Trump says he'll appeal to Supreme Court after judges block White House ballroom construction

A US appeals court has ruled that President Trump cannot build a White House ballroom without congressional approval. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit agreed with a lower court that the construction required explicit consent from Congress. According to CBS News, President Trump plans to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

The court's decision was in response to a lawsuit filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which argued that the Trump administration did not have the authority to undertake the project without congressional approval. The three-judge panel, in a 2-1 decision, stated that "each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence."

The construction project, estimated to cost $400m, had been blocked twice by a federal judge before the appeals court made its ruling. The court's decision upholds a preliminary injunction won by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which had sued after the administration began the project by tearing down the East Wing last year.

Brief written by urgent.news from CBS News, The Hindu, Euronews, NPR, MyJoyOnline Ghana — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — read the original for the full account.