The U.S. Supreme Court appeared to side with Starbucks Tuesday in a case that could make it harder for the federal government to seek injunctions when it suspects a company of interfering in unionization campaigns.

Justices noted during oral arguments that Congress requires the National Labor Relations Board to seek such injunctions in federal court and said that gives the courts the duty to consider several factors, including whether the board would ultimately be successful in its administrative case against a company.

“The district court is an independent check. So it seems like it should be just doing what district courts do, since it was given the authority to do it,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett said.

But the NLRB says that since 1947, the National Labor Relations Act — the law that governs the agency — has allowed courts to grant temporary injunctions if it finds a request “just and proper.” The agency says the law doesn’t require it to prove other factors and was intended to limit the role of the courts.

The case that made it to the high court began in February 2022, when Starbucks fired seven workers who were trying to unionize their Tennessee store. The NLRB obtained a court order forcing the company to rehire the workers while the case wound its way through the agency’s administrative proceedings. Such proceedings can take up to two years.

A district court judge agreed with the NLRB and issued a temporary injunction ordering Starbucks to rehire the workers in August 2022. After the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, Starbucks appealed to the Supreme Court.

Five of the seven workers are still employed at the Memphis store, while the other two remain involved with the organizing effort, according to Workers United, the union organizing Starbucks workers. The Memphis store voted to unionize in June 2022.

Starbucks asked the Supreme Court to intervene because it says federal appeals courts don’t agree on the standards the NLRB must meet when it requests a temporary injunction against a company.

In its review of what transpired at the Starbucks store in Memphis, the Sixth Circuit required the NLRB to establish two things: that it had reasonable cause to believe unfair labor practices occurred and that a restraining order would be a “just and proper” solution.

But other federal appeals courts have required the NLRB to meet a tougher, four-factor test used when other federal agencies seek restraining orders, including showing it was likely to prevail in the administrative case and that employees would suffer irreparable harm without an injunction.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared to agree with the NLRB’s argument that Congress meant for the agency to operate under a different standard.

She noted the NLRB has already determined it is likely to prevail in a case by the time it seeks an injunction. And she noted that injunctions are very rare. In the NLRB’s 2023 fiscal year, it received 19,869 charges of unfair labor practices but authorized the filing of just 14 cases seeking temporary injunctions.

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a lawsuit to go forward against a Black Lives Matter activist who led a protest in Louisiana in which a police officer was injured. Civil rights groups and free speech advocates have warned that the suit threatens the right to protest.

The justices rejected an appeal from DeRay Mckesson in a case that stems from a 2016 protest over the police killing of a Black man in Baton Rouge.

At an earlier stage of the case, the high court noted that the issue was “fraught with implications for First Amendment rights.”

The justices did not explain their action Monday, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a brief opinion that said lower courts should not read too much into it.

The court’s “denial today expresses no view about the merits of Mckesson’s claim,’' Sotomayor wrote.

At the protest in Baton Rouge, the officer was hit by a “rock-like” object thrown by an unidentified protester, but he sued Mckesson in his role as the protest organizer.

A federal judge threw out the lawsuit in 2017, but a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the officer should be able to argue that Mckesson didn’t exercise reasonable care in leading protesters onto a highway, setting up a police confrontation in which the officer, identified in court papers only as John Doe, was injured.

In dissent, Judge Don Willett wrote, “He deserves justice. Unquestionably, Officer Doe can sue the rock-thrower. But I disagree that he can sue Mckesson as the protest leader.”

If allowed to stand, the decision to allow the suit to proceed would discourage people from protesting, the American Civil Liberties Union wrote, representing Mckesson.

“Given the prospect that some individual protest participant might engage in law-breaking, only the most intrepid citizens would exercise their rights if doing so risked personal liability for third-parties’ wrongdoing,” the ACLU told the court.

Lawyers for the officer had urged the court to turn away the appeal, noting that the protest illegally blocked the highway and that Mckesson did nothing to dissuade the violence that took place.

Europe’s highest human rights court ruled Tuesday that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change, siding with a group of older Swiss women against their government in a landmark ruling that could have implications across the continent.

The European Court of Human Rights rejected two other, similar cases on procedural grounds — a high-profile one brought by Portuguese young people and another by a French mayor that sought to force governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But the Swiss case, nonetheless, sets a legal precedent in the Council of Europe’s 46 member states against which future lawsuits will be judged.

“This is a turning point,” said Corina Heri, an expert in climate change litigation at the University of Zurich.

Although activists have had success with lawsuits in domestic proceedings, this was the first time an international court ruled on climate change — and the first decision confirming that countries have an obligation to protect people from its effects, according to Heri.

She said it would open the door to more legal challenges in the countries that are members of the Council of Europe, which includes the 27 EU nations as well as many others from Britain to Turkey.

The Swiss ruling softened the blow for those who lost Tuesday.

“The most important thing is that the court has said in the Swiss women’s case that governments must cut their emissions more to protect human rights,” said 19-year-od Sofia Oliveira, one of the Portuguese plaintiffs. “Their win is a win for us, too, and a win for everyone!”

The court — which is unrelated to the European Union — ruled that Switzerland “had failed to comply with its duties” to combat climate change and meet emissions targets.

An Alabama woman who claimed she was abducted after stopping her car to check on a wandering toddler pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges of giving false information to law enforcement.

News outlets reported that Carlee Russell pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of false reporting to law enforcement and falsely reporting an incident. She was given a suspended six-month sentence which will allow her to avoid jail. She was ordered to pay more than $17,000 restitution.

Her two-day disappearance, and her story of being abducted alongside an interstate highway, captivated the nation before police called her story a hoax.

Russell, accompanied to court by her family and defense lawyers, apologized for her actions.

“I want to genuinely apologize for my actions. I made a grave mistake while trying to fight through various emotional issues and stress. I’m extremely remorseful for the panic, fear and various range of negative emotions that were experienced across the nation,” Russell said according to WBRC.

Russell disappeared July 13 after calling 911 to report a toddler beside a stretch of Interstate 459 in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover. She returned home two days later and told police she had been abducted and forced into a vehicle.

Police quickly cast doubt on Russell’s story. Her attorney issued a statement through police acknowledging there was no kidnapping and that she never saw a toddler. In the statement, Russell apologized to law enforcement and the volunteers who searched for her.

The Alabama attorney general’s office had argued that Russell should spend time in jail because of the time and energy that law enforcement spent in looking for her.

Jefferson County Circuit Judge David Carpenter told Russell that while her actions caused panic and disruption in the community that it would be a “waste of resources” to put her in jail for misdemeanors, news outlets reported.

Katherine Robertson, Chief Counsel in the Alabama attorney general’s office, said Thursday that they “are disappointed, but not surprised” that Russell did not get the requested jail time.