BOSTON — The state Legislature has been hit with another lawsuit over its refusal to open up the books to allow a voter-approved audit of its inner workings.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Middlesex County Superior Court by Republican candidate for lieutenant governor Anne Brensley, who asked a judge to declare a voter-approved law giving State Auditor Diana DiZoglio the power to audit the Legislature constitutional and invalidate an internal state House of Representatives rule on audits.
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A handful of Colorado families sued the Adams County Sheriff’s Office this week for refusing to allow in-person jail visits and instead requiring inmates and family members to pay for phone and video calls through a system that has, in five years, put $3.1 million into the sheriff’s coffers.
The lawsuit is focused on visits between parents and children, and argues that prohibiting in-person contact between parents and their kids is both a violation of their constitutional rights and likely to cause long-term harm to everyone involved. The proposed class-action case includes both minor children who want to visit their incarcerated fathers, and mothers who want to visit their incarcerated sons.
“They’ve denied children the right to have contact visits with their parents, to be hugged by them, to look them in the eyes, to have the in-person relationship that is so necessary, especially for a child’s healthy development,” said Dan Meyer, litigation and policy director at Spero Justice Center, one of several organizations involved in the lawsuit.
The Colorado case is the third lawsuit filed as part of a recent nationwide effort to force jails to allow in-person family visits.
Adams County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Shea Haney declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs include 4- and 6-year-old siblings in Adams County who have not been able to visit their father since he was jailed in February, as well as a 9-year-old boy whose stepfather was jailed from June to October.
“To have to tell my child he wasn’t allowed to go see his dad, it was just really painful,” said Autumn Ray, mother of the 9-year-old boy.
She spent as much as $400 a month on calls to the jail during her husband’s incarceration, she said. A phone call to the jail currently costs 15 cents a minute, while video calls cost 20 cents a minute, according to the lawsuit.
Ray’s calls to the jail routinely stretched over an hour, she said, in part because the system for making calls often did not work, so she and her husband, whom she declined to name, would have more to catch up on when they could connect. The parents decided that spending the money on the phone calls was necessary as their son struggled with his dad’s absence, she said.
“His dad and I talked and decided it was worth using some of our savings for him to still be able to talk to his dad on the phone, because otherwise the full brunt of parenting a neurodivergent, grief-stricken child was fully on me,” she said.
The lawsuit alleges that the sheriff’s office is denying in-person visits to ramp up profits from the video and phone calls, and notes that the Colorado Supreme Court ordered the Adams County sheriff to allow in-person jail visits in 1978 — an order they say still stands. The jail has rooms dedicated to such visits that are going unused, the lawsuit alleges.
The jail has not allowed in-person visits for family and friends since at least 2006, and stopped offering free video calls at kiosks in its lobby in 2020, according to the complaint.
The jail now uses a company called HomeWAV to allow video and phone calls between inmates and their friends and family. The arrangement calls for the sheriff’s office to receive at least 40% of video call money and 80% of phone call money, according to the lawsuit.
The sheriff’s office has received $3.1 million under the contract since 2020, while HomeWAV has earned about $1.7 million, according to the complaint.
“We are confident this can be done safely and affordably,” Meyer said.
Colorado lawmakers this year passed a new law that made in-person visitation a right for prisoners, and specified that it could not be replaced with video calls. The state’s prisons are run separately from county jails.
Alexandra Jordan, an attorney at Public Justice, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization also involved in the lawsuit, said the visitation policy is entirely within the control of Adams County officials.
“They could choose to change their policy tomorrow, and we hope that they do,” she said.
Ray, whose husband was recently transferred to a state prison, is now going through a 60-day waiting period before she and her son can visit in person. She marked the date — in the first week of December — on the calendar for her son, so he could see the first time in six months they’ll be able to visit his dad face to face.
Highland Park activist Robert Davis is suing Detroit mayoral candidate Solomon Kinloch Jr. for slander and defamation, claiming the megachurch leader maliciously lied about him during and after a recent debate.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in Oakland County Circuit Court, argues Kinloch falsely alleged Davis was a “covert operative” for Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield, who is the leading mayoral candidate.
Kinloch’s claims come after Metro Times wrote a series of stories about delinquent water bills and controversial property deals involving the reverend and his Triumph Church, which has more than 40,000 members and seven locations.
During a televised mayoral debate on Oct. 15, Kinloch claimed without presenting evidence that Davis was a paid operative for Sheffield’s campaign.
“When she [Sheffield] talks about my integrity and allegations, she’s talking about her covert operative that’s throwing rocks while they hide their hand,” Kinloch said. “All of these assaults have come by one person — Robert Davis.”
During a post-debate interview with reporters, Kinloch also alleged Davis approached his campaign with offers to “dig up dirt” on Sheffield for money.
Two newspaper reporters called Davis to ask for his comment on the allegations, and The Detroit News published a story that included Kinloch’s “false and defamatory statements,” the lawsuit states.
Davis emphatically denies those allegations and says Kinloch fabricated the claims in an attempt to “resuscitate his failing and bewildered mayoral campaign.” Davis added that the “false and defamatory statements” were made “with actual malice.”
“Kinloch has a strong animus, hatred and dislike for the Plaintiff because Plaintiff has exposed to the media and to the general public Defendant Kinloch’s past criminal convictions for beating and assaulting his ex-wife and Plaintiff has revealed and exposed fraudulent real-estate transactions between Defendants Kinloch and Triumph Church, which are currently under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”),” Davis wrote in the lawsuit.
A Detroit News and WDIV survey conducted Oct. 16-18 shows Sheffield leading the race with support from about 65% of likely voters, compared with 14% for Kinloch. Another 20% said they’re undecided, and roughly 1% backed another candidate.
The winner will replace three-term Mayor Mike Duggan, who has endorsed Sheffield and is running for governor in 2026 as an independent.
Davis, who is a political consultant, is seeking at least $250,000 in damages, saying he “has lost out on potential clients” as a result of Kinloch’s “false and defamatory statements.”
In addition, Davis is asking a judge to declare that Triumph’s purchase and sale of the former AMC Star Southfield theater site in Southfield “was NOT for a lawful church or religious purchase” and “was fraudulent in violation of Michigan and Internal Revenue Service laws.
Two years earlier, Kinloch said Triumph was trying to purchase the property to convert into a church, community space, and a resource center for people in need. Kinloch said construction would begin in 2023 and take about 18 to 24 months to finish.
For unknown reasons, that never happened. It’s also unclear why the church would convey the property to an LLC, which would be required to pay taxes.
Kinloch’s church and campaign have declined to answer questions about the property deal and did not respond to Davis’s lawsuit.
Triumph Church bought the 5,177-square-foot house in Oakland Township in April 2013 for $841,600, financing the purchase with a $631,200 mortgage, which Kinloch signed on behalf of the church, according to the deed and mortgage records. That left roughly $210,000 to be covered in cash.
Nine months later, in January 2014, the church sold the property to Kinloch for the same price, and he also financed his purchase with a $631,200 mortgage, leaving $210,000 to be paid in advance, according to deeds and mortgage records. Triumph Church officials declined to say who paid the remaining $210,000 when Kinloch acquired the house.
State law requires nonprofit officers to act in the church’s best interests and scrutinize insider transactions. Federal tax law forbids “private inurement,” or unreasonable personal benefits to insiders.
Could AI-generated videos of celebrities upend the creator economy’s old guard? That’s the question posed in a recent lawsuit filed by video messaging app Cameo against OpenAI—the latest legal action thrown at the AI juggernaut this year.
The newest version of OpenAI’s Sora 2 video-generation app includes a feature that allows users to generate synthetic video of themselves on demand. To promote the feature, celebrity likenesses, such as investor Mark Cuban and the creator Jake Paul, are already available on the app, enabling select Sora users to flood their friends’ inboxes with personalized greetings from the rich and famous.
For the company Cameo, Sora 2’s latest feature is particularly grating—largely because it’s also called Cameo, says Steve Galanis, CEO of the creator economy app, founded in Chicago in 2017. “I’m not concerned about competition. If that model beats our model, I don’t like to lose, but that’s okay,” Galanis tells Inc. “What we’re very specifically fighting is calling it what they did. So forget the technology, forget the business model.”
The complaint, filed Tuesday in a California Federal District Court, says that by using the same name for its new feature, Sora 2 poses an “imminent, existential, and potentially lethal threat” to Cameo’s business.
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Though Sora 2’s Cameo is only in beta and available via invite to users in select markets, synthetic celebrity videos have swarmed social media since the app’s update on September 30. The wave of fake videos has ensnared Galanis’ company in the kind of confusion that’s only become more common in the age of deepfakes and online deception. He says that customer service queries for Sora 2’s Cameo that users have entered into ChatGPT serve links back to the original Cameo.
Sora 2’s update also has social media users falsely attributing the synthetic celebrity videos to Cameo, Galanis claims. “From a customer confusion perspective, as these videos are coming out, people are tagging Cameo on TikTok and Instagram with these Sora videos.” This problem will only compound if the product is rolled globally, the Cameo chief argues. “Millions of AI slop videos coming over our search results could be existential to our business.”
The complaint seeks an unspecified amount of injunctive monetary relief, and alleges a variety of offenses, including trademark dilution, trademark infringement, and unfair competition. Galanis says that Cameo sent OpenAI a cease and desist letter earlier this month, but Sora’s celebrity feature was still released with the same name.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has steered his company to titanic prominence in the field as the company reportedly gears up for an IPO at a $1 trillion valuation. Altman wrote on his personal blog earlier this month on the heels of the Sora update: “We will make some good decisions and some missteps, but we will take feedback and try to fix the missteps very quickly.”
An OpenAI spokesperson tells Inc: “We’re reviewing the complaint, but we disagree that anyone can claim exclusive ownership over the word ‘cameo.’”
“They’ve been a bad actor here,” Galanis says. “The genie is not going back in the bottle, these technologies are here to stay. But I do think that when they’re rolled out in a really disgusting way like that, it turns a lot of people off,” Galanis tells Inc.
Ironically, Galanis says he’s fed the complaint into OpenAI’s flagship product ChatGPT to assess the strength of Cameo’s case. “It’s an interesting read,” he says with a smirk.
Drake isn’t backing down from his defamation claims against Universal Music Group.
Source: Prince Williams / Getty
The Canadian rapper has filed a notice of appeal in his case against UMG and their promotion of Kendrick Lamar‘s highly lauded diss track, “Not Like Us.”
Representatives for Drake filed the appeal on Wednesday morning, writing that the rapper was providing notice of appeal to the District Court’s opinion and order from earlier this month, per Variety. As for his legal team’s arguments over the basis of the appeal, those are expected to be made at a later date.
“This confirms our intent to appeal, and we look forward to the Court of Appeals reviewing that filing in the coming weeks,” a rep for Drake said in a statement to Variety.
As previously reported, U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas ruled earlier this month that the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” are expressions of opinion rather than statements of fact.
“A reasonable listener could not have concluded that ‘Not Like Us’ was conveying objective facts about Drake,” she ruled.
Aubrey’s legal battle came to encompass more than just UMG’s alleged defamation, with his team demanding internal documents tied to allegations of domestic violence against Lamar and probing the nature of Dave Free’s relationship with Lamar’s children. Drake’s lawyers sought “All Documents and Communications … relating to allegations of domestic violence … committed by Kendrick Lamar” in those filings, also requesting materials on “David Isaac Friley (a/k/a Dave Free) and his relationship with Kendrick Lamar and Kendrick Lamar’s children.”
The Toronto native also accused UMG of orchestrating a “financial conspiracy” by promoting Lamar’s music at the expense of his brand, making secret payments, and reducing licensing offers to third parties to suppress Drake’s value during contract talks. His team went on to demand UMG produce redacted versions of Lamar’s record contract (claiming it was unfairly censored), and documentation involving prior label censorship (citing Pusha T’s “Story of Adidon”) as precedent.
However, in her ruling, Judge Vargas refused to treat rap-battle lyrics as binding statements of fact, emphasizing that diss tracks use hyperbolic, provocative language by nature:
“The average listener is not under the impression that a diss track is the product of a thoughtful or disinterested investigation,” she wrote, according to The Hollywood Reporter. She added that the “rhetorical style, tone, and context, full of profanity and rhetorical flourish, clearly mark the song as expressive opinion rather than factual assertion.”
A cash-strapped school district that’s looking to unload a shuttered elementary school.
A nonprofit human services agency that’s in need of a bigger home as it serves more than 60,000 households a year.
And a judge who’s telling Colorado’s fifth-largest city not to make any moves on the whole situation — a complex deal that would allow the agency to move into the school — until she can determine whether everything is on the up and up.
That’s the strange nexus at which Lakewood, Jeffco Public Schools and The Action Center have found themselves after their proposed real estate deal was challenged in court by a former Lakewood city councilwoman who thinks the whole arrangement is “taking place in secret.”
“Government should have to do this in a way that’s transparent and above board — and includes the public in this kind of decision-making,” said Anita Springsteen, who’s also an attorney. “I think it’s unethical. I think it’s wrong.”
The deal on the table calls for Lakewood to purchase Emory Elementary — which closed three years ago because of declining enrollment — from Jeffco Public Schools for $4 million. At the same time, the city would buy The Action Center’s existing facility on West 14th Avenue for $4 million.
The Action Center, in turn, would buy Emory from the city for $1 million when the organization, which for more than a half-century has provided free clothing and food, family services and financial assistance to those in need, moves to its new home in the former school on South Teller Street.
The core problem, Springsteen says, is that Lakewood did not properly announce two September 2024 executive sessions during which officials discussed details of the deal in private. In a lawsuit, she accused the city of violating Colorado’s open meetings law, which requires governments to state, in advance and “in as much detail as possible,” what will be discussed behind closed doors “without compromising the purpose for the executive session.”
Jefferson County District Judge Meegan Miloud had enough questions last week about how Lakewood gave public notice of its executive sessions that she imposed a temporary restraining order on the City Council — forbidding it from voting on three ordinances that would authorize the deal to move forward.
The council had been scheduled to consider the measures Monday night.
Miloud said the city’s executive session notices on the council’s September 2024 agendas were “so vague that the public has no way of identifying or discerning what is being negotiated or what property is being assessed.”
On Tuesday morning, the judge conducted a hearing on the matter but did not make a ruling. She called another hearing for next Monday and said in a new order that her injunction remains in effect.
The fast-moving situation has Lakewood playing defense. A special council meeting that had been set for Wednesday night — to once again put the ordinances up for a council vote — will now have to be rescheduled, city spokeswoman Stacie Oulton said.
Lakewood, she contended, has been open throughout the process.
“The public process has included updates from the city manager during public City Council meetings, and the city has followed the public notification process for these agenda items,” she told The Denver Post in an email this week. “Additionally, the proposed end user of the property, the Action Center, has had several public community meetings about its proposal.”
Anita Springsteen, a lawyer and former Lakewood city councilwoman, is leading a challenge to a complex land deal between the City of Lakewood, Jeffco Public Schools and The Action Center that would bring the humans services nonprofit to the former Emory Elementary School in Lakewood on Oct. 28, 2025. She posed for a portrait outside the former school. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Questions about meetings, market value
Jeff Roberts, the executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said it was “unusual” for a judge, via a temporary restraining order, to preempt a city council from casting a vote.
But case law, he said, makes it clear that governing bodies in Colorado must provide as much detail as possible when they announce closed-door sessions — short of disclosing or jeopardizing strategies and positions that are crucial in real estate negotiations.
“In general, an announcement that doesn’t give any indication of the topic is not enough information for the public,” Roberts said. “In most cases — and that’s why it’s in the law — you must tell the public what the executive session is about.”
That standard, he said, was upheld by the Colorado Court of Appeals in 2020, when it ruled that the Basalt Town Council violated the state’s open meetings law several times in 2016 by not properly announcing the topic of private deliberations it would be having regarding a former town manager.
In the Lakewood school matter, the alleged open meetings violations are not the only thing that bothers Springsteen. She objects to the structure of the proposed real estate transaction, saying it would be a sweetheart deal for The Action Center and a waste of money for taxpayers.
“They are stealing money out of our pockets,” said Springsteen, who served on City Council from 2019 to 2023.
Lakewood, she said, would be underpaying for the 17-acre Emory Elementary School parcel, overpaying for The Action Center’s current facility and basically giving the school property away to the nonprofit.
“For the city to not intend to own the property, but to buy it on behalf of a nongovernmental organization — when did we become an agent for other agencies?” Springsteen said.
According to the Jefferson County assessor’s site, The Action Center’s buildings on West 14th Avenue have a total value of about $2 million, while the city has proposed purchasing them for double that. The assessor’s office lists Emory Elementary as having a total value of up to $12 million.
Springsteen said she is flummoxed by the Jeffco school district’s willingness to sell the elementary school to Lakewood for a third of that valuation.
“What bothers me most is the way Jeffco schools is handling this,” she said. “The district didn’t even have a school resource officer at Evergreen High School because of budgetary issues.”
A spokesperson for Jeffco schools said a decision on whether to sell Emory Elementary to Lakewood hadn’t been made yet. That vote, by the district’s school board, is expected Nov. 13.
Raven Price picks out food at The Action Center’s food bank in Lakewood on Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
‘We need to bring this into our community’
Pam Brier, the CEO of The Action Center, said property values don’t tell the full story.
“There are many instances locally and nationally of municipalities helping to support the affordable acquisition of properties for organizations like The Action Center — who are serving such a critical need in our community,” she said, “and ultimately saving taxpayer money by helping to meet people’s basic needs.”
On Wednesday, she provided The Denver Post a May 2024 appraisal done by Centennial-based Masters Valuation Services that valued the organization’s current facility — made up of a 14,960-square-foot building and a 15,540-square-foot building — at $4 million.
Her organization, Brier said, serves 300 households a day. It provides a free grocery and clothing market, financial assistance, free meals, family coaching, skills classes and workforce support to people who are down on their luck.
“As public dollars dwindle, our work is more important than ever,” she said. “Without organizations like The Action Center to provide food, clothing and other critical support, individuals and families fall into crisis, needing assistance that will cost taxpayers and cities so much more.”
Oulton, the Lakewood city spokeswoman, said it was not unusual for cities and counties across metro Denver to “provide financial support in a variety of ways to nonprofits that serve their communities.”
“Additionally, Jeffco Public Schools has clearly communicated to the city that the district views the value of this project in more than the dollars involved, because the district’s priority has been to see former schools used in a way that will continue providing services and support to Jeffco Public Schools students and their families,” Oulton said.
Diana Losacco, a 48-year resident of Lakewood who lives about a mile from the Emory site, was one of more than three dozen people who urged the city to pursue the purchase and sale of the school to The Action Center on the Lakewood Speaks website.
Raven Price and her 4-year-old son, Gabriel Luna, head home with a wagon full of food they selected from The Action Center’s food bank in Lakewood on Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
“This will provide opportunities to people to become self-sufficient, which will provide significant financial savings for our community,” Losacco told The Post in an interview. “We need to bring this into our community. It needs to be in a neighborhood.”
But not her neighborhood, said Katherine Byrne. Byrne has owned Stockton Pet Hospital on South Wadsworth Boulevard for six years. The business, which was founded in 1964, sits just a few hundred feet west of Emory Elementary.
There are enough challenges with assaults, shots fired and drug dealing in the vicinity, especially along the nearby bike path, Byrne said. Because The Action Center won’t be providing overnight shelter space at its new location for people who are homeless, she worries about where people using the organization’s services might go once the doors close.
And she wonders why the city didn’t look at wealthier areas of Lakewood for potential sites to relocate The Action Center.
“It’s just a ridiculous, unsavory plan to put this center in the middle of a neighborhood that didn’t know it was coming,” Byrne said.
25 states sue Trump administration over SNAP food stamp funding freeze – CBS News
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25 states are suing the Trump administration to stop federal food aid from being suspended amid the government shutdown. CBS News correspondent Nicole Valdes has more.
Otter Tail County will pay a former inmate who was deprived of food, water and medical care $200,000 and will change several policies as part of a settlement agreement.
Ramsey Kettle, the ACLU of Minnesota and co-counsel Norton Rose Fulbright sued the jail and several staff members last year.
The lawsuit said staff kept Kettle in solitary confinement in an “unsanitary cell covered with human feces” for days. Staff ignored him as he showed increasing signs of physical and mental distress, and denied him food and water until he cleaned his cell.
Kettle is a lifelong Otter Tail County resident and citizen of the White Earth Nation. He’s been housed at the jail multiple times, and the lawsuit claimed that staff were aware of his serious mental health condition for years.
The jail also agreed to making multiple changes to policies, including requiring officers to report when another officer withholds food or water as a disciplinary measure. The jail will also require officers to conduct meaningful welfare checks and will no longer be “rolling over” disciplinary segregation time that remains when the person is released from jail to the next time they’re held at the jail.
Kettle was held at the jail in February 2024 on charges that were later dropped.
“While the court’s decision and this settlement cannot undo the unlawful torture Mr. Kettle endured, they have shone a light on Otter Tail County’s failure to respect the human rights of those in their custody,” said ACLU-MN Staff Attorney Catherine Ahlin-Halverson. Mr. Kettle’s settlement has established policies that will help to protect the rights of everyone in the jail’s care in the future and ensure that the withholding of food and water as punishment ends here.”
WCCO has reached out to Otter Tail County for comment.
A coalition of 25 Democratic-run states sued the Trump administration Tuesday to prevent billions of dollars of cuts to federal food assistance that are set to kick in this weekend.Democratic attorneys general and governors from 25 states and Washington, D.C., claimed in the lawsuit that the Trump administration was threatening “illegal” cuts to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps.The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program for 42 million Americans, “cannot simply suspend all benefits indefinitely, while refusing to spend funds from available appropriations for SNAP benefits for eligible households,” the lawsuit claims.The Trump administration has argued it does not have the power to use that pot of existing money — known as its contingency fund — to cover the SNAP program beyond Saturday, because of the federal government shutdown.”The contingency fund is not available to support FY 2026 regular benefits, because the appropriation for regular benefits no longer exists,” officials in the Department of Agriculture wrote in a memo last week.The risk of tens of millions of Americans losing food aid has triggered intense anxiety across Washington, as the government shutdown nears the one-month mark.Top lawmakers from both parties acknowledge it would be the most significant impact of the shutdown to date, with House Speaker Mike Johnson privately warning his GOP members on a call Tuesday that the pain was about to spike for everyday Americans.Senate Democrats have now voted 13 times to block a GOP funding bill because it does not include their separate demands on extending health care subsidies. But GOP leaders have refused to negotiate on the subsidies until the government reopens, leaving both parties in a bitter stalemate with no clear way out.Democrats have been unflinching in their stance, despite the looming Saturday deadline for the food aid. They argue that President Donald Trump has sought to “weaponize” the food assistance program, intentionally choosing not to fund the aid to pressure Democrats to yield.Fight over food aidShortly after the lawsuit was filed Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told CNN that there isn’t enough contingency funding to cover SNAP benefits for November, which she said would cost about $9.2 billion.”As of today, that $9.2 billion, we don’t even have close to that in contingency funding,” Rollins said. “We’ve got to get this government open.”She added that “all it takes is a yes on a continuing resolution to keep the government going, and to send that (SNAP) money out to the states.”A so-called clean continuing resolution would extend government funding at current levels. But congressional Democrats have opposed that because Republicans haven’t agreed to negotiate on the expiring health care subsidies.The White House referred CNN to the Office of Management and Budget for comment on the lawsuit. An OMB spokesperson said in a statement that “Democrats chose to shut down the government knowing full well that SNAP would soon run out of funds. It doesn’t have to be this way, and it’s sad they are using the families who rely on it as pawns.”Democratic attorney general: ‘This is wrong’The Democratic-run states filed the lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court. Court records indicate the case was randomly assigned to District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee who was confirmed in a bipartisan and unanimous Senate vote in 2014.Congress approved $6 billion for a “SNAP-specific contingency fund” in the spending bill that averted a shutdown in March, the lawsuit notes. The lawsuit also points out that, as recently as September, the USDA website identified these funds as part of its plan to keep the food stamp payments flowing in case of a government shutdown.North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, a Democrat, accused the Trump administration of using SNAP benefits “to play shutdown politics” at a news conference Tuesday announcing his support for the lawsuit.”The truth is the department has the money,” Jackson said, adding, “They are looking to ratchet up the pain in an already painful moment. This is wrong, and it’s against the law.”
A coalition of 25 Democratic-run states sued the Trump administration Tuesday to prevent billions of dollars of cuts to federal food assistance that are set to kick in this weekend.
Democratic attorneys general and governors from 25 states and Washington, D.C., claimed in the lawsuit that the Trump administration was threatening “illegal” cuts to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program for 42 million Americans, “cannot simply suspend all benefits indefinitely, while refusing to spend funds from available appropriations for SNAP benefits for eligible households,” the lawsuit claims.
The Trump administration has argued it does not have the power to use that pot of existing money — known as its contingency fund — to cover the SNAP program beyond Saturday, because of the federal government shutdown.
“The contingency fund is not available to support FY 2026 regular benefits, because the appropriation for regular benefits no longer exists,” officials in the Department of Agriculture wrote in a memo last week.
The risk of tens of millions of Americans losing food aid has triggered intense anxiety across Washington, as the government shutdown nears the one-month mark.
Top lawmakers from both parties acknowledge it would be the most significant impact of the shutdown to date, with House Speaker Mike Johnson privately warning his GOP members on a call Tuesday that the pain was about to spike for everyday Americans.
Senate Democrats have now voted 13 times to block a GOP funding bill because it does not include their separate demands on extending health care subsidies. But GOP leaders have refused to negotiate on the subsidies until the government reopens, leaving both parties in a bitter stalemate with no clear way out.
Democrats have been unflinching in their stance, despite the looming Saturday deadline for the food aid. They argue that President Donald Trump has sought to “weaponize” the food assistance program, intentionally choosing not to fund the aid to pressure Democrats to yield.
Fight over food aid
Shortly after the lawsuit was filed Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told CNN that there isn’t enough contingency funding to cover SNAP benefits for November, which she said would cost about $9.2 billion.
“As of today, that $9.2 billion, we don’t even have close to that in contingency funding,” Rollins said. “We’ve got to get this government open.”
She added that “all it takes is a yes on a continuing resolution to keep the government going, and to send that (SNAP) money out to the states.”
A so-called clean continuing resolution would extend government funding at current levels. But congressional Democrats have opposed that because Republicans haven’t agreed to negotiate on the expiring health care subsidies.
The White House referred CNN to the Office of Management and Budget for comment on the lawsuit. An OMB spokesperson said in a statement that “Democrats chose to shut down the government knowing full well that SNAP would soon run out of funds. It doesn’t have to be this way, and it’s sad they are using the families who rely on it as pawns.”
Democratic attorney general: ‘This is wrong’
The Democratic-run states filed the lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court. Court records indicate the case was randomly assigned to District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee who was confirmed in a bipartisan and unanimous Senate vote in 2014.
Congress approved $6 billion for a “SNAP-specific contingency fund” in the spending bill that averted a shutdown in March, the lawsuit notes. The lawsuit also points out that, as recently as September, the USDA website identified these funds as part of its plan to keep the food stamp payments flowing in case of a government shutdown.
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, a Democrat, accused the Trump administration of using SNAP benefits “to play shutdown politics” at a news conference Tuesday announcing his support for the lawsuit.
“The truth is the department has the money,” Jackson said, adding, “They are looking to ratchet up the pain in an already painful moment. This is wrong, and it’s against the law.”
BOSTON — Democratic Attorney General Andrea Campbell is running for reelection, touting her efforts to protect civil rights and consumer protections and filing litigation pushing back against the Trump administration’s divisive policies.
Campbell, the state’s first Black attorney general, announced Tuesday that she plans to seek another four-year term as the state’s top law enforcement official in the 2026 elections.
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President Donald Trump is facing legal action over the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, part of a $300 million plan to build a new ballroom on the executive grounds.
A Virginia couple, Charles and Judith Voorhees, filed an emergency motion in federal court on October 23 seeking to halt the project, alleging that it violates multiple federal preservation and planning laws.
Newsweek contacted the White House and attorneys for the couple for comment via email outside of normal office hours on Friday.
Why It Matters
The fight over Trump’s demolition project goes beyond a construction dispute—it’s a test of presidential power, public ownership, and historic preservation.
The Voorhees lawsuit seeking to halt the project argues that Trump bypassed laws meant to protect national landmarks and public transparency.
At stake is whether a sitting president can unilaterally alter one of the country’s most symbolically important buildings, or whether the “People’s House” must remain subject to the same review and accountability standards that govern other federal projects.
What To Know
The Lawsuit And What It Alleges
The filing, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, requests a temporary restraining order “to halt defendants’ destruction of the East Wing of the White House… without legally required approvals or reviews,” according to the plaintiffs’ application for injunctive relief.
The defendants are listed as Trump, in his official capacity, and Jessica Brown, director of the National Park Service.
Attorney Mark R. Denicore, who represents the Voorheeses, said he acted quickly to file the case. “I threw that together as fast as I could to try to get it filed as fast as I could,” Denicore told Politico on Thursday.
He added that his clients “are just people, U.S. citizens, that don’t like their house being torn down without going through proper procedures.”
The complaint argues that the administration began demolishing the East Wing without first submitting final plans to the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) or consulting with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the D.C. State Historic Preservation Office.
It also cites an alleged failure to seek guidance from the Commission of Fine Arts, which traditionally reviews exterior changes to federal landmarks.
Addressing questions about the president’s earlier remarks that his planned ballroom project would not affect the existing structure of the White House, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration had made clear from the start that the East Wing would need to be “modernized.” She added that “plans changed” after Trump consulted with architects and construction firms working on the project.
“We respectfully urge the Administration and the National Park Service to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes,” wrote Carol Quillen, the organization’s president and chief executive.
Quillen said the planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom “will overwhelm the White House itself,” which spans about 55,000 square feet.
The Project And Its Wider Implications
The White House has framed Trump’s new ballroom as the latest in a long tradition of presidential renovations, comparing it to historic presidential expansions from Theodore Roosevelt’s West Wing to John F Kennedy’s Rose Garden and Harry Truman’s full reconstruction.
Officials have likened it to past expansions such as the creation of the West Wing and reconstruction of the Executive Mansion. The East Wing, first built in 1902 and expanded during World War II, historically housed the first lady’s offices and the White House Social Office.
The structure sits above the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, a Cold War-era bunker constructed in 1942.
The White House has defended the project as both lawful and consistent with presidential authority. Trump has argued the White House needs a large entertaining space, criticizing the past practice of presidents hosting state dinners and other large events in tents on the South Lawn.
“President Trump has full legal authority to modernize, renovate, and beautify the White House—just like all of his predecessors did,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Politico.
Leavitt also described public criticism as “fake outrage,” telling Fox News that “nearly every single president who has lived in this beautiful White House… has made modernizations and renovations of their own.”
According to a July 31 White House press release, the ballroom will replace the “small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing” with a larger facility capable of hosting 650 guests.
The design, by Washington-based McCrery Architects, aims to match “the theme and architectural heritage” of the existing building, it added.
The statement said the project would be privately funded through donations from “patriot donors” and completed before the end of Trump’s term. But the White House has not released a full list of the donors who have contributed to the project, raising ethical concerns and questions about conflicts of interest.
Preservation experts note that the White House grounds are governed by multiple overlapping statutes, though the Executive Residence has historically been treated as exempt from some federal planning reviews.
Sara C. Bronin, Freda H. Alverson Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School, and former chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, said: “There are other federal statutes requiring the administration to take certain steps before they act to do anything on White House grounds, if they had, they would have no doubt refrained from bulldozing our shared history.”
What Happens Next
It remains unclear whether the Voorhees lawsuit will gain traction. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., will decide whether to grant the temporary restraining order sought by the couple to halt the project, but no hearing date has been set in the case.
The court ruling will determine whether the renovation continues and could set precedent on how much control a president has over altering the nation’s most historic residence.
Federal courts generally require plaintiffs to show a specific, personal injury to establish standing—a high bar for citizens objecting to government property decisions since courts often dismiss cases brought by citizens without a direct stake.
Even if the case proceeds, most of the East Wing has already been torn down, making a work stoppage largely symbolic.
Oversight bodies such as the National Capital Planning Commission may still review the ballroom plans, but their authority over the Executive Residence is limited.
A federal judge threw out Shante Kelly’s suit under New York City’s gender-violence law, saying her story was too vague and may have taken place outside of New York City
A federal judge has dismissed a civil lawsuit accusing Sean “Diddy” Combs of drugging and raping an independent artist named Shante Kelly, but left the door open for her to refile her case if she can fix the errors in question.
In a 22-page opinion, Judge Valerie Caproni ruled that Shante Kelly’s lawsuit failed to allege sufficient facts to connect Combs or his affiliated companies to the alleged assault. The complaint, filed under New York City’s Victims of Gender Motivated Violence Protection Act, claimed that Kelly was assaulted after being invited to a party hosted by Combs.
Judge Caproni granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss, but said Kelly could amend and refile her complaint by November 21, 2025, if she can correct the “deficiencies.”
In the matter of Kelly v. Combs,
The motion to dismiss is GRANTED, with leave to amend by November 21 and establish the alleged incident occurred in New York City. pic.twitter.com/3GNThDrWrm
According to court documents, Caproni found that Kelly’s filing did not clearly establish where the alleged assault occurred, an element for jurisdiction under the law. Kelly described a “large, white, elegant house with a curved driveway” in Manhattan, but Combs’s attorneys argued no such residence exists in the city, and that the description better matches Combs’s East Hampton property, which lies outside the court’s jurisdiction.
The judge also criticized Kelly’s legal team for admitting the uncertainty about the location, noting that attorneys are required under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to verify these types of claims before filing. “A lawyer may not plead facts that might be true but for which the lawyer has no evidentiary support,” Caproni wrote in the opinion brief.
Caproni also rejected Kelly’s request to begin discovery to determine where the alleged assault took place, stating that discovery “is not a fishing expedition to find out whether a viable claim exists.” The dismissal was issued without prejudice, meaning Kelly can refile if she provides factual evidence showing that the alleged assault occurred within New York City and that Combs’s business entities, including Bad Boy Entertainment and Combs Global, were directly involved.
The decision marks a much-needed legal victory for Combs; attorneys for both sides have not commented on the ruling.
BEVERLY — A lawsuit brought by parents over the November 2024 Beverly teachers strike is on hold as the state’s Appeals Court decides the fate of a similar case in Newton.
Janelle Donahue, of Beverly, and Erica Kostro, of Quincy, filed the suit on behalf of their children against the Beverly Teachers Association and its president, Andrea Sherman, in Salem Superior Court in June.
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When the Melania token launched in January, Donald Trump’s supporters and speculative crypto investors were quick to hop on board, quickly taking the memecoin to an all-time high of $13.73 and a market cap over $2 billion. Today, the token trades for less than a dime and its market cap is about $84.8 million. A lawsuit alleges the backers of that coin launched it as part of a fraud campaign meant to enrich only themselves.
The accusation was made Tuesday in an amended complaint to a class action suit against Benjamin Chow, co-founder of Meteora (a crypto exchange), and Hayden Davis, Gideon Davis, and Charles Thomas Davis of venture capital firm Kelsier Labs, in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. The defendants are accused of running a massive pump and dump scheme with at least 15 crypto coins, including $MELANIA.
The suit alleges Melania Trump was used as “window dressing for a crime engineered by Meteora and Kelsier.”
“Neither Melania Trump nor her representatives knew the project was part of a systemic fraud, and they would not have agreed to any use of her name had they known the truth,” the suit reads.
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Neither the White House, Meteora, nor Kelsier Labs responded immediately to requests for comment about the lawsuit. We will update the article if they respond.
Here’s what to know.
What is the lawsuit alleging?
The court filing alleges executives at Meteora and Kelsier, through a network of crypto wallets, held roughly one-third of the entire $MELANIA supply before the memecoin began trading publicly. They then allegedly began actively promoting it with paid promotions, influencer posts, and other events. The “official” label on the token further stoked public interest, the suit says.
“In truth, the insiders had already cornered the market before a single public buyer could act,” the suit reads. “The use of the Melania name completed the illusion. The branding suggested oversight and endorsement by a prominent public figure, neutralizing investor skepticism. In this way, the enterprise weaponized fame to disarm diligence.”
Within hours, the $MELANIA token boasted a market cap of tens of millions of dollars. The suit alleges the defendants sold off tokens as the price rose, making millions of dollars in profit within hours.
The defendants are accused of running a similar play with several other tokens. “$MELANIA’s story, though cloaked in celebrity glamour, was just another chapter in a single, unbroken enterprise designed to extract value under the pretense of innovation and credibility,” the filing reads.
Are these criminal charges?
No. The suit is a civil class action suit brought on behalf of investors. To date, there have been no criminal charges brought against any of the defendants. There has also been no action filed against them by the Securities and Exchange Commission or Justice Department, both of which remain closed due to the ongoing government shutdown.
Is the Melania Trump memecoin still being traded?
Technically, it is. But because the token has lost 99 percent of its value, there aren’t a lot of investors paying much attention to it these days.
Is Melania Trump being sued?
No. Although celebrities such as Linday Lohan or Jake Paul have been sued for promoting cryptocurrencies (for not disclosing they were being paid to do so), the filing is very direct in clearing up any questions about the first lady’s possible involvement in an alleged rug pull. “Melania Trump’s team, to the extent it granted any permission, did so without knowledge of the fraud, the insider rigging, or the deceptive launch mechanics,” reads the suit. “Had they been aware that the project was part of a coordinated criminal scheme, they would have rescinded any consent immediately.”
Trump’s involvement is different than that of celebrities such as Linday Lohan or Jake Paul, who were sued for promoting cryptocurrencies without disclosing they were being paid to do so.
The Trump family, however, has been criticized for its deep involvement in the crypto world, which some have called a conflict of interest, given Donald Trump’s influence. The Trump family is estimated to have made more than $1 billion from crypto ventures since Trump took office in January.
Will Melania Trump memecoin investors receive some sort of compensation?
That remains to be seen. The case seeks an order compelling the defendants to hand over all of the money gained through the launch of the $MELANIA and other tokens along with compensatory and statutory damages. If the defendants settle or are found liable, though, it’s unknown much that will amount to—or what will be left for investors after legal fees.
Four years after the “Rust” movie shooting, New Mexico officials have moved Alec Baldwin’s lawsuit alleging malicious prosecution to federal court.
This week’s filing is the latest twist in the long legal saga after the October 2021 on-set death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Baldwin, the 67-year-old star and a producer of the western film, had been facing a felony involuntary manslaughter charge for his role in Hutchins’ accidental shooting. But the judge overseeing Baldwin’s case abruptly dismissed the charge against him during his July 2024 trial after concluding that prosecutors withheld evidence that may have been helpful to his legal team.
Six months later, Baldwin sued New Mexico’s district attorney and special prosecutors, asserting malicious prosecution. The actor claimed he had been made a celebrity scapegoat because of the intense media pressure on local authorities to solve the high-profile case.
His lawsuit targeted New Mexico special prosecutor Kari T. Morrissey, 1st Judicial Dist. Atty. Mary Carmack-Altwies and Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies, who led the investigation into Hutchins’ death.
The defendants have denied Baldwin’s allegations.
Baldwin’s wrongful prosecution suit was first filed in New Mexico court in Santa Fe.
On Tuesday, the defendants, including Morrissey, exercised their legal right to shift the case to federal court. The decision was made, in part, because “Mr. Baldwin brought federal civil rights claims in his lawsuit,” said Albuquerque attorney Luis Robles, who represents the defendants.
In addition, Baldwin does not live in New Mexico, where the case was filed.
Baldwin could object to the move and petition for it to be brought back to state court. On Wednesday, his team was not immediately available for comment.
A New Mexico judge had dismissed Baldwin’s malicious prosecution claims in July, citing 90 days of inactivity in the case. Baldwin’s legal team petitioned to get the case reinstated and the judge agreed to the request.
That prompted the defendants’ move to shift the case to the higher court.
During his Santa Fe trial last year, Baldwin’s lawyers had sought to turn the focus away from whether Baldwin pulled his gun’s trigger in the accidental shooting to where the lethal bullet came from.
Baldwin’s attorneys repeatedly accused law enforcement officers and prosecutors of bungling the case, including by allegedly hiding potential evidence — a batch of bullets that they said may have been related to the one that killed Hutchins.
Gov. Jared Polis is still trying to find a way to comply with a federal immigration subpoena, four months after a Denver judge ruled that doing so would violate Colorado law.
In repeated court filings, including one submitted Friday, Polis’ private attorneys have said they intend to turn over records on 10 businesses that employed several sponsors of unaccompanied children to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
They’ve asked a Denver judge, who previously prohibited some state employees from complying with ICE’s subpoena, to dismiss the case and clear the way for them to turn over a more limited batch of records.
The recent filings represent the second attempt by Polis to comply with the April immigration enforcement subpoena. The governor’s first attempt was blocked by District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones in June, after Jones sided with a senior state employee who’d sued Polis earlier that month to stop the state from fulfilling the subpoena.
The employee, Scott Moss, argued that providing the requested records would violate state laws that limit what information can be shared with federal immigration authorities.
But though Jones preliminarily sided with Moss, his ruling is complicated. He prohibited Polis from directing a specific division of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment to comply with the subpoena. But he said he couldn’t prevent Polis from directing others to comply with the subpoena, even though Jones said doing so would still likely violate the law.
The records that Polis now says he intends to turn over to ICE are in the custody of another labor department division not covered in Jones’ order.
In an email Tuesday, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman declined to comment on the case or why Polis is still seeking to provide records to ICE. She pointed to the administration’s recent legal filings.
The administration has previously said it wanted to support ICE’s efforts to check on unaccompanied minors without legal status, though the governor’s office has not provided any evidence that it has sought assurances that ICE wasn’t seeking the information purely for immigration enforcement efforts.
David Seligman, whose law firm has supported the case, criticized the governor’s decision to seek the lawsuit’s dismissal while indicating his intention to turn over records to ICE. While ICE wrote that it wanted detailed employment records so it could check on the well-being of unaccompanied children, Seligman and Moss, the employee who brought the lawsuit, have argued that the agency only wants the information so it can arrest and deport the children’s sponsors.
“It is absolutely absurd that this governor would be going out of his way to comply with and cooperate with ICE in light of everything that we’re seeing right now,” Seligman said.
Moss has since left the department, and Polis’ lawyers now argue that no one associated with the case has a legal standing to challenge compliance with the subpoena. They’ve also argued that they can turn over the records because the employers’ addresses and contact information can be found online.
The records are only part of the broader swath of personal details that ICE initially requested, and they cover only six of the 35 sponsors for which ICE first sought records. The sponsors are typically family members of children without legal status, who care for the minors while their immigration cases proceed.
The administration has similarly told ICE officials that it intends to comply with part of the subpoena once the lawsuit is concluded. In a July 11 email, Joe Barela, the head of the Department of Labor and Employment, wrote to a special agent in ICE’s investigative branch that the agency planned to “provide your office with the names and contact information for those 10 employers.”
Jones must now rule on whether to dismiss the lawsuit or let it proceed. Between June and early September, Recht Kornfeld, the private law firm Polis hired to represent him in the lawsuit, has billed the state for more than $104,000, according to records obtained by The Denver Post through a public records request.
The Colorado Attorney General’s Office has said it was unable to represent Polis because of legal advice it provided to the governor related to complying with the subpoena. The office has declined to characterize the nature of that advice.
The subpoena was sent to the state labor department in April as part of what ICE described as essentially a welfare check of unaccompanied minors in the state. The subpoena sought employment and personal records for the children’s sponsors.
Initially, administration officials decided not to comply with the subpoena because of the state’s laws limiting such contact. But Polis abruptly changed course and decided to turn over the records, prompting Moss to sue.
Polis’ office has claimed that the governor wanted to comply with the subpoena because it was part of a “targeted” criminal investigation into human trafficking. The state’s immigration laws — including one signed by Polis in late May — allow state officials to comply with federal subpoenas if they’re part of criminal probes, rather than immigration enforcement operations.
But the governor’s office has not released any evidence that the criminal investigation actually exists or that it made any effort to ensure that it did.
Jones wrote that “the subpoena — on its face — was not issued as part of a criminal investigation,” and he said that no one in Polis’ office or the labor department, “with the potential exception of the governor himself,” actually believed that the subpoena was part of a criminal investigation.
The subpoena is not signed by a judge, and the federal statute that it cites is related to immigration enforcement.
In her email Tuesday, Wieman, Polis’ spokeswoman, did not address questions about whether the state had pursued or received any additional information confirming the existence of the investigation allegedly underpinning the subpoena. Nor did she address questions about whether Polis had directed any state resources to check on the children.
After almost four years of speculation, a New Jersey court filing has revealed that Playtech was the company behind the damaging 2021 report that sought to discredit live casino giant Evolution. The disclosure marks the culmination of a protracted legal struggle during which Evolution tried to expose the mysterious client of private intelligence firm Black Cube. This organization produced and distributed the contentious report.
Evolution Proved the Initial Report Was False
According to Evolution, senior Playtech executives, including CEO Mor Weizer, communicated directly with Black Cube during the preparation of the report. The document alleged that Evolution’s products were being used in blacklisted jurisdictions. These assertions briefly wiped billions from Evolution’s market value and triggered regulatory scrutiny in multiple markets.
US state regulators and the New Jersey Superior Court later confirmed that the report lacked any factual basis. Meanwhile, Evolution claimed the accusations were intentionally fabricated, stating that the firm behind the report had purposefully manipulated interview material to fit a false narrative.
According to court records, Black Cube agents used deceptive methods during their investigation, pretending to be prospective business partners or investors to contact current and former Evolution staff members. Some of these meetings were covertly recorded, edited, and presented as proof in the report. Interviewed individuals later complained that their comments had been either misrepresented or completely distorted.
Playtech Could Suffer Significant Consequences
On Tuesday, Evolution released a statement that strongly condemned Playtech’s involvement, calling it a deliberate attempt to gain a competitive advantage by damaging the competition’s reputation and business standing. According to Evolution, Playtech paid Black Cube more than £1.8 million ($2.41 million) for the operation.
Playtech’s exposure could carry significant legal and financial consequences. Evolution has already declared its intention to seek substantial damages for defamation, trade libel, and interference with business relations. Immediately after the revelation, Playtech shares plummeted 39%, erasing £400 million ($536 million) of market value. This development is strikingly similar to the effects suffered by Evolution after Black Cube’s report.
We are confident in our legal position and look forward to finally holding Playtech and its accomplices to account for the significant harm they have caused.
Evolution statement
Evolution announced it was ready to pursue every available avenue to hold Playtech, Black Cube, and their affiliates accountable. With all parties involved in the report revealed, the lawsuit can proceed in earnest, with Playtech as an additional defendant. The immediate questions revolve around whether shareholders were informed of the risks associated with this type of campaign.
The family of an 11-year-old girl is suing the Coconut Grove Sailing Club, which hosted a summer camp where the child was run over by a boat operated by a counselor on July 10, 2025.
Miami Herald
The parents of a girl who nearly lost leg while participating in a summer sailing club is suing the club — and counselors — over an incident that occurred days before a barge hit a sailboat full of summer campers off Miami Beach.
Bolivar Viteri and Michelle Viteri, the parents of 11-year-old Catherine Viteri, are seeking $10 million in damages, according to a lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Monday.
The suit alleges that the Coconut Grove Sailing Club and three camp counselors were negligent and failed to supervise the children, causing Catherine a lifelong disability.
During a July 10 incident, Catherine was run over by a motorboat operated by a 21-year-old counselor, while she was swimming, court documents allege. Catherine’s right leg was lacerated to the bone and nearly amputated by a propeller.
The counselor ran Catherine over, the complaint states, after losing track of the summer campers under his care. The two other counselors were also supervising the children.
“This case represents an inexcusable breakdown in the safety and supervision of children,” attorney Justin B. Shapiro said in a statement. “It is unthinkable that the camp counselor who was in charge of protecting this child is the one who ran her over with a motorboat. The extent of negligence in this case is extraordinary, and we intend to hold the responsible parties fully accountable.”
The sailing club could not immediately be reached for comment. Information on the club’s legal representation and that of the counselors, was not immediately available.
The accident was one of two major incidents over the summer when disaster struck at a youth sailing camp.
Eighteen days after Catherine was run over, on July 28, Mila Yankelevich, 7, Erin Victoria Ko Han, 13, and Arielle “Ari” Mazi Buchman, 10, were killed after a 60-foot barge being pushed by a tugboat crashed into a 17-foot Hobie Getaway sailboat with five Miami Yacht Club campers — girls between the ages of 7 and 13 — and one 19-year-old female camp counselor aboard.
The crash happened between Hibiscus and Monument islands in Biscayne Bay. The U.S. Coast Guard is the lead agency investigating the incident since it involved a commercial vessel.
The family of a 9-year-old girl who was injured in the collision filed a lawsuit in August against the owner of the barge and tug, the Miami Yacht Club, and the club’s Youth Sailing Foundation.
The lawsuit argues the camp knew or should have known of the “unreasonable risk of injury and/or death” when it took the children on a sailing excursion on Biscayne Bay.
The complaint also states the pilot of the tug was operating the vessel recklessly and should have had a lookout on the bow of the barge knowing he was navigating through waters regularly packed with recreational boaters.
Grethel covers courts and the criminal justice system for the Miami Herald. She graduated from the University of Florida (Go Gators!), speaks Spanish and Arabic and loves animals, traveling, basketball and good storytelling. Grethel also attends law school part time.
BOSTON — Attorney General Andrea Campbell has joined about two dozen other Democrats in suing the Trump administration over its decision to pull the plug on a $7 billion solar energy program for low-income households.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, alleges that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violated federal law and the Administrative Procedures Act when it terminated the Solar for All program, approved by Congress in 2023 as part of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.
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From gambling regulators to attorney generals and now private citizens, Kalshi has had to fend off one lawsuit after another. Although it appears to be winning at least in Nevada, the prediction market platform has not had a quiet moment.
The latest legal development filed against it comes in the form of a New York Southern District class-action lawsuit and plaintiff Daniel Yee.
Private Individual Files Class-Action Complaint Against Kalshi
The San Francisco resident claims that the New York-based company had wronged him by convincing him that it operates a “legal sports betting product,” but that wasn’t the case, and Kalshi’s offer was indeed “illegal.”
Kalshi insists that it has never claimed that it offers sports gambling products, but rather event contracts that can feature the outcomes of sports, which are different and regulated by the CFTC. Gambling regulators and Yee have objected.
“Based on Kalshi’s false representations, Plaintiff Daniel Yee and the Classes bargained for entry into legal sports gambling contests. But all they received from Kalshi was entry into illegal sports gambling contests,” the lawsuit reads, and insists that Kalshi failed to disclose the “fact” that it was offering illegal gambling contests.
Should it have done so, Yee would never have registered. The lawsuit also insists that Kalshi conveyed the message that gambling was “legal in all 50 states,” which was also not true. The lawsuit also cites specific California law according to which sports event contracts are a “banking game” and the “house” is, in fact, a participant.
Pressure on Kalshi’s Sport Event Contracts Continues
It is not immediately clear whether the case has merit, but it is true that other states, including New York, have already been debating the legitimacy of Kalshi as a platform.
Yee is looking for $2,000 in restitution of funds he lost with Kalshi, but similarly, nominal, punitive, consequential, and other damages, equitable relief, and all legal costs and expenses associated with the case.
Ideally, Yee is hoping to bring the court to a jury trial. Kalshi is not shy of spearheading legal challenges itself, with the platform most recently suing Ohio.
