First Thing: Supreme court backs Trump’s ability to fire agency chiefs but rules against him on mail-in ballots

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued three major decisions. First, in Trump v. Slaughter, the Court ruled that presidents can fire leaders of independent agencies, overturning ninety years of legal precedent. Trump celebrated the outcome. However, the Court sided against Trump on two other cases: it allowed mail-in ballots arriving after election day to be counted in more than a dozen states, and it required privacy protections for law enforcement's use of geofence warrants—which track smartphone locations. According to The Guardian, labor advocates and consumer groups warned about the ruling's impacts, while constitutional lawyers called it 'enormously important' and likely to reshape how government functions.

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