WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a conservative-led attack that could have undermined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The justices ruled 7-2 that the way the CFPB is funded does not violate the Constitution, reversing a lower court and drawing praises from consumers. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, splitting with his frequent allies, Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, who dissented. The CFPB was created after the 2008 financial crisis to regulate mortgages, car loans and other consumer finance. The case was brought by payday lenders who object to a bureau rule that limits their ability to withdraw funds directly from borrowers' bank accounts. It's among several major challenges to federal regulatory agencies on the docket this term for a court that has for more than a decade been open to limits on their operations. The CFPB, the brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has long been opposed by Republicans. The bureau says it has returned $19 billion to consumers since its creation. Unlike most federal agencies, the bureau does not rely on the annual budget process in Congress. Instead, it is funded directly by the Federal Reserve, with a current annual limit of around $600 million. The federal appeals court in New Orleans held that the funding violated the Constitution's appropriations clause because it improperly shields the CFPB from congressional supervision. Thomas reached back to the earliest days of the Constitution in his majority opinion to note that "the Bureau's funding mechanism fits comfortably with the First Congress' appropriations practice." In dissent, Alito wrote, "The Court upholds a novel statutory scheme under which the powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) may bankroll its own agenda without any congressional control or oversight." The CFPB case was argued more than seven months ago, during the first week of the court's term. Lopsided decisions like Thursday's 7-2 vote typically don't take so long, but Alito's dissent was longer than the majority opinion, and two other justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote separate opinions even though they both were part of the majority. Consumer groups cheered the decision, as did a bureau spokesman. "For years, lawbreaking companies and Wall Street lobbyists have been scheming to defund essential consumer protection enforcement," bureau spokesman Sam Goldford said in a statement. "The Supreme Court has rejected their radical theory that would have devastated the American financial markets. The Court repudiated the arguments of the payday loan lobby and made it clear that the CFPB is here to stay." Jesse Van Tol, president and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said the decision upholding the consumer bureau's funding structure would have positive effects across the U.S. economy. "It's always nice to see the courts get something right — especially in this tawdry circumstance where payday loan predators sought to wriggle out of basic oversight using absurd distortions of law and fact," Van Tol said in a statement. While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some other business interests backed the payday lenders, mortgage bankers and other sectors regulated by the CFPB cautioned the court to avoid a broad ruling that could unsettle the markets. In 2020, the court decided another CFPB case, ruling that Congress had improperly insulated the head of the bureau from removal. The justices said the director could be replaced by the president at will but allowed the bureau to continue to operate.

CHICAGO — A former warehouseman for the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia pleaded guilty on Wednesday to transporting millions of dollars' worth of stolen Masters tournament memorabilia and historic items, including one of Arnold Palmer's iconic green jackets. Richard Globensky, 39, of Georgia, entered the plea in federal court in Chicago. He was charged with one count of transporting goods knowing they had been stolen. "I plead guilty," Globensky told the judge. According to federal prosecutors, Globensky took items from the warehouse for sellers in Florida, who then sold them online at a significant markup. Globensky was paid through a limited liability company set up in his wife's name, among other ways. The scheme lasted for more than a decade and earned him more than $5 million. As part of a plea deal, Globensky must write a $1.5 million cashier's check to the government within days. He remains free on bond and faces a maximum 10-year prison term when he's sentenced Oct. 29, but will likely get closer to two years in prison under federal guidelines. The items, which were stolen between 2009 and 2022, included such historic memorabilia as green jackets and tickets to Masters tournaments in the 1930s, as well as T-shirts, mugs and chairs, according to prosecutors. Among the stolen iconic green jackets were those won by Palmer, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen. Globensky, who had worked at the warehouse since 2007, would secretly photograph items and send them to a Florida-based seller, identified in court documents only as Individual A, prosecutors said. Globensky would then sneak out items that Individual A was interested in, taking small quantities to avoid the risk of Augusta National's auditing practices, according to court documents. Items were hidden in an offsite storage facility and shipped. The total loss to Augusta National was more than $3 million, according to prosecutors. A representative for Augusta National did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Globensky declined to comment after the hearing. His attorney, Thomas Church, told reporters the case was being tried in Chicago because some of the stolen goods were recovered in the area. Church declined further comment because of pending investigations. No one else has been charged in the case, but prosecutors said Globensky is cooperating in the ongoing investigation. Prosecutors in April charged Globensky with transporting stolen tournament merchandise and memorabilia across state lines to Florida. But the court records didn't say what was taken from the famous golf club. Augusta National hosts the annual Masters golf tournament, which Scottie Scheffler won last month. Palmer, who died in 2016 at age 87, won four green jackets. He's often credited with introducing golf to the masses and hit the ceremonial tee shot every year at the Masters for years after he stopped playing in the tournament in 2004. Getting a ticket to the Masters also gives fans the chance to buy exclusive merchandise that's not officially sold online. But the green jackets are particularly guarded by the Georgia company that owns Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters golf tournament. The company sued in 2017 to stop a golf memorabilia company from auctioning off a champion's green jacket and other items it said were never supposed to leave the club's grounds. Augusta National Inc. filed the federal lawsuit against the Florida-based auction company seeking to stop it from selling a champion's green jacket and two members’ green jackets, as well as silverware and a belt buckle bearing Augusta National's map and flag logo.

Settlement money to help stem the decades-long opioid addiction and overdose epidemic is rolling out to small towns and big cities across the U.S., but advocates worry that chunks of it may be used in ways that don't make a dent in the crisis. As state and local governments navigate how to use the money, advocates say local governments may not have the bandwidth to take the right steps to identify their communities' needs and direct their funding shares to projects that use proven methods to prevent deaths. Opioids have been linked to about 800,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999, including more than 80,000 annually in recent years, with most of those involving illicitly produced fentanyl. Drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies have been involved in more than 100 settlements of opioid-related lawsuits with state, local and Native American tribal governments over the past decade. The deals, some not yet finalized, could be worth a total of more than $50 billion over nearly two decades and also come with requirements for better monitoring of prescriptions and making company documents public. States alone fought the tobacco industry in the 1990s and they used only a sliver of the money from the resulting settlements on tobacco-related efforts. "We don't want to be 10 years down the road and say, 'After we screwed up tobacco, we trusted small government with opioids — and we did even worse,'" said Paul Farrell, Jr., one of the lead lawyers representing local governments in the opioid suits. He notes that with settlement money rolling out for at least 14 more years, there's time for towns to use it appropriately, and resources to help. The goal, experts say, is to help those who are taking opioids to get treatment, to make it less likely people who use drugs will overdose and to create an environment for people not to take them in the first place. For many, it's personal. Suzanne Harrison and her family launched a nonprofit dedicated to getting New Jersey residents access to treatment and recovery programs after her brother and Navy veteran, King Shaffer Jr., died from a fentanyl and heroin overdose in 2016, days before he was scheduled to try another treatment program. At the time, he was staying with a sister who lived in Moorestown, New Jersey. That town's administration decided to hand its portion of settlement money over to Burlington County, which has used settlement funds to distribute an overdose antidote and run camps for kids affected by addiction. "The County was in a much better position to handle this subject," township manager Kevin Aberant emailed, noting reporting requirements and restrictions on how the money could be used. The major opioid settlements, which include deals with Walgreen Co., CVS Health, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson and one with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma that is before the U.S. Supreme Court, require that most of the funds be used to combat the crisis. More than half of the funds will be controlled by local governments, according to Christine Minhee, who runs the Opioid Settlement Tracker website. In the biggest agreements, states receive larger amounts by getting eligible local governments with populations over 10,000 to join the settlements. Unlike most states, New Jersey required local governments to complete reports on the funding. Using those submissions and additional reporting, The Associated Press examined the spending and decision-making processes for communities in Burlington County, which includes Philadelphia suburbs and rural areas. Fourteen communities there receive allocations and by last June the amounts ranged from $5,000 to nearly $88,000. By last year, most communities in Burlington County had not spent their allotted funds yet, nor had they followed advice to gather public input, devise strategic plans, conduct assessments of their communities' needs and design processes for awarding funds. In Mount Laurel, New Jersey, the police department was put in charge and launched outreach events around budget motels where first-responders often administer an overdose antidote. The idea is to connect people with treatment and other services, but advocates prefer police not be in charge of the spending. Deputy Police Chief Tim Hudnall also said there is consideration of hiring peer-support navigators to try to help people address addiction. Another New Jersey town, Willingboro, spent a little over $57,000 on a back-to-school wellness event, where students received backpacks full of school supplies and information about mental health resources. "We've been trying to be aggressive about it," Gary Lawery II, the deputy township manager, said of spending the funds. "If not, it's just going to sit there." But those approaches have not relied on the kind of community needs assessments that Sara Whaley, a researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who helps develop guides for counties, says are essential. Some service providers, such as Shaffer's sister Suzanne Harrison, have found the process frustrating. Her organization, King's Crusade, helps connect people with services, pays rent at sober living facilities and provides transportation to treatment. They've raised as much as $80,000 a year, but there is always more demand. Harrison said she hasn't had a chance to apply for allocations to subsidize this. Instead, the organization received $6,625 in opioid settlement money to organize a one-time recovery community event in Evesham Township. In Evesham, a suburb of 45,000 that's the most populous in Burlington County, most of the control over the settlement funds lies with the local alliance to prevent alcoholism and drug addiction, which is the sort of body Whaley says should be involved. Marc Romano, director of operations for Prevention Plus of Burlington County, said he also wished there was a call for proposals for using the money. The group was paid $2,000 to hold a painting night for women in recovery, which he said was "a nice event for recovery and recovery awareness," but the group could do more by getting funds to help support programs geared toward its mission of prevention. Council member Heather Cooper, whose own brother was killed by a fentanyl overdose, said there are service providers in the area that can help get people into treatment, get them rides there and offer other services. "But what we hear is families still don't know where those resources are," she said. "So I think the marketing of that has to increase." Other governments have used different approaches. In Arkansas, all the towns and counties pooled their money by creating the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership. Grants have gone to a drug task force to hire an overdose investigator and peer recovery specialist, for the American Indian Center of Arkansas to hire peer recovery specialists, and for a religious organization to expand its recovery housing center in projects ranging from $100,000 to more than $2 million. Kirk Lane, a former police chief and director of state drug policy who now serves as director of the partnership, said it's able to steer projects to underserved parts of the state and to fill in gaps in the state's treatment, recovery and prevention systems. He explained, "Individual mayors and county judges didn't have to worry about, 'How are we going to spend that money?'"