Supreme Court says tough gun law is unconstitutionally vague, dividing Trump picks Gorsuch and Kavanaugh

WASHINGTON – A federal law requiring longer prison sentences for using a gun during a “crime of violence” is unconstitutionally vague, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The verdict divided not only the justices in general but President Donald Trump’s two nominees in particular: Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the court’s four liberals and wrote the decision. Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered a fiery dissent for the court’s other conservatives.

The Justice Department had warned that if the law was struck down, it “will inundate courts with collateral-review petitions by some of the most dangerous federal prisoners and will frustrate efforts to prosecute current and future violent criminals.”

That argument was reinforced by Kavanaugh’s dissent, which labeled the 5-4 ruling “an extraordinary event in this court.”

“The court’s decision today will make it harder to prosecute violent gun crimes in the future,” he wrote. “The court’s decision also will likely mean that thousands of inmates who committed violent gun crimes will be released far earlier than Congress specified.”

Gorsuch, however, has aligned himself with the court’s liberal wing twice before this term and showed no hesitance in doing it again. 

“In our constitutional order, a vague law is no law at all,” he said in announcing the verdict from the bench.

Dow, S&P 500 gain despite negative stock market breadth

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.17% S&P 500 SPX, +0.02% and Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.05% all edged higher, even though broader stock market internals were negative. The number of declining stocks on the NYSE topped advancers 1,454 to 1,327 on the NYSE and 1,641 to 1,137 on the Nasdaq exchange, while declining volume represented 56.4% of total volume on the Big Board and 55.0% of total volume on the Nasdaq. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 45 points, or 0.2% and the S&P 500 tacked on 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.05% tacked on less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq 100 NDX, +0.00% advanced 0.2%. The gains in the larger capitalization indexes was offset by weakness in smaller-cap companies and the economically sensitive transport sector. Russell 2000 RUT, -0.65% fell 0.5% and the Dow Jones Transportation Average DJT, -0.89% shed 0.7%.

Zimbabwe hikes overnight lending rate to 50% after ending dollarisation

HARARE, June 24 (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s central bank said on Monday it had raised its overnight lending rate to 50% from 15% to support the local currency, after the government banned the use of foreign currencies as legal tender.

The central bank also said in a statement that it had put in place letters of credit to secure key imports for goods like fuel and wheat, and that it would take steps to increase the supply of foreign currency on the interbank forex market. (Reporting by Nelson Banya, Writing by Alexander Winning, Editing by William Maclean)

U.S. Government Removes Most Children From Dangerous Texas Detention Center

The U.S. government has removed most of the children from a remote Border Patrol station in Texas following reports that more than 300 kids were detained there and caring for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation.

Rep. Veronica Escobar said 30 children were at the facility near El Paso as of Monday. Her office was briefed on the situation by an official with Customs and Border Protection.

Attorneys who visited the station in Clint, Texas last week said older children were trying to take care of infants and toddlers, The Associated Press first reported Thursday. Some had been detained for three weeks, and 15 children were sick with the flu.

It’s unclear where all the children have been moved. But Escobar said some were sent to another facility in El Paso.

Jet IRP asks creditors to submit claims by July 4

Airline owes over ₹8,000 cr. to lenders

The interim resolution professional (IRP) for Jet Airways has issued a public notice inviting claims from all creditors to the airline to be submitted to him before July 4, 2019.

On June 20, Jet was admitted to the NCLT for bankruptcy proceedings. “The creditors of Jet Airways are hereby called upon to submit their claims with proof on or before July 4 to the interim resolution professional. Financial creditors shall submit their claims with proof by electronic means only,” Ashish Chhawchharia, partner, Grant Thornton, who has been appointed as the IRP for Jet, said.

“All other creditors shall submit their claims with proof in person, by post or by electronic means, “the notice added. The airline owes over ₹8,000 crore to a consortium of 26 banks led by State Bank of India (SBI), and over ₹13,000 crore to vendors, passengers and employees.

SBI moves NCLAT

Meanwhile, the SBI has filed a caveat at the NCLAT, appealing that the lender should be heard if a party challenges the decision of the NCLT in the case. The move is also due to an intervention application moved by the Netherlands-based operational creditor, which was rejected by the Mumbai bench of NCLT citing lack of cross-border jurisdiction.

Trump To Announce Major Iran Sanctions Monday

President Donald Trump is set to announce the latest round of sanctions on Iran targeting the Islamic nation’s nuclear weapons program on Monday.

“Iran cannot have Nuclear Weapons! Under the terrible Obama plan, they would have been on their way to Nuclear in a short number of years, and existing verification is not acceptable,” Trump said on Twitter.

He said he looks forward to the day that sanctions come off Iran, and they become a productive and prosperous nation again. “The sooner the better.”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is in Saudi Arabia for talks on Iran, said Washington’s diplomatic isolation and economic pressure campaign against Tehran will intensify until it decides to forgo violence and “meet our diplomacy with diplomacy.”

The immediate provocation behind additional sanctions is the shooting down of a US drone and oil tanker attacks in Gulf of Oman, both of which the US government blames on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The New York Times reported that an open war between the United States and Iran was averted after Trump changed his decision at the last minute to order a military attack on the Islamic nation Thursday in retaliation to targeting its drone.

The US is set to deploy 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East.

Earlier, the Washington Post had reported that Iran’s computer systems that control rocket and missile launchers were disabled in a US cyber-attack in response to the shooting down of the US drone and attacks on oil tankers.