In a significant defeat for former President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court on Monday declined to step in to halt the turnover of his tax records to a New York state prosecutor.
The court’s action is the apparent culmination of a lengthy legal battle that had already reached the high court once before.
Trump’s tax records are not supposed to become public as part of prosecutors’ criminal investigation, but the high court’s action is a blow to Trump because he has long fought on so many fronts to keep his tax records shielded from view. The ongoing investigation that the records are part of could also become an issue for Trump in his life after the presidency. Trump has called it “a fishing expedition” and “a continuation of the witch hunt — the greatest witch hunt in history.”
The Supreme Court waited months to act in the case. The last of the written briefs in the case was filed Oct. 19. But a court that includes three Trump appointees waited through the election, Trump’s challenge to his defeat and a month after Trump left office before issuing its order.
The U.S. stood Sunday at the brink of a once-unthinkable tally: 500,000 people lost to the coronavirus.
A year into the pandemic, the running total of lives lost was about 498,000 — roughly the population of Kansas City, Missouri, and just shy of the size of Atlanta. The figure compiled by Johns Hopkins University surpasses the number of people who died in 2019 of chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer’s, flu and pneumonia combined.
“It’s nothing like we have ever been through in the last 102 years, since the 1918 influenza pandemic,” the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Recent St. Thomas graduate and personal trainer Hannah Studee used a network of fellow Tommies to establish a fitness training business last August with her Instagram fitness account @bodybystudee.
Drawing on connections she made throughout her time at St. Thomas, Studee organized a team of like-minded individuals who have helped to make her entrepreneurial visions a reality.
“We’re all in the same boat, we’re around the same age, have a similar mindset and goals and we all have our own career plans but in different areas… so it’s been really cool to collaborate with everyone’s different strengths,” Studee said. The Body By Studee instagram account now has nearly 1,000 followers as a result of the team’s efforts.
After earning an exercise science degree from St. Thomas last spring, Studee knew she wanted to become a fitness trainer. Success with her makeup business, Beauty by Studee, gave her the confidence to replicate that in the fitness world. As a trainer, she offers a variety of services including at-home workout plans, personal group or individual workout sessions and nutritional plans.
Lauren Price can be reached at pric5448@stthomas.edu.