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Tag: Lawsuit

  • Sinai-Grace accused of enabling serial predator nurse who assaulted incapacitated woman – Detroit Metro Times

    Detroit Medical Center’s Sinai-Grace Hospital is accused of exposing vulnerable patients to a “known predator” with a history of sexual assault and violence and failing to protect a bedridden woman whom the nurse is accused of coercing into sexual acts. 

    Attorney Todd Flood filed a lawsuit against DMC and its parent company, Tenet Healthcare, in Wayne County Circuit Court on Tuesday, alleging the for-profit hospital chain and its Detroit affiliate engaged in negligent hiring and supervision and created a culture of putting profits ahead of patient safety. 

    At the center of the case is Wilfredo Figueroa-Berrios, a 43-year-old nurse licensed in Michigan since 2012. Prosecutors say he sexually harassed and groped the patient and coerced her into repeated sex acts at Sinai-Grace in August. The woman was severely intoxicated and incapacitated when she was admitted, according to the complaint.

    Surveillance video captured Berrios entering her hospital room multiple times during overnight hours without documenting a medical reason. Police investigated the allegations and arrested Berrios, who was charged in August with three counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. 

    The lawsuit alleges Sinai-Grace and Tenet knowingly hired Berrios despite his record of arrests, troubling behavior at previous jobs, and ongoing police investigations into sexual assaults at another medical facility where he worked.

    Among the warnings outlined in the complaint:

    • In 2019, Berrios was arrested on an assault charge in Wayne.
    • From 2020 to 2021, he worked at a Livonia medical facility, where multiple patients accused him of sexual assault. He was later terminated for “disturbing and assaultive conduct.”
    • In May 2025, while employed at Sinai-Grace, he allegedly assaulted a woman in Grand Circus Park. That case remains under investigation.
    • A state inspection in October 2024 found Sinai-Grace failed to comply with fingerprint-based background check requirements for six employees

    Despite his history, hospital leaders placed Berrios in high-risk emergency and inpatient settings, the lawsuit says.

    “This case is about corporate greed, negligence, and the betrayal of patients who trusted these institutions with their lives,” Flood said.

    The plaintiff, identified only as Jane Doe, said Sinai-Grace staff retaliated against her after she reported the assault. According to the lawsuit, hospital staff denied her a patient advocate, threatened to withhold food, and discharged her without her belongings.

    Flood alleges the misconduct is also the result of systemic failures that Tenet has long been warned about. State regulators, including the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, have repeatedly cited Sinai-Grace for inadequate staff training, poor investigations into abuse complaints, and lapses in required safety checks, the lawsuit contends. 

    The plaintiff is seeking compensation for severe psychological trauma, humiliation, and ongoing medical and therapy costs. The lawsuit cites negligence, negligent hiring and supervision, premises liability, assault and battery, sexual harassment and discrimination under Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, and intentional infliction of emotional distress

    A jury trial has been requested.

    The case raises serious questions about oversight at one of Detroit’s largest hospitals, which has faced repeated scrutiny for staffing shortages and patient neglect. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sinai-Grace drew national attention when overwhelmed conditions left patients dying in hallways.

    Flood argues the hospital’s chronic understaffing and profit-driven model created “the very conditions where a serial rapist could operate inside their hospitals.”

    Tenet Healthcare is a Texas-based corporation that operates more than 60 hospitals nationwide.


    Steve Neavling

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  • Cassie Ventura Is “Very Much Afraid” of Diddy Taking “Retribution” Against His Victims

    “Sex acts became my full-time job, used as the only way to stay in [Combs’s] good graces,” Ventura wrote. “I regularly worried that displeasing him meant putting my family and friends’ safety at risk…. The horrors I endured drove me to have thoughts of suicide—ones I almost followed through on, if not for my family’s intervention and urging that I seek professional care.”

    If Combs does not serve time in prison, Ventura wrote, she fears that “his first actions will be swift retribution towards me and others who spoke up about his abuse at trial.… I remain very much afraid of what he is capable of and the malice he undoubtedly harbors towards me for having the bravery to tell the truth.”

    A hotel security video of Combs violently beating Ventura was one of the many key pieces of evidence against the rapper at his trial; even Combs’s lead attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said during the closing remarks that there was no debate as to whether Combs physically abused Ventura. “We own the domestic violence,” Agnifilo said.

    While Combs’s defense team argued that Combs has changed since assaulting and abusing Ventura and additional alleged victims, Ventura is determined to remind Judge Subramanian what Combs is capable of.

    “He will always be the same cruel, power-hungry, manipulative man that he is,” she wrote in the letter. “I hope that your sentencing decision reflects the strength it took for victims of Sean Combs to come forward. I hope that your decision considers the many lives that Sean Combs has upended with his abuse and control.” Vanity Fair has reached out to a representative for Combs for comment on the letter.

    Rumors have swirled that President Donald Trump might waive Combs’s jail time entirely if he is sentenced to additional incarceration, although Combs’s legal team has offered differing statements on the path to a pardon. (Combs attorney Nicole Westmoreland recently told CNN that the team has “reached out and had conversations in reference to a pardon,” while Agnifilo told CBS News that he has “nothing to do with a possible pardon.”)

    During her closing remarks, Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Maurene Comey claimed that Combs “never thought that the women he abused would have the courage to speak out loud what he had done to them.” Ventura has now made herself heard—as have prosecutors who say they want Combs to serve 11 years in prison.

    Samantha Bergeson

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  • Family sues Denver’s Eating Recovery Center for allegedly ignoring suicidal thoughts

    A Virginia family is suing the Eating Recovery Center over what they allege was a failure to prevent patients from harming themselves during their daughter’s treatment at a facility in Denver.

    Jerry and Rebecca Music and their now-adult daughter, Allison Music, sued the Eating Recovery Center and 29 executives, physicians and other staff members in Denver District Court on Sunday.

    They alleged the providers didn’t respond appropriately when Allison voiced thoughts of suicide or nonfatal self-harm, and forced her to witness other patients hurting themselves or attempting suicide.

    Eating Recovery Center representatives didn’t immediately respond to questions about the lawsuit on Monday afternoon.

    Allison, then 16, entered the partial hospitalization program at the center’s Spruce Street location in April 2023, according to the lawsuit. That location has stopped treating patients with eating disorders and now takes children and teens with anxiety and mood disorders.

    ERC owns one other location in the Denver area that treat minors and two that treat adults, which have helped make Colorado a destination for eating disorder care.

    About a month after she started treatment, Allison voiced a desire to die by suicide, leading her mother to conclude Allison wouldn’t be safe in the rented home where they were staying. She transitioned into the full residential program, but ERC didn’t include any enhanced monitoring in her care plan, according to the complaint.

    The lawsuit alleged Allison received only seven individual therapy sessions over five months, because the facility treated therapy as a privilege, and received no treatment for traumatic events in her history. The family also alleged other practices they considered degrading, including requiring Allison to eat food off the floor, denying bathroom visits and making patients get weighed while naked.

    Other ex-patients reported similar practices to The Denver Post that they said worsened their trauma. Representatives for ERC previously told The Post that patients with eating disorders face a high risk of death, making unpleasant practices like force-feeding or monitoring in the bathroom necessary in some cases.

    Allison repeatedly reported thoughts about dying or harming herself in a nonfatal way in the weeks after starting residential treatment. According to the lawsuit, her suicidal thoughts escalated in June 2023 after another patient attempted to strangle herself and staff failed to intervene, even as the unnamed patient turned blue. Staff also allegedly told patients not to intervene when others were harming themselves on the unit.

    The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment conducted an inspection of the Spruce Street facility in mid-August 2023, investigating allegations that staff hadn’t responded appropriately to suicide attempts.

    The agency found two patients repeatedly tried to die by suicide in June 2023 and that facility leadership opted not to send them elsewhere for mental health treatment, despite staff concerns that they couldn’t keep the patients safe. Leadership said they thought the patients were trying to get out of eating disorder treatment and recommended staff “therapeutically ignore” patients’ self-harming behavior, even if they lost consciousness after wrapping something around their necks.

    In an interview in 2023, Dr. Anne Marie O’Melia, ERC’s chief medical officer, told The Post that ignoring the patients violated the facility’s policies, and ERC made changes after the state brought the matter to leaders’ attention.

    Meg Wingerter

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  • GOP Activist Steven Hotze Sues Former DA Kim Ogg, Alleging Politically-Motivated Charges – Houston Press

    Dr. Steven Hotze, a Republican megadonor who was briefly jailed for engaging in criminal activity only to have the charges dismissed, is suing former Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg and asking that she — or the DA’s office — pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars he claimed he wasted on a legal defense.

    First Assistant DA Vivian King and real estate broker Gerald Womack are also named as defendants in the 30-page complaint, filed September 23 by his attorney Jared Woodfill.

    Right-wing African American blogger Aubrey Taylor is listed as a plaintiff alongside Hotze. Taylor claims he, too, was targeted for publishing content that was critical of Ogg and her political allies. The plaintiffs are demanding a jury trial and asking for compensation for legal fees, the amount to be determined at trial.

    Woodfill alleges that Hotze and Taylor were deprived of their constitutional right to free speech, suffered economic damages, and were wrongfully jailed.

    This isn’t the first time Ogg has been accused of charging her political adversaries with crimes, only to have the charges dismissed by her successor, District Attorney Sean Teare. Reports surfaced earlier this year that Ogg cost taxpayers more than $1.5 million in frivolous lawsuits that she filed before she lost the Democratic primary to Teare in 2024.

    Teare commented in May that, “As we review more cases filed under the previous administration, a pattern has become quite clear: The former district attorney abused the authority of this office to overcharge and investigate those she disagreed with and outsourced high-profile criminal investigations to friends who shared her political views.”

    Ogg, who now works as a lawyer at the boutique litigation firm Gregor, Wynne & Arney, did not respond to requests for comment.

    Felony charges against Hotze were dropped in May. He was accused of being involved in an attack on an air conditioning repairman in 2020. The repairman was held at gunpoint during a search for fraudulent voter mail-in ballots that did not exist. Prosecutors alleged at the time that Hotze was not present during the attack but paid a former Houston police captain to do it.

    Hotze was accused of unlawful restraint, two counts of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, and engaging in organized crime. He was jailed for about 10 hours, according to the lawsuit filed last week.

    “For the last four years, Kim Ogg has waged warfare against me because of my efforts to ensure voter integrity in Harris County, and I thank God that today I was vindicated,” Hotze said in May. “I have no regrets in my efforts to stop voter fraud in Harris County. I am committed to continue to do that and I am just getting fired up.”

    The former Houston police captain, Mark Aguirre, is still under investigation for his involvement, with prosecutors saying in May that they would pursue two of five original charges brought against him.

    Taylor is accusing Womack of attacking him with an iron statue while Taylor attempted to deliver a copy of his Houston Business Connections newspaper to Womack’s office in October 2023.

    Taylor was charged in the incident and indicted in 2023 for felony injury to the elderly. Authorities said he initiated the assault on Womack, who served as former U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s campaign chair. Charges were dropped in February, with prosecutors saying that probable cause existed but they couldn’t prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Woodfill claims video evidence of the altercation was destroyed.

    “As the owner of a newspaper, Mr. Taylor was simply exercising his First Amendment rights to speech, when he opposed King in her election, criticized Gerald Womack and Sheila Jackson Lee, and printed articles and attached evidence which purports to show how Defendants Ogg, King and Womack benefitted from illegal ballot harvesting,” the lawsuit states. “Yet, instead of working through lawful channels, Defendants Ogg and King used their political positions to investigate and jail Mr. Taylor.”

    Woodfill said he believes Ogg pursued vendettas against those who opposed her politically. The former district attorney was elected as a Democrat but later admonished by the party for her lack of action on bail reform. Since she lost her bid for re-election, Ogg has appeared at Republican fundraisers and was, earlier this year, rumored to be seeking a Trump appointment in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

    “In the lawsuit, we laid out in great detail the political persecution via the district attorney’s office where our taxpayer funds were actually used or abused in an effort to take out an opponent,” Woodfill said. “When Sean Teare got in there, he reviewed the cases and ultimately dismissed them.”

    Unbeknownst to the Teare administration, a notice of intent to seek hate crime enhancements in all cases pending against Aguirre and Hotze was filed by Warren Diepraam, an outside contract prosecutor hired by Ogg, officials said in May.

    The enhancements were found to be meritless, and the notices were withdrawn, Teare said at the time.

    Woodfill also raised in his legal filing that, as Ogg was leaving office in 2024, she “brought in her buddy,” Warren Diepraam, to take over the prosecution of Hotze and Taylor, even though hundreds of attorneys are employed by the DA’s office. This action cost taxpayers money and provided income for Diepraam, a former Democratic judge candidate and Ogg’s political ally, Woodfill alleges.

    “The case has been pending for years, and when [Diepraam] gets the case, he reindicts Hotze for organized crime and conspiracy to commit a crime, years later, in order to continue to harass Dr. Hotze,” Woodfill said. “Dr. Hotze files suit against him and the very next day, Diepraam filed a motion seeking to have Dr. Hotze prosecuted for hate crimes. It’s just outrageous how the office has been abused in order to take out a political opponent.”

    Woodfill said his goals are to “expose everything” and have his clients compensated.

    “I mean, these gentlemen spent hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said. “They were put in jail, incarcerated. Their names were paraded on the front page of every newspaper in the community. For years, they were fighting to defend their reputations.”

    The attorney added that a jury will determine whether Ogg was operating outside her authority and whether she should be responsible for paying back Hotze and Taylor, or whether the DA’s office has to foot the bill.

    April Towery

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  • Court sides with voodoo worshiper over religious exemption

    BOSTON — A state appeals court has sided with a medical worker and voodoo worshipper who was fired by University of Massachusetts Medical Health Care after her request for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine was rejected.

    The ruling, issued Monday by the state Court of Appeals, overturns a Superior Court ruling that rejected a lawsuit filed by Rachelle Jeune against UMass Medical over its denial of a religious exemption in October 2021 as part of her employment as a surgical technician.


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    By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter

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  • Court sides with voodoo worshiper over religious exemption

    BOSTON — A state appeals court has sided with a medical worker and voodoo worshipper who was fired by University of Massachusetts Medical Health Care after her request for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine was rejected.

    The ruling, issued Monday by the state Court of Appeals, overturns a Superior Court ruling that rejected a lawsuit filed by Rachelle Jeune against UMass Medical over its denial of a religious exemption in October 2021 as part of her employment as a surgical technician.


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    By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter

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  • Settlement reached for woman who said she was injured on Epic Universe ride

    Update: On Friday, September 26 a notice of settlement and a notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice as to the defendant, Universal City Development Partners, Ltd., were both filed in the woman’s lawsuit alleging that she sustained an injury from riding the Stardust Racers roller coaster.The case is still pending as of Saturday, September 27 according to the Orange County Clerk of Courts. A lawyer for the plaintiff says they are unable to make further comment other than confirm a settlement has been. WESH 2 also reached out to Universal Orlando Resort for comment on the settlement and dismissal notices.Original story below:A lawsuit has been filed by a Central Florida woman who claims she was injured on the same ride as a man who was found unresponsive and later died. The man, Kevin Rodriguez Zavala, 32, was found unresponsive on the Stardust Racers roller coaster earlier this month. The Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office determined he died from multiple blunt impact injuries and ruled the death accidental. The woman’s attorney has asked that her name not be released at this time. >> Video above: Incident report details unresponsive man on Epic Universe ride who later diedHer complaint says Stardust Racers caused her head to shake violently and slam against her seat’s headrest. It goes on to say she had a reasonable expectation that the rides inside Epic Universe would be reasonably safe.One of the allegations is that Universal failed to properly restrain her head while riding Stardust Racers. Before the grand opening of Epic Universe in May, she got to check out the new immersive worlds and attractions during the preview period on April 30.The Spetsas-Buist law firm filed the lawsuit on Wednesday, asking for a jury trial to decide how much Universal should compensate their client for her head injuries.Universal Orlando Resort President Karen Irwin said the ride was functioning properly when Rodriguez Zavala was on it. The Ben Crump Law Firm has started its own investigation on behalf of Rodriguez Zavala’s family in search of answers about how he died from what the medical examiner described as blunt impact injuries. What happened to the woman is not included in state records through July 15, which show a 63-year-old man with a pre-existing condition experienced dizziness, and a 47-year-old woman with a pre-existing condition had visual disturbance and numbness after riding Stardust Racers. Universal did not respond to requests from WESH 2 for comment about this new lawsuit. >> This is a developing story and will be updated

    Update:

    On Friday, September 26 a notice of settlement and a notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice as to the defendant, Universal City Development Partners, Ltd., were both filed in the woman’s lawsuit alleging that she sustained an injury from riding the Stardust Racers roller coaster.

    The case is still pending as of Saturday, September 27 according to the Orange County Clerk of Courts. A lawyer for the plaintiff says they are unable to make further comment other than confirm a settlement has been. WESH 2 also reached out to Universal Orlando Resort for comment on the settlement and dismissal notices.

    Original story below:

    A lawsuit has been filed by a Central Florida woman who claims she was injured on the same ride as a man who was found unresponsive and later died.

    The man, Kevin Rodriguez Zavala, 32, was found unresponsive on the Stardust Racers roller coaster earlier this month. The Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office determined he died from multiple blunt impact injuries and ruled the death accidental.

    The woman’s attorney has asked that her name not be released at this time.

    >> Video above: Incident report details unresponsive man on Epic Universe ride who later died

    Her complaint says Stardust Racers caused her head to shake violently and slam against her seat’s headrest. It goes on to say she had a reasonable expectation that the rides inside Epic Universe would be reasonably safe.

    One of the allegations is that Universal failed to properly restrain her head while riding Stardust Racers.

    Before the grand opening of Epic Universe in May, she got to check out the new immersive worlds and attractions during the preview period on April 30.

    The Spetsas-Buist law firm filed the lawsuit on Wednesday, asking for a jury trial to decide how much Universal should compensate their client for her head injuries.

    Universal Orlando Resort President Karen Irwin said the ride was functioning properly when Rodriguez Zavala was on it.

    The Ben Crump Law Firm has started its own investigation on behalf of Rodriguez Zavala’s family in search of answers about how he died from what the medical examiner described as blunt impact injuries.

    What happened to the woman is not included in state records through July 15, which show a 63-year-old man with a pre-existing condition experienced dizziness, and a 47-year-old woman with a pre-existing condition had visual disturbance and numbness after riding Stardust Racers.

    Universal did not respond to requests from WESH 2 for comment about this new lawsuit.

    >> This is a developing story and will be updated

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  • Marshall fire payments due by year’s end, but how Xcel’s $640 million settlement will be divvied up to remain secret

    Marshall fire victims who joined the massive lawsuit against Xcel Energy are expected to receive their portion of the $640 million settlement before the end of the year, but the amount of money each plaintiff receives will not be publicly disclosed.

    Xcel and plaintiffs’ attorneys announced the settlement Wednesday, just one day before the start of jury selection in a two-month civil trial to determine blame for the 2021 wildfire that killed two people and destroyed more than 1,000 homes in Boulder County.

    The full terms of the settlement will not be released, though private corporations involved in the litigation may need to disclose their payouts to shareholders. The individual homeowners who participated in the lawsuit will be required to sign nondisclosure agreements, said Paul Starita, a lawyer at Singleton Schreiber, one of the firms that represented homeowners.

    Teleport Communications America and Qwest Corporation, two co-defendants in the lawsuit, will contribute an undisclosed amount toward the settlement total.

    Not every person or company among the more than 4,000 plaintiffs will receive the same amount of money, Stirata said. The amount each receives will depend on the level of damages.

    Plaintiffs whose houses burned to the ground would be in line to receive more money than people who suffered smoke and soot damage, he said. People who rented housing or owned rental properties were also parties to the lawsuit, as were some people who only evacuated and sued for the nuisance. And claims involving deaths would be compensated with a higher amount.

    Attorneys figured out months ago what percentage of any settlement or jury award each plaintiff should receive, because those dollar figures were part of the mediation and settlement negotiations, Stirata said.

    “You add up all of those figures and the defendant pays you that lump sum and you give that to your clients,” he said. “It’s a fair settlement.”

    Payments should start being distributed within 60 days and be complete by the end of the year, Stirata said.

    The lawyers will also get a cut of the settlement as their payment for taking on the case. Each firm sets its own fee for the clients it accepted, Sirata said. He declined to reveal what percentage Singleton Schreiber will receive.

    A large chunk of the settlement will go to the 200 insurance companies that sued Xcel to compensate for the massive property damage claims they paid in the fire’s aftermath. In a legal filing ahead of the trial, those insurance firms said they suffered $1.7 billion in losses. It is not known what settlement amount they agreed to.

    The Target Corporation was a plaintiff as well because its store in Superior was closed for months due to fire damage. The city of Boulder, Boulder County and the Boulder Valley School District were also plaintiffs.

    The Dec. 30, 2021, Marshall fire was the most devastating wildfire in Colorado history, costing more than $2 billion in damages.

    The fire ignited first on the property of the Twelve Tribes religious cult, which has a compound on Eldorado Drive, near the Marshall Mesa Open Space. That ignition was caused by smoldering embers left over from a Dec. 24 burn-pit fire on the property.

    Noelle Phillips

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  • Justice Department sues California, other states that have declined to share voter rolls

    The U.S. Justice Department sued California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Thursday for failing to hand over the state’s voter rolls, alleging she is unlawfully preventing federal authorities from ensuring state compliance with federal voting regulations and safeguarding federal elections against fraud.

    The Justice Department also sued Weber’s counterparts in Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, who have similarly declined its requests for their states’ voter rolls.

    “Clean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement on the litigation. “Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure — states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court.”

    In its lawsuit against Weber, who is the state’s top elections official, the Justice Department argues that it is charged — including under the National Voter Registration Act — with ensuring that states have proper protocols for registering voters and maintaining accurate and up-to-date rolls, and therefore is due access to state voter rolls in order to ensure they are so maintained.

    “The United States has now been forced to bring the instant action to seek legal remedy for Defendants’ refusal to comply with lawful requests pursuant to federal law,” the lawsuit states.

    Weber, in a statement, called the lawsuit “a fishing expedition and pretext for partisan policy objectives,” a “blatant overreach” and “an unprecedented intrusion unsupported by law or any previous practice or policy of the U.S. Department of Justice.”

    “The U.S. Department of Justice is attempting to utilize the federal court system to erode the rights of the State of California and its citizens by trying to intimidate California officials into giving up the private and personal information of 23 million California voters,” Weber said.

    She said California law requires that state officials “protect our voters’ sensitive private information,” and that the Justice Department not only “failed to provide sufficient legal authority to justify their intrusive demands,” but ignored invitations from the state for federal officials to come to Sacramento and view the data in person — a process Weber said was “contemplated by federal statutes” and would “protect California citizens’ private and personal data from misuse.”

    The Justice Department has demanded a “current electronic copy of California’s computerized statewide voter registration list”; lists of “all duplicate registration records in Imperial, Los Angeles, Napa, Nevada, San Bernardino, Siskiyou, and Stanislaus counties”; a “list of all duplicate registrants who were removed from the statewide voter registration list” and the dates of their removals.

    It has also demanded a list of all registrations that have been canceled because voters in the state died; an explanation for a recent decline in the recorded number of “inactive” voters in the state; and a list of “all registrations, including date of birth, driver’s license number, and last four digits of Social Security Number, that were cancelled due to non-citizenship of the registrant.”

    The litigation is the latest move by the Trump administration to push its demands around voting policies onto individual states, which are broadly tasked under the constitution with managing their own elections.

    The lawsuit follows an executive order by Trump in March that purported to radically reshape voting rules nationwide, including by requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship and requiring states to disregard mail ballots that are not received by election day.

    The order built on years of unsubstantiated claims by Trump — and refuted by experts — that the U.S. voting system currently allows for rampant fraud and abuse, and that those failures compromised the results of elections, including his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.

    Various voting rights groups and 19 states, including California, have sued to block the order.

    Advocacy groups say the order, and especially it’s requirements for proving citizenship, would disenfranchise legal U.S. citizen voters who lack ready access to identifying documents such as passports and REAL IDs. They have said barring the acceptance of mail ballots received after election day would also create barriers for voters, especially in large state such as California that need time to process large volumes of ballots.

    California currently accepts ballots if they are postmarked by election day and received within a certain number of days after.

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has called Trump’s executive order an “illegal power grab” that California and other states will “fight like hell” to stop. His office referred questions about the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit against Weber to Weber’s office.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

    Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, defended the need for the lawsuit, saying in a statement that clean voter rolls “protect American citizens from voting fraud and abuse, and restore their confidence that their states’ elections are conducted properly, with integrity, and in compliance with the law.”

    Weber, who in April called Trump’s executive order “an illegal attempt to trample on the states and Congress’s constitutional authority over elections,” said Thursday that she would not be bowed by the lawsuit.

    “The sensitive data of California citizens should not be used as a political tool to undermine the public trust and integrity of elections,” she said. “I will always stand with Californians to protect states’ rights against federal overreach and our voters’ sensitive personal information. Californians deserve better. America deserves better.”

    Kevin Rector

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  • Widow of D.C. plane crash victim files wrongful death lawsuit against government, airlines

    The widow of one of the victims of the deadly midair collision near Ronald Reagan National Airport in January has filed a lawsuit against the federal government and two airlines for the crash. CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave has the details.

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  • Hershey wins lawsuit claiming its Reese’s Halloween candies aren’t spooky enough

    Hershey received a treat Friday when a judge dismissed a lawsuit claiming the company’s Reese’s candies tricked customers by depicting spooky Halloween designs on their packaging, while the unwrapped chocolates were in fact featureless. 

    U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian ruled Friday that the consumers who filed the class-action lawsuit failed to show that the lack of confectionary details on the chocolate and peanut butter candies, such as missing mouths and eyes on jack-‘o-lanterns, ghosts and other Halloween-themed figures, had cause them economic harm.

    Damian pointed out that while the consumers may have been disappointed by the chocolates’ unwrapped appearances, the candies were not “so flawed as to render them worthless.” In other words, the chocolate still tasted like chocolate, even if they weren’t as haunting as the purchasers had expected from the packaging. 

    A 2024 lawsuit alleged Hershey had engaged in deceptive advertising by depicting chocolate pumpkins with carved faces, when the unwrapped chocolates were blank. A judge dismissed the lawsuit on Sept. 19. 

    U.S. District Court of Southern Florida


    The lawsuit focused on several Hershey candies that are marketed around Halloween, including its Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins and its Reese’s White Ghost, as well as a few other holiday-themed chocolates like its Reese’s Peanut Butter Shapes Assortment Snowmen Stockings Bells. 

    The original lawsuit, filed in 2024, claimed that Hershey used deceptive advertising because the “artistic designs” depicted on the wrappers were absent from the actual candies.

    screenshot-2025-09-24-at-12-52-42-pm.png

    A photo of an unwrapped Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkin included in a 2024 lawsuit alleging deceptive advertising over the difference between the wrapper and the appearance of the actual candy. 

    U.S. District Court of Southern Florida


    But the difference between the wrappers and the chocolates’ actual appearances wasn’t enough to prove “a concrete economic injury,” Damian wrote on Friday.

    “Plaintiffs’ conclusory allegations as to why they have allegedly been deprived of the benefit of their bargain all boil down to their subjective, personal expectations of how the products would or should have looked when unpackaged,” the judge added.

    Anthony Russo, an attorney for the consumers who sued Hershey, said that they intend to amend the complaint.

    “The court is merely saying that the plaintiffs did not expressly allege in the complaint that the products were worthless to them or that they paid a price premium and allowed plaintiffs to amend the complaint, which they will be doing,” Russo told CBS News. 

    He added, “We believe that companies should not be awarded with sales when they falsely represent the main characteristic of the product and only have to pay damages if it can be shown that the consumers paid a premium.”

    Hershey didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

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  • Paradise Entertainment to Appeal Macau Court Decision on LT Game IP Patents

    Paradise Entertainment Limited is challenging a ruling by Macau’s Judicial Court of First Instance, which invalidated two electronic table game patents owned by its subsidiary, LT Game Limited. The case was brought against the defendants: Shuffle Master Asia Limited (Macau and Australia), Shuffle Master Inc., and SG Jogos Ásia S.A. Although the patents had allegedly met all formal registration criteria, the Court declared them null and void.

    Paradise Entertainment Files Appeal about Macau Court’s Decision

    Disagreeing with the Court’s reasoning, Paradise Entertainment has filed an appeal based on legal counsel. The company emphasized that safeguarding intellectual property is essential for innovation, business development, and maintaining confidence in the uniqueness of its products. While affirming its respect for the legal process, Paradise continues to assert the validity and significance of its patents within the industry.

    “We firmly believe that protecting intellectual property rights is essential for fostering innovation, securing business development, and instilling confidence in our clients and society regarding the reliability and uniqueness of our innovative products,” Paradise Entertainment explained. “While we respect the judicial process, we strongly disagree with this decision and remain committed to defending our intellectual property rights.”

    The Court also ordered the plaintiffs to cover the legal costs of the case. Observers suggest that the outcome of the appeal could influence how Macau’s courts approach gaming technology patent disputes in the future.

    What Was the Issue that Started All of This?

    Presiding Judge Chan Chi Weng ruled that the plaintiffs, Jay Chun, Natural Noble Limited, and LT Game Limited, had not met the necessary patent requirements in their attempt to enforce rights over two of their electronic table game (ETG) inventions. LT Game claimed that the defendants, Shuffle Master, had infringed on patents I/150 and I/380 through the use of their gaming machines, including “Rapid Baccarat” and “Rapid Table Game.” 

    LT Game also argued that its patents effectively granted the company exclusive control over the live dealer market for multi-game terminals across Macau. In its lawsuit against Shuffle Master, the company sought injunctions, the removal of infringing equipment, termination of relevant contracts, compensation for damages, and public disclosures related to the alleged patent infringements.

    Industry experts caution that the court’s ruling could have broader implications for future gaming technology patents in the region. The case has drawn attention to how Macau applies the concept of “inventive step” under its patent laws. Observers note that the decision may prompt companies to rethink their patent filing strategies and signal increased scrutiny of patent claims in gaming technology disputes.

    The legal battle comes just as Macau operators are preparing for Golden Week, which runs from September 29 and October 6, and is expected to bring a record-breaking income to the territory.

    Stefan Velikov

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  • Former stylist for Sean

    A former stylist for Sean “Diddy” Combs — who testified against the disgraced music mogul in his federal criminal trial earlier this year — filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing Combs of sexual abuse and violence while he was in Combs’ employ.

    The 37-page lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of Deonte Nash against Combs and Combs’ label, Bad Boy Entertainment, also accuses Combs of sexual battery, human trafficking and false imprisonment.

    According to the lawsuit, Nash said he was hired to be Combs’ stylist around 2008, at the age of 21, and worked for him until about 2018. Nash said that during that time period, he also worked as a stylist and creative director for Combs’ then-girlfriend, R&B singer Cassandra Ventura, who also accused Combs of sexual abuse in a 2023 lawsuit and gave graphic testimony against him in his trial.

    “Nash personally experienced sexual, physical, mental, and emotional abuse at the hands of Defendants during his ten-year employment,” including “forced tests of loyalty and manipulation, sexual harassment and sexual assaults, physical violence and manhandling, labor trafficking, threats of harm, and threats of death,” the lawsuit against Combs reads.

    The lawsuit alleges that Nash was sexually assaulted by Combs on “multiple occasions.”

    Nash said the alleged abuse prompted him to resign in 2018, but Combs “continued to threaten Mr. Nash after his employment ended.”

    CBS News has reached out to Combs’ attorneys for comment on the lawsuit.

    In one incident that Nash claims occurred in 2013 or 2014, Combs discovered that Nash and Ventura had gone out to dinner in L.A. without Combs’ permission. The following day, the lawsuit states, Combs “threw” Nash “onto the car and violently strangled him.”

    On another occasion in 2014, Combs and his security team allegedly entered Nash’s home without permission, during which they “confiscated Mr. Nash’s keys and phone while they forcibly searched the house” for Ventura, the lawsuit says.  

    “After enduring years of abuse, I finally found the courage during the criminal trial, and I am now ready to take action,” Nash said in a statement. “Sean Combs has never taken accountability for the years of harm he inflicted on me and so many others.”

    In July, following a lengthy trial, the 55-year-old Combs was found guilty of two counts of prostitution-related charges, but acquitted on more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. 

    He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 3.

    During the trial, Ventura testified that she was repeatedly physically and sexually abused by Combs over the course of their relationship. She testified about a 2016 incident, which was caught on surveillance video, that showed Combs violently assaulting her in the hallway of a California hotel.

    Nash also testified in the trial that Combs threatened Ventura and that he “would beat her.”

    Nash testified about a time when Combs allegedly grabbed a sleeping Ventura by the hair and started hitting her “pretty hard.” Nash said Ventura’s head hit a bed frame and started bleeding, and Combs then told her, Nash and an assistant, “Look what y’all made me do.”

    Nash testified he dialed 911 but was told to hang up. He said he feared retaliation but did tell some of Combs’ employees about the alleged abuse and told jurors Combs got physical with him a few times.

    During the trial, Combs’ attorneys denied the sexual abuse allegations brought by Ventura against their client, and argued that while evidence showed Combs may have lived a party lifestyle, they claimed he did not engage in racketeering conspiracy or sex trafficking.   

    Nash’s lawsuit seeks both compensatory and punitive damages and demands a jury trial. 

    contributed to this report.

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  • L.A. Attorney Fined $10K for Using ChatGPT in Legal Appeal

    A Los Angeles attorney used AI to improve his appeal, but he didn’t know ChatGPT would make up evidence in the process

    The Hall of Justice
    Credit: Courtesy Tupungato via Adobe Stock

    A Los Angeles attorney has been hit with a historic $10,000 fine after submitting an appeal containing information fabricated by ChatGPT. 

    This marks the largest fine ever issued in California over AI use so far.

    According to the opinion, the appeal contained evidence that was attributed to sources that either did not have the quotations or referred to cases that did not exist entirely. Additionally, of the 23 quotes from the case cited, 21 were found to be made up, according to the court opinion.

    “We therefore publish this opinion as a warning. Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations—whether provided by generative AI,” stated the document.

    Amir Mostafavi, the attorney fined last week, told the court that he had used ChatGPT to improve his appeal and did not read it over before submitting it in July 2023.  A three-judge panel fined him for frivolous appeal, violating court rules, citing fake cases, and for wasting the court’s time and taxpayer dollars. 

    “We therefore publish this opinion as a warning. Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations—whether provided by generative AI,” stated the document.

    Mostafavi told Calmatters that it is unrealistic to expect lawyers not to use AI. Comparing it to how online databases have replaced law libraries. 

    “In the meantime we’re going to have some victims, we’re going to have some damages, we’re going to have some wreckages,” he said. “I hope this example will help others not fall into the hole. I’m paying the price.”

    California is not alone in having issues with AI in legal proceedings. There have been a number of other cases across the nation of attorneys and other legal professionals getting caught using AI. Like in New Jersey this week, where another attorney was hit with a $3000 fine for basically the same reason as here.

    Tara Nguyen

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  • American Airlines failed to divert 8-hour flight after California man suffered 2 strokes, jury finds

    A chef from California’s Central Coast who had two strokes while traveling internationally on American Airlines was awarded more than $9 million after a federal jury concluded employees failed to follow their own protocols to help him.

    In November 2021, Jesus Plasencia, a chef from Watsonville who was 67 at the time, was traveling with his wife, Ana Maria Marcela Tavantzis, on a flight to Madrid from Miami, according to a complaint they filed in federal civil court.

    While the plane was still at the gate, Plasencia suffered a “mini stroke” and temporarily lost the ability to speak or pick up his phone, according to the complaint. His wife alerted a flight attendant and the pilot but instead of alerting medical personnel and following company policy, the lawsuit said the pilot dismissed her concerns, “joked with Plasencia, and cleared him for take-off.”

    Plasencia then had a stroke while the plane was in the air; he was hospitalized after the plane landed in Spain and was in critical condition for more than three weeks before he went back to the U.S., according to court documents. He can’t speak or write and now “depends entirely on daily, significant, around-the-clock, in-home care and intensive rehabilitation,” according to the lawsuit.

    On Thursday, a federal jury in San Jose said American Airlines was on the hook for $9.6 million for its employees failing to follow company protocol in the incident.

    According to the complaint filed in 2023, the flight crew had asked other passengers to monitor Plasencia after he suffered a stroke during the flight, but didn’t tell the pilot about the medical emergency, so the flight wasn’t diverted.

    The couple argued that because American Airlines crew hadn’t followed protocols, Plasencia was delayed getting care for nearly eight hours and could’ve potentially had a better outcome, according to the lawsuit.

    “The safety and well-being of our passengers is our highest priority,” American Airlines said in a statement. “While we respect the jury’s decision, we disagree with the verdict and are currently evaluating next steps.”

    Darren Nicholson of Burns Charest, who represented the couple in the lawsuit, argued that the airline didn’t follow stroke protocol, which calls for immediate medical assistance and diverting the aircraft.

    “It is shocking that American Airlines responded so poorly to a medical emergency like this,” he said in a statement.

    American Airlines was found liable by the jurors under the Montreal Convention, an international treaty that governs international air travel.

    Summer Lin

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  • Woman who tried to sell Elvis Presley’s Graceland sentenced to over 4 years in federal prison

    A Missouri woman was sentenced Tuesday to more than four years in federal prison for scheming to defraud Elvis Presley’s family by trying to auction off his Graceland home and property before a judge halted the brazen foreclosure sale.

    U.S. District Judge John T. Fowlkes Jr. sentenced Lisa Jeanine Findley in federal court in Memphis to four years and nine months behind bars, plus an additional three years of probation. Findley, 54, declined to speak on her own behalf during the hearing.

    Findley pleaded guilty in February to a charge of mail fraud related to the scheme. She also had been indicted on a charge of aggravated identity theft, but that charge was dropped as part of a plea agreement.

    Findley, of Kimberling City, falsely claimed Lisa Marie Presley borrowed $3.8 million from a bogus private lender and had pledged Graceland as collateral for the loan before her death in January 2023, prosecutors said when Findley was charged in August 2024. Findley then threatened to sell Graceland to the highest bidder if Presley’s family didn’t pay a $2.85 million settlement, according to prosecutors.

    Findley posed as three different people allegedly involved with the fake lender, fabricated loan documents and published a fraudulent foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper announcing the auction of Graceland in May 2024, prosecutors said. A judge stopped the sale after Riley Keough, Lisa Marie’s daughter, sued. 

    Experts were baffled by the attempt to sell off one of the most storied pieces of real estate in the country using names, emails and documents that were quickly suspected to be phony.

    Graceland opened as a museum and tourist attraction in 1982 and draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. A large Presley-themed entertainment complex across the street from the museum is owned by Elvis Presley Enterprises. Presley died in August 1977 at the age of 42. Members of the Presley family, including Elvis, Lisa Marie and Benjamin Keough are buried on the property. 

    The public notice for the foreclosure sale of the 13-acre estate said Promenade Trust, which controls the Graceland museum, owed $3.8 million after failing to repay a 2018 loan. Keough inherited the trust and ownership of the home after her mother’s death.

    After the scheme fell apart, Findley tried to make it look like the person responsible was a Nigerian identity thief, prosecutors said. An email sent May 25, 2024, to the AP from the same email as the earlier statement said in Spanish that the foreclosure sale attempt was made by a Nigerian fraud ring that targets old and dead people in the U.S. and uses the internet to steal money.

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  • L.A. Taco journalist sues LAPD in latest allegation of police mistreatment of media

    A journalist for the website L.A. Taco filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department on Thursday, alleging officers have repeatedly interfered with his constitutional right to document sweeps of homeless encampments throughout the city.

    Lexis-Olivier Ray said officers and city sanitation employees have wrongfully threatened him with arrest — and in one instance actually placed him in handcuffs — as he tried to report on encampment sweeps in Skid Row and West L.A. between August and November of last year, according to the complaint.

    “I tried to resolve the issue outside of a courtroom. But instead of trying to come to an understanding, LAPD officers responded by arresting me and holding me in the back of a patrol car in handcuffs for nearly an hour, before releasing me without any charges,” Ray said in a statement. “At a time when the First Amendment is being threatened by people in power, and journalists are under attack, it’s more important than ever to reaffirm our rights to film police and government officials in public spaces without threats of arrest.”

    In some of the incidents, Ray had crossed yellow crime scene tape. But his attorney, Peter Bibring, argued the tape was put up by sanitation workers rather than police and none of the incidents were active crime scenes.

    City workers claimed Ray was interfering with their operations and in a “work zone,” but the suit contends other members of the public were able to walk through the area and he created no disruption.

    “LAPD consistently fails to get the basic point that the First Amendment forbids them from closing areas to the press unless its required for a specific and overriding concern,” Bibring said.

    Jennifer Forkish, the LAPD’s communications director, said that while she could not comment on pending litigation, the department “fully recognizes the rights of the press to cover public spaces and police activity.”

    “Our officers are trained to respect those rights while maintaining public safety,” she said.

    The city attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The lawsuit comes at a time when LAPD’s treatment of the press has come under increasing scrutiny in courtrooms.

    Last week, a judge barred police and federal law enforcement from using less-lethal weapons on journalists after a spate of incidents in which reporters were hurt during summer protests against the Trump administration’s immigration raids. The city also recently settled two lawsuits filed by journalists who claimed they were injured or wrongfully arrested during protests.

    Ray’s lawsuit claims city workers singled him out.

    During one September incident, an officer approached Ray and told him “I know exactly who you are” before demanding he leave the area, according to the complaint. In another, he was observing a clean up behind the yellow tape when a sanitation worker purposefully obstructed his view and ordered him to move back while on a public sidewalk, the suit alleges.

    Last October, an LAPD officer handcuffed Ray on suspicion of interfering with a clean-up. Video from the scene that the reporter posted to X shows the clean-up work continuing uninterrupted even as an officer tells Ray they are going to “put him in cuffs.” Ray was never formally arrested or charged with a crime.

    This is not the first time the department has faced accusations of retaliation against Ray. In 2020, he was arrested for failure to disperse while covering chaotic celebrations that followed the Dodgers World Series victory. A 2021 Times investigation showed that Ray was the only person, among the hundreds in the streets that night, that the LAPD later sought to have charged with a crime.

    Ultimately, Ray was not charged in that incident.

    James Queally

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  • Starbucks workers in Colorado sue over company’s new dress code

    Starbucks workers in Colorado and two other states took legal action against the coffee giant Wednesday, saying it violated the law when it changed its dress code but refused to reimburse employees who had to buy new clothes.

    The employees, who are backed by the union organizing Starbucks’ workers, filed class-action lawsuits in state court in Illinois and Colorado. Workers also filed complaints with California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency. If the agency decides not to seek penalties against Starbucks, the workers intend to file a class-action lawsuit in California, according to the complaints.

    Starbucks didn’t comment directly on the lawsuits Wednesday, but the company said it simplified its dress code to deliver a more consistent experience to customers and give its employees clearer guidance.

    “As part of this change, and to ensure our partners were prepared, partners received two shirts at no cost,” the company said Wednesday. Starbucks refers to its employees as “partners.”

    Starbucks’ new dress code went into effect on May 12. It requires all workers in North America to wear a solid black shirt with short or long sleeves under their green aprons. Shirts may or may not have collars, but they must cover the midriff and armpits.

    Employees must wear khaki, black or blue denim bottoms without patterns or frayed hems or solid black dresses that are not more than 4 inches above the knee. The dress code also requires workers to wear black, gray, dark blue, brown, tan or white shoes made from a waterproof material. Socks and hosiery must be “subdued,” the company said.

    The dress code prohibits employees from having face tattoos or more than one facial piercing. Tongue piercings and “theatrical makeup” are also prohibited.

    Starbucks said in April that the new dress code would make employees’ green aprons stand out and create a sense of familiarity for customers. It comes as the company is trying to reestablish a warmer, more welcoming experience in its stores.

    Before the new dress code went into effect, Starbucks had a relatively lax policy. In 2016, it began allowing employees to wear patterned shirts in a wider variety of colors to give them more opportunities for self-expression.

    The old dress code was also loosely enforced, according to the Colorado lawsuit. But under the new dress code, employees who don’t comply aren’t allowed to start their shifts.

    Brooke Allen, a full-time student who also works at a Starbucks in Davis, California, said she was told by a manager in July that the Crocs she was wearing didn’t meet the new standards and she would have to wear different shoes if she wanted to work the following day. Allen had to go to three stores to find a compliant pair that cost her $60.09.

    Allen has spent an additional $86.95 on clothes for work, including black shirts and jeans.

    “I think it’s extremely tone deaf on the company’s part to expect their employees to completely redesign their wardrobe without any compensation,” Allen said. “A lot of us are already living paycheck to paycheck.”

    Allen said she misses the old dress code, which allowed her to express herself with colorful shirts and three facial piercings.

    “It looks sad now that everyone is wearing black,” she said.

    Dee-Ann Durbin

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  • Trump sues New York Times for $15 billion for alleged

    President Trump is suing The New York Times for $15 billion for what he says in a post on his Truth Social platform is a yearslong pattern of “defamation and libel” by the paper against him.

    Mr. Trump claims in the post that the Times “has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW” and accuses the Times of “becoming a virtual ‘mouthpiece’ for the Radical Left Democrat Party.”

    He says the Times “has engaged in a decades long method of lying” about him, his family and the Trump Organization as well as “the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole.”

    Specifically, the 85-page lawsuit cites a book written by two Times reporters and three articles, all published during the 2024 presidential campaign.

    According to the suit, all were “carefully crafted … with actual malice, calculated to inflict maximum damage upon President Trump, and all published during the height of a Presidential Election.”   

    Defendants include the Times, reporters Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner, who wrote the book, and reporters Peter Baker and Michael Schmidt, who wrote the articles, along with Penguin Random House, the book’s publisher.

    “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success,” published in September 2024, was “false, malicious, and defamatory,” the suit asserts.

    The suit goes on to cite a Times article by Craig and Buettner previewing the book, and articles by Baker and Schmidt.

    It also mentions the Times’ endorsement of Kamala Harris for president, an endorsement the suit calls “deranged.” The Truth Social post says it was “actually put dead center on the front page of The New York Times, something heretofore UNHEARD OF!”

    The suit brings up settlements of other recent legal actions involving CBS News and Paramount, as well as ABC News.

    Mr. Trump also sued The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch for $10 billion in July over a story on his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

    CBS News has reached out to the Times and Penguin for comment.  

    The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Florida.

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  • Disability advocate says Uber drivers frequently refuse to pick him and his service dog up

    The Justice Department is suing Uber, accusing it of allegedly discriminating against passengers with disabilities. The rideshare company denies the claims. Ryan Honick, who is named in the lawsuit, joins CBS News to discuss his experience.

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