What happened
The Supreme Court yesterday cleared the way for President Donald Trump to finish his 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom, ruling in a 5-4 decision that the congressionally chartered historical preservation group that won in two lower courts lacked standing to challenge the project. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented with the three liberal justices, calling the ballroom construction “likely unlawful” because it hadn’t been approved by Congress. 

Who said what
“The White House is an iconic American building whose symbolism and history are wrapped up in its architecture,” Roberts wrote, and it’s crucial to “ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.” The court’s majority “insisted it was not resolving the legal arguments over the president’s power to unilaterally make major changes to the White House,” Politico said. But their unsigned opinion, The Wall Street Journal said, “effectively” gives a “green light” for “construction crews to continue their nearly round-the-clock work” to complete the project before the legal questions are resolved. 

What next?
In court documents, the White House said the $400 million ballroom’s framework should be completed by November and the full project done in August 2028. 

What happened
A jury in Las Vegas yesterday found former gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis (pictured above) guilty of first-degree murder for orchestrating the 1996 drive-by killing of rap icon Tupac Shakur. During the three-week trial, prosecutors leaned on Davis’ public admissions that he procured and handed a fellow Crips member the gun that killed Shakur. Davis’ lawyer said his client’s admissions, including in his 2019 memoir, were “fiction” to “make money” from Shakur’s murder. 

Who said what
Prosecutors said Davis and his nephew, Orlando Anderson, “went hunting” for Shakur after Anderson was beaten amid a bitter bicoastal rap feud between Shakur’s Death Row Records label, allied with the Bloods gang, and Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy Records, protected by the Crips. Both factions were in Las Vegas for a Mike Tyson fight.

The case “had languished” for years “as important evidence, including the murder weapon, remained missing and key witnesses” refused to cooperate, The New York Times said. Davis “began speaking to the police” in 2008 to avoid serious drug charges, but the plea deal that made him “untouchable” was rendered moot after he “began repeatedly addressing the shooting publicly” under the “mistaken belief that he was fully immune from prosecution.”

What next?
Davis, 63, faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 13.

On a “peninsula where the Sahara meets the Atlantic,” the city of Dakhla is advertised to visitors as “Morocco’s hidden gem,” said the BBC. But tourists flying to this part of Western Sahara might not know they will be “landing in one of the world’s longest ongoing territorial disputes.”

A former Spanish colony, Western Sahara was annexed by Morocco in 1975. Since then, it has been the subject of a dispute between Morocco and the indigenous Sahrawi people, led by the Polisario Front. The U.N. now classifies the region as a “non-self-governing territory,” and Morocco occupies and administers about 80% of it. Numerous U.N.-brokered talks to resolve Western Sahara’s future have failed.

Morocco has been pouring considerable resources into Western Sahara. Since 2015, it has spent $9.5 billion trying to “level it up,” said The Spectator. There are now water desalination plants, 620 miles of motorways, and plans for eight “green hydrogen plants” and a “centrepiece” $1.4 billion Dakhla Atlantic Port.

But Morocco’s annexation has created “one of the world’s most enduring yet overlooked refugee crises,” said Metro. For the past 50 years, the Sahrawi people have been “forced to live under occupation or go into exile,” mostly in the Algerian desert.

In recent years, the international consensus has shifted and consolidated in favor of Morocco’s “autonomy plan” for Western Sahara. Spain has endorsed the framework, and France and the U.S. have recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the region. In October, the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution that gave the “strongest backing yet” to Moroccan control, while “making no mention of the independence referendum” sought by the Polisario Front, said Bloomberg.