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Lawyers have estimated that as many as 75 women may have a stake in the $72.5m settlement reached with Bank of America over accusations related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

United States District Judge Jed Rakoff had called on the lawyers to compile a broad list of publications by Friday that could be used to notify Epstein’s victims, who are believed to number in the hundreds.

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Rakoff explained he wanted to make sure that “nobody is left out” of the settlement. A final approval hearing for the settlement is scheduled for August 27.

The settlement was first announced in court filings on March 27, after a proposed class action lawsuit against Bank of America was allowed to proceed.

In October, a woman who went by the pseudonym Jane Doe filed the lawsuit on behalf of herself and the other women and girls who say they were abused by Epstein.

She and her lawyers argued that Bank of America, the second-largest banking institution in the US, had ignored suspicious transactions related to Epstein’s sex-trafficking operations.

The lawsuit further alleged that Bank of America knowingly benefitted from its relationship with Epstein and obstructed enforcement of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a federal law designed to prosecute sex trafficking.

As part of the settlement, Bank of America reiterated its position that it did not participate in Epstein’s sex crimes.

“While we stand by our prior statements made in the filings in this case, including that Bank of America did not facilitate sex trafficking crimes, this resolution allows us to put this matter behind us and provides further closure for the plaintiffs,” its statement said.

Rakoff gave his preliminary approval to the settlement on Thursday, though he acknowledged that the gravity of Epstein’s crimes go beyond a dollar amount.

“While it’s perhaps extremely likely that the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s monstrous acts can never be fully compensated, the victims are entitled to receive just compensation from any person or entity that knowingly, recklessly or otherwise unlawfully facilitated his sexual trafficking,” Rakoff said.

The Bank of America deal is the third such settlement with a major banking institution.

In 2023, two other financial organisations, JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, also agreed to settle with victims over accusations that they overlooked telltale signs of Epstein’s crimes. JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $290m, while Deutsche Bank settled for $75m.

Judge Rakoff, however, dismissed a suit in January against the Bank of New York Mellon. Lawyers for Doe are appealing that decision.

Rakoff has argued that, while it is fair to seek compensation from those who facilitated Epstein’s crimes, not everyone associated with the convicted sex offender should be held liable.

“It’s not fair to penalize those persons or entities that were drawn into his wide orbit but had no role in assisting or benefiting from his egregious misconduct,” Rakoff said.

Prosecutors believe Epstein had been preying upon girls and young women for decades before his death in a New York City jail in 2019. His death was ruled a suicide.

A wealthy financier, Epstein had also cultivated a social circle inhabited by some of the most powerful figures in politics, arts and business.

They included figures like Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, a disgraced former prince from the United Kingdom, and two United States presidents, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

Critics have long argued that Epstein’s influential associates helped shield him from accountability during his lifetime.

In 2008, Epstein struck a deal with prosecutors that saw him register as a sex offender and plead guilty to two state charges: solicitation of prostitution and procuring a minor for sex.

But through the deal, he avoided federal charges and a lengthy prison term. He ended up serving only 13 months of an 18-month sentence.

At the time of Epstein’s death in 2019, federal prosecutors had renewed their investigation into the financier and brought sex-trafficking charges against him.

One of the lawyers representing Doe, David Boies, said he believes there are at least 60 to 75 women who may be eligible to participate in the Bank of America settlement.

“There may be more we haven’t identified,” he added.

United States-based scholars sign open letter raising concerns about conduct, rhetoric during US-Israeli war on Iran.

More than 100 United States-based international law experts have signed an open letter condemning US and Israeli military strikes on Iran as a violation of the United Nations Charter and potentially amounting to “war crimes”.

The letter, published on Thursday, also said the conduct of US forces and statements by senior US officials “raise serious concerns about violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law”.

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The scholars warned that the US-Israeli campaign, which began on February 28, was launched without UN Security Council authorisation and without credible evidence of an imminent Iranian threat.

“Force against another state is only permitted in self-defense against an actual or imminent armed attack or where authorized by the UN Security Council. The Security Council did not authorize the attack. Iran did not attack Israel or the United States,” the letter said.

The experts’ concerns fall into four areas: the legality of the decision to go to war; the conduct of hostilities; threatening rhetoric from senior officials; and what they describe as the dismantling of civilian protection structures inside the US government under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “gloves off” approach to warfare.

The scholars highlighted a strike on a primary school in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the war that killed at least 175 people, most of them children, as well as attacks on hospitals, water plants and energy infrastructure.

“We are seriously concerned about strikes that have hit schools, health facilities, and homes,” the letter said.

‘Alarming disrespect’ for international law

The letter also condemned public statements by senior US officials, including President Donald Trump.

In particular, it noted a mid-March comment from Trump where he said the US may conduct strikes on Iran “just for fun”. It also cited comments from Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth from early March in which he said the US does not fight with “stupid rules ⁠of engagement”.

“Public statements by senior officials indicate an alarming disrespect for the rules of international humanitarian law accepted by states, and which protect both civilians and members of the armed forces,” the letter said.

It also added that the war is costing US taxpayers up to $2bn a day.

The letter was co-authored by prominent legal scholars including Yale Law School’s Oona Hathaway and Harold Koh, Philip Alston of NYU, and former Human Rights Watch chief Kenneth Roth.

The experts said that due to their connection to the US, their main focus was on the conduct of that government, but they “remain concerned about the risk of atrocities across the region”.

They also highlighted the “importance of equal application of international law to all, including countries that hold themselves out as global leaders”, expressing concern about the harm this war is doing to the international legal order and the system of international law.

The signatories are urging Washington to change course, writing: “We urge US government officials to uphold the UN Charter, international humanitarian law, and human rights law at all times, and to publicly make clear US commitment to and respect for norms of international law.”

US president has said that he will use tariffs to bring down costly pharmaceutical drugs, but the impact remains uncertain.

United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that could slap long-threatened tariffs of up to 100 percent on some patented drugs if pharmaceutical companies don’t reach deals with his administration in the coming months.

Under Thursday’s executive order, companies that have signed a “most favoured nation” pricing deal and are actively building facilities in the US will have a zero-percent tariff.

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For those that don’t have a pricing deal but are building such projects in the US, a 20 percent tariff will apply, but it will increase to 100 percent in four years.

A senior administration official told reporters on a press call that companies still have months to negotiate before the 100 percent tariffs kick in. Bigger companies will have 120 days, and 180 days are offered for everyone else.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to preview the executive order before it was issued, did not identify any companies or drugs that were in jeopardy of getting hit with the increased tariffs.

But the source noted the administration had already reached 17 pricing deals with major drugmakers, 13 of which have signed.

In Thursday’s executive order, Trump wrote that he deemed the tariffs necessary “to address the threatened impairment of the national security posed by imports of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients”.

The order arrived on the first anniversary of Trump’s so-called Liberation Day, when the president unveiled sweeping new import taxes on nearly every country in the world, sending the stock market reeling. Those “Liberation Day” tariffs were among the duties the Supreme Court overturned in February.

Critics, pharmaceutical leaders and medical groups warned of the consequences the new tariffs could bring.

Stephen J Ubl, the CEO of the pharmaceutical company trade group PhRMA, said taxes “on cutting-edge medicines will increase costs and could jeopardize billions in US investments”.

He pointed to America’s already large footprint in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and noted medicines sourced from other countries “overwhelmingly come from reliable US allies”.

Trump has launched a barrage of new import taxes on US trading partners since the start of his second term and repeatedly pledged sky-high levies on foreign-made drugs.

But the administration has also used the threat of new levies to strike deals with major companies — like Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Bristol Myers Squibb — over the last year, with promises of lower prices for new drugs.

Beyond company-specific rates, a handful of countries have reached trade frameworks with the US to further cap tariffs on drugs sent to the US.

The European Union, Japan, Korea and Switzerland will see a 15 percent US tariff on patented pharmaceuticals, matching previously agreed rates for most goods.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom will get 10 percent, which Thursday’s order noted would “then reduce to zero” under future trade agreements.

The UK previously said it secured a zero-percent tariff rate for all British medicines exported to the US for at least three years.

Ten Muslim civil rights groups have issued a joint letter denouncing the arrest of a Palestinian American community leader in Wisconsin, Salah Sarsour.

The president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and a vocal Palestinian advocate, Sarsour was reportedly pulled over by 10 federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while driving on March 30.

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The joint letter explains that Sarsour was transferred to a detention facility in Illinois, then to Indiana, leaving his family “scrambling to determine his whereabouts”.

A lawful permanent resident, he had lived in the US for 32 years, according to the letter, and his wife and children are all US citizens. Sarsour has been in immigration detention ever since his arrest.

“We must be clear that Salah is being targeted on the basis of his Palestinian and Muslim background,” the letter, issued Thursday, said.

It was co-signed by organisations including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Legal Fund of America, and the US Council of Muslim Organizations.

The groups noted that, under President Donald Trump, a number of immigrant activists, scholars and foreign students had been targeted for deportation based on their pro-Palestinian solidarity.

“His detention reflects a troubling trend we’ve seen with Mahmoud Khalil, Leqaa Kordia, Mohsen Mahdawi and other voices critical of Israeli oppression,” the groups wrote.

“This administration is weaponizing the U.S. justice system to advance the interests of a foreign state, Israel, at a time when it is carrying out a genocide in Gaza.”

The groups have launched an online campaign for Sarsour’s legal defence. By Thursday afternoon, it had earned over $35,500 in donations.

While the Trump administration has yet to issue a statement about Sarsour’s arrest, it has taken a hardline approach to pro-Palestinian activism.

When running for re-election in 2024, Trump pledged to crack down on protesters denouncing human rights abuses during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

According to statements obtained by the Washington Post in May 2024, Trump reportedly called the protest movement a “radical revolution” and said that, if he were elected, he planned “to set that movement back 25 or 30 years”.

Within months of taking office in January 2025, Trump proceeded to take action.

Starting in March 2025, his administration moved to strip hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds from universities that saw protests unfold on their campuses, citing claims of anti-Semitism.

Federal agents also arrested legal permanent residents like Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student leader, stripping him of his green card.

One scholar, Rumeysa Ozturk of Turkiye, saw her student visa revoked for co-signing a pro-Palestinian opinion piece in her school’s student newspaper.

The arrests and subsequent efforts to rapidly deport the activists and scholars have prompted widespread condemnation as a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment right to free speech and protest.

Officials in Wisconsin have been among the leaders to denounce Sarsour’s arrest as the latest in a series of efforts to stifle free speech. Two local alderpersons, JoCasta Zamarripa and Alex Bower, called the situation a “nightmare”.

“This is an illegal detention of a longtime permanent U.S. resident, as Mr Sarsour is a Milwaukeean who is lawfully present in our community,” they wrote in a joint statement on Thursday.

“The unacceptable activities by ICE — and especially illegally detaining citizens without due process — must stop immediately. How dare federal ICE agents come into our community and unlawfully detain a grandfather, a faith leader, a Wisconsinite!”

State Senator Chris Larson, meanwhile, underscored that the federal government has yet to offer any reasons publicly for Sarsour’s arrest.

“We have already seen numerous Muslim activists unfairly and unlawfully targeted by the Trump Administration for their beliefs and their speech,” Larson wrote.

“These Unconstitutional assaults on our freedoms should alarm all of us. When any individual or group is targeted by the government for their speech, all of our freedoms are threatened.”

Former clerk Tina Peters has become a cause celebre for the election denial movement and President Donald Trump.

An appeals court in the state of Colorado has ordered the resentencing of Tina Peters, a former county clerk convicted of involvement in an election meddling scheme in the United States.

The court overturned Peters’s nine-year prison sentence on Thursday, but not her conviction for helping to tamper with voting machines after the 2020 presidential race.

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Her case has become a cause celebre for President Donald Trump and the election denial movement, after it emerged that she was seeking evidence to support Trump’s false claim that his 2020 loss was due to massive fraud.

In Thursday’s decision, the three-judge appeals panel ruled that a lower court had considered Peters’s personal beliefs when deciding upon a punishment, thereby rendering the sentence improper.

“The trial court’s comments about Peters’s belief in the existence of 2020 election fraud went beyond relevant considerations for her sentencing,” the appeals court wrote.

The panel cited comments from Judge Matthew Barrett, who blasted Peters as a “charlatan” promoting “snake oil” claims.

“Her offence was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud,” the appeals court said. “It was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud.”

Peters was convicted in August 2024 for helping someone from outside the government gain access to the Mesa County election system and make copies.

That person was affiliated with efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss, and the copies they obtained were then shared on social media.

False claims that the 2020 election was marred by massive fraud have been a persistent fixation for Trump and his allies, even after his successful re-election in 2024.

Trump’s efforts to remain in office after his 2020 defeat were the subject of a 2023 criminal indictment brought by former special counsel Jack Smith.

He alleged that Trump led a criminal conspiracy to undermine the election process and rally supporters to overturn the results. Those charges, however, were ultimately dropped when Trump took office again in 2025, as the US Justice Department has a policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.

Since his inauguration, Trump has continued to push the claims he won the 2020 race. He has also used his allegations of fraud to demand greater control over the country’s election infrastructure in advance of the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.

In December, the president pardoned Peters, even though she was not in federal custody, and the presidential power of pardon does not extend to state crimes.

The appeals court panel confirmed on Thursday that Trump’s pardon had no impact on state offences.

“We have found no instance where the presidential pardon power has been stretched in such a way as to invade an individual state’s sovereignty,” the panel said.

State Governor Jared Polis suggested last month that he could consider clemency for Peters.

Legal fight over Trump’s enormous construction project will continue despite panel’s approval.

A planning commission has approved President Donald Trump’s proposal to build an enormous ballroom at the White House, an effort to put his personal touch on a national landmark that has stoked backlash and legal challenges.

The National Capital Planning Commission, tasked with overseeing proposed construction on federal sites in the Washington, DC area, voted in favour of the project on Thursday.

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“I believe that, in time, this ballroom will be considered every bit as much of a national treasure as the other key components of the White House,” said Will Scharf, who chairs the commission and is Trump’s former personal lawyer.

But the future of the ballroom, to be built on the site of the East Wing of the White House that Trump had demolished in October, remains uncertain. A federal judge ruled earlier this week that the project could not move forward without Congressional authorisation.

“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” US District Judge Richard Leon stated in a ruling on Tuesday.

The US president has paid little mind to the contested legality of the project, knocking down the East Wing of the White House with little prior notice and proceeding with construction despite legal challenges.

Trump reacted angrily to the Tuesday ruling over social media, stating that the ballroom was being financed through private donations rather than federal funds and that previous construction had not required approval from Congress.

“In the Ballroom case, the Judge said we have to get Congressional approval. He is WRONG!” Trump said on Wednesday. “Congressional approval has never been given on anything, in these circumstances, big or small, having to do with construction at the White House.”

The 12-person commission, which includes three people appointed by Trump, was originally set to vote on the project in March. The date was moved back due to a large number of people signing up to comment on the project, with a large majority strongly opposed.

The 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-metre) is currently estimated to cost about $400m, and Trump has expressed his hope that it will be completed before he completes his current term in early 2029. The price of the ballroom has expanded over time, with a statement from the White House in July 2025 estimating that the project would cost $200m.

Private funding from wealthy donors has also raised questions about whether the project has become a means of buying influence with the White House.

“The American people have weighed in on this project, and they hate it,” Jon Golinger, democracy advocate with Public Citizen, said as he criticised Trump over the project. “He needs to put the White House back the way the people gave it to him.”

US has exerted growing influence over the Venezuelan government after abducting former President Nicolas Maduro.

The United States has lifted sanctions against Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez, following its abduction and imprisonment of her predecessor, Nicolas Maduro.

The US Department of the Treasury website was updated on Wednesday to show that Rodriguez had been removed from the Specially Designated Nationals List.

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The move was seen as yet another sign of tightening relations between Rodriguez and US President Donald Trump, who has sought to exert control over Venezuela’s politics since Maduro’s removal.

Rodriguez hailed Wednesday’s decision with a post calling for more sanctions against Venezuelan entities and individuals to be nixed.

“President Trump’s decision is a significant step in the right direction to normalize and strengthen relations between our countries,” she wrote.

“We trust that this progress and determination will ultimately lead to the lifting of the additional active sanctions on our country.”

Rodriguez had been sanctioned under the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) since 2018, during Trump’s first term in office. The sanctions froze any assets she may have held in the US and prohibited any US-based entity from doing business with her.

In a news release at the time, the US accused Rodriguez of being among a group of government leaders that were “involved in the destruction of democracy in Venezuela” and were “enriching themselves at the expense of the Venezuelan people”.

At the time of the sanctions, Rodriguez had recently been appointed as vice president, a role she served in until January 3, when a US military operation abducted Maduro.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who was also captured in the raid, currently await trial in the US on drug-trafficking and weapons possession charges.

Legal experts have widely condemned the US attack as illegal under international law, and Rodriguez herself has called for Maduro and Flores to be returned to Venezuela.

But since being sworn in as Maduro’s replacement, Rodriguez has taken a largely conciliatory approach to US-Venezuela relations.

Rodriguez has taken steps to open the country to greater outside investment, including by signing into law in January a piece of legislation designed to open Venezuela’s vast oil reserves to private investment.

A similar bill, to attract outside investment to the mining sector, received an initial vote in March.

But critics have questioned the circumstances under which these reforms have progressed. Trump has pledged to “run” Venezuela, and after Maduro’s abduction, he warned that a second wave of military action could follow if Rodriguez did not comply with his demands.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic magazine in an article published on January 4.

For her part, Rodriguez has struck a careful balance between sparse criticism of Maduro’s abduction and improving ties with the US.

The US Department of State said that the country’s embassy in Caracas had officially resumed operations on Monday after a seven-year closure.

International organisations such as the United Nations have said that human rights violations have persisted in the South American country, despite the change in president.

Trump has held up Venezuela as a model for the regime change he would like to see in Iran and Cuba, but critics note that he has kept its government largely intact, despite the ouster of Maduro himself.

Venezuela’s government has long faced accusations of violently suppressing its political dissent through arbitrary arrest, torture and extrajudicial killing.

The countdown is under way at Kennedy Space Center for the liftoff of Artemis II, which will send four astronauts around the moon and back in the first crewed lunar mission since 1972.

After a mission management team meeting on Monday, NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said Artemis II is ready for launch on Wednesday.

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The weather is now the only potential constraint. The forecast indicates an 80 percent chance of favourable conditions with the primary concerns being cloud coverage and the potential for high winds, NASA noted.

When will Artemis II launch?

At 6:24pm (22:24 GMT) on Wednesday, a two-hour window will open for the Artemis II mission to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The launch window will remain open until April 6 for two hours each day after sunset. The mission can launch only when the moon, orbital paths, weather and Earth’s rotation line up safely.

Artemis II has faced two major delays that pushed it from its original early 2026 launch window.

In early February, the first attempt was scrubbed after a liquid hydrogen leak was detected during a practice countdown.

A second launch attempt in early March was cancelled when engineers discovered a helium flow issue in the rocket’s upper stage.

How to watch the launch

NASA will livestream the launch on YouTube , which has shown Artemis II from its rollout at the vehicle assembly building to Launch Pad 39.

What is NASA’s Artemis programme?

The Artemis programme is NASA’s multidecade mission to return humans to the moon for the first time since 1972, establish a long-term base there and eventually enable future human missions to Mars.

The programme is currently divided into five missions: Artemis I, II, III, IV and V.

Artemis I was the inaugural uncrewed test flight, which launched on November 16, 2022, and lasted 25 days. It successfully placed the Orion spacecraft into Earth’s orbit and provided crucial data for Artemis II.

What is Artemis II?

Artemis II is the first human mission of the Artemis programme. While Artemis I was an uncrewed test mission that carried only mannequins and sensors, Artemis II will mark the first time since 1972 that astronauts will travel beyond low Earth orbit.

Will Artemis II land on the moon?

No. The four-person crew will not land on the moon but rather perform a lunar flyby, looping around the moon’s far side before returning to Earth.

What is the goal of the Artemis programme?

At its core, Artemis II is a systems validation mission. NASA will use the flight to test the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems, navigation, communication links and overall performance in deep space with a crew on board – conditions that cannot be fully replicated on Earth.

If successful, Artemis II will pave the way for Artemis III, a crewed low Earth orbit mission; then Artemis IV, which aims to land astronauts on the moon; and future missions that could establish a sustained human presence beyond Earth.

Here’s how the 10-day Artemis II journey is planned:

How is Artemis different from Apollo?

In Greek mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo and the goddess of the moon. The name symbolises the programme’s connection to the original Apollo lunar missions, which took place from 1961 to 1972.

The most notable of the Apollo missions was Apollo 11 when on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the lunar surface.

The last mission was Apollo 17 when Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt left the lunar surface on December 14, 1972, becoming the last people to walk on the moon.

Who are the Artemis II astronauts?

The mission will carry four astronauts:

• Reid Wiseman, 50, commander: The NASA veteran and former International Space Station commander is leading the Artemis II mission. A test pilot-turned-astronaut, he has leadership and deep spaceflight experience.
• Victor Glover, 49, pilot: The US Navy aviator is the first Black astronaut assigned to a lunar mission and flew on SpaceX Crew-1.
• Christina Koch, 47, mission specialist: The record holder for the longest single spaceflight by a woman at 328 days is a veteran of multiple spacewalks and has scientific and deep-space mission expertise.
• Jeremy Hansen, 50, mission specialist: The first Canadian set to travel to the moon is a former fighter pilot and represents international collaboration in deep space exploration.

What will the Artemis crew do during the mission?

During the flight, the four astronauts will evaluate the spacecraft, test their own responses to radiation and onboard fires, and perform a suit pressurisation test.

They will also carry out medical and scientific experiments and make detailed observations of the lunar surface during the flyby.

Why is NASA going back to the moon?

The mission reflects broader long-term goals. NASA plans to establish a sustained human presence on and around the moon, particularly near the lunar south pole, where water in the form of ice is believed to exist.

This is seen as a stepping stone towards future human missions to Mars. At the same time, Artemis is unfolding within a wider geopolitical context as the United States seeks to maintain leadership in space exploration amid growing competition, particularly from China.

When are the next Artemis missions?

Artemis III – 2027

NASA recently overhauled the mission profile of Artemis III. The mission, scheduled for next year, will no longer land on the moon but rather send a crew into low Earth orbit, where it will test integrated operations between the Orion spacecraft and one or both commercial landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Artemis IV – early 2028

The mission is to be the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17. NASA plans to send its crew into lunar orbit and two of its astronauts to the lunar south pole.

Artemis V – late 2028

With this mission, NASA plans a second crewed lunar landing and the start of a lunar base.

The Trump administration says protections would diminish US energy competitiveness amid the ongoing war on Iran.

A committee with ties to United States President Donald Trump has exempted oil and gas drillers in the Gulf of Mexico from protections under the Endangered Species Act meant to safeguard vulnerable species.

On Tuesday, the government’s Endangered Species Committee convened for a rare meeting to weigh whether the protections should be lifted.

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The panel, composed of six senior Trump officials, ultimately voted unanimously in favour of lifting the restrictions.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told the meeting that environmental rules could hobble US energy production as the ongoing war on Iran snarls energy markets.

“Disruptions to Gulf oil production doesn’t hurt just us. It benefits our adversaries,” Hegseth said.

“We cannot allow our own rules to weaken our standing and strengthen those who wish to harm us. When development in the Gulf is chilled, we are prevented from producing the energy we need as a country and as a department.”

But environmental groups have objected to the decision, and a legal fight is expected in the coming months.

This is only the fourth time in US history that the Endangered Species Committee has convened, and Tuesday marks the third time it has granted an exemption to the Endangered Species Act.

Considered a landmark piece of legislation, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 prohibits actions that might kill or harm species close to extinction or their habitats.

The act has been invoked in the Gulf of Mexico to protect vulnerable species like Rice’s whale, which is found exclusively in the ecosystem. Scientists estimate that only about 50 of the rare whales remain.

Birds, sea turtles and Gulf sturgeon are also among the local species protected by the act.

Hegseth first requested a convening of the Endangered Species Committee on March 13, arguing that increasing oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico was necessary for “reasons of national security”.

But critics have dubbed the committee a “god squad”, a reference to the power it holds over a species’ continued existence.

Tuesday’s committee was staffed by Trump appointees, including Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.

Advocates have promised to challenge the exemptions, arguing that the Trump administration failed to abide by the protocols set out under the Endangered Species Act. They also question whether the rationale for Tuesday’s exemption is justified by facts.

“The Endangered Species Act has not slowed an iota of oil from being extracted from the Gulf,” said Andrew Bowman, the president of the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife. “I cannot stress enough how unprecedented and unlawful this action is.”

Environmental protections have been a low priority for the Trump administration, which has rolled back existing rules and championed pro-fossil fuel policies, while dismissing climate change as a “hoax”.

“If Trump is successful here, he could be the first person in history to knowingly extirpate a species from the face of the earth,” Patrick Parenteau, emeritus professor of law at Vermont Law School, told The Associated Press. “That’s how precarious the condition of the Rice’s whale is.”