In the first appearances by members of the Supreme Court before Congress in seven years, Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett testified on Tuesday in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Although the focus of the justices’ testimony was the court’s budget, which Congress appropriates, the two discussed a wide range of issues, from security and enforcement of the court’s ethics code to its emergency (Kagan’s preference) or interim docket.
After beginning her remarks by expressing condolences for the recent death of Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Kagan explained that the “recent growth” in the Supreme Court’s budget (which will exceed $220 million in Fiscal Year 2027) was “almost entirely for security expenses.”
When she joined the court in 2010, Kagan noted, it was an “entirely different world” in which she had security only for public events. The court started to focus more on security in 2016, she remarked, when Justice Antonin Scalia died in Texas, and the closest U.S. marshals were two hours away. But the “big ramp-up” came in 2022 with the leak of the court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the court overturned the recognition of a constitutional right to an abortion. At that point, she emphasized, the attention to security “acquired even more urgency.”
Barrett stressed that although statistics about threats to federal judges may “sound abstract,” “being on the receiving end of them is not.” Barrett recounted thttps://www.scotusblog.com/2026/07/justices-kagan-and-barrett-testify-before-congress/he story of bringing home a bulletproof vest because of the threats that she received in the wake of the Dobbs leak and having to explain the vest to her son. Six weeks ago, she continued, she was the victim of a swatting incident; because her Supreme Court police detail was already at her house, they were able to intercept the police and tell them it was a false alarm. And like other judges, she noted, she has received “false deliveries” sent in the name of Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, a federal judge in New Jersey; Anderl was killed in 2020 by a lawyer who had litigated a case before Salas, and the deliveries were intended to intimidate the recipients. “The threat level is really high,” Barrett concluded.
5 takeaways as Supreme Court Justices Barrett and Kagan testify on Capitol Hill
E. Jean Carroll gets $5.6M from Trump for sex abuse, defamation
New York writer E. Jean Carroll is finally getting paid more than three years after a federal civil jury held President Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her, allegations Trump continues to deny.
Trump fought that request, arguing that he is asking the Supreme Court for a rehearing, so his fight isn't over.
After Carroll was awarded a larger, $83.3 million judgment against Trump in a separate case that is still under appeal, she publicly discussed giving the money away to causes Trump dislikes. Trump's legal team noted those statements in his court filing, saying his funds "likely will not be recoverable" if the Supreme Court changes its mind.
Pen America chief resigns, accuses literary institution of erasing Palestinians
After just seven months in the role, the president of one of the foremost US literary organisations resigned last week over what he described as the unfair treatment of Palestinians compared to Israelis and Jewish Americans.
Dinaw Mengestu, a celebrated Ethiopian-American novelist, exited the top job at Pen America on Thursday after the group published a report about the emotional toll on Israeli and Jewish-American writers after the fallout from Israel's nearly three-year-long genocide in Gaza.
Many reported losing jobs or career opportunities.
Mengestu wrote in an Instagram post on Sunday that "it is not about different opinions" or "different experiences", but rather "PEN America's ongoing failure to defend free expression fairly and equitably", as it keeps producing work that "supports suppression through bigotry and indifference".
That suppression, he described, comes from undermining the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which he maintained is also a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Ukraine: More Women Doing Dangerous Humanitarian Work
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Alina Holovko, a resident of Dnipro, spent her days organizing volunteers to assemble Molotov cocktails as Russian forces threatened to reach the city. She and other volunteers founded Dobra Sprava, a humanitarian organization that evacuates civilians from frontline communities.
In the early months of the war, those evacuation drivers were overwhelmingly men, making repeated trips into cities such as Lysychansk, Rubizhne, Siversk and later Bakhmut. But as the war dragged on and Ukraine’s military demanded more manpower, many of those volunteers were mobilized into the armed forces.
More than four years of war have steadily reduced the pool of experienced civilian volunteers. A July 2026 CSIS analysis estimated R
ussia had suffered roughly 1.4 million battlefield casualties and Ukraine between 525,000 and 625,000 since the full-scale invasion.
An April 2026 Human Rights First report found that the trend extends beyond Dobra Sprava, documenting that volunteer groups across eastern Ukraine are turning to women to conduct evacuations as experienced male volunteers are mobilized or lost to Russian attacks.
Sam Neill, known for 'Jurassic Park' and 'The Piano,' dies at 78, his family says
Sam Neill, a smoothly elegant and versatile actor whose career moved from art film to blockbuster as he dodged velociraptors in "Jurassic Park" to playing Holly Hunter's husband in "The Piano," has died. He was 78.
In 2023, Neill disclosed he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Neill died on Monday in Sydney, according to a statement posted to the actor's social media page.
His death was "sudden and unexpected," the statement said, adding that he "remained cancer free" when he died. A cause of death wasn't specified.
"Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life," his family wrote.
Mayor Mamdani sticks with adviser Morris Katz after implosion of Platner campaign
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is standing by his top political adviser, Morris Katz, who is facing widespread criticism for his role in Democrat Graham Platner’s scandal-ridden campaign for U.S. Senate in Maine.
“ I will continue to work with Morris Katz. He remains a top advisor of mine,” Mamdani said Monday.
Mamdani’s declaration comes after The Intercept reported that members of the Democratic Socialists of America were circulating a letter calling on the mayor to cut ties with Katz and his political consulting firm, The Fight Agency, because of his role on Platner’s campaign leadership team.
Platner, an oyster farmer and combat veteran, suspended his Senate bid on Friday, four days after Politico reported that he allegedly raped a woman he once dated. Platner has denied the woman’s account.
One of strictest US abortion bans could be overturned in November’s election
One of the strictest abortion bans in the country will be on the ballot this November after Idaho’s secretary of state certified a ballot measure on Monday that would reverse the state’s abortion ban that prohibits the procedure at all stages of pregnancy.
The ballot initiative was headed by a volunteer-run group called Idahoans United for Women & Families, which ran a petition drive to get the measure in front of voters this fall. They gathered more than 100,000 signatures, surpassing the required 70,725 to get on the ballot.
If approved by voters, the measure would create a law for “reproductive freedom”, rather than serve as an amendment to the state constitution.
The change would make Idaho’s law similar to what it was before the supreme court ruled to overturn Roe v Wade in 2022, allowing states to ban abortion. Idaho’s new law would allow abortion until fetal viability, which is generally considered to be after about 21 weeks into a pregnancy. It would also allow people to make their own choices for abortion, contraception and fertility treatment.
Trump dramatically cuts size of two national monuments held sacred by tribes
Donald Trump has approved a sharp reduction in the size of two national monuments in Utah held sacred by many Native Americans, in the latest move to open US public land to corporate developers and the oil and gas industry.
The two monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, will see a reduction of “close to a million and a half acres each”, Trump said during an executive order signing event on Monday, undoing protections established by former presidents.
“They took the land from the people quite honestly,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “We’re giving it back.”
The Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah have ancient cliff dwellings, petroglyphs and scenic canyons, as well as coal and uranium deposits that state officials want made available for development.
ICE fatally shoots 26-year-old Colombian man in Maine during immigration operation
An ICE officer has fatally shot a man in Maine during what authorities described as a routine removal operation, the state’s attorney general’s office confirmed on Monday afternoon. Here’s what we know so far:
The shooting occurred as federal agents were carrying out an “enforcement operation related to a final order of removal”, the office of the Maine attorney general said.
The man who was killed around 7.20am had reportedly “attempted to flee in a vehicle in the direction of the officer”, the agency said, prompting the use of deadly force.
Senator Angus King said he spoke with homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin following the fatal shooting in Biddeford, Maine. King urged state and local officials to remain involved in the FBI-led investigation. He also raised concerns that ICE agents were not wearing body cameras.
The person who was killed during the altercation involving ICE is believed to be a 26-year-old man from Colombia, according to the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coaliton and Presente! Maine. He has not been identified further.
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