Two men in the US have been charged with illegally killing about 3,600 birds over the course of several years and selling the parts and feathers on the black market.A grand jury in Montana indicted Simon Paul and Travis Branson on charges of conspiracy, violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, and illegal trafficking…Read More »
On Friday, a jury unanimously ordered Rudy Giuliani to pay $148 million in compensatory and punitive damages to two Georgia election workers he defamed. The judgment furthers the incredible downfall of a guy once known as “America’s mayor” and likely will cement his financial ruin…Read More »
One of the most prominent Democratic Party-aligned law firms, Elias Law Group—led by noted election lawyer Marc Elias—has waded into the legal battle surrounding the proposed ballot referendum for Atlanta’s Public Safety Training Center (PSTC), better known as “Cop City.” …Read More »
Tis the season for politicians to spend an hour in front of cameras with turkeys. Two turkeys from a Hormel subsidiary in Minnesota were apparently shipped to Washington, DC, in a stretch black Cadillac Escalade for their White House pardoning ceremony. At a library in the tiny Texas city of Van, the mayor appointed a bird named Dolly Pardon to be a city ambassador…Read More »
Ivanka Trump took the stand on Wednesday in her father’s civil fraud trial, but to hear her tell it, she wasn’t sure why. Trump was polite and relaxed, in stark contrast to her father—who took the stand on Monday, rambling and frequently devolving into emotional outbursts during his testimony—and brothers, whose testimony was often defensive. But as personable as her demeanor may have been, she displayed an astonishingly bad memory…Read More »
On a Thursday in September 2019, Philip Esformes arrived for his sentencing at the federal courthouse in downtown Miami looking pale and gaunt. The previous April, after an eight-week trial, Esformes, heir to a large, successful chain of nursing homes, had been convicted of fraud, kickback and money laundering crimes, and obstruction of justice…Read More »
The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the “social cost of carbon,” one of the most important calculations in US climate policy, on Tuesday. The controversial metric attempts to quantify the hidden price of emitting carbon dioxide, from flood damage to health effects. The court’s surprise decision sets the stage for the Biden administration to broaden the metric’s use across federal agencies when formulating climate-related regulations…Read More »
It’s a riveting, baffling, and/or solemn day in this country when the highest court must step in to adjudicate a definitional dispute as basic as this: Does “and” mean “and”? Or does it mean “or”? Lower courts want to know. As do legal scholars, criminal defendants, and copy editors everywhere…Read More »
When Tyrone Pettway saw his water bill in October 2021, he thought it was a typo. The bill was for $2,384.51, some $2,300 more than what he usually owed the Prichard, Alabama, water board every month…Read More »
For years, cash bail has been criticized for determining who would be chosen for pre-trial detention based on wealth. Now, Illinois has abolished it. After a months-long legal battle, the state became the first in the nation to eliminate cash bail thanks to a provision in a sweeping criminal justice reform law that went into effect on Monday…Read More »