Welcome back to the Morning Brief——brought to you by one of America’s largest independent newspapers—The Epoch Times.
It’s Tuesday October 6th, and I’m Keegan Billings.
Let’s jump right in.
Top Supreme Court Cases to Watch During the high courts New Term
In there first case Supreme Court justices seem skeptical of local governments’ claim that they can use state laws to sue oil companies over the alleged effects of climate change.
There was death of a laboratory worker at a plague research institute in Siberia. I’ll get into what we know about the case.
President Trump said the U.S. military withdrew its long-range bombers from the UK’s RAF Fairford Base over the belief that the aircraft faced a lingering threat.
Israel Suspects that the Flydubai Co-pilot who attempted to take control of the plane Planned to use the plane as a weapon.
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Top Supreme Court Cases to Watch During the New Term
Supreme Court justices began a new term on Monday
Here are the Cases to Watch During the Term
1. ‘Assault Weapons’ Bans
The justices on Dec. 2 will consider whether Connecticut’s and an Illinois county’s bans on so-called assault weapons violate the Second and 14th Amendments.
Oral argument in the cases, known as Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, is expected to address whether the laws comply with the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that case, the court said gun restrictions must be consistent with how the country historically regulated firearms.
2. Catholics Sue Over Colorado Preschool Funding
Catholics are asking the Supreme Court in St. Mary’s Parish v. Roy to revisit one of its more controversial principles on religious neutrality.
Some Catholic schools in the state are ineligible for funding since they refuse to admit children of same-sex couples, something they say would confuse children and compromise their mission. The Archdiocese of Denver told the Supreme Court that excluding those schools was biased or lacked neutrality.
Colorado and a federal appeals court disagreed, arguing that the funding conditions didn’t target Catholics but were based on the state’s broader anti-discrimination practices.
3. Citizenship Proof in Elections
The Supreme Court on Dec. 8 will consider whether Arizona can require proof of citizenship from voters and remove noncitizens from voter rolls before an election.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said those two measures conflicted with federal law. More specifically, it pointed to the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which directs states to treat its voter registration form as equivalent to a federal mail form. Rather than requiring proof of citizenship, the federal form merely requires people to attest to their citizenship under penalty of perjury
4. Detention and Third-Country Removal
Two immigration cases will test how far the government can go in holding people during removal proceedings and in choosing where to send them once an order is final.
In Rhoney v. Da Cunha, granted on Oct. 1, the Supreme Court will consider whether the Immigration and Nationality Act requires detention, without a bond hearing, of noncitizens who are present in the United States after entering unlawfully.
5. Parents Challenge Washington’s Runaway Policy
When a child wants to undergo gender-based medical interventions, can parents sue to stop the state from providing those treatments?
That’s the question the Supreme Court is considering in International Partners for Ethical Care v. Ferguson, which is being heard on Dec. 7.
6. Sex Discrimination Claims
Two professors in an upcoming case—Crowther v. Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia—are asking the Supreme Court to assist their attempts to sue their universities over alleged sex-based discrimination.
Thomas Crowther, a former Augusta University art professor, alleges he was removed after a sexual harassment investigation that was biased against him because he is a man. MaChelle Joseph, formerly a women’s basketball coach at Georgia Institute of Technology, says she was fired after she complained that the women’s program received inferior resources compared to the men’s team.
Both say that they should be able to sue under Title IX of the federal Education Amendments of 1972, which bars sex-based discrimination in schools. They point to the Supreme Court’s decision in Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, which allowed a private right of action under Title IX.
7. Former Asylees Seek Lawful Permanent Residency
For foreign nationals who were granted asylum when entering the United States, immigration law provides a pathway to obtaining lawful permanent resident status.
But is a non-citizen whose asylum status was terminated still be eligible to become a lawful permanent resident?
The justices are expected to answer this question in a case known as Wassily v. Blanche, which is being heard on Nov. 30.
8. Eminent Domain Compensation
The Supreme Court will also take up the case of a family ranch enterprise that had its land seized as part of a natural gas development arrangement between a private company and the federal government.
WBI Energy Transmission had been authorized by the federal government to use eminent domain to build and operate a natural gas pipeline. Under the Fifth Amendment, eminent domain allows the state or its authorized agents to seize property “for public use” as long as the owner receives “just compensation.”
9. Fines for Labor Protection ViolationsLi pleaded guilty to conspiring to act in the United States as an agent of the Chinese regime without providing the notification required by federal law. He was sentenced in November 2024 to 48 months in prison, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release.
In Dept. of Labor v. Sun Valley Orchards, the Supreme Court is set to consider the extent of the Labor Department’s authority to impose administrative fines on employers who violate federal worker protections and labor contracts.
An administrative law judge found Sun Valley Orchards, a family-owned farm that employed farm workers under the H-2A guest-worker visa program, violated multiple worker protection laws and contractual obligations. The farm was ordered to pay $550,000 in back wages and monetary penalties.
However, oral argument on Nov. 10 isn’t expected to relitigate that fee. Instead, the Supreme Court is taking up the question of the administrative law judge’s authority.
10. Climate-Related Lawsuits
Suncor Energy v. Commissioners of Boulder County, the Supreme Court will consider whether local governments can use state laws to sue fossil fuel companies over the effects of so-called climate change.
The city of Boulder and Boulder County in Colorado sued oil companies, alleging that they broke state laws by producing and selling hydrocarbons while concealing and misrepresenting the dangers of burning them.
The governments say that conduct worsened climate change and caused flood damage, greater wildfire risk, drought, and harm to public buildings and infrastructure.
They want the companies to pay for the alleged damage under Colorado law, arguing that their activities were a public and private nuisance, a trespass, unjust enrichment, and a civil conspiracy.
A public nuisance is an unreasonable interference with a right shared by the whole community, such as smoke from a factory fouling the air everyone inhales. A private nuisance is the same concept aimed at one person or property, such as a neighbor’s noise ruining the enjoyment of someone’s property. Trespass is a physical invasion of property without permission. Unjust enrichment refers to gaining a benefit at another’s expense without paying for it.
Although this case concerns the Boulder lawsuit, many states, such as California and Hawaii, as well as cities, such as Chicago and Baltimore, have filed lawsuits against energy companies, arguing that their products have an impact on the climate. In some suits, they also allege that the companies have misrepresented risks related to their products.
Suncor and its co-petitioner, Exxon Mobil, argue that the lawsuit is actually a backdoor attempt to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through Colorado courts. The Trump administration supports the companies’ position.
They say that federal law already controls those emissions, primarily through the federal Clean Air Act, and that it blocks states from using their own nuisance and other laws to assign blame and damages for climate change.
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Despite a Supreme Court setback in June, the Justice Department (DOJ) is working with federal immigration agencies to combat birth tourism by using existing laws.
Blanche told Epoch Times senior editor Jan Jekielek in an exclusive interview airing at 9 p.m. ET on Oct. 6. On Epoch TV’s American thought Leaders.
Blanche said in the interview DOJ is also working with the Department of Homeland Security to strengthen questions asked of travelers about their reasons for entering the country.
On June 30, the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s broad birthright citizenship order issued in January 2025, which excluded children of illegal immigrants and legal temporary visitors from automatic U.S. citizenship.
Blanche said the ruling still left room for the administration to act. He said he would use existing enforcement tools rather than wait for Congress to pass laws.
“Those cases can be difficult to prove, but it’s not slowing us down,” Blanche said.
Federal prosecutors have been told to prioritize investigations into birth tourism schemes.
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The death of a laboratory worker at a plague research institute in Siberia that prompted Russian health officials to implement controls drew a response from the U.S. State Department and the CDC this week. Here’s what we know about the case.
The death, in undisclosed circumstances, sparked public health fears across social media platforms. Russian government authorities declared the situation under control on Oct. 5, and a top Kremlin spokesperson said people should not pay attention to “rumors and speculation.”
Russia’s health agency said “Due to the patient’s professional activities, upon receiving information, a comprehensive set of anti-epidemic measures was immediately and fully implemented in accordance with sanitary legislation,” Rospotrebnadzor stated. “This included identifying the widest possible circle of people who had been in contact with the patient, inpatient medical observation, and daily laboratory testing.”
Both the U.S. State Department and the CDC indicated in statements on Oct. 5 that each agency was monitoring reports of a possible plague outbreak in Russia.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Oct. 5 that authorities received information from Russian officials that a lab worker may have been infected.
“If something like that gets out, it can quickly spread. So we’re watching and monitoring it closely. I don’t think it’s cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and the cause to just keep an eye on it, and we’re doing that.”
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President Donald Trump said the U.S. military withdrew long-range bombers from the United Kingdom over the belief that the aircraft faced a lingering threat.
“We had an idea that there might be a threat,” Trump said shortly before departing the White House for a campaign stop in Grand Island, Nebraska.
“And why would I leave them there? It cost very little money to move them, you know, relatively closely. But no, we had a threat and if we’re going to be threatened, we’ll just move them and that sort of alleviates that.”
The U.S. Air Force pulled all of its B-1B Lancer bombers from RAF Fairford over the weekend. That move came after law enforcement authorities in the UK responded to a Sept. 27 call about several individuals behaving suspiciously near the base, which has historically hosted U.S. bomber forces.
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President Donald Trump on Monday signed a new executive order aimed at lowering diesel prices.
He signed the order during a rally at the Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds.
“Tonight, I’m going to sign a historic executive order to officially waive the off-road requirement and allow anyone to purchase tax-free, red-dye diesel,” Trump said to roaring applause from the standing-room-only crowd.
Executive Assistant to the President Natalie Harp brought out the order for Trump to sign at the rally.
The order directs federal authorities to expand access to tax-exempt diesel, the fuel used in tractors and off-road machinery that is dyed red to help law enforcement officials detect tax evasion if operators use the fuel for driving on roads.
The red fuel is now temporarily approved for on-road use, lowering costs for hauling freight by 24.4 cents per gallon.
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A Washington state high school wrestler asked the Supreme Court to intervene and allow her to wrestle on the girls’ team without having to face male athletes after she was allegedly sexually assaulted by one during a match.
The request came after video surfaced of the alleged assault involving the female athlete, named Kallie Keeler.
In an emergency application to the Supreme Court, Keeler alleged that the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association violated Title IX, a civil rights law that bars sex-based discrimination, by allowing male athletes to participate in girls’ sports.
Keeler is asking the Supreme Court to not only allow her to avoid competing against boys but also require that her mother receive notice if she could face any male athletes in a competition.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit representing Keeler, said in a press release on Oct. 5 that the policy “forces girls into unfair competition that threatens their safety.”
Without an injunction, her attorneys argued, Keeler would miss the season to avoid competing against males.
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A newly issued report by the Department of Justice reveals that law enforcement officials from multiple federal agencies pushed back on a Biden-era plan to label parents who protested at school board meetings as “domestic terrorists” and prosecute them under federal law. Multiple officials warned that the move was likely outside federal jurisdiction, was unlawful because it implicated the parents’ First Amendment free speech rights, and would be seen as political. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” one attorney said in an email criticizing the plan.
Another said, “If they do this, they might as well rename the damn thing the Anti-MAGA Task Force.”
Attorney General Todd Blanche told The Epoch Times that much of his work, and that of FBI Director Kash Patel, has been to divert federal law enforcement “back to the basics,” such as eliminating drugs and cartels, uprooting fraud, and stopping violent crime.
Blanche told Epoch Times senior editor Jan Jekielek on Oct. 5.
“If prosecutors and agents are working on those types of crimes, they don’t have time to meddle in places they shouldn’t be meddling in,”
According to the Oct. 5 report by the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, the 2021 plan was implemented despite the pushback, and included efforts to tie protesting parents to “threats against elections officials,” looping in the Public Integrity Section of the DOJ.
The plan, stemming from coordination between the DOJ under former Attorney General Merrick Garland and the National School Boards Association, called on the FBI and other federal entities to form a task force to investigate parents who were objecting to hot-button issues such as COVID-19 pandemic-era mandates, critical race theory education, and school transgender policies.
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The Justice Department is seeking to revoke the U.S. citizenship of two China-born men convicted in separate cases of working for the Chinese communist regime.
The department filed a denaturalization case—seeking to revoke naturalized U.S. citizenship—against former U.S. Navy sailor Wei Jinchao and Florida technology worker Li Ping in the Wei, 26, a native of China, joined the Navy in 2021 and obtained U.S. citizenship in May 2022 through a law allowing qualifying U.S. service members to obtain citizenship more quickly.
By then, however, he had already begun working with a Chinese intelligence officer.
Evidence presented at Wei’s criminal trial showed that the officer approached him through social media in February 2022 while posing as a naval enthusiast associated with the state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation.
Wei told another Navy sailor later that month that the contact was “extremely suspicious” and that he believed he was “on the radar of a China intelligence organization.” When told the contact wanted daily information about which ships were docked and was offering him $500, Wei described the proposal as “quite obviously ... espionage,” according to evidence recounted by the Justice Department.
Rather than cutting off contact, prosecutors said, Wei moved their communications to another encrypted application.
From March 2022 until his arrest in August 2023, Wei provided photographs and videos of the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, locations of other Navy vessels, information about defensive weapons and ship problems, and thousands of pages of technical and operational information obtained from restricted Navy systems. The Chinese intelligence officer paid him more than $12,000, according to prosecutors.
A federal jury convicted Wei in August 2025 on six counts, including conspiracy to commit espionage, espionage, and offenses involving the unlawful export of controlled military technical information. He was sentenced in January to 200 months in prison.
Li, 61, lived in Wesley Chapel, Florida, and worked for a major U.S. telecommunications company and later an international information technology company.
He admitted in 2024 that as early as 2012, he began serving as a “cooperative contact”—someone who provided information at the direction of officers of China’s Ministry of State Security, the regime’s main civilian intelligence agency.
At the ministry’s direction, Li gathered information on Chinese dissidents, pro-democracy advocates, Falun Gong practitioners, U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations, and his employers, according to his plea agreement and other court filings.
In August 2012, an intelligence officer asked Li for information on Falun Gong practitioners and pro-democracy advocates in the United States. Within days, Li supplied identifying information about a person in St. Petersburg, Florida, according to prosecutors.
The officer later asked Li about his employer’s operations in China, hacking incidents involving U.S. companies, and cybersecurity materials from his subsequent employer. In 2022, Li supplied information about the technology company where he worked and materials concerning its cybersecurity training.
During Li’s August 2024 plea hearing in Tampa, The Epoch Times asked him whether he regretted his actions. Li answered “no.” His attorney, Daniel Fernandez, said the case was “not espionage” and argued that the material Li shared was publicly obtainable, while acknowledging that Li knew his contact worked for and reported to the Chinese authorities.
The FBI arrested a Californian woman at Los Angeles International Airport on suspicion of acting as an unregistered agent for Beijing and surveilling a close relative of a Taiwanese government official.
“Heather” Zhang Wanying, 34, who lives in Irvine, Orange County, was taken into custody by FBI Los Angeles when she attempted to leave the United States for China, according to First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli.
The FBI said in an X post, “She surveilled the Taiwanese President’s son and his family—filming their home, vehicles, and reporting information back to PRC handlers,” using the acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.
FBI Director Kash Patel told America’s adversaries to “take note.”
“America is no longer a safe place to run your espionage operations,” he said in a post on X. “This FBI is hunting threats to our national security wherever they hide—and bringing them to justice.”
Zhang’s target was Lai Ting-Yu, the son of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-Te, Essayli told Fox News. He also confirmed that the woman is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
company in the United States, according to a report by Taiwan’s news media SETN.com.
Zhang traveled to Seattle in 2025 to do the alleged “foreign intelligence operations” on direct order of Chinese state officials, according to the affidavit.
She is listed as a real estate agent with JC Pacific Capital Inc., according to Zillow and Homes.com, with nine years of work experience in Irvine, California.
The prosecutors accused Zhang of coordinating the trip with an associate and using tradecraft to avoid being detected. They said she never registered her work in the United States as a foreign agent.
NOW MOVING ONTO WORLD NEWS:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that his country will intensify attacks on oil refineries in Russia but will not target civilians.
Zelenskyy said in an interview with Reuters published on Oct. 3 that the decision was in response to documents Ukrainian intelligence had received showing that Russian President Vladimir Putin had authorized a new directive allowing military attacks on civilian targets.
Zelenskyy said.
“We saw documents, and we know that they allow them to attack infrastructure, logistics, and especially to attack in the cities, in the villages, everywhere, roads, schools, hospitals,”
“To pressure people to leave the capital, leave different cities: this is the goal of the operation.”
The Ukrainian president said that his military would respond to changes in Russian tactics in kind, but without targeting civilians.
“We have to respond in any way [we can],” he said. “With their attacks on our energy, we have to respond on their energy. First of all, oil refiners ... what gives money to them for this war.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Oct. 5 that it would intensify strikes on “military and military-industrial facilities, as well as related infrastructure in Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions,” according to Russian state-run news agency TASS.
Ambassador-at-large of the Russian Foreign Ministry Rodion Miroshnik told Izvestia that the strikes are to limit Zelenskyy’s ability to damage the Russian economy.
This followed the ministry’s Oct. 3 warning to foreign nationals and diplomatic personnel against remaining in Kyiv or near military facilities in Ukraine, as the Russian forces continue to carry out strikes against military targets in cities.
Both sides deny targeting civilians.
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Israel has stated that the investigation into the co-pilot who attempted to take control of a Flydubai flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel has raised suspicions that he intended to turn the aircraft into a weapon and fly it into Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.
Senior Israeli security officials have told Epoch Magazine Israel that Hammam al-Hammami, an Omani national, had visited Israel in June and originally planned to carry out a suicide attack during that trip.
The following month, he planned the aircraft hijacking attack, but postponed it because, according to security officials, he felt sorry for one of the crew members, whom he knew personally.
The officials said that on Sept. 30, al-Hammami deliberately waited until Flight FZ 1073, which had 174 mainly Israeli passengers on board, reached the Jordan–Saudi Arabia border area before attempting to seize control.
His intention was allegedly to continue flying toward Israel as though it were a routine flight, reach Ben Gurion Airport, and then crash the aircraft into the airport grounds, officials said.
If he was unable to reach Israel, his backup plan was to crash into a U.S. military base in Jordan, the officials added.“The attacker, the co-pilot who attacked the captain, is now being interrogated, but here’s what we do know: First, we know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination,” Netanyahu said in a Fox News interview.
Netanyahu said the co-pilot shouted “Kill me” after he was subdued by the passengers and crew members, adding that it was “clear he was suicidal.”
Netanyahu has said pilots from countries with which Israel has no diplomatic relations, such as Oman, are not permitted in the cockpits of flights to or from Israel.
It is unclear how al-Hammami ended up on the Dubai-Tel Aviv route, and Netanyahu has ordered a review of foreign airline crews flying to or from Israel.
A counterterrorism unit in Australia is investigating al-Hammami’s links to the country after it emerged that he was once enrolled at RMIT University in Melbourne.
And before we leave, here are some words of wisdom to start the day…
Today’s quote is by the author Laura Ingalls Wilder,
She said:
“It does not so much matter what happens. It is what one does when it happens that really counts.”
—Laura Ingalls Wilder
Thanks for listening to the Epoch Times Morning Brief.
Just a final reminder, if you enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a 5 star review on your podcast platform or visit www.RateThisPodcast.com/morningbrief, link in show notes. This was Keegan, I’ll see you tomorrow / on Monday.
This was Keegan, I’ll see you tomorrow.
