Boring but important

SCOTUS lets travel ban take effect

The Supreme Court this week allowed the Trump administration’s revised travel ban to take effect, pending the results of legal challenges against it in lower courts. The third version of the ban, issued in September, affects the citizens of eight nations, six of them predominantly Muslim. The details vary by country, but the executive order bars most citizens from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad, and North Korea from entering the U.S., as well as some groups from Venezuela. Federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland had partially blocked parts of the latest ban from taking effect amid ongoing litigation. Judges on the 4th and 9th Circuit Courts of Appeals are set to hear arguments on those injunctions this week.