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Public Policy
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August 22, 2024
Smuggling Suspect Arrested Over '22 Migrant Deaths In Texas
A Guatemalan national was arrested Wednesday in his home country at U.S. officials' request for his alleged role in a human smuggling operation blamed for the deaths of 53 migrants who were found in a tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
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August 22, 2024
Local Property Tax Exemptions A Must For Solar, Va. AG Says
Localities are required under state statute to provide an exemption for the taxation of property used for solar photovoltaic systems, or systems that use solar panels to create energy, the Virginia attorney general said in an opinion.
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August 22, 2024
Appeals Court Revives DC AG's Amazon Antitrust Suit
A Washington, D.C., appeals court ruled Thursday that the D.C. attorney general can pursue an antitrust suit against Amazon, overturning a lower court order that tossed district enforcers' complaint against the e-commerce giant.
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August 22, 2024
Voter Claims NC 'Ballot Selfie' Laws Violate Free Speech
A North Carolina voter hopes to take down the state's so-called ballot selfie laws, which make it illegal to take a photo with a completed ballot, arguing in a new federal lawsuit filed Thursday that the statutes trample her free speech rights.
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August 22, 2024
NJ Panel Rejects Dispensary's Bid To Revive Application Suit
A would-be cannabis entrepreneur can't upend a New Jersey township's decision to decline her application for a retail license in favor of others, a state appeals court ruled, saying that she needed to name her competitors as defendants to keep the case viable.
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August 22, 2024
Feds, Ex-Detroit Mayor Spar Over Restitution, Residency
Federal prosecutors and former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick are clashing over restitution, with the feds seeking to collect some $6,700 the Michigan Department of Treasury uncovered and Kilpatrick claiming the money is off limits, challenging how much he owes and pushing to have the case sent to Georgia.
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August 22, 2024
California Fires Back At Red State Attacks On Climate Torts
California and a contingent of blue states told the U.S. Supreme Court that their climate change torts against fossil fuel companies are on solid legal ground and that an effort by Alabama and other red states to undercut them must be rejected.
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August 22, 2024
Apache Carry Petition To High Court With A Prayer Journey
Members of an Apache nonprofit fighting to save an Indigenous worship site from destruction are making stops to visit other tribes throughout the country for prayers and support as they deliver a petition to the Supreme Court that seeks to undo a Ninth Circuit ruling and block a mining project.
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August 22, 2024
Auburn Wants Out Of 11th Circ. Arguments Over Burial Ground
Auburn University has asked the Eleventh Circuit to be excused from oral arguments next month in a dispute between two Native American groups over a burial ground where centuries-old human remains were exhumed to make way for construction of a multimillion-dollar casino.
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August 22, 2024
Kroger-Albertsons Wrong On Labor Law In FTC Row: NLRB
The National Labor Relations Board used an amicus brief Wednesday to call out Kroger and Albertsons for their "mistaken" citation to labor law as a defense against Federal Trade Commission claims that the grocery giants' $25 billion megamerger threatens union bargaining leverage.
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August 22, 2024
Nadine Menendez's Bribery Trial Delayed Until 2025
The bribery trial of former U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez's wife is delayed until at least January because she is being treated for cancer, a New York federal judge ruled Thursday.
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August 22, 2024
NY AG Tells Appeals Court To Uphold $465M Trump Judgment
Donald Trump has barely challenged the extensive proof of financial statement lies undergirding a $465 million civil fraud judgment against him and his co-defendants, New York's attorney general said in an appeals brief looking to preserve the bench verdict.
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August 22, 2024
Telephone Cos. Want In On Tribal Broadband Grant Row
The two Alaskan telecoms that received the U.S. Department of Agriculture grants now at the center of a suit from local tribes say they want in on the litigation, telling an Alaska federal judge that they should get a chance to defend their grants alongside the USDA as intervenors.
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August 22, 2024
Missouri Gov. Clashes With Secretary Of State Over Hemp Ban
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Thursday blasted the state's secretary of state for declining to implement an emergency rulemaking that would have banned psychoactive consumable cannabis products manufactured outside the state's regulated adult-use marijuana market.
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August 22, 2024
Fisher Phillips Brings Smith Gambrell Atty To DC Gov't Team
Fisher Phillips' new D.C.-based agriculture employment partner has practiced several types of law throughout his career, and told Law360 Pulse Thursday that his employment law career started unexpectedly after a managing partner at one of his first firms called out sick before an interview.
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August 22, 2024
Builder Wins $524M Contract For Cybersecurity Agency HQ
The U.S. General Services Administration announced that it has awarded a construction company with a $524 million contract to build the new Washington, D.C., headquarters for a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agency.
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August 22, 2024
Mich. Says Justices' Minimum Wage Ruling Lacks Detail
The state of Michigan is seeking clarification from its high court on how to calculate the new minimum wage, saying there were several possible interpretations of the court's recent directive to account for inflation in the wage floor.
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August 22, 2024
Bank, Fintech Groups Say FDIC Should Ice 'Hot Money' Plan
A broad coalition of bank and fintech trade groups has called for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to back off from a recently proposed revamp of its rules on "hot money," or brokered deposits, arguing the plan was put forward "without sufficient or transparent data or robust policy rationale."
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August 22, 2024
Pa. Air Force Vet Can't Challenge Court's Medical Pot Rules
A Pennsylvania appeals court won't let an Air Force veteran challenge the medical cannabis rules for treatment court programs in Berks County, saying he lacks standing because his use of medical cannabis was not the reason he was denied entry into the programs.
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August 22, 2024
Crypto Lobbyist Hit With FTX Campaign Finance Charges
Manhattan federal prosecutors announced Thursday that Michelle Bond, a crypto industry lobbyist and the girlfriend of convicted former FTX executive Ryan Salame, has been charged with getting the now-defunct digital asset exchange to illegally finance her unsuccessful 2022 congressional campaign.
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August 21, 2024
FTX's Salame Says Feds Broke Deal Not To Probe Girlfriend
Former FTX executive Ryan Salame urged a New York federal judge Wednesday to either vacate his May conviction or stop federal prosecutors from investigating his domestic partner Michelle Bond for related political campaign-finance offenses, saying prosecutors induced his guilty plea by promising not to probe Bond.
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August 21, 2024
Fed. Circ. Won't Rethink IP Safe Harbor Case
The Federal Circuit on Wednesday declined to review its decision affirming the dismissal of Edwards Lifesciences' infringement suit against Meril Life Sciences after Edwards urged the full court to narrow its interpretation of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration safe harbor that essentially allows patent infringement during drug development.
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August 21, 2024
Tech Cos. Duck Proposed Calif. Bill Via News Funding Deal
Major tech companies, including Google, agreed Wednesday to pay roughly $250 million into a fund that proponents say would support newsrooms across California in a deal that avoids a proposed regulation that would've forced Big Tech to pay the state's media organizations for distributing news content.
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August 21, 2024
FDIC Taps MoFo Atty To Monitor Workplace Transformation
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced Wednesday that it has appointed a former prosecutor and veteran Morrison & Foerster LLP partner to serve as an independent monitor during the agency's efforts to revamp its workplace culture.
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August 21, 2024
Top New York Real Estate News This Summer
Catch up on the hottest real estate news out of New York so far this summer, from office sales and foreclosures to casino projects and housing policies.
Expert Analysis
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3 High Court Rulings May Shape Health Org. Litigation Tactics
Three separate decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court's most recent term — Loper Bright, Corner Post and Jarkesy — will likely strengthen healthcare organizations' ability to affirmatively sue executive agencies to challenge regulations governing operations and enforcement actions, say attorneys at McDermott.
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Opinion
The Big Issues A BigLaw Associates' Union Could Address
A BigLaw associates’ union could address a number of issues that have the potential to meaningfully improve working conditions, diversity and attorney well-being — from restructured billable hour requirements to origination credit allocation, return-to-office mandates and more, says Tara Rhoades at The Sanity Plea.
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Opinion
It's Time For A BigLaw Associates' Union
As BigLaw faces a steady stream of criticism about its employment policies and practices, an associates union could effect real change — and it could start with law students organizing around opposition to recent recruiting trends, says Tara Rhoades at The Sanity Plea.
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Why DOJ's Whistleblower Program May Have Limited Impact
The U.S. Department of Justice’s new whistleblower pilot program aims to incentivize individuals to report corporate misconduct, but the program's effectiveness may be undercut by its differences from other federal agencies’ whistleblower programs and its interplay with other DOJ policies, say attorneys at Milbank.
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CFPB's Earned Wage Access Rule Marks Regulatory Shift
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's newly issued interpretive rule on earned wage access products, classifying them as extensions of credit, marks a significant shift in their regulatory landscape and raises some important questions regarding potential fringe cases and legal challenges, say Erin Bryan and Courina Yulisa at Dorsey & Whitney.
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How Calif. Justices' Prop 22 Ruling Affects The Gig Industry
The California Supreme Court's recent upholding of Proposition 22 clarifies that Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other companies in the gig industry can legally classify their drivers as independent contractors, but it falls short of concluding some important regulatory battles in the state, says Mark Spring at CDF Labor.
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Look For Flags On Expert Claims After Sunday Ticket Reversal
A California federal judge’s recent reversal of a jury’s $4.7 billion antitrust verdict in the NFL Sunday Ticket case indicates that litigants may be inclined to challenge expert testimony admissibility under Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, and that judges may increasingly accept such challenges, say attorneys at Kutak Rock.
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How Justices Upended The Administrative Procedure Act
In its recent Loper Bright, Corner Post and Jarkesy decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court fundamentally changed the Administrative Procedure Act in ways that undermine Congress and the executive branch, shift power to the judiciary, curtail public and business input, and create great uncertainty, say Alene Taber and Beth Hummer at Hanson Bridgett.
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How Corner Post Affects Enviro Laws' Statutes Of Limitations
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve Board has helped to alter the fundamental underpinnings of administrative law — and its plaintiff-centric approach may have implications for some specific environmental laws' statutes of limitations, say Chris Leason and Liam Martin at Gallagher and Kennedy.
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Opinion
DOL's Impending Mental Health Act Regs Should Be Simplified
The U.S. Department of Labor should consider revising these six issues in its forthcoming Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act regulations to ease the significant compliance hurdles for group health plan sponsors, says Alden Bianchi at McDermott.
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Parsing FY 2024 DOJ Criminal Healthcare Fraud Enforcement
While the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division's strike force on healthcare fraud enforcement action shows an impressive doubling of criminal indictments, a closer look at the data offers important clues about underlying trends, including the comparably modest, accompanying increase in associated intended loss, say Roderick Thomas and Kathleen Cooperstein at Wiley.
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Haste Is Priority For Participation In New Green Card Program
Immigration practitioners should determine their clients' eligibility under the Biden administration’s new policy to help certain noncitizens, particularly those married to U.S. citizens, to apply for green cards, and do so without delay given uncertainty tied to the upcoming election, says Brad Brigante at Brigante Law.
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How Gov't AI Protections May Affect Contractors' Data Rights
The U.S. Senate’s proposed National Defense Authorization Act for 2025, which includes provisions to maintain the government's data rights when contracting for artificial intelligence, should prompt contractors to examine how to protect their own rights when the current data rights framework is applied to AI, say Tyler Evans and Caitlin Conroy at Steptoe.
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Jarkesy May Thwart Consumer Agencies' Civil Penalty Power
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy not only implicates future SEC administrative adjudications, but those of other agencies that operate similarly — and may stymie regulators' efforts to levy civil monetary penalties in a range of consumer protection enforcement actions, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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Trump's Best Hush Money Appeal Options Still Likely To Fail
The two strongest potential arguments former President Donald Trump could raise in appealing his New York hush money conviction seem promising at first, but precedent strongly suggests they will still ultimately fail — though, of course, Trump's unique position could lead to surprising results, says former New York Supreme Court Justice Ethan Greenberg, now at Anderson Kill.