Free Republic

A criminal justice professor who has worked at various California colleges pleaded guilty Thursday after being charged with setting a series of blazes near the massive Dixie Fire in 2021. Gary Stephen Maynard, 49, pleaded guilty to three counts of arson to federal property in Sacramento federal court before U.S. District Judge Daniel J. Calabretta. Maynard, who is being held without bail in the Yuba County Jail, was arrested in August 2021 after a three-week investigation that included the use of a tracking device hidden on his vehicle by authorities who followed his movements throughout Northern California for hundreds of...

A federal judge in California threw out the Republican National Committee‘s lawsuit against Google that accused the tech giant of illegally sending party fundraising emails to users’ spam folders. In a 38-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta, a Joe Biden appointee, granted Google‘s motion to dismiss, thereby putting at least a temporary end to RNC claims that Google must compensate it for hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost donations. Calabretta noted in his dismissal, however, that it was a “close call,” and said that the RNC still has the chance to file an amended complaint. RNC Chairwoman Ronna...

(Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Friday nominated a lawyer who represented the Mississippi clinic at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision to become a federal appeals court judge. Biden's latest slate of nine new judicial nominees included Julie Rikelman, an abortion rights lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights whom the president picked to serve on the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Biden's latest nominees continued the White House's push to diversify the federal bench. They include Daniel Calabretta, a California state court judge nominated...