Since President Trump resumed office, leftists have run to the courts in a desperate attempt to stop — or, at the very least, stall — his agenda. To defeat this lawfare, President Trump needs the Senate’s help to put constitutionalists on the bench. Democrat senators’ obstruction is unsurprising; not even one has voted for one of President Trump’s appellate court nominees. Many Republican senators, however, are lagging in streamlining nominations. The most serious breakdown is in filling district court vacancies in deep-red states, especially Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. With the midterms rapidly approaching, this glacial pace must accelerate in short order.

District courts are the engines of the federal judiciary, and vacancies there create immediate and tangible harm. These courts handle the bulk of federal litigation, from immigration to criminal prosecutions to constitutional challenges. Yet confirming district judges often proves harder than confirming Supreme Court justices. The problem lies in the blue-slip process. Home-state senators have a de facto veto on district court nominees, U.S. attorney nominees and U.S. marshal nominees.

For over a century, U.S. senators have had the power to hand-select the U.S. attorneys who could prosecute them, U.S. district judges who could oversee their trials, and U.S. marshals who could escort them to prison. Senators will never give up this veto power. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a lame-duck Republican who sits on the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, made it crystal clear that he will oppose any nominee who lacks support from both home-state senators. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley can do nothing about blue-slip obstruction when even one committee Republican can team up with Democrats to block any nominee.

There are roughly 15 district court vacancies in states with at least one Democrat senator. Because the blue slip is not going anywhere, it is unlikely that President Trump can fill many of these vacancies. Democrats are more obstructionist than ever. They caused the longest government shutdown in our history just a few months ago.

The far more troubling problem is the sheer number of vacancies in states represented by two Republican senators. Staggeringly, there are nearly two dozen district court vacancies in red states (i.e., states with two Republican senators). The most dire vacancy crises lie in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. There are seven vacancies throughout Texas’ several judicial districts, for example. Texas deals with a massive amount of immigration litigation because it is a border state. There is no excuse for a deep-red state like Texas, which President Trump won by 14%, to have seven vacancies.

Texas sadly is not alone when it comes to an unacceptably slow pace in filling vacancies. Other deep-red states combined have over a dozen: one each in South Carolina, Louisiana, Alaska and Alabama; two each in Ohio, Oklahoma and Florida; and three in Kansas. President Trump won each of these states by double digits and most by over 20%. These states deserve judges who are strong constitutionalists in line with President Trump’s vision of the law.

If Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reassumes the position of majority leader next year, he will grind the Trump judicial-confirmations train to a screeching halt. Grassley is a workhorse, so it is certain that he will expeditiously streamline President Trump’s nominees through the process this year. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has demonstrated remarkable efficiency in getting nominees swiftly confirmed. No judicial nominees remain on the Senate Executive Calendar. Only four remain in the Judiciary Committee, and they just had their confirmation hearing last week, meaning they will be on the floor and ready for a vote by the end of the month. Leader Thune and Grassley cannot process nominations if there are no nominees.

Republican home-state senators need to focus on this crucial task and understand the urgency of the moment. Since the Senate sits only 3.5 days a week in most weeks, floor time is limited. Should a Supreme Court vacancy arise, Judiciary Committee time and resources must be invested overwhelmingly in confirming President Trump’s nominee. Delay is a recipe for disastrous defeat, and it must end instantly.

Republican senators must get moving in filling judicial vacancies.

Russia will temporarily suspend flights to Cuba after airlines reported difficulties refueling aircraft on the island, aviation authorities said Wednesday.

Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency Rosaviatsia said in a statement posted on Telegram that the airlines Rossiya, part of the Aeroflot Group, and Nordwind were forced to adjust their flight programs due to problems securing fuel in Cuba.

In the coming days, Rossiya will operate several outbound-only flights from Havana and Varadero to Moscow to return Russian tourists home before halting service.

After those repatriation flights are completed, the airline’s Cuba program will be suspended until the situation improves, the agency said, calling the decision one made ‘in the interests of passengers.’

The Transport Ministry and Rosaviatsia said they are maintaining close contact with Cuban aviation authorities and are exploring alternative options to restore two-way service.

The announcement comes two weeks after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over Cuba and authorized new measures aimed at choking off the island’s oil supplies.

In a Jan. 29 executive order, Trump said Cuba poses an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ to U.S. national security and empowered his administration to impose tariffs on goods from any country that ‘directly or indirectly sells or otherwise provides any oil to Cuba.’

The order, which took effect Jan. 30, allows additional duties on imports from countries found to be supplying oil to Havana, part of what Trump described as a ‘zero tolerance’ policy toward the Cuban government.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s website shows a Notice to Airmen, or NOTAM, an official alert issued to pilots about hazards or operational disruptions, was posted Feb. 10 for nine Cuban airports warning that Jet A-1 fuel is not available.

The advisory covers Havana (MUHA), Varadero (MUVR), Cienfuegos (MUCF), Santa Clara (MUSC), Camagüey (MUCM), Cayo Coco (MUCC), Holguín (MUHG), Santiago de Cuba (MUCU) and Manzanillo (MUMZ), and remains in effect through March 11.

A new report from Alliance for Consumers (AFC) argues that progressive, often climate-change-related, activism and aligned trial lawyers are increasingly using lawsuits not to win big dollars but big changes.

Since the waning years of the Obama administration, AFC said that courtrooms have become the ‘battleground’ for the political left’s campaign to ‘reshape American society’ through ‘strategic litigation.’ 

AFC analyzed employment discrimination cases, environmental suits and corporate governance litigation and found that the outcomes, or sought-after outcomes, demonstrated a pattern of courtroom strategy meant to deliver policy changes that the left has been unable to achieve through state or federal legislation — particularly regarding DEI and climate.

‘If you really want to understand a substantial portion of why corporate America went really woke, there’s a story that can be told,’ O.H. Skinner, AFC’s executive director, told Fox News Digital.

Skinner said that corporate America believed President Barack Obama would be followed by ‘President Hillary Clinton’ — demonstrating continuity in many of these policy fields — leading to people leaving civil service jobs to join corporate HR and legal departments and bring their policy goals with them.

He alleged that officials in Washington signaled companies could face scrutiny if they did not align with emerging DEI priorities.

‘That’s describing a world where through government lawsuits, but also through private lawsuits, a lot of pressure was being brought on corporate America,’ said Skinner, whose previous work included time with the Arizona attorney general’s office under Mark Brnovich, who led the state’s largest consumer-protection lawsuit against Google over location tracking.

Skinner compared the strategy to ‘plaintiff-shopping’ in class-action litigation, where a firm may be paid millions in settlement while it ‘negotiates a coupon for you’ for the applicant-plaintiffs.

One of the firms cited in the study — which Skinner noted as alleged proof of its political persuasions — had filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on behalf of Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., citing the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 after Jan. 6.

AFC’s report cited a 2019 shareholder-derivative suit brought by Cohen-Milstein against Alphabet — Google’s parent — on behalf of New York union pensioners, alleging it breached fiduciary duties and covered up a data breach and sexual harassment allegations.

The statement from Cohen-Milstein on the suit alleged Alphabet ‘fostered’ a misogynistic ‘‘brogrammer’ culture,’ and later celebrated the settlement ‘fundamentally altering Alphabet’s workforce policies,’ including a $310 million ‘financial commitment to DEI initiatives’ and its position toward ‘workplace equity.’

AFC found the lawsuit ‘functioned as a tool for advocacy groups to push a comprehensive expansion of the DEI agenda at one of the biggest companies with a massive budgetary commitment, all through litigation rather than legislative action or shareholder demand.’

Cohen-Milstein did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Skinner’s team also cited a case in which the Obama Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) allegedly did an end run around legislators and established new DEI practices at another major company through aggressive litigation.

Bass Pro/Outdoor World agreed to pay $10.5 million and provide ‘other significant relief’ to settle a hiring discrimination suit brought by Obama’s EEOC, according to the agency.

The administration claimed Bass Pro Shops discriminated against minority applicants, but instead of a strictly cash settlement, it reached agreements to mandate EEO training, affirmative diversity outreach and the appointment of a DEI director, according to AFC’s research.

In an ongoing climate-related suit — in which Honolulu is suing Sunoco via the Sher-Edling firm — the Hawaiian capital reportedly alleged public nuisance claims and sought to hold oil companies responsible for climate damages.

AFC’s report found the suit seeks not only monetary damages for ‘climate-related infrastructure costs,’ but also disgorgement of profits, climate-mitigation actions and other corporate reforms.

‘These cases attempt to use courts to impose climate policy, effectively putting judges in charge of energy and climate regulation rather than elected legislatures and administrative agencies with technical expertise,’ the report said. Fox News Digital reached out to Sher-Edling.

In another case, red-state government employees were granted access to transgender health care after a staff accountant surnamed Rich and other plaintiffs sued over a health plan that denied coverage of transgender care.

A $365,000 settlement was lodged and split among the defendants and an LGBTQ-rights group, while Georgia agreed to make sweeping policy changes to cover transgender care — something that would have typically gone through the legislature and likely failed with a Republican majority in charge.

The main litigant in that case was the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) — which has now merged into Advocates for Trans Equality (ATE).

‘Strategic litigation by advocacy organizations successfully bypassed Georgia’s legislative process to impose highly contested healthcare policy through judicial decree, demonstrating how activist organizations achieve policy goals through courts rather than democratic processes,’ AFC found in its reporting analysis.

ATE did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Impact litigation has long been used by advocacy groups across the political spectrum to advance policy goals through the courts. Right-leaning groups have also been successful in forging settlement agreements that secure policy-related outcomes rather than strictly cash settlements.

In CRPA v. LASD, a district court ruled that members of a Second Amendment advocacy group may apply for non-resident concealed-carry permits in California.

The 2025 case saw a judge rule in favor of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, requiring Sacramento to accept permit applications from any out-of-state resident who is a member of a number of Second Amendment organizations.

Skinner told Fox News Digital that the tide, at least at the EEOC, has changed, citing recent remarks by new Trump-appointed Chairwoman Andrea Lucas, saying that her tack instead will be to probe corporate diversity programs and enforce against DEI.

‘That’s the crucial part about each of [the report’s] cases, it’s not, oh, some company allegedly discriminated against women or minorities — they might have, right. The problem with those cases and something that I think you would want to highlight is it’s not that somebody allegedly was mistreated and got money. It’s that the lawsuit was used to unlock all sorts of other bells and whistles that were not directly about anybody who was hurt, if they were hurt.’

In Lucas’ comments to Reuters in December, she said she would ‘shift [EEOC] to a conservative view of civil rights.’

AFC’s report concluded by summarizing that ‘lawsuits are increasingly used not to resolve disputes or compensate victims, but to impose policy changes that advocates have been unable to achieve through democratic processes.’

‘This transformation represents a fundamental challenge to democratic governance. When lawyers and activists can impose sweeping policy changes without having to go to the ballot box, or even after having been denied at the ballot box, the everyday consumers stop having a direct say in the products and choices that are before them on a daily basis.’

A partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is all but guaranteed unless the Senate rams through a short-term extension of current funding levels sometime on Thursday.

But avoiding a DHS shutdown means the same measure must also pass the House of Representatives, where success will depend on delicate political maneuvering by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to persuade a House Republican Conference with varying ideas of what a path forward should look like.

‘It would have to be for 60 or 90 days, I would think,’ said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen in 30 days, I don’t know what’s going to change.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is expected to unveil a stopgap funding measure for DHS called a continuing resolution (CR), which would extend the department’s current budget for a yet-unknown amount of time.

It comes after Democrats walked away en masse from a bipartisan deal to fund DHS through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2026 over what they saw as insufficient guardrails on agencies responsible for President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

Congress has funded 97% of the federal government through FY2026 at this point. But DHS is a vast department with a broad jurisdiction that includes the U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) — all of which will see varying levels of disruptions if a shutdown happens.

Republicans largely want to avoid such a situation but have made clear they believe that its effects would fall squarely on Democrats’ shoulders.

Conservatives like Norman favor an extended CR, arguing that it would fund Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a higher level than the initial bipartisan funding deal would have while removing Democrats’ negotiating leverage for more guardrails on those agents.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., told Fox News Digital last week that he would support a full-year CR for DHS to ‘make sure that FEMA is funded and TSA is funded, and stop the drama.’

Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., similarly said on Wednesday, ‘I think we’d like to push it out as far as we can so we can avoid the constant uncertainty for the agency.’

‘As long as this hangs up in the air, let’s say you do it for three, four months, the Democrats are gonna want a pound of flesh to help pass whatever it is. And I think that’s gonna weaken the efforts of … immigration enforcement,’ Crane told Fox News Digital.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., told reporters earlier this week that he would favor a mid-length CR over something shorter.

‘If we do two weeks and they leave for a week, it’s really a one-week CR. Nothing’s going to happen when that many important people are gone. So I think four weeks makes a lot more sense,’ Cole said.

But committee member Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., panned the idea of a CR altogether.

‘CRs don’t work. CRs are not without pain. It disrupts a lot of your supply chain and purchasing and acquisition,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘I can’t believe they’re even thinking about it.’

Rutherford, a former sheriff, argued that a shutdown or CR would harm critical national security operations during a year that’s expected to see a host of high-security events in the U.S. like America’s 250th anniversary celebration, the FIFA World Cup and others.

Johnson declined to share his thoughts on CR length when asked by Fox News Digital on Tuesday, but emphasized the House GOP’s position that the Senate should take up the bipartisan bill that Democrats initially walked away from.

‘I’m not going to prejudge the length of it or what it should be. I’m very hopeful. I mean, we still have time on the clock. When there’s a will, there’s a way. And if they can come to an agreement on this and get it done, that will behoove the whole country,’ Johnson said.

House GOP leaders will likely need nearly all Republicans on board to pass a CR for DHS, with many Democrats warning they will not support any funding for the department without seeing proof of critical reform.

Jeffries would not go into specifics about what he would support or oppose in terms of DHS funding during his weekly press conference on Monday, but he suggested to reporters that a simple stopgap funding bill with no changes to ICE funding was out of the question. 

‘ICE is out of control right now. The American people know it, and ICE clearly needs to be reined in,’ Jeffries said. ‘Our position has been clear. Dramatic changes are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before a DHS funding bill moves forward. Period. Full stop.’