California’s tech companies, the epicenter of the state’s economy, sent politicians a loud message this year: Back down from restrictive artificial intelligence regulation or they’ll leave.
The tactic appeared to have worked, activists said, because some politicians weakened or scrapped guardrails to mitigate AI’s biggest risks.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected a bill aimed at making companion chatbots safer for children after the tech industry fought it. In his veto message, the governor raised concerns about placing broad limits on AI, which has sparked a massive investment spree and created new billionaires overnight around the San Francisco Bay Area.
Assembly Bill 1064 would have barred companion chatbot operators from making these AI systems available to minors unless the chatbots weren’t “foreseeably capable” of certain conduct, including encouraging a child to engage in self-harm. Newsom said he supported the goal, but feared it would unintentionally bar minors from using AI tools and learning how to use technology safely.
“We cannot prepare our youth for a future where AI is ubiquitous by preventing their use of these tools altogether,” he wrote in his veto message.
The bill’s veto was a blow to child safety advocates who had pushed it through the state Legislature and a win for tech industry groups that fought it. In social media ads, groups such as TechNet had urged the public to tell the governor to veto the bill because it would harm innovation and lead to students falling behind in school.
Organizations trying to rein in the world’s largest tech companies as they advance the powerful technology say the tech industry has become more empowered at the national and state levels.
Meta, Google, OpenAI, Apple and other major tech companies have strengthened their relationships with the Trump administration. Companies are funding new organizations and political action committees to push back against state AI policy while pouring money into lobbying.
In Sacramento, AI companies have lobbied behind the scenes for more freedom. California’s massive pool of engineering talent, tech investors and companies make it an attractive place for the tech industry, but companies are letting policymakers know that other states are also interested in attracting those investments and jobs. Big Tech is particularly sensitive to regulations in the Golden State because so many companies are headquartered there and must abide by its rules.
“We believe California can strike a better balance between protecting consumers and enabling responsible technological growth,” Robert Boykin, TechNet’s executive director for California and the Southwest, said in a statement.
Common Sense Media founder and Chief Executive Jim Steyer said tech lobbyists put tremendous pressure on Newsom to veto AB 1064. Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that rates and reviews technology and entertainment for families, sponsored the bill.
“They threaten to hurt the economy of California,” he said. “That’s the basic message from the tech companies.”
Advertising is among the tactics tech companies with deep pockets use to convince politicians to kill or weaken legislation. Even if the governor signs a bill, companies have at times sued to block new laws from taking effect.
“If you’re really trying to do something bold with tech policy, you have to jump over a lot of hurdles,” said David Evan Harris, senior policy advisor at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, which supported AB 1064. The group focuses on finding state-level solutions to threats that AI, disinformation and emerging technologies pose to democracy.
Tech companies have threatened to move their headquarters and jobs to other states or countries, a risk looming over politicians and regulators.
The California Chamber of Commerce, a broad-based business advocacy group that includes tech giants, launched a campaign this year that warned over-regulation could stifle innovation and hinder California.
“Making competition harder could cause California companies to expand elsewhere, costing the state’s economy billions,” the group said on its website.
From January to September, the California Chamber of Commerce spent $11.48 million lobbying California lawmakers and regulators on a variety of bills, filings to the California secretary of state show. During that period, Meta spent $4.13 million. A lobbying disclosure report shows that Meta paid the California Chamber of Commerce $3.1 million, making up the bulk of their spending. Google, which also paid TechNet and the California Chamber of Commerce, spent $2.39 million.
Amazon, Uber, DoorDash and other tech companies spent more than $1 million each. TechNet spent around $800,000.
The threat that California companies could move away has caught the attention of some politicians.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who has investigated tech companies over child safety concerns, indicated that despite initial concern, his office wouldn’t oppose ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s restructuring plans. The new structure gives OpenAI’s nonprofit parent a stake in its for-profit public benefit corporation and clears the way for OpenAI to list its shares.
Bonta blessed the restructuring partly because of OpenAI’s pledge to stay in the state.
“Safety will be prioritized, as well as a commitment that OpenAI will remain right here in California,” he said in a statement last week. The AG’s office, which supervises charitable trusts and ensures these assets are used for public benefit, had been investigating OpenAI’s restructuring plan over the last year and a half.
OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said he’s glad to stay in California.
“California is my home, and I love it here, and when I talked to Attorney General Bonta two weeks ago I made clear that we were not going to do what those other companies do and threaten to leave if sued,” he posted on X.
Critics — which included some tech leaders such as Elon Musk, Meta and former OpenAI executives as well as nonprofits and foundations — have raised concerns about OpenAI’s restructuring plan. Some warned it would allow startups to exploit charitable tax exemptions and let OpenAI prioritize financial gain over public good.
Lawmakers and advocacy groups say it’s been a mixed year for tech regulation. The governor signed Assembly Bill 56, which requires platforms to display labels for minors that warn about social media’s mental health harms. Another piece of signed legislation, Senate Bill 53, aims to make AI developers more transparent about safety risks and offers more whistleblower protections.
The governor also signed a bill that requires chatbot operators to have procedures to prevent the production of suicide or self-harm content. But advocacy groups, including Common Sense Media, removed their support for Senate Bill 243 because they said the tech industry pushed for changes that weakened its protections.
Newsom vetoed other legislation that the tech industry opposed, including Senate Bill 7, which requires employers to notify workers before deploying an “automated decision system” in hiring, promotions and other employment decisions.
Called the “No Robo Bosses Act,” the legislation didn’t clear the governor, who thought it was too broad.
“A lot of nuance was demonstrated in the lawmaking process about the balance between ensuring meaningful protections while also encouraging innovation,” said Julia Powles, a professor and executive director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law & Policy.
The battle over AI safety is far from over. Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), who co-wrote AB 1064, said she plans to revive the legislation.
Child safety is an issue that both Democrats and Republicans are examining after parents sued AI companies such as OpenAI and Character.AI for allegedly contributing to their children’s suicides.
“The harm that these chatbots are causing feels so fast and furious, public and real that I thought we would have a different outcome,” Bauer-Kahan said. “It’s always fascinating to me when the outcome of policy feels to be disconnected from what I believe the public wants.”
Steyer from Common Sense Media said a new ballot initiative includes the AI safety protections that Newsom vetoed.
“That was a setback, but not an overall defeat,” he said about the veto of AB 1064. “This is a David and Goliath situation, and we are David.”
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A pair of court rulings declaring some of Florida’s gun restrictions unconstitutional are creating some confusion in the notoriously firearm-friendly state — and fueling activists’ calls for Republican legislators to take action to update state statutes so they abide by the new legal landscape.
Despite Florida’s history of being a gun-supporting climate, Florida’s GOP-dominated state Legislature took steps to restrict gun laws in the wake of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Since the day the measure was signed into law, gun rights advocates have been pushing to unravel it.
Now, activists say recent court rulings are fueling their push to expand gun rights in the state, emboldened by U.S. Supreme Court’s updated standards for evaluating gun laws based on the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
“Leaving unconstitutional laws on the books creates nothing but confusion,” said Sean Caranna, executive director of the advocacy group Florida Carry.
Here’s what to know.
Judge finds age restriction on concealed carry unconstitutional
A ruling by a circuit court judge in Broward County, home to Fort Lauderdale, found that Florida’s prohibition against people under the age of 21 from carrying a concealed firearm is unconstitutional, at least as it relates to the case in question.
Last week, Judge Frank Ledee tossed out the conviction of 19-year-old Joel Walkes, who was charged with a third-degree felony for carrying a concealed handgun. Florida statutes currently allow people between the age of 18 and 20 to possess a firearm, if they legally receive it as a gift or an inheritance, but they are barred from purchasing guns or carrying them concealed.
Ledee found the state’s prohibition is incompatible with the Supreme Court’s historical test, and inconsistent with a recent appeals court ruling that found a state law banning the open carrying of firearms is unconstitutional. In his decision, the judge pointed to the Legislature’s role in codifying and clarifying the changes.
“Distilling these inconsistencies into a framework of firearm regulations compatible with the guarantee to bear arms pursuant to the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is best left to the wisdom of legislative debate,” Ledee wrote.
Open carry ruling sparks questions
Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal issued its ruling last month in a case stemming from the July 4, 2022, arrest of a man who stood at a major intersection in downtown Pensacola carrying a visible, holstered pistol and a copy of the U.S. Constitution.
The decision legalizes open carry, though there are preexisting limitations against carrying in a threatening manner or in certain restricted spaces like government meetings, schools and bars. The ruling has prompted some Florida sheriffs to urge caution among gun owners and seek clarity from lawmakers.
Legalizing open carry has long been a major focus of gun rights activists in the state, who oppose the slate of restrictions that Florida lawmakers implemented in the wake of the Parkland school shooting, which killed 17 people and injured 17 others. Among the law’s provisions was raising the legal gun-buying age to 21.
Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, said the recent court decisions put more onus on lawmakers to enact state statutes that line up with recent judicial rulings.
“I would not be surprised if in the next session the Florida Legislature doesn’t just take care of this by amending the statute to say, ‘clean it up.’ And then that’ll end all these lawsuits and possible lawsuits,” Jarvis said of the age-related prohibition. “And that’s really now what should happen.”
Advocates push for expanding gun laws
In the years since the 2018 Parkland shooting, lawmakers’ efforts to lower the gun-buying age to 18 have advanced in the Florida House but ultimately failed in the state Senate.
Now some advocates say the recent court rulings should force the hand of legislators who have opposed expanding gun rights in the past.
“We’ve been telling the Legislature since 2010 that this was going to be a problem for them if they didn’t act. And they chose not to act,” Caranna said.
“I hope that given some of the recent decisions from the United States Supreme Court and the Florida courts, that they will finally see that the 2nd Amendment is not a second-class right,” he added.
Representatives for Florida’s House speaker and Senate president did not immediately respond to inquiries Wednesday.
The Exxon gas station on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, in 2006. Exxon Mobil has sued the State of California in federal court challenging a pair of laws that require the oil giant to report climate emissions data tied to its products, worldwide. File photo by Kamenko Pajic/UPI | License Photo
Oct. 26 (UPI) — Petroleum giant Exxon Mobil has filed a federal lawsuit challenging a pair of California laws that would require the company to report greenhouse gas emissions tied to the worldwide use of its products.
The complaint, Filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, argues that the California statutes violate the company’s free speech rights by compelling it to “trumpet California’s preferred message even though Exxon Mobil believes the speech is misleading and misguided.”
Calif. SB 253, known as the Climate Corporate Data Act, requires the state’s Air Resources Board to adopt regulations that mandate private companies with more than $1billion in annual revenue to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, indirect emissions, such as the electricity purchased by the company and emissions from the company’s supply chain, including water, water usage, business travel and employee commutes. The indirect emissions account for about two-thirds of a company’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The legislation does not require Exxon to change anything about its production process or limit what consumers can use, only that the company provide data on its emissions.
Michael Gerrard, a climate change researcher at Columbia University, said the oil giant has a long history of resisting making such information public, and said the suit reflects “Exxon’s pattern of aggressively pushing back” on any climate change-related regulation.
Supporters of the law say it discourages “corporate greenwashing,” such as marketing efforts that falsely depict a company’s efforts to reduce climate-warming emissions.
“We need the full picture to make the deep emissions cuts that scientists tell us are necessary to avert the world’s impacts of climate change,” said Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, the bill’s author.
In its lawsuit, Exxon said SB 253 and a companion measure, SB 261, would require the company to “engage in granular conjecture about unknowable future developments and to publicly disseminate that speculation on its website.”
SB 261 requires companies with revenue in excess of $500 million to disclose their climate-related financial risks.
The US is charging two men allegedly associated with antifa with “terrorism”. The case follows President Donald Trump’s executive order to designate antifa a “domestic terrorist organization”, despite most experts agreeing that antifa is an ideology rather than an organised group. What does the latest move from the Trump administration mean for dissent and free speech in the US?
Brooke Knowles knew she wanted the black puppy posted on the Facebook page of a self-described home breeder of Coton De Tulears. He looked like he’d have an outgoing personality.
She put down a nonrefundable deposit and drove to Temecula to pick him up. She paid about $2,000 and named him Ted.
Before she even left for home, Ted vomited and had diarrhea on the grass outside. He was lethargic, his chest soaked with drool.
A closer look later at the paperwork provided by the seller revealed something else unsettling: Ted wasn’t bred in California. He had been imported from a kennel in Utah.
“I thought that I was getting a dog that had been bred at his home,” Knowles said in a series of interviews with The Times. “This poor puppy, he was so traumatized.”
On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of animal welfare bills into state law that will restrict puppy sales and strengthen protections for buyers like Knowles. The bills were introduced as a result of a Times investigation last year that detailed how designer dogs are trucked into California from out-of-state commercial breeders and resold by people saying they were small, local operators.
The three bills Newsom signed into law are:
Assembly Bill 519 by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) bans online marketplaces where dogs are sold by brokers, which is defined as any person or business that sells or transports a dog bred by someone else for profit. That includes major national pet retailers, including PuppySpot, as well as California-based operations that resell puppies bred elsewhere. The law applies to dogs, cats and rabbits under a year old. It does not apply to police dogs or service animals and provides an exemption for shelters, rescues and 4H clubs.
AB 506 by Assemblymember Steve Bennett (D-Ventura) voids pet purchase contracts involving California buyers if the seller requires a nonrefundable deposit. The law also makes the pet seller liable if they fail to disclose breeder details and medical history.
Senate Bill 312 by state Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange) requires pet sellers to share health certificates with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which would then make them available without redactions to the public.
The bills were supported by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who said they are “an important step in shutting down deceptive sales tactics of these puppy brokers.”
“Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and it’s time to shine a light on puppy mills,” Newsom said in a statement. “Greater transparency in pet purchases will bring to light abusive practices that take advantage of pets in order to exploit hopeful pet owners. Today’s legislation protects both animals and Californians by addressing fraudulent pet breeding and selling practices.”
Lawmakers said new laws close loopholes that emerged after California in 2019 banned the sale of commercially bred dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores. That retail ban did not apply to online sales, which surged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Times’ investigation found that in the years after the retail ban took effect, a network of resellers stepped in to replace pet stores, often posing as local breeders and masking where puppies were actually bred. Some buyers later discovered they had purchased dogs from sellers using fake names or disposable phone numbers after their pets became ill or died.
Times reporters analyzed the movement of more than 71,000 dogs coming into California since 2019 by requesting certificates of veterinary inspection, which are issued by a federally accredited veterinarian listing where the animal came from, its destination and verification that it is healthy enough to travel.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture has long received those health certificates from other states by mistake — the records are supposed to go to county public health departments — and, in recent years, made it a practice to immediately destroy them. Dog importers who were supposed to submit the records to counties largely failed to do so.
The Times obtained the records by requesting the documents from every other state. In the days following the story’s publication, lawmakers and animal advocates called on the state’s Food and Agriculture Department to stop “destroying evidence” of the deceptive practices by purging the records. The department began preserving the records thereafter, but released them with significant redactions.
In one instance, the state redacted the name and address of a person with numerous shipments of puppies from Ohio. The Times obtained the same travel certificates without redactions from the Ohio Department of Agriculture. The address listed on the records is for a Home Depot in Milpitas. The phone number on some of those travel certificates belongs to Randy Kadee Vo.
The Times’ reporting last year found Vo’s name and various Bay Area addresses, including a warehouse, were listed as the destination for 1,900 dogs imported into California since 2019. At the time, he disputed that number but declined to say how many he had imported. People who bought puppies from Vo told The Times that they were told they were buying puppies that were locally bred.
Shortly after The Times questioned Vo about the imports, a different name, along with the Home Depot address, began appearing on health certificates with his phone number. Vo did not respond to a request for comment.
The Times identified hundreds of records detailing other sellers with names that appear to be fake or addresses that go to unaffiliated businesses, shopping centers and commercial mailbox offices.
While the new laws were championed by animal welfare groups, some have questioned how adequately the laws will be enforced by state officials — particularly when it comes to policing out-of-state facilities selling online and then shipping puppies directly California buyers.
“Enforcement will now fall on nonprofits like ours to monitor and report issues that we see, in hopes that the agencies act,” said Mindi Callison, head of the Iowa-based anti-puppy-mill nonprofit Bailing Out Benji.
Callison said lawmakers should next turn their focus to requiring California breeders to be licensed, similar to standards in Iowa, Missouri and other states. California does not have a statewide licensing program, instead relying on local jurisdictions for oversight. While some cities and counties require breeders to be licensed and inspected, little information is available online to help consumers vet them.
“There is a higher risk of dogs being kept in inhumane conditions in states where there are no regulations to follow and have no eyes on them,” Callison said.
Opponents of the legislation argued that California’s previous attempts to cut off the supply from puppy mills by banning pet store sales only fueled an unregulated marketplace — and warned banning brokers will do the same.
“Eliminating these brokers will not reduce demand for pets; it will simply force more Californians into unregulated, riskier marketplaces,” said Alyssa Miller-Hurley of the Pet Advocacy Network, which represents breeders, retailers and pet owners, in a letter opposing the legislation.
For consumers like Knowles, the lack of transparency when buying her puppy Ted has been long-lasting and costly. More than a year after Knowles took the puppy to her home in Long Beach, he developed stomach issues that got so bad he wound up in the emergency room. She also had doubts that her puppy was a purebred Coton De Tulear as advertised.
She said a pet DNA test confirmed those suspicions and connected her with other people whose dogs were purchased from the same seller. The test results said one of the dogs share the same amount of DNA as people do with their full siblings – and that they’re mutts.
“We call him the most expensive rescue dog we’ve ever had,” Knowles said of Ted, who is now on a restrictive diet. “Our group started to call our dogs ‘Fauxtons,’ since they weren’t Cotons.”
Knowles sued the seller, Tweed Fox of Carlsbad Cotons, over the test results showing Ted was not a purebred puppy, but said she lost.
“Really the core issue is … masquerading to be something you’re not,” she said.
Fox told The Times that he began sourcing from a Utah company during the Covid pandemic, when the demand for puppies spiked beyond the number he was able to breed at home.
He thought the Utah puppies were purebreds because they came with the proper registration paperwork, but said that “turned out not to be the case.” He said he did not mislead customers because he was in fact a home breeder, and only advertised the out-of-state puppies as Coton de Tulears, “which is what I thought I was purchasing.”
“You only can breed so many in a home,” he said. “I thought I was providing equal quality puppies at the time, and apparently, I wasn’t at that point, except for my own home bred.”
Fox said he has since moved to Dallas, where he breeds and sells Cotons. While the California broker law won’t impact him now that he’s left the state, he said he refuses to buy anyone else’s puppies for resale.
“I only sell my own,” he said. “I’m not in the business to cheat people out of anything.”
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court justices on Tuesday heard a free-speech challenge to state laws against “conversion therapy” and sounded likely to rule the measures violate the 1st Amendment.
California and more than 20 other states have adopted laws to forbid licensed counselors from urging or encouraging gay or transgender teens to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.
They were adopted in reaction to a history of dangerous and discredited practices, including treatments that induced nausea and vomiting or administered electric shocks.
Lawmakers and medical experts said these efforts to “cure” LGBTQ+ teens were cruel and ineffective and caused lasting harm.
But these “talk therapy” laws have been challenged by a number of Christian counselors who believe they can help young people who want to talk about their feelings and their sexual identity.
The court on Tuesday heard an appeal from Kaley Chiles, a counselor from Colorado Springs, Colo. She says she is an evangelical Christian, but does not seek to “cure” young people of a same-sex attraction or change their gender identity.
But she sued, alleging the state law seeks to “censor” her conversations and threatens her with punishment.
She lost before a federal judge and a U.S. appeals court, both of whom said the state has the authority to regulate the practice of medicine and to prevent substandard healthcare.
But the justices, both conservative and liberal, said the Colorado law appeared to violate the 1st Amendment.
“What’s being regulated here is pure speech,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Moreover, he said, the state law enforces a double standard. It would punish a licensed counselor who agrees to talk to a teenage client who wants to “overcome same-sex attractions,” but not if she encourages the teen to accept or affirm those attractions.
Justice Elena Kagan said she too saw a potential 1st Amendment violation. And Justice Sonia Sotomayor said there was less evidence that talk therapy alone has caused real harm.
In defense of the law, Colorado state solicitor Shannon Stevenson said the law applies only to licensed counselors. It does not extend to others, including religious ministers.
The practice of medical care “is a heavily regulated area. A doctor doesn’t have a 1st Amendment right to give wrong advice to patients,” she said.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett and others suggested counselors could still face a medical malpractice lawsuit, even if the court rules the state law violates the 1st Amendment.
California and other Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration on Monday for allegedly stripping them of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal security and disaster relief funding based on their unwillingness to aid in federal immigration enforcement.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said the latest funding reduction — which the states were notified of over the weekend — flew in the face of last week’s ruling. He criticized it as an illegal effort to force Democratic states into complying with a federal immigration campaign they have no legal obligation to support.
“Tell me, how does defunding California’s efforts to protect against terrorism make our communities safer?” Bonta said in a statement. “President Trump doesn’t like that we won’t be bullied into doing his bidding, ignoring our sovereign right to make decisions about how our law enforcement resources are best used to protect our communities.”
The White House referred questions on the lawsuit to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
The agency has previously argued that its core mission is to defend the nation’s security against threats, including from illegal immigration, and therefore that it should be able to withhold funding from states that it believes are not upholding or are actively undermining that mission.
The funding in question — billions of dollars annually — is distributed to the states to “prepare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from catastrophic disasters,” and have been distributed “evenhandedly” for decades by administrations of both political parties, the states’ lawsuit argues.
The funding, authorized by Congress in part after disasters such as September 11 and Hurricane Katrina, pays for things such as the salaries and training of first responders, testing of state computer systems for vulnerabilities to cyber attacks, mutual aid compacts among regional partners and emergency responses to disasters, the states said in their lawsuit.
Bonta’s office said California expected about $165 million, but was notified it would receive $110 million, a cut of $55 million, or a third of its funding. Other blue states saw even greater reductions, with Illinois seeing a 69% reduction and New York receiving a 79% reduction, it said.
Other states that are supporting the Trump administration’s immigration policies received large increases, and some more than 100% increases, the suing states said.
They said the notifications provided no justification for the reductions, noting only that they were made at the direction of Homeland Security. And yet, the reason was clear, they said, including because of recent comments by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other administration officials who have stated outright that states who do not cooperate with federal immigration policies and that maintain sanctuary policies would see reduced funding.
“The explanation for DHS and FEMA’s last-minute decision to reallocate $233 million in homeland security funds — the Reallocation Decision — is apparent. Although DHS has for decades administered federal grant programs in a fair and evenhanded manner, the current Administration is taking money from its enemies,” the states wrote in their lawsuit. “Or, as defendant Secretary Noem put it succinctly in a February 19 internal memorandum, States whose policies she dislikes ‘should not receive a single dollar of the Department’s money.’”
The states also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to immediately block the funding cuts — and prevent the Federal Emergency Management Agency from disbursing any related funds that could not be recouped later — as the case proceeds.
Just last week, a federal judge ruled that the administration setting immigration-related conditions on similar emergency funding was “arbitrary and capricious,” and unconstitutional.
“DHS justifies the conditions by pointing to its broad homeland security mission, but the grants at issue fund programs such as disaster relief, fire safety, dam safety, and emergency preparedness,” the judge in that case wrote. “Sweeping immigration-related conditions imposed on every DHS-administered grant, regardless of statutory purpose, lack the necessary tailoring.”
Last month, another judge ruled in a third case that the Trump administration cannot deny funding to Los Angeles or other local jurisdictions based on their sanctuary policies.
In their lawsuit Monday, California and the other states argued that the Trump administration appeared “undeterred” by last week’s ruling against pre-conditioning funding on immigration enforcement cooperation.
After being “frustrated in its first attempt to coerce [the states] into enforcing federal civil immigration law,” the states wrote, “DHS took yet another lawless action” by simply reallocating funding to “more favored jurisdictions” willing to support the administration’s immigration crackdown.
Bonta said the law requires such funding to be distributed based on objective assessments of “threat and risk,” but the weekend notifications showed the Trump administration doing little more than “rushing to work around last week’s order” and “force and coerce” blue states into compliance in a new way.
“This is a lawless, repeat offender administration that keeps breaking the law,” he said.
Bonta said the lawsuit is the 40th his office has filed against the current Trump administration to date. He said his office was in conversation with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, and that they both believe that “we deserve all the funding that has been appropriated to us.”
Joining California in Monday’s lawsuit were Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia. All were also party to the litigation challenging preconditions on such funding that was decided last week.
Sept. 15 (UPI) — China said that Nvidia has violated its anti-trust laws in a 2020 acquisition of an Israeli company.
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation announced late last year that the company’s acquisition of Mellanox violates the country’s anti-trust laws. The SAMR approved the acquisition at the time, but now said Nvidia hasn’t followed some conditions of the agreement. It hasn’t said what conditions, though. SAMR said Monday that it will continue its investigation.
Nvidia shares dropped 2% on the news.
Negotiators from China and the United States are meeting in Madrid to discuss trade tensions between the two countries. Recently, the United States added 23 Chinese companies to a list of those blocked from buying U.S. technology because of security issues.
In July, China said it’s investigating American integrated circuit suppliers. The Cyberspace Administration of China, or CAC, demanded Nvidia explain “backdoor security risks” allegedly found in Nvidia’s H20 computing chips, and to submit documentation related to those risks that it said was revealed by American artificial intelligence experts.
Last week, the FCC announced the launch of the proceedings to revoke recognition of seven laboratories that review and approve electronics as accredited test laboratories for testing electronics for approval for the U.S. market, accusing them of posing a risk to national security. Many of them were based in China.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has lobbied for American companies to be allowed to sell to China. He said that if American firms aren’t in China, Chinese companies like Huawei will fill the void in the AI market, CNBC reported. Last month, Washington agreed, with a deal that Nvidia give 15% of revenue in that market to the U.S. government.
On Thursday, NASA said it’s barring Chinese nationals from using its “facilities, materials and networks to ensure the security of our work,” after Chinese workers contributing to research were locked out of their IT systems and prevented from attending in-person meetings on Sept. 5.
Sept. 5 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against the city of Boston, its Mayor Michelle Wu, the Boston Police Department and police commissioner over its so-called sanctuary city laws.
The Justice Department said in a press release Thursday that the practices in the Boston Trust Act, enacted in 2014, “interfere with the federal government’s enforcement of its immigration laws.”
The law allows Boston police to collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement only “on issues of significant public safety, such as human trafficking, child exploitation, drug and weapons trafficking, and cybercrimes, while refraining from involvement in civil immigration enforcement,” the city said.
“The City of Boston and its mayor have been among the worst sanctuary offenders in America — they explicitly enforce policies designed to undermine law enforcement and protect illegal aliens from justice,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “If Boston won’t protect its citizens from illegal alien crime, this Department of Justice will.”
The Department of Justice said Boston’s law allows the “release of dangerous criminals from police custody who would otherwise be subject to removal, including illegal aliens convicted of aggravated assault, burglary, and drug and human trafficking, onto the streets.”
In a statement, Wu vowed to not back down and said the “unconstitutional attack on our city is not a surprise.”
“Boston is a thriving community, the economic and cultural hub of New England, and the safest major city in the country — but this administration is intent on attacking our community to advance their own authoritarian agenda,” she said. “This is our city, and we will vigorously defend our laws and the constitutional rights of cities, which have been repeatedly upheld in courts across the country. We will not yield.”
In July, a federal judge dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Illinois, Cook County and Chicago over sanctuary laws.
On Aug. 13, Bondi sent a letter to Wu warning her that officials who obstruct federal immigration could face criminal charges or civil liability.
Wu responded on Aug. 19, citing the Chicago dismissal.
“Courts have consistently held, as recently as last month, that local public safety laws like the Boston Trust Act are valid exercises of local authority and fully consistent with federal law,” she wrote.
In August, a federal judge extended his preliminary injunction that blocks the Trump administration from withholding funds for 34 sanctuary jurisdictions.
Those cities include Boston, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles.
Bondi in August published a list of “sanctuary jurisdictions,” which she said “impede law enforcement and put American citizens at risk by design.”
Gavin and Stacey star Sheridan Smith brings Ann Ming’s relentless fight for justice to screens in I Fought The Law. The actress explains why the series was particularly daunting.
I Fought The Law looks back on the murder of Julie Hogg and Ann Ming’s subsequent fight for justice(Image: ITV)
Sheridan Smith portrays Ann Ming, charting her extraordinary fight for justice in ITV‘s newest drama I Fought The Law – but the role was nothing short of daunting.
“It’s what Ann came up against,” Sheridan Smith says, “It was one thing after another. It was relentless. I don’t know the strength it took for Ann to keep fighting. I’m absolutely in awe of her.”
Julie Hogg was 22 years old when she vanished from her Billingham home in November 1989, leaving behind her toddler son Kevin. Her mother, Ann, immediately knew something was wrong.
“I was convinced something had happened to my daughter from day one,” Ann says. But police believed otherwise. “They thought she could have gone to London to start a new life,” Ann says, “It really was frustrating.”
Three months later, Ann’s maternal instincts were tragically vindicated. She discovered Julie’s body herself, hidden under the bath at her home.
The investigation soon identified a suspect: William “Billy” Dunlop. He stood trial for Julie’s murder twice, but juries failed to convict on both occasions.
Then, while serving a prison sentence for unrelated violent offences, Dunlop confessed to Julie’s killing. But there was a twist: under the centuries-old double jeopardy rule, he couldn’t be tried again for the same crime.
But for Ann, giving up wasn’t an option. She petitioned politicians for more than a decade, lobbied the media and refused to let Julie’s case fade from memory with unwavering support of her husband Charlie, played by Daniel York Loh in the crime drama.
This relentless fight – both devastatingly personal and profoundly public – is the backbone of I Fought The Law. For Sheridan Smith, stepping into Ann’s shoes was a privilege and an emotional burden.
“I can only imagine and think if it was my child, but it was emotionally taxing,” she says. “It was just nine weeks and by the end of it, I was a shaking mess.”
Sheridan Smith plays Ann Ming in I Fought the Law – her most daunting role yet(Image: ITV)
The actress fully immersed herself in Ann’s world, devouring documentaries about the case and Ann’s book. Sheridan says: “I get mad at myself if I don’t feel the actual pain and trauma. I wanted to make Ann proud and get her story justice.”
Ann was also present as a consultant on the set, while filming took place in North East England. “She was a huge support and very crucial to the production the whole way through,” series director Erik Richter Strand says. “Sheridan is in every scene. She doesn’t get many breaks. We had to make that set safe, practical and comfortable for Sheridan.”
The transformation was physical as well as emotional. Sheridan swapped her trademark brunette for Ann’s blonde locks. But she dreaded one scene above all: the bathroom scene, where Ann finds Julie’s body. “I knew I had that coming, I wanted to get that scene out, it was a bit scary,” she says. “I knew it’d be torturous.”
“It was my first role as a mum,” she says. “It’s your worst fear, isn’t it? No one should have to go through that. I was emotionally attached to the whole thing.”
There was another, more personal note to Sheridan’s role. “When I did Mrs Biggs, I tried to think of my mum who lost her son, my brother,” she says.
“This time, there was a different layer. Just thinking how I would have felt in that moment, if it was my little one. This was much more powerful, that’s probably why it was a bit difficult.”
1 of 2 | Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., is considering holding a special session of the state legislature to address gun laws following a shooting this week, according to multiple reports. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 30 (UPI) — Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., is considering holding a special session of the state legislature to address gun laws following a shooting this week, according to multiple reports.
The news comes after two children were killed and 17 people were injured in a shooting during Mass at a Catholic school in Minneapolis this week.
The suspect, a 23-year-old transgender woman who reportedly previously attended the church school, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The two children killed were ages 8 and 10, while 14 of the people injured were also children.
“It’s time to take serious action at the State Capitol to address gun violence,” Walz said on X this week.
The governor has yet to officially comment on the reports of a potential special legislative session.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has been vocal in his support for changes to the state’s gun laws.
“We need action … to make sure everyone has this common foundation of safety. Let’s stop this from happening,” Frey, a Democrat, said in a video on X.
“I think we’d be happy to ban assault rifles here in Minneapolis,” he said in an interview.
Police confirmed this week the rifle, shotgun and pistol carried by suspected shooter Robin Westman were all obtained legally.
Walz is dealing with the tragedy only two months after a pair of state lawmakers and their spouses were shot — two fatally — in a politically-motivated attack.
Why some protests in the UK are being criminalised, and what that means for free speech.
In Britain, citizens protesting against the war in Gaza are being arrested and detained under “terrorism” laws. Activists and legal experts warn that “public safety” is being used as a pretext to silence dissent, curb free speech and criminalise legitimate political activism.
Presenter: Stefanie Dekker
Guests: Clare Hinchcliffe – mother of imprisoned activist Laura O’Brien – head of protest team Matt Kennard – investigative journalist and author
Victims’ minister Alex Davies-Jones said it “will strengthen safeguards”.
Announcing the change, Minister for Victims and Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Alex Davies-Jones said: “Through our Plan for Change, we’re putting victims first.
“This move will strengthen safeguards for victims.
“I’ve heard firsthand how this innovative approach will give them the peace of mind they deserve and rebuild their lives without fear.”
Diana Parkes CBE and Hetti Barkworth-Nanton CBE, who are co-founders of the Joanna Simpson Foundation, said: “For far too long, victims have had to reshape their lives to avoid their offenders.
“Exclusion zones have made victims feel trapped as though they are the ones serving a sentence, with the victim carrying the weight of someone else’s crime.
“This announcement from the Ministry of Justice is the much-needed change that has long been called for and is a powerful step forward.
“By placing restrictions on offenders instead, this will now give survivors the freedom they deserve to live, move and heal without fear. “
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Violent abusers are to be made to stay inside ‘restriction zones’ for the first time under new lawsCredit: Getty
California is in a standoff with Texas over redistricting that could decide the balance of power in Congress for the end of Donald Trump’s presidency — a high-stakes gambit with risks for both sides. But if the courts have their say, Texas, facing accusations of racial discrimination, may find itself at a distinct legal disadvantage.
Partisanship unleashed
Both efforts by Texas Republicans and California Democrats are blatantly partisan, proposing a mid-decade redrawing of district lines for the express purpose of benefiting their party in the 2026 midterm elections.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is working with a Democratic supermajority in the Legislature on “trigger” legislation that would schedule a ballot initiative this fall for the new maps. It was a direct response to a Texas plan, supported by Trump and currently in motion in the Austin statehouse, to potentially flip five seats in the upcoming election from blue to red.
The Supreme Court has ruled that judges are powerless to review partisan gerrymandering, even if, as it wrote in 2019, the practice is “incompatible with democratic principles.”
The court ruled in Rucho vs. Common Cause that partisan gerrymandering “is incompatible with the 1st Amendment, that the government shouldn’t do this, and that legislatures and people who undertake this aren’t complying with the letter of the Constitution,” said Chad Dunn, a professor and legal director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project who has argued multiple cases before the Supreme Court. “But it concluded that doesn’t mean the U.S. Supreme Court is the solution to it.”
What courts can still do, however, is enforce the core provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which bars states from redistricting that “packs” or “cracks” minority groups in ways that dilute their voting power.
“Texas doesn’t need to have a good reason or a legitimate reason to engage in mid-decade redistricting — even if it’s clear that Texas is doing this for pure partisan reasons, nothing in federal law at the moment, at least, would preclude that,” said Richard Pildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University. “But Texas cannot redistrict in a way that would violate the Voting Rights Act.”
Vestiges of a landmark law
In 2023, addressing a redistricting fight in Alabama over Black voter representation, the current makeup of the high court ruled in Allen vs. Milligan that discriminating against minority voters in gerrymandering is unconstitutional, ordering the Southern state to create a second minority-majority district.
Today, Texas’ proposed maps may face a similar challenge, amid accusations that they are “cracking” racially diverse communities while preserving white-majority districts, legal scholars said. Already, the state’s 2021 congressional maps are under legal scrutiny over discrimination concerns.
“The Supreme Court affirmed two years ago that the Voting Rights Act works the way we all thought it worked,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School and former deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. “That’s part of the reason for current litigation in Texas, and will undoubtedly be a part of continuing litigation if Texas redraws their lines and goes ahead with it.”
The groundwork for the current Texas plan appears to have been laid with a letter from Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department, who threatened Texas with legal action over three “coalition districts” that she argued were unconstitutional. Coalition districts feature multiple minority communities, none of which comprises the majority.
The resulting maps proposed by Texas redraw all three.
J. Morgan Kousser, a Caltech professor who recently testified in the ongoing case over Texas’ 2021 redistricting effort, said the politics of race in Texas specifically, and the South generally, make its redistricting challenges plain to see but harder to solve.
How do you distinguish between partisanship, which is allowed, and racism, which is not, in states where partisanship falls so neatly down racial lines?
That dilemma may become Texas’ greatest legal problem, as well as its saving grace in court, Kousser said.
“In Texas, as in most Southern states, the connection between race and party is so close that it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish between them,” he said. “That seems to give a get-out-of-jail free card, essentially, to anybody who can claim this is partisan, rather than racial.”
Today, nine states face ongoing litigation concerning potential violations of the Voting Rights Act, a law that turned 60 years old this week. Seven are in the South — states that had for decades been subject to a pre-clearance requirement at the Justice Department before being allowed to change state voting laws.
Newsom has been vocal in his stance that California should position itself to be the national bulwark against the Texas plan.
Last week, the Democratic caucuses of the state Legislature heard a presentation by the UCLA Voting Rights Project on how California might legally gerrymander its own maps for the 2026 midterms.
Matt Barreto, the co-founder of the project and a professor of political science and Chicana/o and Central American studies, said his organization’s position is that gerrymandering “should not be allowed by any state,” he said.
But “if other states are playing the game, the governor is saying he wants to play the game too,” Barreto added.
He said that although five seats have been discussed to match what Texas is doing, he sees a pathway for California to create seven seats that would be safely Democratic.
That includes potential redraws in Orange County, San Diego, the Inland Empire and the northern part of the state. Barreto said there are many districts that currently skew as much as 80% Democratic, and by pulling some of those blue voters into nearby red districts, they could be flipped without risk to the current incumbents, though some new districts may have odd shapes.
For example, districts in the north could become elongated to reach into blue Sacramento or the Bay Area, “using the exact same standards that Texas does,” he said.
Legislators seemed receptive to the idea.
“We’ve taken basic American rights for granted for too long,and I think we’re ill equipped to protect them,” said Assemblymember Maggy Krell (D-Sacramento), who attended the meeting.
“To me, this is much bigger than Texas,” she said.
State Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana), who has worked on redistricting in the past, echoed that support for Newsom, saying he was not “comfortable” with the idea of gerrymandering but felt “compelled” in the current circumstances.
“In order to respond to what’s going on in Texas in particular,” Umberg said, “we should behave in a like manner.”
Barreto, the UCLA professor, warned that if any redistricting happens in California, “no matter what, there’s going to be a lawsuit.”
Dunn said that it’s possible voters could sue under the Voting Rights Act in California, claiming the new districts violate their right to fair representation — even white voters, who have more traditionally been on the other side of such legal actions.
The 1965 law is “for everybody, of every race and ethnicity,” Dunn said. A lawsuit “could be on behalf of the places where the white community is in the minority.”
The prospect of that litigation and the chaos it could cause gives pause to some voting rights experts who see the current situation as a race to the bottom that could ultimately harm democracy by undermining voters’ trust in the system.
“It’s mutual destruction,” said Mindy Romero, a voting expert and professor at USC, of the Texas-California standoff.
The best outcome of the current situation, she said, would be for Congress to take action to prohibit partisan gerrymandering nationwide. This week, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin), who represents a district north of Sacramento that would be vulnerable in redistricting, introduced legislation that would bar mid-decade redistricting. So far, it has gained little support.
“Just like lots of other things, Congress is dropping the ball by not addressing this national problem,” said Richard Hasen, a UCLA professor of political science and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project.
“When it comes to congressional redistricting, fairness should be evaluated on a national basis, since the decisions made in California or Texas affect the whole country,” he said.
CHICAGO — A judge in Illinois dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit Friday that sought to disrupt limits Chicago imposes on cooperation between federal immigration agents and local police.
The lawsuit, filed in February, alleged that so-called sanctuary laws in the nation’s third-largest city “thwart” federal efforts to enforce immigration laws.
It argued that local laws run counter to federal laws by restricting “local governments from sharing immigration information with federal law enforcement officials” and preventing immigration agents from identifying “individuals who may be subject to removal.”
Judge Lindsay Jenkins of the Northern District of Illinois granted the defendants’ motion for dismissal.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said that he was pleased with the decision and that the city is safer when police focus on the needs of Chicagoans.
“This ruling affirms what we have long known: that Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance is lawful and supports public safety. The City cannot be compelled to cooperate with the Trump Administration’s reckless and inhumane immigration agenda,” he said in a statement.
Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, welcomed the ruling, saying in a social media post, “Illinois just beat the Trump Administration in federal court.”
The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security and did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
The administration has filed a series of lawsuits targeting state or city policies it sees as interfering with immigration enforcement, including those in Los Angeles, New York City, Denver and Rochester, N.Y. It sued four New Jersey cities in May.
Heavily Democratic Chicago has been a sanctuary city for decades and has beefed up its laws several times, including during President Trump’s first term in 2017.
That same year, then-Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, signed more statewide sanctuary protections into law, putting him at odds with his party.
There is no official definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities. The terms generally describe limits on local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE enforces U.S. immigration laws nationwide but sometimes seeks state and local help.
SANTIAGO, Chile, June 20 (UPI) — Growing demand for technology in Latin America has made the region a major importer of electronic devices, but it still lacks clear regulations for managing the resulting waste — a problem with serious environmental, public health and economic implications.
“The absence of clear regulations, combined with low public awareness and the lack of efficient recycling infrastructure, is fueling an environmental and health crisis that threatens future generations,” said Carmen Gloria Ide, president of the Association of Companies and Professionals for the Environment and an international sustainability consultant.
Planned obsolescence and the shrinking lifespan of electronic devices are fueling a steady flow of e-waste, much of which ends up in informal landfills or is poorly managed, releasing toxic substances like lead, mercury and cadmium into the soil, water and air.
“We’re facing a major regional challenge,” Ide said. “The European Union offers a model worth replicating, built on collaboration among countries, that could help us address the issue regionally.”
Electronic waste generation in Latin America rose 49% between 2010 and 2019, increasing from 10.4 pounds per person to 14.8 pounds, according to the United Nations’ Global E-waste Monitor 2022 and the Latin America and Caribbean E-waste Platform.
While the figure continues to rise, it remains below the global average and well behind high-consumption regions such as Europe and North America, where levels exceed 39 pounds per person.
Brazil and Mexico generate about 22 to 24 pounds kilograms of e-waste per person each year. Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru report similar levels, averaging between 17.6 and 19.8 pounds, while Nicaragua produces just 5.5 kilograms per person.
Only 3% of e-waste generated in Latin America is properly collected and treated, far below the global average of 17.4%, according to regional monitoring.
The dangers of e-waste extend beyond environmental pollution. Informal metal extraction, often carried out by unprotected workers and children, exposes people to toxic substances that can cause respiratory problems, neurological damage and even cancer.
Improper disposal also results in the loss of valuable materials, such as gold, silver and copper, that could be recovered and reused in manufacturing.
“One ton of e-waste contains gold, silver, copper and other metals that, if properly extracted, hold significant value,” Ide said. “That’s why robust legal frameworks and efficient recycling systems are essential.”
At least 11 countries in the region have adopted some form of Extended Producer Responsibility laws, requiring manufacturers and importers to manage the full life cycle of their products, including disposal.
More responsible e-waste management requires specialized collection centers, dismantling facilities and recycling plants. Public education is also essential to raise awareness of the risks of improper disposal and the importance of proper handling.
Chile and Brazil have enacted some of the region’s most advanced EPR laws, setting clear targets for priority items such as tires, packaging, oil and electronic devices. Colombia,
Mexico and Argentina have sector-specific regulations for managing e-waste, but lack comprehensive national EPR legislation. Peru, Ecuador and Uruguay have made regulatory progress, though implementation remains limited.
Disparities in national laws make it difficult to build coordinated regional recycling networks. Experts say more public and private investment is needed to develop the infrastructure to manage the problem effectively.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that states may ban hormone treatments for transgender teens, rejecting the claim that such gender-based discrimination is unconstitutional.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices said states are generally free to decide on proper standards of medical care, particularly when health experts are divided.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, writing for the court, said the state decides on medical regulations. “We leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process,” he said.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the law “plainly discriminates on the basis of sex… By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent.” Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed.
The ruling upholds laws in Tennessee and 23 other Republican-led states, all of them adopted in the past four years.
Tennessee lawmakers said the number of minors being diagnosed with gender dysphoria had “exploded” in recent years, leading to a “surge in unproven and risky medical interventions for these underage patients.”
California and other Democratic-led states do not prohibit doctors from prescribing puberty blockers or hormones for those under age 18 who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
While the court’s ruling in the Tennessee case should not directly affect California’s law, the Trump administration seeks to prevent the use of federal funds to pay for gender affirming care.
This could affect patients who rely on Medicaid and also restrict hospitals and other medical clinics from providing hormones and other medical treatments for minors.
Wednesday’s decision highlights the sharp turn in the past year on trans rights and “gender affirming” care.
Solicitor Gen. Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the Biden administration, had appealed to the Supreme Court in November, 2023, and urged the justices to strike down the red state laws.
She spoke of a broad consensus in favor of gender affirming care. It was unconstitutional, she argued, for states to ban “evidence-based treatments supported by the overwhelming consensus of the medical community.”
But Republican lawmakers voiced doubt about the long-term effect of these hormone treatments for adolescents.
Their skepticism was reinforced by the Cass Report from Britain, which concluded there were not long-term studies or reliable evidence in support of the treatments.
In his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order condemning “gender ideology extremism.”
He said his administration would “recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
His administration later said its ban on gender affirming care for minors would extend to medical facilities receiving federal funds.
Ecuador’s Intelligence Law would expand the authority of the Strategic Intelligence Center, allowing it to collect personal data, conduct wiretaps and carry out raids without a court order. That law and another measure face review by reviewed by Constitutional Court before taking effect. Photo by Carlos Duran Araujo/EPA-EFE
SANTIAGO, Chile, June 16 (UPI) — President Daniel Noboa’s administration won legislative approval for two key laws aimed at strengthening its response to rising organized crime and violence in Ecuador.
However, the limited debate surrounding the passage of the Intelligence Law and the National Solidarity Law has drawn criticism.
Noboa has defended both laws as essential tools to fight drug trafficking, but some legal experts disagree with the measures.
“Even if Noboa’s actions are well-intentioned, both laws must be reviewed to ensure the fight against drug trafficking doesn’t violate the Constitution,” legal expert Pablo Encalada said.
The Intelligence Law aims to combat organized crime, protect civilians and support economic recovery in violence-plagued areas.
But Ana Belén Cordero, Ecuador’s former secretary for Anti-Corruption Public Policy, called the law authoritarian.
“It violates every principle of the rule of law by granting enormous power to the head of the intelligence system, bypassing prosecutors and judges,” she said.
The new law also would expand the authority of the Strategic Intelligence Center, or CIES, allowing it to collect personal data, conduct wiretaps and carry out raids without a court order.
The National Solidarity Law would create a legal framework for Ecuador’s national intelligence and counterintelligence system. It allows funds seized from drug traffickers to be transferred to security forces without oversight or reporting requirements.
“It makes sense for the state to have confidential funds for intelligence operations, but there must be accountability to the National Assembly on how those resources are used,” Cordero said.
The law would allow security forces to receive real estate, equipment and other contributions from domestic or international organizations. Donors would be eligible for tax breaks.
“This opens the door to massive leaks of both public and private funds,” said Luis Córdova, a researcher at the Ecuadorian Conflict Observatory (Llamas), in an interview with local outlet Primicia.
He also raised concerns about a proposal to increase penalties for juvenile offenders.
While Cordero acknowledged the need to address youth involvement in crime, she argued that minors should not face the same penalties as adults. She emphasized that the state’s absence in the country’s poorest areas drives many young people to join drug gangs.
Because the Intelligence Law has faced criticism from human rights organizations, which argue it violates constitutional protections, it must be reviewed by Ecuador’s Constitutional Court before it can take effect.
In 2024, Ecuador recorded an average of 38 homicides per 100,000 people — the highest rate in Latin America, according to Insight Crime and other sources.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the nation’s anti-discrimination laws apply equally to all employees, regardless of whether those complaining of bias are white or Black, gay or straight.
In a short and unanimous opinion, the justices rejected as outdated and mistaken the view that “members of a majority group” must show more evidence of discrimination before they can sue and win.
Instead, the justices said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has always prohibited workplace discrimination against “any individual” who suffers discrimination because of race, color, religion, national origin and sex, including sexual orientation.
The law “draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said.
The ruling revives a discrimination lawsuit brought by Marlean Ames, an Ohio woman who said she was demoted and discriminated against by a lesbian who became her supervisor. She was then replaced by a gay man who had less experience.
Ames is a heterosexual woman. She sued her employer, the Ohio Department of Youth Services, and alleged she was discriminated against because of her sexual orientation.
But a federal judge rejected her discrimination claim, and the 6th Circuit Court in Cincinnati affirmed that decision. In doing so, the judges said she could not point to “background circumstances” or statistical evidence suggesting that hers was the “unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”
Law students at the University of Virginia Law School appealed her case to the Supreme Court. They pointed out that the 6th Circuit and several other courts continue to use an outdated, two-track approach to discrimination claims.
This is not the standard in much of the nation, however. For example, they said the 9th Circuit Court based in California does not follow this approach, which would require more proof of discrimination from whites or men or heterosexuals.
But the law students said the court should hear the Ames case and clarify the law nationwide.
Although the case did not directly involve DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion, it gained added attention because of President Trump’s drive to rid the government of DEI policies.
Jackson said the Supreme Court for more than 50 years has steadily rejected the view that discrimination laws apply differently to different groups of people.
In Griggs vs. Duke Power in 1971, “we said that ‘[d]iscriminatory preference for any group, minority or majority, is precisely and only what Congress has proscribed.’”
A few years later, the court rejected the two-track approach, she said, “holding that Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act] prohibited racial discrimination against the white petitioners in th[at] case upon the same standards as would be applicable were they Negroes.”
Lawyers for the Biden and Trump administrations had urged the court to overrule the 6th Circuit and make clear there is no double standard for deciding discrimination claims
In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas noted the “majority” in the workplace differs by workplace.
“Women make up the majority of employees in certain industries, such as teaching and nursing, but the minority in other industries, such as construction.”
“Defining the ‘majority’ is even more difficult in the context of race,” he wrote. “American families have become increasingly multicultural, and attempts to divide us all up into a handful of groups have become only more incoherent with time.”
The court’s ruling in Ames vs. Ohio Department of Youth Services said the Ohio court should reopen and reconsider Ames’ claim of discrimination.
Experts in discrimination law said the decision will have an effect in some regions but not others.
“As a practical matter, more ‘reverse discrimination’ lawsuits may survive a motion to dismiss,” said Evan Parness, an attorney at the Covington law firm in New York.
Although the decision doesn’t significantly change how federal district courts in California operate, it has implications for some courts in other parts of the country that require the higher burden of proof, said Elizabeth Beske, professor of law at American University in Washington.
The “background circumstances” rule was first applied in D.C. courts, after a white man sued the Baltimore and Ohio railroad company arguing he was discriminated against when jobs were instead given to Black and female applicants. The court held that “it defie[d] common sense to suggest that the promotion of a Black employee justifies an inference of prejudice against white co-workers in our present society.”
Columbia Law professor Olatunde C. Johnson said the “opinion is not surprising. It depends on a straightforward and sensible statutory reading of Title VII. The 6th Circuit’s ‘background circumstances’ approach was not typical, so I don’t expect the case to dramatically change employment discrimination litigation on the ground.”
Brian McGinnis, an attorney with the firm Fox Rothschild, said because the decision was unanimous, which is rare, it shows an uncontroversial and “pretty straightforward” perspective that there is no historical basis in case law for requiring extra proof from white, heterosexual or other majority groups.
And it represents an effort by the court to streamline and eliminate the need for additional steps in litigation, he said.
There is some question as to how the change is applied, but McGinnis doesn’t expect any issues.
“There is some potential for mischief, but I don’t think it will have much change on the day-to-day operations of many employers or courts,” McGinnis said. “The short answer is, it should not change much.”
Savage reported from Washington and Hussain from Los Angeles.
Norbert A. Schlei, key lawyer in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who found legal underpinning for the 1962 blockade of Cuba, wrote landmark civil rights legislation and once waged a strong bid to replace an entrenched Republican California secretary of state, has died. He was 73.
Schlei died Thursday at an acute care hospital in Los Angeles of infections caused by long-term immobility, his wife, Joan, said Saturday. She said Schlei had been virtually unconscious since suffering a heart attack March 25, 2002, while jogging in Santa Monica.
Considered a legal wunderkind, Schlei was the Democratic candidate for the 57th California Assembly District in 1962 when he was tapped by President John F. Kennedy as an assistant attorney general in charge of the office of legal counsel.
At the time, Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, the president’s younger brother, quipped that Schlei — only 33 — had been named so there would finally be “someone younger” than he in the Justice Department.
But Schlei, who clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Harlan after graduating from Yale Law School, proved a scholarly asset to the Kennedys and later to President Lyndon B. Johnson and Atty. Gen. Nicolas Katzenbach during crises and in forging the landmark Kennedy-Johnson civil rights reforms.
Schlei was the principal draftsman of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Immigration Reform Act of 1967.
“I felt I was lucky,” Schlei told the New York Times in 1995, “because I was able to turn what ability I had to something important.”
Schlei had barely moved into his quarters in August 1962 as head of the office of legal counsel just vacated by Katzenbach, when he was put to work. The University of Mississippi had refused to allow James Meredith, a black student, to enroll that fall, and Kennedy sent Schlei to Oxford, Miss., to get Meredith into the school.
Hardly a month later, as the Cuban Missile Crisis developed, Kennedy asked Schlei to study the legal basis for presidential action in connection with Cuba after U.S. surveillance confirmed that Russia was installing surface-to-air missile sites in the Communist island nation. Schlei responded with what became Kennedy’s October justification for a naval quarantine on all offensive military equipment being shipped to Cuba.
“It is our view,” he wrote, “that international law would permit use by the United States of relatively extreme measures, including various forms and degree of force, for the purpose of terminating or preventing the realization of such a threat to the peace and security of the Western Hemisphere.”
The lawyer supported the view with references to self-defense rights, the collective and multilateral security obligations of the U.S. and the 1934 Cuban-U.S. Treaty, which established U.S. rights for its naval base at Guantanamo.
Although Schlei had to abandon his bid for assemblyman to go to Washington (incumbent Republican Charles Conrad was reelected), he tried for election in California four years later when he ran for secretary of state.
Schlei handily defeated six others in the 1966 Democratic primary, polling nearly twice as many votes as were received by his nearest competitor.
He also collected more than 2.7 million votes, a remarkable tally for a Democratic statewide office seeker in that penultimate general election against Republican Frank M. Jordan, incumbent for 23 years and at the time the only Republican statewide officeholder. Nevertheless, Schlei lost the general election Nov. 10, 1966, as Jordan was swept to victory in the Ronald Reagan Republican landslide.
Schlei, a personable Democratic campaigner, was only yards from Robert Kennedy at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel when Kennedy was fatally shot on the night of the California primary in 1968. He largely bowed out of politics after serving as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention that year in Chicago.
A highly successful trial and securities lawyer who represented such clients as Howard Hughes’ Summa Corp. in lengthy litigation brought by ousted Hughes executive Robert Maheu, Schlei himself was tried in a Florida federal courtroom in 1995.
The charges and their aftermath were a cloud on Schlei’s brilliant career.
Schlei was acquitted of eight counts, including wire and bank fraud and money laundering, but was convicted by a jury of conspiracy and securities fraud for purportedly helping five others sell $16 billion in fake Japanese government bonds from the mid-1980s to 1992.
He was sentenced to five years in federal prison and lost his license to practice law for 3 1/2 years. But he never went to prison, remaining free on appeal. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the judgment and, in 1998, Schlei abandoned motions for a new trial to clear his name. Instead he agreed to a negotiated settlement of a year’s unsupervised probation on one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to possess counterfeit foreign securities, and resumed his law practice in L.A.
Joan Schlei said Saturday that Schlei had been completely exonerated after federal prosecutors conceded that there was a “possibility the instruments are valid” and that Schlei had been wrongly prosecuted.
Schlei maintained all along that he had done nothing illegal, and that prosecutors who issued charges against the others after a sting operation had added him only because of his high profile in Democratic and government circles to “get in the papers” and make the trial “newsworthy.”
At issue were bonds the Japanese government claimed were counterfeit and created by a forger they imprisoned in 1983. Schlei countered that the securities were legitimate, that they had been issued in 1983 by Japan’s minister of finance, Michio Watanabe, at the request of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka after Tanaka left office in a bribery scandal. Schlei said he had never sold the securities and had simply tried to help about 30 clients purchase them with the understanding that the securities would be redeemable only if they could persuade a current Japanese government to honor them.
Among the highly prominent character witnesses who testified on Schlei’s behalf during the trial was key Republican U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who had known Schlei since they were students together at Yale.
Born Norbert Anthony Schlei on June 14, 1929, in Dayton, Ohio, Schlei grew up in meager financial circumstances, taking odd jobs delivering papers and groceries to help his family. He paid his way through Ohio State University as a waiter, but managed to graduate with honors in English literature and international relations and earned three varsity letters for golf.
He served as a Navy officer during the Korean War and later went to Yale Law, where he graduated first in his class and was editor of the Yale Law Journal. After a year clerking for Harlan, he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 to work for the prestigious law firm of O’Melveny and Myers.
In 1959, Schlei helped form the firm Greenberg, Shafton and Schlei where he remained until he went to the Justice Department in 1962. In later years, he was associated with different law firms, most notably the Wall Street firm of Hughes Hubbard & Reed from 1972 until 1989, whose Los Angeles office he established.
He was co-author of “Studies in World Public Order,” a book on international law published in 1961, and in 1962 wrote the book “State Regulation of Corporate Financial Practices.”
Schlei sat on the boards of several corporations involved in international real estate and securities. Long involved in real estate development, Schlei had begun in 1959 to represent Janss Corp., which developed Westwood Village and the Conejo Ranch area near Thousand Oaks.
In addition to his wife, the former Joan Masson, he is survived by three sons and three daughters from his earlier marriages to Jane Moore and to attorney Barbara Lindemann — William, Andrew, Bradford, Anne, Blake and Elizabeth; and four grandchildren. Two other sons, Graham and Norbert L. Schlei, preceded him in death.
Calling hours will be 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Gates-Kingsley Funeral Home, 19th Street and Arizona Avenue, Santa Monica. Graveside services are planned for 11 a.m. April 29 at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.
His wife asked that memorial contributions be made to any of these organizations: Amnesty International, the American Heart Assn., the American Cancer Society, the ACLU or the Constitutional Rights Foundation.
