accountability

  • As New SCOTUS Term Nears, Regulatory Power Faces Fresh Test

    The Supreme Court will have an opportunity to further erode the authority of federal regulatory agencies in a case involving the vape industry, following other major rulings. As the justices prepare for a new term featuring significant business-related questions, they will address these issues over a nine-month period beginning on October 7. This term will…

  • Naval Academy, Affirmative Action Foe Square Off at Baltimore Trial

    The group that successfully convinced the Supreme Court to ban the use of race in college admissions will take the Naval Academy to trial on Monday, challenging an exemption that allows military academies to continue using affirmative action policies. This two-week trial before a federal judge in Baltimore is the first to result from lawsuits…

  • Icahn Enterprises Wins Dismissal of Investor Lawsuit

    Carl Icahn’s investment company, Icahn Enterprises (IEP.O), won the dismissal of a lawsuit that accused it of artificially inflating its share price by issuing unsustainably high dividends to help Icahn secure large personal loans. On Friday, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore in Miami ruled that shareholders in the proposed class action failed to prove…

  • Sam Bankman-Fried’s Jury Only Saw ‘Half The Picture,’ Lawyer Says in Appeal

    Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyer argued in their appeal on Friday that the jury convicted him without seeing the full picture because the judge blocked crucial evidence. The lawyer claimed that the jury missed important information, which could have helped support Bankman-Fried’s belief that FTX had sufficient funds to cover customer withdrawals. In a 102-page brief to…

  • Judges Advised to Restrict Clerks From Seeking Political Jobs

    Federal judges should prevent their law clerks from seeking employment with political organizations while they remain part of the court system to protect the judiciary’s independence, according to new ethical guidance. The U.S. Judicial Conference’s Committee on Codes of Conduct issued the guidance on Thursday, offering an election-year update to an advisory opinion on permissible…

  • Academic Publishers Face Class Action Over ‘Peer Review’ Pay, Other Restrictions

    A University of California, Los Angeles neuroscience professor, Lucina Uddin, has sued six major academic journal publishers, alleging they violated antitrust laws by prohibiting simultaneous submissions to multiple journals and refusing to compensate scholars for peer review services. Uddin filed the proposed class-action lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court on Thursday against Elsevier, John Wiley &…

  • Brazil Top Court Lifts Starlink, X Account Freeze After $3M Transfer

    Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes lifted freezes on Starlink and X bank accounts after transferring 18.35 million reais ($3.3 million) from those accounts to the national treasury. The court issued this lift after determining that the transferred amount satisfied the fines X owed to Brazil, resulting from a dispute between Elon Musk and…

  • Harvey Weinstein Hit With New Criminal Charges

    Harvey Weinstein faces new criminal charges as Manhattan prosecutors prepare to retry him following the reversal of his rape conviction. In 2020, a jury in Manhattan convicted Weinstein, 72, of rape, but the New York Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in April, ruling that the judge improperly allowed testimony from accusers not formally involved…

  • North Dakota Judge Overturns State Abortion Ban

    On Thursday, a North Dakota state court judge overturned the state’s near-total abortion ban, allowing abortion to become legal in the state for the first time in over a year. Judge Bruce Romanick in Bismarck ruled that the state constitution protects women’s right to abortion before fetal viability, supporting abortion providers who challenged the ban.…

  • Missouri Supreme Court Rules Abortion Rights Measure Will be on State Ballot

    Missouri’s top court ruled on Tuesday that voters will decide on a proposed abortion rights amendment in November, potentially restoring legal abortion in the state for the first time in over two years. The measure, which allows abortion rights in Missouri until fetal viability, will appear on the November ballot after organizers gathered more than…