Nina Totenberg

That's a big caveat.

that essentially would hand Trump and future presidents unrestricted power to replace Fed board members with their personal picks.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

Despite what most people think, nobody except Supreme Court personnel has any idea what cases are going to be announced on opinion days.

And today was no exception.

Despite the drumroll of tariff predictions, the justices delivered three decisions in relatively obscure procedural cases today.

And with only oral arguments scheduled for tomorrow, after that, the court is not expected back on the bench until February 23rd, as the coming month is the midterm break reserved for justices to work on writing opinions in outstanding cases.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

Transgender participation in sports is extremely rare, but the rhetoric around the issue has proved very helpful for President Trump in his most recent presidential campaign, which aired an anti-trans ad 15,000 times, putting many Democrats on the defensive.

Indeed, more than half the states have enacted laws banning transgender participation in sports.

NPR's Nina Totenberg reports.

West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey defends the state law, contending that sports are unique.

But not everyone agrees this case is about that limited objective.

Here's John Bursch.

Senior Counsel for the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

They've probably gotten here because, among other things, the rhetoric around trans issues proved very helpful for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential campaign.

So now 27 states have laws barring transgender participation in sports, and supporters say these laws are needed to ensure fairness in athletic competition,

and to prevent trans athletes, whose sex assigned at birth was male, from having an unfair advantage in women's sports.

Opponents, on the other hand, say these laws discriminate based on sex in violation of both federal statutes and the Constitution's guarantee to equal protection of the law.