Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order on Friday allowing construction to proceed on a $400 million ballroom project at the White House. The order stays a previous ruling from lower courts that had required the Trump administration to halt work because it lacked congressional approval. Roberts, who handles emergency appeals for the Washington, D.C., circuit, signed the order while the Supreme Court considers a broader appeal from the administration.
The legal dispute centers on whether the executive branch has the authority to undertake large-scale renovations of federal buildings without specific authorization from Congress. Lower court judges had ruled that the project exceeded presidential power, and that injunction was scheduled to take effect on Friday. The administration argued in its emergency filing last week that the president possesses total authority over White House renovations and cited national security concerns as a justification for completing the ballroom.
In separate developments reported Friday, the Pentagon released data showing a shift in how the U.S. military handles sexual assault. While the total number of reported assaults dropped from 8,195 in 2024 to 7,998 in 2025, a higher percentage of service members are coming forward. The report found that 33% of active-duty personnel who experienced unwanted sexual contact in fiscal year 2025 reported the incident, compared to 25% in fiscal year 2023. Additionally, the estimated prevalence of unwanted sexual contact among active-duty women fell from 6.8% to 4.3% during that same period.
The Pentagon's findings on sexual assault affect approximately 1.3 million active-duty service members. The data indicates a concrete change in the military environment, where a larger share of victims—now one in three—is choosing to report incidents to authorities, even as the overall frequency of such incidents is estimated to have declined. Service members may notice these trends reflected in changes to internal reporting procedures or culture within their units. The decrease in total reports by 197 cases year-over-year coincides with a 2.5 percentage point drop in estimated incidents among women, suggesting that while reporting is becoming more common, the underlying number of incidents is trending downward.
These developments set a precedent for how the Supreme Court handles emergency "shadow docket" appeals involving presidential authority. The court has previously supported several administration policies through emergency orders, though some have been overturned following a full review. Looking forward, the Supreme Court must now decide whether to leave the lower court's halt in place permanently or allow construction to reach completion. Meanwhile, in South Carolina, voters will head to the polls on Tuesday for a Republican Senate runoff between Representative Ralph Norman and Senator Darline Graham to fill the seat of the late Senator Lindsey Graham. Additionally, the administration is moving forward with a plan to import 300,000 metric tons of ground beef over the next 90 days in an effort to lower consumer prices by 25%.