The appeals court that allowed an aggressive Texas immigration law to take effect with a one-sentence order without any reasoning has a reputation for making decisions that are too conservative, even for the Supreme Court, which itself has been tilted to the right by a court of six. majority of Republican candidates.

But the Supreme Court has let that order, which overruled a judge’s decision to block the law, stand for now, indicating it won’t hear the case until the appeals court issues something more formal than a “temporary administrative stay ”. The fate of the law, known as SB 4, remains uncertain as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans often falls out of step with the justices.

In dissent, Judge Sonia Sotomayor addressed the appeals court on Tuesday. “The Fifth Circuit abused its discretion,” she wrote, “and this court makes the same mistake by granting a temporary administrative stay to change the status quo that has existed for more than a century.”

She added: “The Fifth Circuit should have considered the constitutionality and irreparable harm caused by SB 4 before enacting the law. Instead, it opened the door to profound disruption. This court is making the same mistake.”

Of the seventeen active appeals court judges, only five were appointed by Democratic presidents. Six members of the court were appointed by Donald J. Trump when he was president.

The court hears appeals from federal courts in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. These forums often elicit ambitious lawsuits from conservative litigants who rightly anticipate a favorable reception, and rulings by judges in those states are often affirmed by the Fifth Circuit.

But when those cases reach the Supreme Court, they sometimes fizzle out. An attack on the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, endorsed by three Trump appointees in the Fifth Circuit, did not appear to go down well with the justices when it was debated in October. Another, in which the Fifth Circuit struck down a federal law banning domestic abusers from carrying guns, was also met with skepticism.

Other Fifth Circuit rulings, on issues such as immigration, abortion pills and so-called ghost guns, also met with at least cautious disapproval from the Supreme Court.

Putin turned to Ukraine after the elections

A day after being declared the winner of Russia’s presidential election, Vladimir Putin used a celebration yesterday to signal that the war against Ukraine would continue to dominate his rule – and that his struggle to add territory to Russia was not over.

During the celebration on Red Square, Putin emphasized Russia’s control over Crimea. Standing in front of a banner marking the 10th anniversary of the peninsula’s annexation, he spoke of returning the people of eastern Ukraine to their home families.

Putin reiterated a warning he made last summer, saying Russia could try to create a “security zone” on Ukrainian territory that Russia does not currently control.

The Russians are now preparing for what might happen next. For many, the big concern is a new military draft. And analysts believe that creating such a buffer zone would require capturing parts of Ukraine’s Kharkov region – which could require new mobilization.

Election results: Authorities said Putin had won more than 87 percent of the vote. Here are takeaways.

Opinion polls: The Kremlin may have felt more comfortable orchestrating such a large margin of victory because Putin’s popularity has risen in independent polls during the war. But a poll from late January also showed that more than half of respondents supported restoring relations with Western countries and a ceasefire with Ukraine.

Other updates:

The Gambia has taken steps to overturn the ban on cutting female genitalia

Gambian lawmakers yesterday voted to repeal the ban on cutting female genitalia. If the bill goes through the final stages, which analysts say is likely, the country would be the first to roll back protections for girls introduced in 2015.

An influential imam in Gambia, a Muslim-majority country in West Africa, led calls to repeal the ban, claiming that cutting is a religious obligation and culturally important. The practice is internationally recognized as a gross violation of human rights and is one of the leading causes of death in countries where it is practiced.

Israeli forces invaded Gaza’s largest hospital

Israeli forces yesterday used tanks and bulldozers in an attack on Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza. The facility, the largest hospital in Gaza, has been the focal point of the war: Israel and US spy agencies believe Hamas has used the hospital as a command center, which Hamas denies.

Israel said it targeted top Hamas officials who had regrouped at Al-Shifa, and that its soldiers returned Hamas fire. Gaza health authorities said Israel had launched rockets at the complex and shot at operating rooms. Details of the fighting could be verified. Both sides said fighters had been killed.

Background: Evidence examined by The Times suggested Hamas used the hospital as cover and maintained a tunnel beneath it, but Israel has struggled to prove it is a command center.

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The cryptocurrency market crashed two years ago. But it’s fueling a booming industry in internet cafes in the Philippines, where people can earn about twice the country’s minimum wage playing crypto-earning games.

Conversation starters

Shakira’s breakup album

Shakira has had a few difficult years.

After decades of hit singles and groundbreaking Latin-pop crossovers, she broke up with her partner of 11 years, the father of her two sons. She helped her father through hospitalizations and brain surgery and settled a Spanish tax evasion case, paying a fine of about $8.2 million.

The breakup and dissolution of her family form the backbone of her first album in seven years, ‘Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran’, which translates to ‘Women No Longer Cry’. Our critic spoke to Shakira about her new album, which is released on Friday.

“When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” she said. “That’s what I did with this album: use my own creativity to process my frustration, my anger and my sadness. I have transmuted or transformed pain into productivity.”

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia emerged from the three-day, staged presidential election that ended Sunday, declaring that his landslide victory represented a public mandate to act as necessary in the war in Ukraine and on various domestic issues, fueling the unease . among the Russians about what comes next.

Mr Putin said the vote represented a desire for “internal consolidation” that would allow Russia to “act effectively on the front line” as well as in other areas such as the economy.

The government frowned on a protest organized by Russia’s beleaguered opposition, in which people expressed their dissent by flooding polling stations around noon. A correspondent for state broadcaster Rossiya 24 said that “provocations at polling stations were nothing more than mosquito bites.” Official commentators suggested that the rules demonstrated a zeal for democratic participation.

Putin, 71, will now be president until at least 2030, beginning a fifth term in a country whose constitution apparently limits the number of presidents to two. The vote, the first since the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, was intended to both create a public mandate for the war and restore Putin’s image as the embodiment of stability. Still, Russians are somewhat tense about the changes the vote could bring.

Here are five takeaways:

Although victory was a foregone conclusion, Putin’s numbers exceeded expectations.

There is a pattern in the presidential elections involving Mr Putin: his results are getting better every time. In 2012, he received 63.6 percent of the vote, and in 2018, after the presidential term was extended to six years, he received 76.7 percent. Experts expected the Kremlin to estimate the result at around 80 percent this time, but Putin got an even higher percentage, closer to 90 percent, although the count was not yet final.

The loyal opposition parties barely registered. None of the three other candidates allowed to vote received more than five percent of the vote.

Presidential elections in Russia have long served as a means to make the entire system appear legitimate. But such a large margin of victory for Mr Putin – who has reworked the constitution to allow him to remain in the Kremlin until 2036, when he will be 83 – threatens to undermine that. It could raise questions among an increasingly authoritarian Kremlin about why Russia needs such a sham exercise.

The Kremlin has not quite achieved the image of national unity it sought.

Mr. Putin always tries to project an image of political stability and control, which the carefully choreographed presidential elections are designed to polish. But this time there were three events related to opposition politics that marred that picture.

The first was in January, when thousands of Russians lined up across the country to sign the petitions needed to put Boris Nadezhdin, a previously low-profile politician who opposed the war in Ukraine, on the ballot. The Kremlin stopped him from doing so.

Then in February, Aleksei A. Navalny, Putin’s staunchest political opponent, died suddenly in an Arctic prison. Thousands of mourners who showed up at his funeral in Moscow sang against Mr Putin and the war, and even during the vote, mourners continued to lay flowers on his grave.

The Navalny organization had approved the plan to turn out voters in large numbers around noon, in a silent protest against Putin and the war. Mr Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who voted at the Russian embassy in Berlin, said she had written her husband’s name on her ballot paper and thanked everyone who had waited in long lines as part of the protest.

But it was difficult to see how the protest could translate into any kind of sustained movement, especially in light of the repressive measures that have steadily tightened since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022. Putin’s government for example, has detained hundreds of people. people as they publicly mourned Mr. Navalny.

Mr. Putin will claim a popular mandate to continue the war in Ukraine.

Mr. Putin’s campaign, and the vote itself, has been shaped by the war. His announcement in December that he would seek another term came in response to a question from a war veteran who urged him to run for office. The election’s symbol, a check mark in the blue, white and red of the Russian flag, resembled the V that was sometimes used to show support for Russian soldiers.

Voting took place in the occupied regions of Ukraine, even though Russia does not have full control over the four regions it annexed. There were elements of coercion, with poll workers sometimes taking ballot boxes to people’s homes accompanied by an armed soldier. In the occupied territories, Putin’s margin of victory was even greater than in Russia itself.

Mr Putin has never acknowledged that he started a war by invading Ukraine. Instead, he says he was forced to launch a “special military operation” to prevent the West from using Ukraine as a Trojan horse to undermine Russia.

He described the turnout in the elections, which was over 74 percent of the more than 112 million registered voters, as “due to the fact that in the literal sense of the word, with weapons in our hands, we are forced to protect the interests of protect our citizens.” , our people.”

The war will remain an organizing principle for the Kremlin.

In his annual address to the nation in February, which served as his main campaign speech, Putin promised both guns and butter, asserting that Russia could pursue its war aims even if it invested in its economy, infrastructure and long-standing goals such as stimulating the Russian economy. population.

Because an estimated 40 percent of government expenditure goes to military expenditure, the economy grew by 3.6 percent in 2023, according to government statistics. The production of ammunition and other equipment is booming.

Mr Putin has also suggested that war veterans should form the core of a “new elite” to govern the country, saying their service proved their commitment to Russia’s interests. The proposal is expected to accelerate a trend in which government officials are expressing muscular patriotism, especially as Putin seeks to replace his older allies with a younger generation.

The Russians are worried about what will happen next.

The period after each presidential election is when the Kremlin usually introduces unpopular policies. For example, after 2018, Mr Putin raised the retirement age. Russians are speculating about whether a new military mobilization or more domestic repression is lurking.

Mr Putin has repeatedly denied that a new mobilization is needed, but recent small territorial gains in eastern Ukraine are believed to have cost tens of thousands of casualties. Although Putin has suggested he is ready for peace talks, neither side has shown much flexibility so far.

Russia has annexed more than 18 percent of Ukrainian territory and the battle lines have been at a standstill for months. Any new Russian offensive is expected to take place during the warm, dry summer months, and the Russian military could seek to increase the amount of territory it controls before future negotiations.

“The decisions will be more likely to be about war than peace, and more likely to be about military than about social or even economic matters,” said Ekaterina Schulmann, a Russian political scientist in exile in Berlin.

Milana Mazaeva reporting contributed.

Rep. Adam Schiff got everything he wanted on Super Tuesday: not only a first-place finish in the primary for a Senate seat in California, but also his favorite opponent in the general election in second place.

But the party didn’t go so smoothly. When Mr. Schiff, a Democrat, took the stage in Los Angeles to claim his victory, demonstrators calling for a ceasefire in Gaza began chanting almost immediately. He made only a short speech.

“My wife, Eve, is here tonight,” he said as part of his opening remarks, as chants of “ceasefire now” first broke out. He stopped talking and only resumed after a long pause, but the chants continued.

IfNotNow, a Jewish organization that opposes Israel’s actions in its war against Hamas, said on social media that the Los Angeles chapter was behind the protest at Mr. Schiff’s event, along with the local chapter of a like-minded group, Jewish Voice for Peace.

“As Jews, we cannot remain silent while the people of Gaza are being slaughtered,” the IfNotNow post said.

Protests against a ceasefire were common during speeches by many politicians during the five months during which Israel bombed Gaza, which is now on the brink of famine.

Mr. Schiff has staunchly supported Israel during his campaign and has said a ceasefire should be conditional on the release of the remaining hostages taken during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7. That set him apart from his two main Democratic leaders. opponents in the primary, Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee.

He was noticeably shaken by the protest, although he repeatedly acknowledged the protesters’ right to make a statement. “We are so lucky, so fortunate that we live in a democracy where we all have the right to protest,” he said.

Even after he left the stage, they continued to sing, “Let Gaza live.” Some event attendees shouted back, shouting “Stop” and “Shut up.” Security officers escorted the demonstrators out, but more and more small groups among the crowd continued to emerge with chants even as Mr. Schiff began speaking again.

Finally, he thanked a few more people before waving to the crowd, chatting and shaking hands with the supporters behind him and walking away. Less than nine minutes passed between when he took the stage and when he left, and for much of that period he did not speak.

Afterward, Mr. Schiff spoke privately to a small group of supporters on a balcony at the event location.

“Of course he acknowledges what happened,” Senator Ben Allen said after speaking to him, adding that Mr. Schiff was probably “used to it.” He added that “in the end it’s a big victory.”