violations

Oct. 31 (UPI) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois sued the Trump administration Friday for allegedly violating the civil rights of those detained in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill.

The suit, which includes lawyers for the MacArthur Justice Center, the ACLU of Illinois and the Chicago law office of Eimer Stahl, was filed in federal court in Chicago, a press release said.

The suit demands that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and ICE “stop flouting the law inside Broadview.” The press release said the agencies “must obey the Constitution and provide the people they detain with ready access to counsel and humane conditions of confinement.”

Since the beginning of Operation Midway Blitz on Sept. 8, in which federal agents increased actions against undocumented immigrants in and around Chicago, protests and legal battles have ensued. On Tuesday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order on Gregory Bovino, a U.S. border patrol commander, after video footage showed Bovino throwing tear gas into a crowd during public demonstrations in Chicago and outside of the Broadview detention center. Clergy members, media groups and protesters had filed a suit alleging a “pattern of extreme brutality” intended to “silence the press” and American citizens.

Judge Sara Ellis ordered all agents to wear body cameras. She also ordered Bovino to check in with her daily, but an appeals court overturned that requirement.

“Everyone, no matter their legal status, has the right to access counsel and to not be subject to horrific and inhumane conditions,” said Alexa Van Brunt, director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Illinois office and lead counsel on the suit, in a statement. “Community members are being kidnapped off the streets, packed in hold cells, denied food, medical care, and basic necessities, and forced to sign away their legal rights. This is a vicious abuse of power and gross violation of basic human rights by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. It must end now.”

The press release said that agents at Broadview “have treated detainees abhorrently, depriving them of sleep, privacy, menstrual products, and the ability to shower.” Agents have repeatedly denied entry for attorneys, members of Congress, and religious and faith leaders, it said.

DHS has not responded to the suit or its allegations.

“This lawsuit is necessary because the Trump administration has attempted to evade accountability for turning the processing center at Broadview into a de facto detention center,” said Kevin Fee, legal director for the ACLU of Illinois, in a statement. “DHS personnel have denied access to counsel, legislators and journalists so that the harsh and deteriorating conditions at the facility can be shielded from public view. These conditions are unconstitutional and threaten to coerce people into sacrificing their rights without the benefit of legal advice and a full airing of their legal defenses.”

Lawyer Nate Eimer emphasized the importance of access to a lawyer.

“Access to counsel is not a privilege. It is a right,” Eimer, partner at Eimer Stahl and co-counsel in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “We can debate immigration policy but there is no debating the denial of legal rights and holding those detained in conditions that are not only unlawful but inhumane. Justice and compassion demand that our clients’ rights be upheld.”

The proposal, which forms part of the ‘European Drone Defence Initiative’, is one of several flagship EU projects to prepare the bloc for a potential attack from Moscow.

The European Commission is in discussions to adopt a new counter-drone initiative to protect European Union airspace from Russian violations, as it seeks to strengthen border security with its own advanced drone technology after a string of drone incursions were reported in a host of EU and NATO member countries over the past month.

The proposal, which was included in a defence policy “roadmap” presented on Thursday, will aim for the new anti-drone capabilities to reach initial capacity by the end of next year and become fully operational by the end of 2027, according to a draft of the document.

It will then be presented to EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, European Commission Executive Vice President for Security Henna Virkkunen, and European Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month that it was time for Europe to build a “drone wall” to protect its eastern flank, hours after some 20 Russian drones reportedly entered the airspace of EU and NATO member Poland.

The concept has since morphed into a broader “European Drone Defence Initiative” including a continent-wide web of anti-drone systems in an effort to win support from EU capitals.

The drone initiative is one of several flagship EU projects aiming to prepare the bloc for a potential attack from Russia as its more than three-year-long war in Ukraine grinds on.

In the meantime, as a counterpoint, Russia’s federal security chief said on Thursday that Moscow has no doubt about NATO’s security services’ involvement in incidents with alleged Russian drones over EU territory, Russian news agency RIA Novosti cited him as saying.

Following the drone incursion into Poland, other incidents were reported at airports and military installations in several other countries further west, including Denmark, Estonia and Germany, although there has not been confirmation that the drones were sent by the Kremlin.

For its part, NATO has launched a new mission and beefed up forces on its eastern border, but it is playing catch-up as it tries to tap Ukraine’s experience and get to grips with the drone threat from Moscow.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that NATO was now “testing integrated systems that will help us detect, track and neutralise aerial threats” for use on the bloc’s eastern flank.

Ukrainian officials say Russia’s incursions into other countries’ airspace are deliberate.

“Putin just keeps escalating, expanding his war, and testing the West,” Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said last month after the drones were spotted in Poland.

Other NATO allies have also claimed the incursions were deliberate.

However, experts in drone warfare say it is still possible that the incursions were not deliberate.

Russia has denied deliberately attacking any of the European countries, instead accusing them of making false allegations to cause tensions.

While Brussels wants to have the drone project fully up and running by the end of 2027, there is scepticism from some EU countries and fears that the bloc is treading on NATO’s toes.

“We are not doubling the work that NATO is doing; actually, we are complementing each other,” said Kallas.

NATO countries have accused Russia of violating the airspace of alliance members Estonia, Poland and Romania, as Russia rejected the claims and accused the European powers of levying baseless accusations.

“Your reckless actions risk direct armed confrontation between NATO and Russia. Our alliance is defensive, but be under no illusion, we stand ready to defend NATO’s skies and NATO’s territory,” UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said, addressing a meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Monday.

“If we need to confront planes operating in NATO space without permission, then we will do so,” she added.

Cooper’s comments were echoed by other Western countries at the meeting, including the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, who suggested that the multiple incidents could not be considered an accident.

Earlier on Monday, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski said that Russian aircraft would be brought down if they entered his country’s airspace.

“If another missile or aircraft enters our space without permission, deliberately or by mistake, and gets shot down and the wreckage falls on NATO territory, please don’t come here to whine about it. You have been warned.”

Several European countries have accused Russia of violating their airspaces in the past weeks, which Moscow has denied.

Estonia said on Friday that Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonian airspace for 12 minutes, before they were forced to withdraw, in an episode that Western officials said was designed to test NATO’s readiness and resolve.

Romania said last week that its radar detected a Russian drone, prompting it to scramble fighter jets.

Earlier this month, Poland reported that it had shot down several drones during a Russian aerial attack on Ukraine, marking the first time NATO forces have directly engaged in the conflict that began after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said that such actions by Moscow should be met robustly, and renewed Kyiv’s offer to integrate its air defences into those of neighbouring Western countries to counter the Russian front.

“A strong response means that a threat should not be escorted, neither for 12 minutes, nor for one minute. It should be neutralised,” said Andrii Sybiha.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II. It has also forced European nations to boost their defence amid fears of Russian aggression.

United States President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war seem to have faltered so far.

NATO’s North Atlantic Council will meet to discuss the issue on Tuesday.

The US’s new envoy to the UN, Michael Waltz, making his first appearance since taking his post, said that Moscow needed to defuse tensions, not exacerbate them.

“I want to take this first opportunity to repeat and to emphasise: The United States and our allies will defend every inch of NATO territory,” Waltz said.

Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said there was no evidence backing the claims of Moscow’s incursions into NATO members’ airspace, and accused European powers of levying baseless accusations.

“We won’t be partaking in this theatre of the absurd,” he said.

“When you decide that you want to engage in a serious discussion about European security, about the fate of our common continent, about how to make this continent prosperous and secure for everybody, we’ll be ready.”

Sept. 8 (UPI) — Whaleco Inc., operating as Temu, has been ordered by a federal court to pay a $2 million civil fine for violating federal law regarding its online marketplace, the U.S. Department of Justice said Monday.

The private U.S.-registered company, which mainly sells products from China, had the most downloaded app in the United States in 2024, according to Business of Apps. The company also sells products to customers in 90 countries.

DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts alleging Temu didn’t sufficiently disclose certain information for high-volume third-party sellers, including addresses, or provide consistent reporting methods as required by law. This included consumers’ ability to electronically and telephonically report suspicious activity to the marketplace.

The agencies said they violated the INFORM Consumers Act.

“The Justice Department is committed to ensuring American consumers have information about third-party sellers online and mechanisms to report suspicious marketplace behavior,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of DOJ’s Civil Division said in a statement. “The Department will continue to ensure that online marketplaces follow the INFORM Consumers Act.”

Temu also was ordered to ensure compliance with the INFORM Consumers Act in the future.

Temu, which means “Team Up, Price Down,” was founded as Whaleco Inc. in Boston in 2022.

It is a subsidiary of PDD Holdings, a Chinese online retailer owned by Colin Huang. PDD Holdings also owns Pinduoduo, an online commerce platform in China.

In July, the European Commission charged Temu with breaking the EU’s Digital Services Act by failing to prevent the sale of usnafe products that violate its standards.

In an analysis, the European Commission found that shopping on Temu carries a high risk of finding unsafe products, such as small toys and small electronics.

In the EU, companies can be fined up to 6% of their annual total worldwide turnover.

Temu, with an estimated annual revenue of $53.9 billion in 2024, competes with Amazon, the No. 1 online retailer in the world with $391.4 billion in revenue last year.

“Temu is committed to bringing affordable products onto its platform to enable consumers and merchandise partners to fulfill their dreams in an inclusive environment,” the company said on its website.

Temu and another online retailer, Shein, have been hit by tariffs imposed on imports into the United States.

“Due to recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs, our operating expenses have gone up. To keep offering the products you love without compromising on quality, we will be making price adjustment starting April 25, 2025,” Temu said in a statement to U.S. shoppers.

That was in late April when there was a 145% duty on Chinese imports. The Trump administration has since lowered them temporarily to 10%. The pause is until Nov. 10.

The Walt Disney Co. has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission inquiry into alleged violations of child privacy laws.

The settlement, disclosed Tuesday, covers videos that Disney uploaded to YouTube that were not properly marked as children’s content. That lapse allowed the videos to become targets for online advertising, drawing the attention of federal regulators.

The company said the violations did not occur on Disney-owned platforms.

“Supporting the well-being and safety of kids and families is at the heart of what we do,” a Disney spokesperson said in a statement. “… Disney has a long tradition of embracing the highest standards of compliance with children’s privacy laws, and we remain committed to investing in the tools needed to continue being a leader in this space.”

Axios first reported the settlement.

This is a developing story.

WASHINGTON — The State Department said Thursday that it’s reviewing the records of more than 55 million foreigners who hold valid U.S. visas for potential revocation or deportable violations of immigration rules.

In a written answer to a question posed by the Associated Press, the department said that all U.S. visa holders are subject to “continuous vetting” with an eye toward any indication that they could be ineligible for the document.

Should such information be found, the visa will be revoked and, if the visa holder is in the United States, he or she would be subject to deportation.

The department said it was looking for indicators of ineligibility, including visa overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization.

“We review all available information as part of our vetting, including law enforcement or immigration records or any other information that comes to light after visa issuance indicating a potential ineligibility,” the department said.

Since President Trump took office in January, his administration has thus far focused on deporting migrants illegally in the United States as well as holders of student and visitor exchange visas. The State Department’s new language suggests that the re-vetting process, which officials acknowledge is time-consuming, is far more widespread.

The administration has steadily imposed more and more restrictions and requirements on visa applicants, including requiring all visa seekers to submit to in-person interviews.

But the review of all visa holders appears to be a significant expansion of what had initially been a re-vetting process focused mainly on students who have been involved in pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel activity.

Officials say the reviews will include all the visa holders’ social media accounts, law enforcement and immigration records in their home countries, along with any actionable violations of U.S. law committed while they were in the United States.

“As part of the Trump Administration’s commitment to protect U.S. national security and public safety, since Inauguration Day the State Department has revoked more than twice as many visas, including nearly four times as many student visas, as during the same time period last year,” the department said.

Earlier this week, the department said that since Trump returned to the White House, it has revoked more than 6,000 student visas for overstays and violations of local, state and federal law, the vast majority of which were assault, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and support for terrorism.

It said that about 4,000 of those 6,000 were due to actual infractions of laws and that approximately 200–300 visas were revoked for terrorism-related issues, including providing support for designated terrorist organizations or state sponsors of terrorism.

Lee writes for the Associated Press.

An $8bn trial, pitting Meta Platforms shareholders against Mark Zuckerberg and other current and former company leaders, over claims they illegally harvested the data of Facebook users in violation of a 2012 agreement with the United States Federal Trade Commission, is under way.

The trial kicked off on Wednesday with a privacy expert for the plaintiffs, Neil Richards of Washington University Law School, who testified about Facebook’s data policies.

“Facebook’s privacy disclosures were misleading,” he told the court.

Jeffrey Zients, White House chief of staff under former President Joe Biden and a Meta director for two years starting in May 2018, is expected to take the stand later on Wednesday in the non-jury trial before Kathaleen McCormick, chief judge of the Delaware Chancery Court.

The case will feature testimony from Zuckerberg and other billionaire defendants, including former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, venture capitalist and board member Marc Andreessen, as well as former board members Peter Thiel, Palantir Technologies cofounder, and Reed Hastings, cofounder of Netflix.

A lawyer for the defendants, who have denied the allegations, declined to comment.

McCormick, the judge who rescinded Elon Musk’s $56bn Tesla pay package last year, is expected to rule on liability and damages months after the trial concludes.

Cambridge Analytica scandal

The case began in 2018, following revelations that data from millions of Facebook users was accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct political consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump’s successful US presidential campaign in 2016.

The FTC fined Facebook $5bn in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, saying the company had violated a 2012 agreement with the FTC to protect user data.

Shareholders want the defendants to reimburse Meta for the FTC fine and other legal costs, which the plaintiffs estimate total more than $8bn.

In court filings, the defendants described the allegations as “extreme” and said the evidence at trial will show Facebook hired an outside consulting firm to ensure compliance with the FTC agreement and that Facebook was a victim of Cambridge Analytica’s deceit.

Meta, which is not a defendant, declined to comment. On its website, the company has said it has invested billions of dollars into protecting user privacy since 2019.

The lawsuit is considered the first of its kind to go to trial that alleges that board members consciously failed to oversee their company. Known as a Caremark claim, such lawsuits are often described as the hardest to prove in Delaware corporate law. However, in recent years, Delaware courts have allowed a growing number of these claims to proceed.

Boeing’s current and former board members settled a case with similar claims in 2021 for $237.5m, the largest ever in an alleged breach of oversight lawsuit. The Boeing directors did not admit to wrongdoing.

The Meta trial comes four months after Delaware lawmakers overhauled the state’s corporate law to make it harder for shareholders to challenge deals struck with controlling shareholders like Zuckerberg. The bill, which did not address Caremark claims, was drafted after the state’s governor met with representatives of Meta.

Most publicly traded companies are incorporated in the state, which generates more than a quarter of the state’s budget revenue. Meta, which was reportedly considering leaving Delaware earlier this year, is still incorporated in the state.

Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital fund co-founded by Andreessen, said earlier this month that it was reincorporating in Nevada from Delaware and encouraged other companies to do the same. The company cited the uncertainty of the state’s courts and referenced the Musk pay ruling.

Andreessen is expected to testify on Thursday.

In addition to privacy claims at the heart of the Meta case, plaintiffs allege that Zuckerberg anticipated that the Cambridge Analytica scandal would send the company’s stock lower and sold his Facebook shares as a result, pocketing at least $1bn.

Defendants said evidence will show that Zuckerberg did not trade on inside information and that he used a stock-trading plan that removes his control over sales and is designed to guard against insider trading.

Violence against children in conflict zones reached ‘unprecedented levels’ in 2024, with most violations committed in Gaza, occupied West Bank, UN says.

The United Nations has kept Israel on its “blacklist” of countries committing abuses against children in armed conflict for a second straight year, as its war on Gaza continues for nearly 20 months.

The listing on Thursday came as the UN said in a new report that violence against children in conflict zones reached “unprecedented levels” in 2024, with the highest number of violations committed in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank by the Israeli army.

The annual report on Children in Armed Conflict detailed “a staggering” 25 percent surge globally in grave violations against children below the age of 18 last year from 2023. It said it had verified 41,370 grave violations against children, including killing and maiming, sexual violence, and attacks on schools and hospitals.

Among them were 8,554 grave violations against 2,959 children – 2,944 Palestinian, 15 Israeli – in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel.

The figure includes confirmation of 1,259 Palestinian children killed and 941 wounded in Gaza, which has come under relentless Israeli bombardment following an attack led by the Palestinian group Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported much higher figures, and the UN said it is currently verifying information on an additional 4,470 children killed in 2024 in the besieged territory.

The UN said it has also verified the killing of 97 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, where a total of 3,688 violations were recorded.

The report also called out Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, where more than 500 children were killed or injured last year.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was “appalled by the intensity of grave violations against children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel”, citing the widespread use of explosive weapons in populated areas.

Guterres also reiterated his calls on Israel to abide by international law requiring special protections for children, protection for schools and hospitals, and compliance with the requirement that attacks distinguish between fighters and civilians and avoid excessive harm to innocent people.

There was no immediate comment by Israel’s UN mission.

The armed wing of the Palestinian group Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, and the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, were also included in the blacklist for a second time.

Following the Palestinian territory, the countries where the UN registered the most violence against children in 2024 were the Democratic Republic of the Congo (more than 4,000 grave violations); Somalia (more than 2,500); Nigeria (nearly 2,500); and Haiti (more than 2,200).

The sharpest percentage increase in the number of violations was recorded in Lebanon (545 percent), followed by Mozambique (525 percent), Haiti (490 percent), Ethiopia (235 percent), and Ukraine (105 percent), it added.