High court lets military implement transgender restrictions
By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration can go ahead with its plan to restrict military service by transgender men and women while court challenges continue, the Supreme Court said Tuesday.
The high court split 5-4 in allowing the plan to take effect, with the court’s five conservatives greenlighting it and its four liberal members saying they would not have. The order from the court was brief and procedural, with no elaboration from the justices.
The court’s decision clears the way for the Pentagon to bar enlistment by people who have undergone a gender transition. It will also allow the administration to require that military personnel serve as members of their biological gender unless they began a gender transition under less restrictive Obama administration rules.
The Trump administration has sought for more than a year to change the Obama-era rules and had urged the justices to take up cases about its transgender troop policy immediately, but the court declined for now.
Those cases will continue to move through lower courts and could eventually reach the Supreme Court again. The fact that five justices were willing to allow the policy to take effect for now, however, makes it more likely the Trump administration’s policy will ultimately be upheld.
Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said the department was pleased with the court’s decision.
“The Department of Defense has the authority to create and implement personnel policies it has determined are necessary to best defend our nation,” she said, adding that lower court rulings had forced the military to “maintain a prior policy that poses a risk to military effectiveness and lethality.”
Groups that sued over the Trump administration’s policy said they ultimately hoped to win their lawsuits against the policy. Jennifer Levi, an attorney for GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, said in a statement that the “Trump administration’s cruel obsession with ridding our military of dedicated and capable service members because they happen to be transgender defies reason and cannot survive legal review.”
Until a few years ago service members could be discharged from the military for being transgender. That changed under the Obama administration. The military announced in 2016 that transgender people already serving in the military would be allowed to serve openly. And the military set July 1, 2017, as the date when transgender individuals would be allowed to enlist.
But after President Donald Trump took office, the administration delayed the enlistment date, saying the issue needed further study. And in late July 2017 the president tweeted that the government would not allow “Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.” He later directed the military to return to its policy before the Obama administration changes.
Groups representing transgender individuals sued, and the Trump administration lost early rounds in those cases, with courts issuing nationwide injunctions barring the administration from altering course. It was those injunctions that the Supreme Court put on hold Tuesday, allowing the Trump administration’s policy to take effect.
The Trump administration’s revised policy on transgender troops dates to March 2018. The policy generally bars transgender people from serving unless they do so “in their biological sex” and do not seek to undergo a gender transition. But it has an exception for transgender troops who relied on the Obama-era rules to begin the process of changing their gender.
Those individuals, who have been diagnosed with “gender dysphoria,” a discomfort with their birth gender, can continue to serve after transitioning. The military has said that over 900 men and women had received that diagnosis. A 2016 survey estimated that about 1 percent of active duty service members, about 9,000 men and women, identify as transgender.
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Associated Press reporter Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report from Washington.

Tentative deal reached to end Los Angeles teachers strike
By JOHN ANTCZAK, Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A tentative deal was reached Tuesday between Los Angeles school officials and the teachers union that will allow educators to return to classrooms after a six-day strike against the nation’s second-largest district, officials said.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, accompanied by leaders United Teachers Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District, announced the agreement at City Hall a few hours after a 21-hour bargaining session ended before dawn.
“I’m proud to announce that pending approval by the teachers represented by UTA and educational professional and this Board of Education we have an agreement that will allow our teachers to go back to work on the campuses tomorrow,” Garcetti said.
Union President Alex Caputo-Pearl said teachers would vote Tuesday and he expected approval.
The agreement was broadly described by officials at the press conference and details were promised to be released later.
“I’m delighted we’ve reached an agreement with UTLA that provides teachers with a well-deserved salary increase, that will reduce class size, and add more support to our students and educators in schools including librarians, nurses and counselors,” said district Superintendent Austin Beutner.
Talks resumed Thursday at Garcetti’s urging. The mayor does not have authority over the Los Angeles Unified School District but he sought to help both sides reach an agreement after nearly two years of fruitless talks that led to the walkout.
Clashes over pay, class sizes and support-staff levels in the district with 640,000 students led to its first strike in 30 years and prompted the staffing of classrooms with substitute teachers and administrators. It followed teacher walkouts in other states that emboldened organized labor.
The district maintained that the union’s demands could bankrupt the school system, which is projecting a half-billion-dollar deficit this budget year and has billions obligated for pension payments and health coverage for retired teachers.
Negotiations broke down in December and started again this month. The union rejected a district offer on Jan. 11 to hire nearly 1,200 teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians and reduce class sizes by two students.
Teachers hoped to build on the “Red4Ed” movement that began last year in West Virginia and moved to Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado and Washington state. It spread from conservative states with “right to work” laws that limit the ability to strike to the more liberal West Coast with strong unions.
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AP reporters John Rogers and Christopher Weber contributed to this report.

Trump moving ahead with State of the Union speech next week
By JILL COLVIN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is moving forward with plans for President Donald Trump to deliver his State of the Union speech next week in front of a joint session of Congress — despite a letter from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi requesting he delay it.
The White House sent an email to the House Sergeant-at-Arms on Tuesday asking to schedule a walk-through for the speech in anticipation of a Jan. 29 delivery, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the planning.
At the same time, the White House is continuing to work on contingency plans and has been considering potential alternatives, including a rally, as a back-up venue.
A previously scheduled Capitol walk-through was canceled last week just before Pelosi sent her letter to Trump suggesting that he either deliver the speech in writing or delay it until after the partial government shutdown is resolved, citing security concerns.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen responded by assuring that DHS and Secret Service were “fully prepared to support and secure the State of the Union.”
Asked about the letter by reporters Tuesday, Pelosi did not address the White House’s decision, saying only: “We just want people to get paid for their work.”
The president cannot speak in front of a joint session of Congress without both chambers’ explicit permission. A resolution agreed to by both chambers specifies the date and time of a joint session of the House and the Senate for receiving an address from the president.
Trump and Pelosi have been locked in an increasingly personal standoff over the partial government shutdown, which is now in its 32nd day. She had previously extended Trump a formal invitation to deliver the speech, which the White House says Trump accepted.
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Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.
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Follow Colvin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/colvinj

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