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☆ DOJ sues Tennessee, alleging it discriminates against transgender youth with new law
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Activists for transgender rights gather in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on April 1, 2023. The Department of Justice is suing Tennessee for allegedly discriminating against transgender youth with a new state law banning the use of puberty blockers, hormones, and other medical procedures that affirm a child's gender identity. The DOJ asked the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee on Wednesday to declare that the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and to prohibit state authorities from implementing the statute. The lawsuit originally was filed April 20 by the parents of transgender children in Tennessee who are undergoing gender-affirming care. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and Health Commissioner Ralph Alvarado must respond to the suit by May 8.

The Justice Department said the law violated the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, which promises equal protection. The Justice Department also said it was asking the court to issue an immediate order to prevent the law from going into effect on July 1. But many medical associations have said the law is transphobic and that gender-affirming care can be life-saving. Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed the ban into law last month along with a separate measure restricting drag performances in public. Several other U.S. states have banned gender-affirming care for minors, and over the last several weeks groups have sued over laws adopted in Utah, Florida, Indiana and Arkansas.

The dispute concerns Minnesota's tax regime under which the state takes "absolute title" of a property if an owner fails to pay property taxes for five years. Tyler's attorneys said in a court filing that 13 other states have similar policies that let government or private investors benefit when collecting delinquent property taxes. She owed $15,000, including roughly $2,300 in property taxes, as well as penalties, interests and costs. States have long permitted forfeitures of an entire property for neglecting to pay taxes, which are a reasonable condition of property ownership, the county said. Rulings in this case and any others not yet decided by the Supreme Court are due by the end of June.

But many medical associations have said the law is transphobic and that gender-affirming care can be life-saving. The new lawsuit says depriving transgender youth of medically necessary care will have devastating consequences for them and their families. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of three families with transgender children and a Memphis-based doctor who performs gender-affirming procedures. Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed the ban into law last month along with a separate measure restricting drag performances in public. Several other U.S. states have banned gender-affirming care for minors, and over the last several weeks groups have sued over laws adopted in Utah, Florida, Indiana and Arkansas.

"Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees and our customers," Poulos said in a statement. Fox anchor Neil Cavuto broke into his news show "Your World" about 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time to report the settlement. In February court filings, Dominion cited a trove of internal communications in which Murdoch and other Fox figures privately acknowledged that the vote-rigging claims made about Dominion on-air were false. Dominion said Fox amplified the untrue claims to boost its ratings and prevent its viewers from migrating to other media competitors on the right. ANOTHER LAWSUIT PENDINGAdding to the legal risks for Fox, another U.S. voting technology company, Smartmatic, is pursuing its own defamation lawsuit seeking $2.7 billion in damages in a New York state court.

WASHINGTON, April 19 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday grappled with a convicted stalker's claim that thousands of unwanted Facebook messages he sent to a female musician in Colorado were protected speech in a case testing the limits of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment safeguards. Rather, Counterman was convicted based on a showing that his messages would cause a "reasonable person" serious distress, a so-called objective legal standard. Counterman, citing mental illness and delusions, argued his statements were never intended to be threatening and were thus protected speech. The First Amendment prohibits the government from enacting laws "abridging the freedom of speech," but the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that the provision does not protect true threats. His appeal was rejected by the Colorado Court of Appeals.

"Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees and our customers," Poulos said in a statement. Shares of Fox Corp closed up slightly at $34 per share, but were down 1% in after-hours trading after the settlement amount was disclosed. Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch told Wall Street analysts in February that the company had about $4 billion cash on hand. [1/5] Dominion CEO John Poulos and lawyers speak to the media after Dominion Voting Systems and Fox settled a defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million, avoiding trial, over Fox's coverage of debunked election-rigging claims, in Delaware Superior Court, in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S. April 18, 2023. Fox Corp reported nearly $14 billion in annual revenue last year.

November 15, 2020 -- Fox’s daytime average audience reaches a 35% decline since the eve of the election, according to statistics cited in Dominion's lawsuit. March 26, 2021 -- Dominion sues Fox News in Delaware Superior Court. March 31, 2023 -- Davis rules that the statements aired on Fox were false, defamatory and not covered by legal protections for the press under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. April 12, 2023 -- Davis sanctions Fox after it was revealed that the network failed to turn over relevant recordings and transcripts until the eve of trial. April 16, 2023 -- Davis delays trial by one day without giving a reason, but two sources told Reuters that Fox and Dominion were holding last-minute settlement talks.

☆ Republican US congressman asks judge to let probe into Trump case proceed
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Luc Cohen | Thomson Reuters | Reports On The New York Federal Courts. Previously Worked As A Correspondent In Venezuela | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and an ally of fellow Republican Trump, made the request to U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil two days before she is due to hold a hearing in the case in federal court in Manhattan. In a separate filing, Pomerantz urged Vyskocil to block the subpoena and said he played no role in Bragg's decision to charge Trump. Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024, has denied the liaison took place. Bragg has accused Jordan of impeding New York's "sovereign authority" and interfering in an ongoing criminal case. "Such legislation could help protect current and former presidents from potentially politically motivated prosecutions," Jordan's lawyers wrote in court papers.

The source, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told Reuters that Fox was seeking a possible settlement. The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal also reported that Fox was pursuing settlement talks, citing sources. Dominion is suing Fox Corp (FOXA.O) and Fox News in a defamation lawsuit over the network's coverage of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Davis on Wednesday sanctioned Fox News, handing Dominion a fresh chance to gather evidence after Fox withheld records until the eve of the trial. An expert report commissioned by Dominion attributed scores of lost contracts to Fox's coverage, though much of the report remains under seal.

☆ U.S. Supreme Court turns away suit by Texas inmate held 27 years in solitary confinement
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( John Kruzel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] The U.S. Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, U.S., April 6, 2023. Hope, who is still in prison but as of last year no longer in solitary confinement, filed a civil rights lawsuit against prison officials in 2018. Following a 1994 prison escape, Hope was placed by prison officials in solitary confinement. Hope said he continued to be held in solitary confinement despite being deemed by Texas security officials in 2005 to no longer pose an escape risk. Texas asked the justices to consider the case moot since Hope is no longer held in solitary confinement, a request that was contested by Hope's lawyers.

☆ Dominion defamation trial against Fox to proceed Tuesday after delay
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Helen Coster | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Dominion sued Fox Corp and Fox News. Rupert Murdoch, the chair of Fox Corp, is set to testify during the trial, along with a parade of Fox executives and on-air hosts, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro. Fox's filing cited a Friday email from a Dominion lawyer saying that Dominion would not pursue its lost profit claim at the trial. Davis on Wednesday sanctioned Fox News, handing Dominion a fresh chance to gather evidence after Fox withheld records until the eve of the trial. Fox has also said that Dominion cannot pin actual malice on the individuals Dominion has said were responsible for the defamatory statements.

Fox has said Dominion cannot prove that the network knowingly spread falsehoods or recklessly disregarded the truth, the legal standard of "actual malice" that plaintiffs in defamation lawsuits must meet. Fox is now largely limited to arguing that Dominion cannot prove actual malice. Fox has called Dominion's lawsuit an assault on the free press and framed its stance in the case as a defense of journalism and diversity of ideas in the public square. Fox has attacked the credibility of Dominion's damages estimate, saying it is based upon unrealistic growth projections and faulty assumptions. An expert report commissioned by the company attributed scores of lost contracts to Fox's coverage, though much of the report remains under seal.

[1/2] The U.S. Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, U.S., April 6, 2023. Two laws, the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Securities Exchange Act, funnel judicial review of adverse agency orders to federal appeals courts only after those orders become final. The Supreme Court's conservative justices have signaled wariness toward expansive federal regulatory power and the previously recognized duty of judges, under Supreme Court precedent, to give deference to that authority. Federal agencies have had their powers curtailed in recent Supreme Court rulings. Axon sued the FTC in 2020 in federal court in Arizona following an investigation by the agency into its 2018 acquisition of Vievu, a rival body-camera provider.

Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, is expected to head to New York Attorney General Letitia James' offices in lower Manhattan, where he will be asked about his business practices. Thursday's deposition could be used to try to discredit any testimony Trump may give at trial, or be offered as testimony if he is unavailable to appear. It is not the first time Trump is facing the New York attorney general. Under questioning in August, before the case was filed, Trump invoked his right against self-incrimination under the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment more than 400 times. Legal experts say the attorney general is also entitled to a deposition after the filing of the lawsuit.

☆ A federal judge has blocked Biden's clean water rule in 24 states
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked a Biden administration rule that would expand federal protections for hundreds of thousands of rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands and other waterways in 24 states. The Biden administration's clean water rule, issued in 2022, repealed a Trump-era rule that federal courts rejected and that environmental groups argued left waterways open to pollution. White House officials and environmental groups have argued that loosening federal water protections would harm sources of safe drinking water across the country. The rule applies federal protections to wetlands, tributaries and other waters that have a connection to navigable waters, and it doesn't impose a specific distance for when adjacent wetlands are protected. West Virginia and 23 other Republican-led states sued the EPA and other federal agencies in February, alleging the rule violates the U.S. Constitution.

☆ U.S. judge blocks Biden clean water rule in 24 states
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 12 (Reuters) - A federal judge in North Dakota on Wednesday temporarily blocked implementation of a Biden administration rule establishing protections for seasonal streams and wetlands in 24 states, according to court documents. U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland granted the states' request for a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the Environmental Protection Agency's Waters of the United States rule, which was finalized in December. In the order, Hovland said the states would "expend unrecoverable resources complying with a rule unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny." An EPA spokesperson said the agency is reviewing Wednesday’s ruling and called the Biden administration rule “the best interpretation” of the Clean Water Act. In Congress, Republicans led an effort to repeal the water rule last month, with limited support from across the aisle including four Senate Democrats and independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

☆ Federal judge blocks Biden clean water rule in 24 states
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

April 12 (Reuters) - A federal judge in North Dakota on Wednesday temporarily blocked implementation of a Biden administration rule establishing protections for seasonal streams and wetlands in 24 states, according to court documents. U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland granted the states' request for a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the Environmental Protection Agency's Waters of the United States rule, which was finalized in December. In the order, Hovland said the states would "expend unrecoverable resources complying with a rule unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny." West Virginia and 23 other Republican-led states sued the EPA in February, alleging the rule violates the U.S. Constitution and sows confusion for landowners. Reporting by Clark Mindock and Nichola Groom; editing by Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis issued the sanction after Dominion's lawyers revealed instances in which Fox's attorneys did not turn over evidence in a timely manner, the Times reported. Fox said in a statement that it "produced the supplemental information" to Dominion "when we first learned it." Dominion sued Fox News and parent company Fox Corp (FOXA.O) in 2021. Grossberg said in her latest filing that she has tapes of former Trump lawyers, including Giuliani, conceding they lacked evidence for their claims. As a Fox News officer, Murdoch would likely have been subject to more probing discovery by Dominion.

☆ Oklahoma to vote on first religious charter school in US
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Brad Brooks | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

April 11 (Reuters) - An Oklahoma school board is set to vote on Tuesday on whether the state will allow the first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in the U.S. - a decision that promises to ignite a legal battle testing the concept of separation of church and state. The Statewide Virtual Charter School Board will vote on an application backed by the Catholic church for the creation of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, planned by its organizers to offer an online education for kindergarten through high school initially for 500 students and eventually 1,500. The board is a state entity that considers applications for charter schools - publicly funded but independently run - that operate virtually in Oklahoma. Laser disagreed and said her organization would fight the Catholic church in any court over St. Isidore and any other publicly funded religious school. "There is an attack being waged on public schools in Oklahoma, and that attack is to convert public schools into religious schools," Laser said.

Dominion asserts that Fox's top brass approved of the coverage, but the network says the evidence of high-level involvement is threadbare. The jury pool will be drawn from New Castle County, Delaware, where Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two-to-one, according to the state's Department of Elections. The network says scattered doubts about the claims among certain individuals cannot be attributed to the organization as a whole. "I think (Fox is) trying to argue that the employees themselves did not have that necessary mental state," said UNC's Papandrea. "But it's tricky when the organization itself has relevant information that would cast doubt on the veracity of the statements about Dominion."

☆ Harris backs expelled Tennessee lawmakers, chides Republicans for ousting them
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-08 | by ( Cheney Orr | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Republicans who control the Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday expelled two young Black lawmakers who last week led protesters into the well of the House floor, while a resolution to remove a white representative came up one vote short. The Republicans ousted Justin Pearson, 28, of Memphis, and Justin Jones, 27, from the Nashville area. They staged the protest for gun reforms following the March 27 shooting at a Nashville school that killed three 9-year-old students and three adults. With a 75-23 advantage over Democrats in the House, Tennessee Republicans took the extraordinary measure to expel their Democratic colleagues, citing their disruption of orderly House business. Just two state lawmakers had previously been expelled since the U.S. Civil War.

☆ Harris chides Tennessee Republicans for ousting state lawmakers
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Cheney Orr | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The Republicans ousted Justin Pearson, 28, of Memphis, and Justin Jones, 27, from the Nashville area. They staged the protest for gun reforms following the March 27 shooting at a Nashville school that killed three 9-year-old students and three adults. [1/7] U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during an address after the Tennessee House of Representatives voted to expel two Democratic members, representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, for their roles in a gun control demonstration at the Tennessee State Capitol, in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., April 7, 2023. With a 75-23 advantage over Democrats in the House, Tennessee Republicans took the extraordinary measure to expel their Democratic colleagues, citing their disruption of orderly House business. Just two state lawmakers had previously been expelled since the U.S. Civil War.

"Bump stocks allow a shooter to fire hundreds of bullets a minute by a single pull of the trigger. Like other machine guns, rifles modified with bump stocks are exceedingly dangerous." Bump stocks use a semiautomatic's recoil to allow it to slide back and forth while "bumping" the shooter's trigger finger, resulting in rapid fire. Cargill sued, challenging the ATF's rule in 2019, which required him to surrender his two bump stocks. Two days after that ruling, Biden signed into law the first major federal gun reform in three decades.

April 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday refused to let West Virginia enforce a state law banning transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools, one of many Republican-backed measures across the country targeting LGBTQ rights. The justices denied West Virginia's request to lift an injunction against the law that a lower court had imposed while litigation continues over its legality in a challenge brought by a 12-year-old transgender girl, Becky Pepper-Jackson. West Virginia said in a court filing that it can lawfully assign athletic teams by sex rather than gender identity "where biological differences between males and females are the very reason those separate teams exist." Pepper-Jackson, who attends a middle school in the West Virginia city of Bridgeport, sued after being prohibited from trying out for the girls' cross-country and track teams. Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Sandra MalerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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