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The Trump administration on Wednesday sued Maine for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports, escalating a dispute over whether the state is abiding by a federal law that bars discrimination in education based on sex.The lawsuit follows weeks of feuding between the Republican administration and Democratic Gov. Janet Mills that has led to threats to cut off crucial federal funding and a clash at the White House when she told President Donald Trump: “We’ll see you in court.”The political overtones of the moment were clear, with Attorney General Pam Bondi and one of the athletes who joined her on stage at the Justice Department citing the matter as a priority for Trump. Bondi said other states, including Minnesota and California, could be sued as well.“President Trump, before he was elected, this has been a huge issue for him,” Bondi said. “Pretty simple: girls play in girls’ sports, boys play in boys’ sports. Men play in men’s sports, women play in women’s sports.”Trump campaigned against the participation of transgender athletes in sports in his 2024 race. As president, he has signed executive orders to prohibit that and to use a rigid definition of the sexes, rather than gender, for federal government purposes. The orders are being challenged in court.Trump’s departments of Education and Health and Human Services have said Maine’s education agency is violating the federal Title IX antidiscrimination law by allowing transgender girls to participate on girls teams. The Justice Department is asking the court to order the state to direct all schools to prohibit the participation of males in athletic competition designated for females.Maine officials have refused to agree with a settlement that would have banned transgender students from sports, arguing that the law does not prevent schools from letting transgender athletes participate. Mills said Wednesday that the lawsuit was expected and is part of a pressure campaign by Washington to force Maine to ignore its own human rights laws.“This matter has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed, it is about states rights and defending the rule of law against a federal government bent on imposing its will, instead of upholding the law,” Mills said in a statement.Maine’s attorney general, Aaron Frey, said Wednesday he is confident Maine is acting in accordance with state and federal law.“Our position is further bolstered by the complete lack of any legal citation supporting the Administration’s position in its own complaint,” he said in a statement. “While the President issued an executive order that reflects his own interpretation of the law, anyone with the most basic understanding of American civics understands the president does not create law nor interpret law.”The government’s complaint cites as examples the case of a transgender athlete who in February won first place in pole vault at a Maine indoor track and field meet and a transgender athlete who last year began competing in female cross country races in the state and placed first in a girl’s 5K run.The lawsuit reflects a stark philosophical turnabout from the position on gender identity issues taken during Democratic administrations.Under President Joe Biden, the government tried to extend civil rights policies to protect transgender people. In 2016, the Justice Department, then led by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, sued North Carolina over a law that required transgender people to use public restrooms and showers that corresponded the gender on their birth certificate.Trump signed an executive order in February, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” that gave federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with his administration’s interpretation of “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth.Bondi was joined at the news conference by former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has emerged as a public face of the opposition to transgender athletes. Gaines tied with a transgender athlete for fifth place in a 2022 NCAA championship and has testified before lawmakers across the country on the issue. She and others frame the issue as women’s rights.During a February meeting with governors, Trump threatened to pull federal funding from Maine if the state did not comply with his executive order. Mills responded: “We’ll see you in court.”Maine sued the administration this month after the Department of Agriculture said it was pausing some money for the state’s educational programs because of what the administration contended was Maine’s failure to comply with the Title IX law. A federal judge on Friday ordered the administration to unfreeze funds intended for a Maine child nutrition program.Questions over the rights of transgender people have become a major political issue in the past five years.Twenty-six states have laws or policies barring transgender girls from girls school sports. GOP-controlled states have also been banning gender-affirming health care for transgender minors and restricting bathroom use in schools and sometimes other public buildings. Whittle reported from Portland, Maine. Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia contributed to this report. Alanna Durkin Richer, Eric Tucker and Patrick Whittle, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said. Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with software maker Palantir and drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector’s burgeoning base of defense startups. In his January 27 executive order, Trump cited a missile attack as “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.” All three companies were founded by entrepreneurs who have been major political supporters of Trump. Musk has donated more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect Trump, and now serves as a special adviser to the president working to cut government spending through his Department of Government Efficiency. Despite the Pentagon’s positive signals to the SpaceX group, some sources stressed the decision process for Trump’s Golden Dome is in its early stages. Its ultimate structure and who is selected to work on it could change dramatically in the coming months. The three companies met with top officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon in recent weeks to pitch their plan, which would build and launch 400 to more than 1,000 satellites circling the globe to sense missiles and track their movement, sources said. A separate fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then bring enemy missiles down, three of the sources said. The SpaceX group is not expected to be involved in the weaponization of satellites, these sources said. One of the sources familiar with the talks described them as “a departure from the usual acquisition process. There’s an attitude that the national security and defense community has to be sensitive and deferential to Elon Musk because of his role in the government.” SpaceX and Musk have declined to comment on whether Musk is involved in any of the discussions or negotiations involving federal contracts with his businesses. The Pentagon did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters, only saying it will deliver “options to the President for his decision in line with the executive order and in alignment with White House guidance and timelines.” The White House, SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril also did not respond to questions. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE In an unusual twist, SpaceX has proposed setting up its role in Golden Dome as a “subscription service” in which the government would pay for access to the technology, rather than own the system outright. The subscription model, which has not been previously reported, could skirt some Pentagon procurement protocols allowing the system to be rolled out faster, the two sources said. While the approach would not violate any rules, the government may then be locked into a subscription and lose control over its ongoing development and pricing, they added. Some Pentagon officials have expressed concerns internally about relying on the subscription-based model for any part of the Golden Dome, two sources told Reuters. Such an arrangement would be unusual for such a large and critical defense program. U.S. Space Force General Michael Guetlein has been in talks on whether SpaceX should be the owner and operator of its part of the system, the two sources said. Other options include having the U.S. own and operate the system, or having the U.S. own it while contractors handle operations. Guetlein did not respond to a request for comment. Retired Air Force General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, a top SpaceX advisor to Musk, has been involved in the company’s recent discussions with senior defense and intelligence leaders, the two sources said. O’Shaughnessy did not respond to requests for comment. Should the group led by SpaceX win a Golden Dome contract, it would be the biggest win for Silicon Valley in the lucrative defense contracting industry and a blow to the traditional contractors. However, those long-standing contractors, such as Northrop Grumman, Boeing and RTX are expected to be big players in the process as well, people familiar with the companies said. Lockheed Martin put up a webpage as a part of its marketing efforts. MANY BIDS The Pentagon has received interest from more than 180 companies keen to help develop and build the Golden Dome, according to a U.S. official, including defense startups like Epirus, Ursa Major, and Armada. Members of the White House’s National Security Council were briefed by a handful of companies about their capabilities, four sources said. The Pentagon’s number two, former private equity investor Steve Feinberg, will be a key decision-maker for Golden Dome, two U.S. defense officials said. Feinberg co-founded Cerberus Capital Management which has invested in the cutting-edge hypersonic missiles industry but not in SpaceX. Feinberg, who did not respond to a request for comment, has said he would divest of all his interests in Cerberus when he joined the administration. Some experts believe the overall cost for Golden Dome could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. The Pentagon established several timelines for capabilities to be delivered starting with early 2026 to those delivered after 2030. SpaceX is pitching for the part of the Golden Dome initiative called the “custody layer,” a constellation of satellites that would detect missiles, track their trajectory, and determine if they are heading toward the U.S., according to two sources familiar with SpaceX’s goals. SpaceX has estimated the preliminary engineering and design work for the custody layer of satellites would cost between $6 billion and $10 billion, two of the sources said. In the past five years, SpaceX has launched hundreds of operational spy satellites and more recently several prototypes, which could be retrofitted to be used for the project, the sources said. Reuters reviewed an internal Pentagon memo from Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth issued shortly before a February 28 deadline to senior Pentagon leadership asking them for initial Golden Dome proposals and calling for the “acceleration of the deployment” of constellations of satellites. The time frame could give SpaceX an advantage because of its fleet of rockets, including the Falcon 9, and existing satellites that could be repurposed for the missile defense shield, the people familiar with the plan said. Despite these advantages, some of those familiar with the discussions said it was uncertain whether the SpaceX group would be able to efficiently set up a system with new technology in a cost-effective way that can protect the United States from attack. “It remains to be seen whether SpaceX and these tech companies will be able to pull any of this off,” said one of the sources. “They’ve never had to deliver on an entire system that the nation will need to rely on for its defense.” Mike Stone and Marisa Taylor, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
China-founded e-commerce sites Temu and Shein say they plan to raise prices for U.S. customers starting next week, a ripple effect from President Donald Trump’s attempts to correct the trade imbalance between the world’s two largest economies by imposing a sky-high tariff on goods shipped from China.Temu, which is owned by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings, and Shein, which is now based in Singapore, said in separate but nearly identical notices that their operating expenses have gone up “due to recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs.”Both companies said they would be making “price adjustments” starting April 25, although neither provided details about the size of the increases. It was unclear why the two rivals posted almost identical statements on their shopping sites.Since launching in the United States, Shein and Temu have given Western retailers a run for their money by offering products at ultralow prices, coupled with avalanches of digital or influencer advertising.The 145% tariff Trump slapped on most products made in China, coupled with his decision to end a customs exemption that allows goods worth less than $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free, has dented the business models of the two platforms.E-commerce companies have been the biggest users of the widely used exemption. Trump signed an executive order this month to eliminate the “de minimis provision” for goods from China and Hong Kong starting May 2, when they will be subject to the 145% import tax.As many as four million low-value parcelsmost of them originating in Chinaarrive in the U.S. every day under the soon-to-be canceled provision.U.S. politicians, law enforcement agencies, and business groups lobbied to remove the long-standing exemption, describing it as a trade loophole that gave inexpensive Chinese goods an advantage and served as a portal for illicit drugs and counterfeits to enter the country.Shein sells inexpensive clothes, cosmetics, and accessories, primarily targeting young women through partnerships with social media influencers. Temu, which promoted its goods through online ads, sells a wider array of products, including household items, humorous gifts, and small electronics.Last year the companies were among the largest advertising spenders on social media platforms, but they’ve both slashed that spending in recent weeks, according to data analytics provider Sensor Tower. That could be bad news for the platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snap, X, and TikTok that rely on advertising.In November, American e-commerce giant Amazon launched a low-cost online storefront featuring electronics, apparel, and other products priced at under $20. Many of the electronics, apparel, and other products on the storefront Wednesday resembled the types of items typically found on Shein and Temu.In their customer notices about the pending price increases, the companies encouraged customers to keep shopping in the days ahead.“We’ve stocked up and stand ready to make sure your orders arrive smoothly during this time,” Temu’s statement said. “Were doing everything we can to keep prices low and minimize the impact on you.” Mae Anderson, AP Business Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
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