Law related news.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Meta has prevailed over an existential challenge to its business that could have forced the tech giant to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp after a judge ruled that the company does not hold a monopoly in social networking. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued his ruling after the historic antitrust trial [...]
A federal bankruptcy court judge earlier this week formally approved OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s plan to settle thousands of lawsuits over the harms of opioids. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane approved the plan, which requires members of the Sackler family who own the company to contribute up to $7 billion over 15 years. Most of [...]
A judge last week said that he planned to approve a deal for OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family who own the company to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids, allowing money to start flowing to victims as soon as next spring. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Sean Lane [...]
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The longest federal government shutdown in history is officially over, but the fallout will continue to hit two groups particularly hard for months to come: federally funded defense lawyers and the people they represent. Thousands of court-appointed lawyers, known as Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys, along with paralegals, investigators, expert witnesses [...]
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union regulators last week said they’re investigating whether Google is unfairly demoting some content from media publishers in search results under a policy the company says is aimed at combating scammers. Brussels moved forward despite the risk of incurring the wrath of President Donald Trump, who has criticized the 27-nation bloc’s [...]
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska Native tribes and conservation groups sued the federal government last week, seeking in at least three separate lawsuits to overturn a land exchange aimed at allowing a road to be built through a national wildlife refuge. Legal challenges to the land exchange agreement reached last month between Interior Secretary Doug [...]
California plans to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses given to immigrants after discovering the expiration dates went past when the drivers were legally allowed to be in the United States, state officials said. The announcement follows criticism from the Trump administration about California and other states granting licenses to people in the country illegally. The [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court earlier this week agreed to decide whether states can continue to count late-arriving mail ballots. The justices took up an appeal from Mississippi after a panel of three judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year ruled that the state law allowing ballots that arrive shortly [...]
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Federal aviation officials have issued an order for McDonnell Douglas MD-11 planes not to be flown pending further inspection, reinforcing cargo carriers’ decision to ground their fleets following a deadly crash at the UPS global aviation hub in Kentucky. UPS and FedEx said last week that they were grounding their fleets [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has rejected a call to overturn its landmark decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The justices, without comment, turned away an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the high court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. [...]