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President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to allow enforcement of a ban on transgender people in the military, while legal challenges proceed.Without an order from the nation’s highest court, the ban could not take effect for many months, Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote, “a period far too long for the military to be forced to maintain a policy that it has determined, in its professional judgment, to be contrary to military readiness and the nation’s interests.”The high court filing follows a brief order from a federal appeals court that kept in place a court order blocking the policy nationwide.At the least, Sauer wrote, the court should allow the ban to take effect nationwide, except for the seven service members and one aspiring member of the military who sued.The court gave lawyers for the service members challenging the ban a week to respond.Just after beginning his second term in January, Trump moved aggressively to roll back the rights of transgender people. Among the Republican president’s actions was an executive order that claims the sexual identity of transgender service members “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military readiness.In response, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy that presumptively disqualifies transgender people from military service.But in March, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma, Washington, ruled for several long-serving transgender military members who say that the ban is insulting and discriminatory and that their firing would cause lasting damage to their careers and reputations.The Trump administration offered no explanation as to why transgender troops, who have been able to serve openly over the past four years with no evidence of problems, should suddenly be banned, Settle wrote. The judge is an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush and is a former captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps.In 2016, during Barack Obama’s presidency, a Defense Department policy permitted transgender people to serve openly in the military. During Trump’s first term in the White House, the Republican issued a directive to ban transgender service members, with an exception for some of those who had already started transitioning under more lenient rules that were in effect during Obama’s Democratic administration.The Supreme Court allowed that ban to take effect. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, scrapped it when he took office.The rules the Defense Department wants to enforce contain no exceptions.Sauer said the policy during Trump’s first term and the one that has been blocked are “materially indistinguishable.”Thousands of transgender people serve in the military, but they represent less than 1% of the total number of active-duty service members.The policy also has been blocked by a federal judge in the nation’s capital, but that ruling has been temporarily halted by a federal appeals court, which heard arguments on Tuesday. The three-judge panel, which includes two judges appointed by Trump during his first term, appeared to be in favor of the administration’s position.In a more limited ruling, a judge in New Jersey also has barred the Air Force from removing two transgender men, saying they showed their separation would cause lasting damage to their careers and reputations that no monetary settlement could repair. Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report. Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court. Mark Sherman, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
There’s Blue Sky and then there’s Bluesky. Blue Sky, a paper goods company founded 16 years ago, appears to be seeing a massive bump in traffic to its website, www.bluesky.com, thanks to the newfound popularity of the social media platform of a nearly identical name. Blue Sky’s website saw 215,100 visitors in March of this year compared to 56,300 visitors in March of 2024, marking a 282% increase in visits, according to data from digital market intelligence firm Similarweb. At the same time, Bluesky, the X competitor hosted at bsky.app, saw a 864% growth in visitors. In March 2025, Similarweb tracked 169.8 million visitors, compared to 17.6 million in March 2024. Bluesky started as a research project at Twitter, but became an independent company in 2021. It launched its platform as an invite-only service in 2023 before opening up public registration in February 2024. The platform really took off, though, after the November presidential election, when X owner Elon Musk gained a large stake in President Trumps campaign and subsequent administration. The company now has more than 35 million users, according to a tracker built by software engineer Natalie Bridgers. With the massive growth, it could be that people are typing in “bluesky.com” to get to the social platform, unaware they’re going to be met with visually appealing planners. Blue Sky didn’t respond to Fast Company‘s requests for comment.
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E-Commerce
Apple aims to make most of its iPhones sold in the United States at factories in India by the end of 2026, and is speeding up those plans to navigate potentially higher tariffs in China, its main manufacturing base, a source told Reuters. Apple is holding urgent talks with contract manufacturers Foxconn and Tata to achieve that goal, said the person, who declined to be named as the planning process is confidential. Apple, Tata and Foxconn did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Apple sells over 60 million iPhones in the U.S. annually with roughly 80% of them made in China. The tech giant is now looking to move the majority of that production to India, the source said. Apple has already stepped up production in India to beat U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, shipping some 600 tons of iPhones worth $2 billion to the United States in March. The shipments from India marked a record for both its contractors Tata and Foxconn, with the latter alone accounting for smartphones worth $1.3 billion, Reuters reported last week. In April, the U.S. administration imposed 26% duties on imports from India, much lower than the more than 100% China was facing at the time. Washington has since paused most duties for three months, except for China. Trump’s administration has since signalled openness to de-escalating the trade war between the world’s two largest economies that has raised fears of recession. The Financial Times first reported about Apple’s plan on Friday. As Apple diversifies its manufacturing beyond China, it has positioned India for a critical role. Foxconn and Tata, its two main suppliers there, have three factories in all, with two more being built. Munsif Vengattil, Akash Sriram, and Disha Mishra, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
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