#lawsuit

#lawsuit

Attorney General Rob Bonta said the U.S. Department of Transportation did not have the authority to suspend $180 million to fund EV charging programs in California which Congress and former President Biden had already approved in 2021 as part of the landmark Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. This is funding that was lawfully directed to states and local communities by Congress, Bonta said at a news conference.

Dionne Warwick is being sued by a rights firm that claims she has backed out of a deal that entitles them to "hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars" for work recovering her royalties, court records show. The company, Artists Rights Enforcement Corporation, cites its negotiation of terms and payment for the "Walk on By" sample in Doja Cat's " Paint the Town Red " as a key payday for which it is owed an ongoing cut of royalties. Warwick's team did not immediately respond to Pitchfork's request for comment.

A group of states announced they are suing the Trump administration to block a $100,000 fee for any new applications for H-1B visas, which allow employers in the US to hire skilled foreign workers. The lawsuit, which was filed Friday, argues that the fee creates a costly and illegal barrier for employers to use the popular visa program, particularly in the public sector. They also contend that the dollar figure was set arbitrarily and exceeds the fee-setting authority afforded by Congress.

California and a coalition of other states are suing the Trump administration over a policy charging employers $100,000 for each new H-1B visa they request for foreign employees to work in the U.S. - calling it a threat not only to major industry but to public education and healthcare services. "As the world's fourth largest economy, California knows that when skilled talent from around the world joins our workforce, it drives our state forward," said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who announced the litigation Friday.

The legal battle between the University of California, Los Angeles, the City of Pasadena and the Rose Bowl Operating Company continues as the school mulls potentially abandoning its lease to play football at the Rose Bowl. The school is reportedly looking to decamp to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood to take advantage of its proximity to the university campus as well as increased revenue generation opportunities with more premium seating and luxury suites.

UC Berkeley admitted to discriminating against an Israeli researcher, agreed to reverse course and invite her to teach on campus and will pay $60,000, in a settlement of her lawsuit alleging she was ousted over nationality, announced Wednesday. Yael Nativ, a dance researcher and sociologist, sued the university for violating state anti-discrimination laws when UC Berkeley allegedly denied her a teaching opportunity after the department chair sent Nativ a WhatsApp message saying the situation on campus was too hot following student-led pro-Palestinian protests.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit today to prevent President Donald Trump from replacing a beautiful picture of Glacier National Park with a close-up of his own face on the America the Beautiful National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Annual Pass, reads a press release. Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center, blasted the president's image being used on passes as his crassest, most ego-driven action yet.

A less-redacted court filing in a lawsuit against Mat Ishbia includes new financial details that two Phoenix Suns minority owners say could threaten Ishbia's majority ownership of the team. The filing, a copy of which was obtained by ESPN on Tuesday, is from a lawsuit filed Nov. 24 in Delaware State Court by attorneys representing Scott Seldin and Andy Kohlberg, two Suns minority owners.

Originally scheduled to start March 9, 2026, the It Ends With Us trial now starts on May 18, per . Judge Lewis J. Liman of the Southern District of New York explained that two criminal trials that "take precedent" over a civil trial. The next hearing is on January 22, and Judge Liman reportedly told the parties at a post-discovery hearing on December 9 to talk about settlements, if needed.

A passenger who died on a Royal Caribbean cruise was doused with pepper spray and physically restrained by staff members after he was served 33 alcoholic drinks and became violent, according to a lawsuit the man's family filed against the company. Video from aboard the Royal Caribbean Cruises ship showed Michael Virgil at times screaming, kicking at a door, shirtless and then being restrained on the ground.

What happened when the two parties met is the subject of a lawsuit that Rizzbot's creators, Social Robotics, detailed in a petition filed in November against Speed, né Darren Jason Watkins Jr., his management company, Mixed Management, and another producer who was with Speed's team that day. The petition, obtained by TechCrunch, alleges that Speed inflicted "irreparable damage" to Rizzbot.

In new court documents filed late Thursday, attorneys for the Rose Bowl Operating Co. and the City of Pasadena contended that "upon information and belief," in late 2024 or early 2025, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment executives openly suggested that SoFi Stadium was pursuing UCLA, "demonstrating the SoFi defendants' intent to induce UCLA's breach and disturb UCLA's performance of the agreement" from a contract that binds the Bruins to play at the Rose Bowl through the 2043 season.

The argument: The city used an environmental impact report done for the 2022 Housing Element of the General Plan to fulfill the requirements that the upzoning undergo review under the California Environmental Quality Act. The Yimby movement hates CEQA, but the law exists for a very good reason: Before any major project that could impact the environment gets approval, the public has the right to know what those impacts might be.

The Tribune alleges that its lawyers contacted Perplexity in mid-October asking if the AI search engine was using its content, according to the complaint. Perplexity's lawyers replied it did not train models with the Tribune's work, but that it "may receive non-verbatim factual summaries," the lawsuit claims. The Tribune's lawyers, however, argue that Perplexity is delivering Tribune content verbatim. Interestingly, the newspaper's lawyers are also calling out Perplexity's Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) as a culprit.

Although Alexi has not yet formally responded to the lawsuit, its founder and CEO Mark Doble told me yesterday afternoon that he denies any wrongdoing and that he believes the lawsuit is based on a misunderstanding of the original licensing agreement that came to light during Clio's recent closing of its purchase of vLex, which had merged with Fastcase in 2023.

Bon appétit! Katy Perry was swaggering about in a garish new hat. She seemed to say "Look at me, Instagram, I've got a new hat." The hat in question was a full Thanksgiving feast, made of what looks like Sculpey. You've got a well-brined bird, cranberry sauce, decorative gourds. The works, in other words. Perry captioned her Reel "Hatty Thanksgiving."

The brief, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California but is not yet public, reportedly claims the study, called Project Mercury, was initiated in 2019 and was meant to explore the impact of apps on polarization, news-consumption habits, "well-being, and daily social interactions." Plaintiffs in the suit say social media companies were aware that these platforms had a negative impact on the mental health of children and young adults but did not act to prevent it.

"P.S. I'm suing you @pstorre," Hudson wrote as the post's caption.

Members of the Board of Supervisors are calling for action and accountability after Mission Local reported that women held in a San Francisco jail were allegedly forced to undress in front of each other while sheriff's deputies watched and filmed them with their body-worn cameras. Late Thursday afternoon, 17 women filed a claim with the city saying that deputies violated multiple laws and policies in May when they strip searched them en masse while male deputies were present.

For months, shady organizations and individuals carried out a smear and harassment campaign designed to intimidate and silence me, said Khalil in a statement to the Center for Constitutional Rights. The public deserves full accountability for every bad actor who helped make that possible, including those at Columbia who fabricated and amplified these smears and opened the door for state retaliation against Palestinian speech.

The suit raises a host of questions. Is Perplexity's agent a rogue buyer with unacceptable security risks, or is Amazon bullying an insurgent competitor out of the game? Whose interests does a semi-autonomous AI agent represent, the customer or the agent's maker, and who is liable for its misconduct? The next iteration of AI may hang in the balance of the suit.

They took her answer out and they gave her a totally different answer using her. At least they used her, but they took it from 20 minutes or something later in the interview. In other words, they took some other answer to a totally different question. And it was still a lousy answer. But it wasn't election threatening, right? And we just settled that case. But that's not as bad as what BBC did.