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A federal judge in New York on Tuesday extended his block on removal of Tren de Aragua gang members facing deportation under the Alien Enemies Act. US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 91-year-old Clinton appointee, blasted DOJ lawyers during a hearing on Tuesday and accused them throwing people out of the US “because of their tattoos.” Earlier this month Hellerstein blocked the removal of two alleged Tren de Aragua gang members in New York.

Alphabet’s Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, a federal judge said on Thursday, dealing another blow to the tech titan in an antitrust case brought by the U.S. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, could allow prosecutors to argue for a breakup of Google’s advertising products. The U.S. Department of Justice has said that Google should have to sell off at least its Google Ad Manager, which includes the company’s publisher ad server and its ad exchange. Google will now head in to 2025 facing the possibility of two different U.S. courts...

Two federal judges on Wednesday blocked the removal of Venezuelan nationals and alleged TdA gang members facing deportation under the Alien Enemies Act after the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case. US District Judge for the Southern District of Texas, Fernando Rodriguez, Jr., a Trump appointee, issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) through April 23 or until he issues an order. “Respondents are enjoined from transferring, relocating, or removing J.A.V., J.G.G., W.G.H., or any other person that Respondents claim are subject to removal under the Proclamation, from the El Valle Detention Center; and Respondents are enjoined from...

The Justice Department states that the judge who ruled Kilmar Abrego Garcia had to come back to the U.S. overstepped authority. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to block a lower court order to return a Maryland resident, who is also a Salvadoran national, mistakenly deported last month to El Salvador. The Justice Department is arguing before the high court that the judge who ruled the deportee, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, must be returned overstepped his authority. The administration also argued since Garcia was no longer in U.S. custody there was no way to get him back, according...

EUGENE, Ore. — Conservation groups across Oregon have won a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management’s logging plans. On Monday, a federal judge ruled that the BLM had illegally authorized the logging of old-growth forest lands within protected areas called late successional reserves.... ...The court pointed out that logging in these reserves would increase fire hazards and harm nearby habitats.... ...The Cascadia Wildlands Group, alongside other conservation groups,....

Yet another crazy far left “judge” tried again to stop DOGE over USAID. Got overturned by Court of Appeals, Bottom line from Court of Appeals: DOGE does not run USAID, Department of State does through Secretary of State Marco Rubio. DOGE investigates and makes recommendations as advisors to Department of State for them to get rid of corrupt USAID employees etc.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Labor from implementing parts of President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at curbing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts among federal contractors and grant recipients. Judge Matthew Kennelly of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois halted the Labor Department from requiring federal contractors or grant recipients from certifying that they don't operate any programs in violation of Trump's anti-DEI executive orders. [snip] The organization argued that the president’s executive orders on DEI are so broad and vague that the organization had no way to ensure compliance, and...

(The Center Square) – Eight years after the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and accompanying protests at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, the long-awaited trial between Energy Transfer and Greenpeace is winding down. Closing arguments in the trial are set to begin Monday, followed by jury deliberations and a verdict. The lawsuit hinges on Greenpeace’s involvement in protests that occurred in the fall of 2016, as well as its communication with banks that were financing the pipeline’s construction. Energy Transfer has tried to prove that the environmental activist group funded and incited violence, trespassing and other unlawful acts,...

MANDAN, N.D. (AP) — Closing arguments are scheduled to begin on Monday in a pipeline company’s lawsuit against Greenpeace, a case the environmental advocacy group said could have consequences for free speech and protest rights and threaten the organization’s future. The jury will deliberate after the closing arguments and jury instructions. Nine jurors and two alternates have heard the case. Dallas-based Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Dakota Access alleged defamation, trespass, nuisance and other offenses by Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, its American branch Greenpeace USA, and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. The pipeline company is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars...

“The words that I give you today should not be taken as some kind of wild and crazy judge in San Francisco has said that the administration cannot engage in a reduction in force. I’m not saying that at all,” Alsup noted as he issued his ruling. “Of course, if he does, it has to comply with the statutory requirements: the Reduction In Force act, the Civil Service Act, the Constitution, maybe other statutes,” the judge continued. “But it can be done.”

A federal judge on Thursday ordered federal agencies to reinstate tens of thousands of probationary employees who were fired amid President Donald Trump’s turbulent effort to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy. U.S. District Judge William Alsup described the mass firings as a “sham” strategy by the government’s central human resources office to sidestep legal requirements for reducing the federal workforce. Alsup, a San Francisco-based appointee of President Bill Clinton, ordered the Departments of Defense, Treasury, Energy, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs to “immediately” offer all fired probationary employees their jobs back. The Office of Personnel Management, the judge said, had made...

March 13 (Reuters) - A California federal judge on Thursday ordered six U.S. agencies to reinstate thousands of recently-hired employees who were fired as part of President Donald Trump's purge of the federal workforce. The ruling made by U.S. District Judge William Alsup during a hearing in San Francisco applies to the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Interior and the Treasury Department.

The Trump administration could be sanctioned by a federal judge later this week after lawyers with the Department of Justice advised a federal judge Tuesday evening that they will not make a top administration official available for sworn testimony. U.S. District Judge Charles Alsup had sought to have the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Charles Ezell, testify on Thursday about the mass firing of probationary employees. But the DOJ said Tuesday that they would not make Ezell available for testimony. By making Ezell unavailable, DOJ attorneys also withdrew his sworn affidavit, a move that Judge Charles...

A federal district judge in Indiana has once again ordered the state Department of Correction (IDOC) to arrange a sex reassignment surgery for a transgender inmate convicted of reckless homicide of a baby, marking the latest development in the ongoing legal saga challenging an Indiana law banning the procedure. The case, now in its second year, involves inmate Autumn Cordellioné's request for sex reassignment surgery. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) first filed the lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Corrections in 2023 on behalf of Cordellioné, challenging an Indiana law that prohibits the Department of Corrections from using taxpayer...

A federal judge said Wednesday that she may immediately block the Treasury Department from directly sharing the personal financial data of millions of Americans with Elon Musk's DOGE. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who sits in Washington, DC., made the announcement after an hourlong court hearing, during which a government lawyer said only two Musk allies — both of them now Treasury employees — have any access to the data. That contention was met with skepticism from one of the lawyers seeking to ensure the data's privacy. "We remain concerned that the records — the personal information of our association's...

The Honorable Peter J. Messitte passed away on Saturday, January 11, 2025, after a short illness. Judge Messitte was commissioned as a U.S. District Judge on October 20, 1993. He served in the Court’s Southern Division at the Greenbelt Courthouse and was on active status until September 1, 2008. Judge Messitte continued service on senior status until his death. Judge Messitte was renowned for his judicial outreach throughout the world, and especially in Latin America. In June 2017, he received the Order of the Southern Cross for his contributions to the Brazilian Judiciary. His colleagues and Court staff deeply mourn...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vented his displeasure Monday after two Democratic-appointed federal judges reversed their decisions to retire in what appear to be efforts to stop President-elect Trump from nominating their successors. McConnell called the unusual decisions to forgo retirement following Trump’s sweeping victory last month a “partisan” gambit that would undermine the integrity of federal courts. “They rolled the dice that a Democrat could replace them and now that he won’t, they’re changing their plans to keep a Republican from doing it,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “It’s a brazen admission. And the incoming administration would...

A federal judge has ordered the Department of Defense to turn over records related to former President Donald Trump's controversial visit to Arlington National Cemetery – meaning the public could soon see the incident report concerning an alleged altercation between Trump campaign officials and a cemetery employee. American Oversight, a watchdog group filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against DOD to obtain the incident report of the alleged Aug. 26 incident involving a member of Trump's campaign and the cemetery staff member. ABC News has previously reported that there was a physical and verbal altercation between a Trump campaign official...

CV NEWS FEED // A district judge in Oregon ruled September 30 that Oregon Right to Life is required to cover abortions in its employees’ healthcare insurance plan, dismissing the pro-life organization’s argument that it is a religious organization exempted from the pro-abortion law. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken stated in her ruling that ORTL does not fit inside the category of “religious employer” under the state’s Reproductive Health Equity Act (RHEA), as it does not mainly or exclusively serve individuals of the same religion. “Plaintiff does not qualify as a ‘religious employer’ under the RHEA because ‘its purpose is...

A federal judge has ruled that it would be unconstitutional for an Indiana prison to deny a transgender inmate sex reassignment surgery following the inmate's lawsuit against the facility. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the Indiana Department of Corrections last year on behalf of a transgender inmate, Jonathan C. Richardson, also known as Autumn Cordellionè, who was convicted of strangling his 11-month-old stepdaughter to death in 2001. Indiana law, however, prohibits the Department of Corrections from using taxpayer dollars to fund sex reassignment surgeries for inmates. However, the ACLU argues in the lawsuit, filed on Aug. 28, 2023,...