Free Republic

Cities looking to eliminate fossil fuels in buildings have notched a decisive court victory. Last week, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by plumbing and building trade groups against a New York City ban on natural gas in new buildings. The decision is the first to explicitly disagree with a previous ruling that struck down Berkeley, California’s first-in-the-nation gas ban. That order, issued by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2023 and upheld again last year, prompted cities across the country to withdraw or delay laws modeled after the Berkeley ordinance. While New York City’s law functions...

US District Judge Ronnie Abrams rejected Cooper’s claim on Wednesday that she was defamed when ex-employer Franklin Templeton, a holding company, axed her one day after the viral altercation in Central Park. Cooper claimed that Franklin Templeton and its chief executive Jenny Johnson perpetuated her image as a “privileged white female ‘Karen’” by making public statements about firing her after conducting an investigation into the incident. In May 2020, Cooper went viral after video showed her yelling at birder Christian Cooper and calling the police to claim an “African American man” was “threatening” her while she was walking her dog...

A former business partner of Hunter Biden was sentenced Monday to more than a year in prison for his role in a scheme to defraud a Native American tribe of some $60 million in bonds. The defendant, Devon Archer, was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison by Manhattan Judge Ronnie Abrams, who said the crime was “too serious” to let him just walk. “There’s no dispute about the harm caused to real people,” Abrams said, noting that the defrauded tribe, the Oglala Sioux, is one of the poorest in the nation. Archer will also have to...