What happened
The Supreme Court yesterday allowed the Trump administration to resume building 30-foot fencing, roads and other border infrastructure in the Big Bend sector of Texas, lifting a hold on construction imposed last month. In an unsigned opinion, the court said U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone had erred in ruling that the Homeland Security secretary lacked legal authority to waive environmental laws to expedite construction in the remote region, including Big Bend National Park. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

Who said what
The administration’s plans to build barriers in the “beloved Big Bend region,” especially the national park, “provoked an unusual bipartisan backlash,” NPR said. Environmentalists, ranchers and business owners argued that the low number of border crossings, “sweeping canyons, tough terrain and unforgiving desert heat” made a wall unnecessary while causing significant ecological and economic harm. 

“This horrific decision clears the way for contractors to bulldoze pristine desert and dynamite canyon walls before the courts have even decided whether this destruction is legal,” said Laiken Jordahl at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs. The government’s “‘compelling interests’ in border security,” the Supreme Court said, “outweighs any aesthetic, recreational and environmental harm alleged” by opponents.

What next?
Yesterday’s emergency ruling is temporary, The Texas Tribune said, but border construction can resume “until the Supreme Court decides to hear the case or until it’s settled in the lower court in El Paso.”

What happened
A judge in London yesterday sentenced comedian Russell Brand to 10 years and 6 months in prison after a jury last week convicted him of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others between 2004 and 2009. Southwark Crown Court Judge Joel Bennathan told Brand, 51, he was a “sexual predator” with a “casual, arrogant disregard” for women’s wishes and a belief that “fame meant you could act how you liked, when you liked, unhindered by the rules by which decent people live.”

Who said what
Brand rose to fame with “edgy stand-up routines and battles with drugs and alcohol,” and the assaults date to the time when his “bawdy behavior was indulged and celebrated,” The Associated Press said. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, he has “moved away from mainstream media, relocated to Florida and built a large online following with videos mixing wellness, conspiracy theories and discussions of his religious devotion” as a born-again Christian. Following his conviction, Brand’s supporters, including conservatives Megyn Kelly and Elon Musk, “posted that they believe the case was politically motivated,” said The New York Times.

What next?
Brand will “serve two-thirds of the sentence in custody before being released on license,” Reuters said. His name will be on the sex offenders’ register for life.

Uganda has started withdrawing its forces from Somalia as part of a “phased drawdown that ​will end an almost two-decade deployment” in the country, said Reuters. The first 109 soldiers left last month, and all 4,500 will permanently return to Uganda by the end of next year.

“Things are not dire now,” Somali Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Omar told Reuters​. But in a country facing the threat of al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked insurgency, a sudden withdrawal could “create problems.”

Uganda was the first African Union country to deploy forces to Somalia in 2007 as part of a mission to protect the transitional government from attacks by Islamist militants. Since then, the Ugandan troops have been key players, alongside the Somali National Army, in the fight to “recapture strategic territory and secure key government installations,” said the BBC. For the last two years, the mission has “focused on strengthening Somalia’s security institutions and preparing its forces to take full responsibility for the country’s security.”

But that mission’s future was “thrown into doubt” after U.S. authorities decided to cancel funding for a U.N. logistics office that’s integral to the operation, said Deutsche Welle. This has prompted mounting fears that al-Shabab could exploit the ensuing “security vacuum,” said The Associated Press.

It also comes at a “politically sensitive juncture” for Somalia, said the Somali Guardian. Political and policy divisions among government factions “risk diverting attention and resources” from the anti-insurgency campaign, making the drawdown less a “routine change of command” and more a “test” of the Somali National Army’s “preparedness to assume a greater share of the country’s security responsibilities.”