a House judiciary committee hearing in Washington DC, 13 July 2023. Photograph: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
One of the main questions the nine-justice bench will consider today is whether to overturn a key 1938 decision which established that the president requires Congress’ signoff to fire an official from an independent government agency, and it needs to be “for cause”.
Slaughter’s case is the latest emergency appeal that the supreme court will hear from the Trump administration, after a lower court judge blocked her firing, and an appeal court upheld that decision. A reminder that, in May, the court allowed Trump to remove two Democratic members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board – despite job protections for these posts – while litigation challenging those removals proceeded. And in September, they deferred action on the Department of Justice’s request to allow Trump to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, at least until it hears oral arguments on the case in January.
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Updated at 17.18 CET
My colleague, Jakub Krupa, is covering the latest out of Europe, particularly the London meeting between Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several Nato allies – France’s Emmanuel Macron, UK prime minister Keir Starmer, and Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Jakub notes:
The sombre tone of the opening remarks was highly telling: it’s clear that this was not merely another photo opportunity designed to merely convey solidarity with Zelenskyy, but they face urgent – increasingly so – issues that need to be resolved soon.
A reminder that Donald Trump Jr warned that his father may walk away from the Ukrainian war in a lengthy tirade against the purpose of continued fighting in Ukraine, as he also claimed Ukraine’s “corrupt” rich had fled their country leaving “what they believed to be the peasant class” to fight the war.
Meanwhile, the president said on Sunday that Russia is “fine” with the peace proposal (although he didn’t elaborate if this was the same framework that Moscow seemed initially unhappy with during Steve Witkoff’s visit). Trump added: “But I’m not sure that Zelenskyy’s fine with it. His people love it. But he isn’t ready.”
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A quick update, a White House official confirms to the Guardian that the president’s roundtable will be to unveil an assistance package for American farmers. He’ll be joined by treasury secretary Scott Bessent and agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins.
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Updated at 15.14 CET
Donald Trump is in Washington today. At 2pm ET he’ll host a roundtable event at the White House. Bloomberg reports that he will unveil a much-anticipated $12bn support package for American farmers who have been hit by the president’s sweeping tariff policies. We’re waiting from confirmation from the White House, but will bring you the latest lines as they come in.
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More than 2,000 national guard soldiers have been in Washington since Donald Trump’s initial deployment in August, part of the president’s contentious immigration and crime crackdown targeting Democratic-led cities.
In what was seen by many as an example of federal overreach, the president federalised DC’s Metropolitan police department for the first time in its history over the summer.
Trump said he was declaring a public safety emergency and putting the police under the control of the attorney general, Pam Bondi.
This was despite violent crime in Washington DC actually having fallen sharply since 2023.
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Updated at 14.09 CET
Smith says ‘there comes a time when you just know it’s time’ to step down
Axios broke the news of Pamela Smith’s resignation. Speaking to the outlet, she said: “There comes a time when you just know it’s time.”
Smith, who has 28 years of law enforcement experience, said her decision is not related to the deployment of national guard troops to the city.
Speaking to Fox 5 about her decision to resign, the outgoing police chief said it was a “tough” decision and was made to spend more time with her family.
She said:
I have been going nonstop. I have missed many amazing celebrations, birthdays, marriages, you name it, within our family.
And being able to come home for thanksgiving two years after my mum passed really resonated with me and has allowed me to make a decision that I think is necessary not just only for me but also for my family.
Smith is expected to step down on 31 December and the mayor’s office will name an interim chief shortly, according to Axios.
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Updated at 14.02 CET