A Texas man pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal hate crime and weapons charges in the racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019, which prosecutors say was preceded by the gunman posting an online screed that warned of a “Hispanic invasion.”

Patrick Crusius, 24, showed little emotion while shackled in an El Paso courtroom just a few miles from the store where he was accused of killing 23 people, including citizens of Mexico, in what remains one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.

Sentencing is not scheduled until later this year, but the U.S. government had previously announced it wouldn’t seek the death penalty. Crusius waived most of his rights to appeal on a total of 90 federal charges, which U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama said would each carry a life sentence.

Jury selection began Tuesday in a federal criminal trial for a man prosecutors say became fixated on a Kansas congressman and threatened to kill him, a case that comes amid what authorities say is a sharp rise in treats to the nation’s lawmakers and their families.

Prosecutors say Chase Neill, 32, threatened to kill U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner in a June 5 voicemail message left at the Republican congressman’s office, then continued to make threatening calls the following day. In one message, presiding U.S. District Judge Holly Teeter said in court Tuesday, he told LaTurner that he would “die by the hand of God.”

Jury selection began in the morning after Neill withdrew a request to act as his own attorney. His court-appointed public defenders notified Teeter of that request Friday and told her they would refuse to work with him in a “hybrid” defense. After a private conference, Teeter told Neill from the bench that she believed such an arrangement would be “untenable.”

After Neill withdrew his request, Teeter told him, “For whatever it’s worth, I think that’s a very wise decision.”

Neill’s trial in U.S. District Court on one count of threatening a public official was scheduled through Friday. It came weeks after Teeter concluded that evidence of mental illness doesn’t mean Neill can’t help his attorney or follow what happens in court.

Before jury selection, Teeter confirmed with prosecutors and Neill’s attorneys that no plea bargains had been offered or sought.

Neill told her, without explaining further, “I believe there were arguable grounds for immunity, but that’s fine.”

In court, Neill wore khaki pants, a dress shirt and a navy blue jacket without a tie. He had a full beard.

A pretrial report said Neill believes he is “the Messiah.” Prosecutors have said in court documents that Neill believes he was “obligated by God” to warn “certain public figures” and detail the results of not heeding his warnings.

Teeter concluded during a hearing last month that “a preponderance of the evidence” showed Neill was mentally competent to stand trial. The official notes from the hearing showed Teeter relied on a psychological evaluation of Neill, but that document is sealed and closed to the public.

Workers removed tents set up outside of Rhode Island’s State House on Saturday after a judge sided with Democratic Gov. Dan McKee in a lawsuit over the people who had been camping there to protest a lack of adequate housing.

The ACLU and the R.I. Center for Justice had sued on behalf of the group of more than two dozen people who have been camping, some for several months. McKee recently issued eviction notices and offered the campers shelter and transportation.

A Superior Court judge on Friday denied the groups’ effort to block McKee’s administration from removing the tents. The ACLU and R.I. Center for Justice said the ruling “fails to acknowledge the arbitrary and discriminatory way the state’s policies on overnight protest have been implemented.”

A spokesperson for McKee said Saturday that since Friday’s ruling, none of the campers had been arrested and no one was left in the tents Saturday morning when the clearing crew arrived.

McKee said last week that he activated the state National Guard to help run a warming station in Providence for the homeless. He has also said he’s investing to increase the number of shelter beds statewide, making money available for affordable housing efforts and allocating federal funds for more legal services for low-income households facing housing insecurity.

The Biden administration is no longer accepting applications for student loan forgiveness after a second federal court shut down the program.

“Courts have issued orders blocking our student debt relief program,” the Education Department said on its federal student aid website. “As a result, at this time, we are not accepting applications. We are seeking to overturn those orders.”

Fulfilling a campaign pledge, President Joe Biden announced in August plans to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for individuals with incomes below $125,000 or households earning less than $250,000. The White House has estimated that more than 40 million people could qualify.

Already, about 26 million people have applied, and 16 million applications have been approved. However, because of court rulings, none of the relief has actually gone out. The Department of Education would “quickly process their relief once we prevail in court,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Texas ruled Thursday that Biden had overstepped his authority in creating the debt relief program without congressional approval.

“In this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone. Instead, we are ruled by a Constitution that provides for three distinct and independent branches of government,” Pittman wrote.

The administration has appealed that ruling.

Pittman’s ruling came after the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily stopped the program while it considers whether to impose a permanent ban. That case was brought by a half-dozen Republican-led states.

Student loan forgiveness is likely to end up before the Supreme Court.

People with student loan debt have not been required to make payments during the pandemic. But payments are set to resume, and interest will begin to accrue again, in January.

Biden has said the payment pause would not be extended again, but that was before the court rulings. It was not clear whether the pause might be continued while the legal challenges to the program play out.

As for loan forgiveness, the Education Department said on its website that it would hold on to the applications for those who have already applied.

A Washington city’s dress code ordinance saying bikini baristas must cover their bodies at work has been ruled unconstitutional by a federal court.

The decision in a partial summary judgment this week comes after a lengthy legal battle between bikini baristas and the city of Everett over the rights of workers to wear what they want, the Everett Herald reported. Everett is about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Seattle.

U.S. District Court in Seattle found Everett’s dress code ordinance violated the Equal Protection clauses of the U.S. and Washington state constitutions. The Court found that the ordinance was, at least in part, shaped by a gender-based discriminatory purpose, according to a 19-page ruling signed by U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez.

It is difficult to imagine, the court wrote, how the ordinance would be equally applied to men and women in practice because it prohibits clothing “typically worn by women rather than men,” including midriff and scoop-back shirts, as well as bikinis.

Bikini baristas were “clearly” a target of the ordinance, the court also ruled, adding that the profession is comprised of a workforce that is almost entirely women.

In 2017, the city enacted its dress code ordinance, requiring all employees, owners and operators of “quick service facilities” to wear clothing that covers the upper and lower body. The ordinance listed coffee stands, fast food restaurants, delis, food trucks and coffee shops as examples of quick service businesses.

The owner of Everett bikini barista stand Hillbilly Hotties and some employees filed a legal complaint challenging the constitutionality of the dress code ordinance. They also challenged the city’s lewd conduct ordinance, but the court dismissed all the baristas’ claims but the dress code question.

The court directed the city of Everett to meet with the plaintiffs within 14 days to discuss next steps.

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed an effort by six Republican-led states to block the Biden administration’s plan to forgive student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans.

U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey in St. Louis wrote that because the six states — Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina — failed to establish they had standing, “the Court lacks jurisdiction to hear this case.”

Suzanne Gage, spokeswoman for Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson, said the states will appeal. She said in a statement that the states “continue to believe that they do in fact have standing to raise their important legal challenges.”

Democratic President Joe Biden announced in August that his administration would cancel up to $20,000 in education debt for huge numbers of borrowers. The announcement immediately became a major political issue ahead of the November midterm elections.

The states’ lawsuit is among a few that have been filed. Earlier Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected an appeal from a Wisconsin taxpayers group seeking to stop the debt cancellation program.

Barrett, who oversees emergency appeals from Wisconsin and neighboring states, did not comment in turning away the appeal from the Brown County Taxpayers Association. The group wrote in its Supreme Court filing that it needed an emergency order because the administration could begin canceling outstanding student debt as soon as Sunday.

Planned Parenthood leaders from 24 states gathered in California’s capital Friday to begin work on a nationwide strategy to protect and strengthen access to abortion, a counteroffensive aimed at pushing back against restrictions that have emerged in more than half of the country after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Their goal is to emulate the success liberals have had in California, where state lawmakers passed some of the most robust abortion protections in the country this year, culminating in a statewide election this fall that would make abortion a constitutional right in the nation’s most populous state.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, speaking to a group of 25 leaders in a hotel conference room in Sacramento, with another 30 watching online, said abortion advocates could channel what he called the “ruthless energy” of anti-abortion advocates — “but not as a way to hurt people.”

In Washington, while Democratic President Joe Biden supports abortion, Democrats hold narrow majorities in the House and Senate — advantages that could be wiped out after the midterm elections in November.

Even if Democrats retain control of the U.S. Senate, they likely still would not have enough votes to stop Republicans from blocking abortion legislation. Democrats in the House have already voted to pass a bill that would make abortion legal nationwide, but they have been unable to get the bill past an evenly divided Senate.

“We can only get so far through our inside maneuverings. We also need your outside mobilization to rally support at the grassroots level, as you do so well,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from San Francisco, said in a video message to the group on Friday.