California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Wednesday that the state’s Justice Department filed criminal charges against the executive director of SEIU California, the largest labor union in the state. The complaint filed by the California Department of Justice charged executive director Alma Hernandez and her husband Jose Moscoso with embezzlement and fraud. The department claims [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled Tuesday that the city of Oakland, California, cannot sue Wells Fargo for violating the Fair Housing Act (FHA) because the city did not adequately show proximate causation. The court’s decision reverses the prior decision of its three-judge panel. Oakland had claimed that [...]
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a new regulation Thursday, greatly limiting US production and use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), greenhouse gases commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners that are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide. In a press release, EPA Administrator Michael Regan called the new rule “a significant step forward [...]
US Special Envoy to Haiti Daniel Foote resigned from his position Thursday, expressing his desire “not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees” back to the tumultuous Caribbean nation. Foote’s resignation letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken comes in the wake of criticism by UN [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an emergency motion Tuesday seeking to immediately block Texas’ controversial abortion restriction pending further proceedings. The DOJ filed suit against Texas earlier this month, challenging the constitutionality of Senate Bill 8 (SB 8). The law bans all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for cases [...]
Dutch non-profit Stichting Massaschade & Consument filed suit Tuesday against TikTok, seeking to force the social media app to compensate 4.5 million Dutch users for “harvesting and auctioning sensitive user data” in violation of European privacy laws. Stichting Massaschade & Consument is asking the court in Amsterdam to order TikTok to pay €6 billion, an [...]
Google announced Wednesday that it will appeal the €500 million (US $591 million) fine imposed by Autorité de la concurrence (“Autorité”), the French antitrust body, in July. The penalty was issued in response to mounting international pressure on online platforms to share more of the revenue generated by the use of news from local media [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Wednesday ruled in favor of an Ocean City law banning women from sunbathing topless. Ocean City, a Maryland beach town, passed the ban in 2017 after Chelsea Eline, one of the plaintiffs, called the town police claiming she had the right to be topless at [...]
The Fifth Circuit ruled Thursday that two Planned Parenthood centers may pursue their claim to make Louisiana’s Department of Health “promptly rule” on one of the center’s applications for a license to operate as an abortion clinic, finding that the case fell under an exception to sovereign immunity. However, the Fifth Circuit determined that sovereign [...]
The developer of the Keystone XL gas pipeline confirmed its decision to terminate the controversial project Wednesday, marking the end of a decade-long legal battle. TC Energy ceased the pipeline construction in January after President Joe Biden revoked a necessary presidential permit. The permit, issued by the Trump administration in 2017, allowed TC Energy, a Canadian company, [...]