Category Archives: Law (US)

The US government avoided a shutdown – but what happens next?

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Congress passed a bill to fund the government into December. But questions remain over the debt ceiling and Biden’s agenda

The US government went into Thursday embroiled in a game of three-dimensional chess with time running out and trillions of dollars at stake.

The first dimension was a must-do: fund the government by midnight to avoid it shutting down. In a typical shutdown, hundreds of thousands of federal employees stop getting paid and many stop working; some services are suspended and numerous national attractions and national parks temporarily close.

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Britney Spears’ father suspended from conservatorship in victory for singer

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Star has sought liberation from Jamie Spears’ control of her finances and personal life for years

A Los Angeles judge has suspended Britney Spears’ father from the conservatorship that has controlled her life for 13 years, marking a major victory for the singer, who has long objected to the arrangement that has stripped her of independence.

At a court hearing on Wednesday, Judge Brenda Penny ordered Jamie Spears suspended as conservator effective immediately.

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Biden administration asks court to block enforcement of Texas abortion ban

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US justice department seeks temporary restraining order while lawsuit challenges the statute as unconstitutional

The Biden administration has formally asked a federal judge to block enforcement of a new Texas law that effectively bans almost all abortions in the state under a novel legal design that opponents say is intended to thwart court challenge.

The US Department of Justice’s 45-page emergency motion seeks a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction lifting the abortion ban while its lawsuit challenging the statute as unconstitutional proceeds through the courts.

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Amy Coney Barrett says supreme court ‘is not comprised of partisan hacks’

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Justice spoke alongside Mitch McConnell at Kentucky event a week after supreme court declined to block Texas abortion law

Claiming the supreme court “is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks”, Amy Coney Barrett told an audience at a Kentucky center named for the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell that “judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties”.

Related: The supreme court is deciding more and more cases in a secretive ‘shadow docket’ | Moira Donegan

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‘The harm to children is irreparable’: Ruth Etzel speaks out ahead of EPA whistleblower hearing

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The former EPA scientist is among five who have come forward alleging that the agency has become deeply corrupted

The US Environmental Protection Agency is failing to protect children by ignoring poisons in the environment and focusing on corporate interests, according to a top children’s health official who will testify this week that the agency tried to silence her because of her insistence on stronger preventions against lead poisoning.

“The people of the United States expect the EPA to protect the health of their children, but the EPA is more concerned with protecting the interests of polluting industries,” said Ruth Etzel, former director of the EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP). The harm being done to children is “irreparable”, she said.

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Britney Spears’ father files to shut down conservatorship that controls his daughter’s life

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Jamie Spears, conservator of the pop singer’s estate since 2008, says ‘recent events’ called the arrangement into question

Britney Spears’ father has filed an unexpected request to terminate the controversial conservatorship that has controlled the singer’s life for 13 years.

In a stunning move, Jamie Spears, who is the conservator of his daughter’s estate, said “recent events” called into question whether she still needed a court to oversee her personal affairs and finances.

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Biden condemns US supreme court’s ‘unprecedented assault’ on abortion rights

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  • President denounces justices for failing to block Texas ban
  • Vows to ‘ensure woman have access to safe and legal abortions’

Joe Biden condemned the US supreme court on Thursday, saying it had delivered “an unprecedented assault on a woman’s constitutional right” in a rebuke of its decision not to consider a Texas law that effectively bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

Related: Biden launches ‘whole-of-government’ effort to protect Texas abortion rights after ruling – live

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Sackler family set to pay $4.5bn to settle opioid claims after judge approves plan

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Conditional approval for plan to organize drugmaker into new company with board appointed by public officials


A US federal bankruptcy judge on Wednesday conditionally approved a sweeping, potentially $10bn plan submitted by the OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to settle a mountain of lawsuits over its role in the opioid crisis that has killed a half-million Americans over the past two decades.

Related: Former Purdue Pharma chair denies responsibility for US opioid crisis

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Elizabeth Holmes: from Silicon Valley’s female icon to disgraced CEO on trial

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Once the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire, the former head of Theranos is facing fraud charges and possible jail time

The rise and fall of the blood testing startup Theranos turned the tech world upside down and captured the attention of millions beyond Silicon Valley, inspiring multiple books, documentaries and a television series.

Theranos set out to revolutionize the medical testing space, reaching a valuation of $10bn before the capabilities of its core technology were revealed to be largely fabricated. Now, its founder and former leader, Elizabeth Holmes, is about to face the music.

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Cybersleuths find men who allegedly attacked officer during US Capitol riot

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David Walls-Kaufman and Taylor F Taranto appeared to target Jeffrey Smith because his eyes and face were vulnerable, suit says

A group of cybersleuths have tracked down two men who allegedly attacked police officer Jeffrey Smith at the US Capitol during the 6 January insurrection, leaving him with injuries that have been linked to his death days later.

In a new complaint, attorney David P Weber – who represents Smith’s widow, Erin – wrote that David Walls-Kaufman and and Taylor F Taranto appeared to specifically target Smith because his eyes and face were vulnerable.

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Former model Carré Sutton sues Gérald Marie over rape accusation

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Lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, says Sutton was ‘trafficked’ by ex-Elite Model boss to ‘wealthy men across Europe’

Ex-model Carré Sutton has filed a lawsuit alleging that Gérald Marie, the French former modeling agency boss, repeatedly raped her at his Paris apartment when she was just 17 years old.

The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Manhattan federal court, also maintains that Sutton was “trafficked by Marie to other wealthy men around Europe”.

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Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to rape and sexual assault in LA trial

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The convicted rapist is serving a 23-year prison term in New York and now faces the possibility of another sentence in California

Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty in a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday to four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault counts.

The 69-year-old convicted rapist appeared in court in a wheelchair. He was wearing a brown jail jumpsuit and face mask. Attorney Mark Werksman entered the plea a day after Weinstein was extradited to California from New York, where he was serving a 23-year prison term.

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‘Tragic’: Justice Elena Kagan’s scorching dissent on US voter suppression

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The supreme court’s conservative wing considerably weakened section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and Kagan didn’t hold back

There may have been no supreme court decision this year more important this year than the one in Brnovich v Democratic National Committee.

In a 6-3 ruling that broke down along ideological lines, the court’s conservative justices upheld two Arizona voting restrictions and considerably weakened section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 civil rights law.

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Britney Spears’s court-appointed lawyer asks to resign from conservatorship

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Samuel Ingham has faced intense scrutiny for his representation of Spears, who has said she’s been unable to choose her own lawyer

Britney Spears’s court-appointed lawyer has asked to resign from the conservatorship that has controlled her life for 13 years.

The news of lawyer Samuel D Ingham’s decision to step down comes after the singer’s emotional courtroom testimony prompted the resignation of her manager and the withdrawal of a wealth management firm involved in her conservatorship. The legal arrangement, which has been in place since 2008, has given Spears’s father and other parties intense authority over her career, finances, personal life and medical care.

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Arkansas man given life for robbing taco shop with water pistol set to be freed

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Governor announces intent to make Rolf Kaestel, who robbed a Fort Smith shop of $264 in 1981, eligible for parole

The governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, has said he intends to commute the sentence of a man serving life in prison for robbing a taco shop in 1981 with a water pistol.

Hutchinson announced he intended to make Rolf Kaestel immediately eligible for parole. There is a 30-day waiting period to receive public feedback before the governor’s decision can become final.

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After Britney Spears testimony, lawmakers push changes to conservatorship laws

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Disability rights activists say proposed reforms don’t go far enough and that flaws in the system trap people in abusive arrangements

Last week, Britney Spears testified in court about the conservatorship that has long controlled her life, and noted there were a thousand people stuck in “abusive” arrangements like hers.

In California, lawmakers have responded to the international outcry about the singer’s peculiar legal arrangement with proposed reforms that aim to expand the rights and due process of people in conservatorships.

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Obama says Trump violated ‘core tenet’ of democracy with election ‘hooey’ – as it happened

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– Maanvi Singh and Vivian Ho

As the United States has become more diverse, it has also become more racially segregated, according to a new nationwide analysis from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

More than 80% of America’s large metropolitan areas were more racially segregated in 2019 than they were in 1990, the researchers found, even though explicit racial discrimination in housing has been outlawed for half a century. The levels of residential segregation appeared highest not in the American south, but in parts of the north-east and midwest: the most segregated metropolitan area in the US according to the study is New York City, followed by Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit.

Related: ‘Where you live determines everything’: why segregation is growing in the US

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Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for murder of George Floyd

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Four members of the Floyd family, including his seven-year-old daughter Gianna, gave statements before the sentencing

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd, has been sentenced to 22 years and six months for second-degree murder, closing one chapter of a case that thrust the issue of race and American policing back into the global spotlight.

Related: Protests erupt in Minneapolis over man fatally shot by deputies

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Harvey Weinstein to be extradited to California for sexual assault charges

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Judge said there was no reason to delay transfer any longer and denied lawyer’s request to keep him at a state prison in New York

Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein will be extradited to California after a New York judge’s approval, where he faces additional sexual assault charges.

The extradition order ends a legal fight, prolonged by the pandemic, the defense’s concerns about Weinstein’s failing health, and a squabble over paperwork.

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The Great Dissenter review: a superb life of John Marshall Harlan, champion of equality

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not the only great supreme court justice to have made her name with dissent in the name of progress

The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent collar is a small part of a larger history. Unlike some other high courts, the US supreme court accepts strong dissent. Ginsburg stood in the tradition of John Marshall Harlan – the only justice with the courage, foresight, humanity and constitutional vision to object to the odious 1896 Plessy v Ferguson decision that approved racial segregation.

Related: How the Word is Passed review: After Tulsa, other forgotten atrocities

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