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A coalition of President Donald Trump's critics, including a fired prosecutor and a college professor acquitted of assaulting federal agents at a protest, sued Friday to block payouts from a new USD 1.776 billion settlement fund for Trump allies claiming to be victims of a weaponised government. The lawsuit adds fuel to a mounting backlash against the Trump administration's creation of an "Anti-Weaponisation Fund" to resolve the Republican president's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. Plaintiffs' attorneys from the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward are seeking a court order halting the fund's implementation and preventing the Trump administration from disbursing any payouts from it. The federal suit, filed in Alexandria, Virginia, claims there is no legal basis or accountability behind the fund. "The unlawfulness that has imbued the Anti-Weaponization Fund from its inception requires that it be wholly dismantled," the suit ...
A federal court on Monday dismissed claims filed against OpenAI and its top executives by Elon Musk, who accused them of betraying a shared vision for it to remain a nonprofit dedicated to guiding artificial intelligence's development for the good of humanity. Musk, the world's richest man, was a co-founder of OpenAI, which launched in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. After investing $38 million in its first years, Musk accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his top deputy of shifting into a moneymaking mode behind his back. The nine-person jury found that Musk waited too long to file his lawsuit and missed the deadline for the statute of limitations. The jury had deliberated only two hours. The jury served in an advisory role, but Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the verdict Monday as the court's own and dismissed Musk's claims. The three-week trial in Oakland, California shed light on the bitter falling-out between the two Silicon Valley titans and the beginnings of OpenAI, no
Google has reached a settlement with Black employees who alleged systemic racial disparities in hiring, pay, and advancement in a lawsuit filed in 2022. April Curley, a former Google employee, had sued the tech giant for racial discrimination, saying it engages in a "pattern and practice" of unfair treatment for its Black workers. The suit claimed the company steered them into lower-level and lower-paid jobs and subjected them to a hostile work environment if they speak out. Other former Google workers also joined the suit, which later received class action status. "This case is about accountability, plain and simple," said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represented the plaintiffs, in a statement. "For far too long, Black employees in the tech industry have faced barriers that limit opportunity. This settlement is a significant step toward holding one of the world's most powerful companies accountable and making clear that discriminatory practices cannot and will not be ...
New York is suing Coinbase and Gemini over unregulated and unlicensed prediction market platforms that the state contends are illegal gambling operations. Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit, filed Tuesday in state court in Manhattan, seeks to bar the companies' platforms from operating in the state unless and until they obtain licenses from the state Gaming Commission. "Gambling by another name is still gambling, and it is not exempt from regulation under our state laws and Constitution," James said in a statement. "Gemini and Coinbase's so-called prediction markets are just illegal gambling operations, exposing young people to addictive platforms that lack the necessary guardrails." Messages seeking comment were left for Coinbase and Gemini. Both companies began as cryptocurrency trading platforms before branching into the prediction space, which has been dominated by Kalshi and Polymarket. Gemini, founded by brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, launched Gemini Predictions
A coalition of 21 attorneys general from Democratic-led states sued the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its director, Russell Vought, on Monday, asserting that the White House's argument to withhold funds from the consumer protection agency is unconstitutional. The lawsuit has to do with the Trump administration's argument that the CFPB can only be funded by the Federal Reserve's profits. The Federal Reserve has been running a loss since 2022, a side effect of the Fed raising interest rates sharply to combat inflation, because it holds bonds that pay low interest from the pandemic, but it needs to pay out higher amounts of interest to the banks that hold their deposits with the bank. The White House has argued for several months that the CFPB cannot lawfully draw funds to fund its operations from the Fed if the Fed does not have combined earnings to allocate to the bureau. Without additional funds, the CFPB is expected to deplete its operating funds completely in January. T
A coalition of attorneys general from 20 states and Washington, DC, is asking a federal judge to stop the US Department of Justice from withholding federal funds earmarked for crime victims if states don't cooperate with the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts. The lawsuit filed Monday in Rhode Island federal court seeks to block the Justice Department from enforcing conditions that would cut funding to a state or subgrantee if it refuses to honour civil immigration enforcement requests, denies US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers access to facilities or fails to provide advance notice of release dates of individuals possibly wanted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement because of their immigration status. The lawsuit asks that the conditions be thrown out, arguing that the administration and the agency are overstepping their constitutional and administrative authority. The lawsuit also argues that the requirements are not permitted or outlined in t
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said a prior nod from court was needed to file a lawsuit under the provision dealing with public charities of the Civil Procedure Code as the action was launched on behalf of public beneficiaries and that too in public interest. The top court issued directions on the legal issues and dismissed an appeal filed by a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, which challenged the maintainability of a suit against it under Section 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC). Section 92 of the CPC deals with lawsuits relating to public charitable or religious trusts and permits legal action to be taken in cases of alleged breaches of trust, or when the court's direction is needed for the trust's administration. A suit under Section 92 of the CPC is a representative suit of a special nature since the action is instituted on behalf of the public beneficiaries and in public interest. Obtaining a grant of leave' from the court before the suit can