Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) — The writer E. Jean Carroll can collect $5.8 million held in escrow since a jury found that President Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed her, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. Trump’s lawyers immediately asked a court to block the payment while they appeal.The president has already deposited the money in an account. The U.S. Supreme Court recently let the 2023 civil verdict stand, clearing the way for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to release the money. The initial $5 million award has grown with interest.The jury found Trump attacked Carroll in 1996 in the dressing room of...

An appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration can reinstall interpretive panels that critics say whitewash the history of slavery at the site of President George Washington’s home in Philadelphia.The signs would be in the same area where the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776. A message seeking comment was left Friday with the National Park Service.The new educational panels were designed to replace ones put up in 2010 that told the story of how nine slaves lived in the home along with George and Martha Washington in the 1790s, when Philadelphia was briefly the...

A federal appeals court on Thursday reversed a lower court’s order that required the National Park Service (NPS) to restore exhibits and signs that had been removed by the Trump administration. The lower court ruling would have restored the signs and exhibits that the Trump administration had ordered removed because it viewed them as having disparaged Americans, according to The Hill. But the judges of the First Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Trump administration “made a strong showing that the harms that the district court relied on” had not met the standards for an injunction. They also found...

A commercial airline pilot that spoke to MeidasTouch this evening has filed aviation safety reports after powerful lighting used during the construction and testing of the UFC octagon on the White House grounds allegedly shone directly into their cockpit during a nighttime approach into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), creating what the pilot described as one of the most severe visibility disruptions they have experienced in their career. ———- According to the pilot, the lights illuminated the cockpit during the final stages of landing, a critical phase of flight when pilots rely heavily on visual references. The pilot described...

Multinational retail giant Costco has sued the US government to secure a full refund of import duties if the Supreme Court rejects President Donald Trump's authority to impose tariffs without congressional approval. Costco's lawsuit urges the federal trade court to declare Trump's 'emergency' tariffs illegal, an authority the president says he has under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Two lower courts have already ruled that Trump exceeded his authority by using emergency powers to impose tariffs. The case has now reached the Supreme Court, and several companies are trying to protect their rights to refunds should the justices...

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by The Satanic Temple challenging Idaho’s abortion ban, delivering a major victory for the state’s pro-life protections. The ruling rejected claims that the law violates the group’s religious rights. U.S. District Judge David C. Nye ruled that The Satanic Temple lacked standing to sue because it failed to show any of its members had suffered a concrete injury from Idaho’s Defense of Life Act, which prohibits abortions except to prevent the death of the mother or in cases of rape or incest reported to law enforcement. “The Satanic Temple has not...

former President Barack Obama judge has reportedly been assigned to President Donald Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal. U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles in the Southern District of Florida was nominated by Obama in February 2014, and became the first openly gay Black federal judge. Gayles was also assigned a Trump $500 million lawsuit against embattled former attorney Michael Cohen in 2023, but Trump was forced to temporarily pause that case due to court-date conflicts in the Democrat prosecutor-led cases he faced before the 2024 presidential election. Gayles has filed dissent against voter...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has accused Fox News of defamation in a $787 million lawsuit, he announced Thursday. The lawsuit centers on claims made by Fox News host Jesse Watters, who said Newsom lied about his phone calls with President Donald Trump during Los Angeles immigration protests earlier this month, Politico first reported. The lawsuit accuses Watters’ program of selectively editing a video of Trump to support a false narrative that Newsom lied about the date of their phone call regarding the deployment of troops to LA. “If Fox News wants to lie to the American people on Donald Trump’s...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced his plans to sue the Trump administration for “illegally act[ing] to federalize the National Guard” to contain the Los Angeles anti-deportation riots, accusing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of being “in over his head.” When asked by left-wing YouTuber Brian Taylor Cohen if he has any “confidence” that Hegseth will be as “principled” as former Defense Secretary Mark Esper was on Monday, Newsom coldly responded, “Pete Hegseth is a joke. He’s a joke. Everybody knows it, so in over his head. What an embarrassment.” “That guy’s just weakness masquerading as strength. I don’t even know...

In one of the nation’s first wrongful-death claims seeking to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its role in the changing climate, a Washington state woman is suing seven oil and gas companies, saying they contributed to an extraordinarily hot day that led to her mother’s fatal hyperthermia.

Hazleton Mayor Jeff Cusat announced on Tuesday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismissed its voting rights lawsuit against the city. The DOJ filed the suit in January of this year, alleging that the city’s “at-large” method of electing city council members resulted in Hispanic citizens having less opportunity than others to participate in electing candidates of choice. The city filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which had been pending at the time the case was withdrawn. …

A New York father and NAACP leader is demanding his school district ditch its new "Spartans" mascot, alleging the warriors from ancient Greece symbolize enslavement and white supremacy. William King Moss III, a father of two second-graders in the Brentwood Union Free School District on Long Island, filed a lawsuit last month claiming the Spartans moniker represents a symbol of "white supremacy" that violates state civil rights and constitutional protections. "I look at a white soldier that has conquered people and enslaved them as white supremacy," Moss told Newsweek early Tuesday. "That's how I look at it. I think that's...

political action committee has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Donald Trump over his recent two-hour live interview with Elon Musk. End Citizens United, a Democrat-aligned PAC, claims that the interview "amounted to a virtual campaign event" for Trump financed by X, formerly Twitter, which would be in violation of federal law. The complaint names Trump, his campaign treasurer Bradley T. Crate and X as the respondents. "Such a brazen corporate contribution undermines the anti-corruption aims of the Act, and the Commission should immediately investigate these violations and take appropriate remedial action," the complaint said, referring to...

... In one example, a mural was displayed in the factory from 2005 to 2021 as a memorial for Confederate leaders using General Mills mascots, like the Cocoa Puffs cuckoo bird portraying the president of the confederacy, Jefferson Davis, and the Honey Nut Cheerios bee depicting General Stonewall Jackson, the lawsuit said. ...

Former President Trump said he will miss the E. Jean Carroll trial on Thursday so that he can attend his mother-in-law’s funeral, blasting the judge presiding over the case as "nasty" for not delaying court proceedings for the day. ... "So, it happened very terribly as we asked to just delay the trial for one day so I could go to the funeral tomorrow and then we could start Friday or Monday or any time they want," Trump explained. "And he said, absolutely not, the trial will go on just as it is." Trump said the judge said, "You can...

A group of San Francisco police officers has been accused of "racial bias" in connection with the August 2022 arrest of a mentally ill man who pulled out a realistic prop gun and fired off multiple blanks, resulting in a 53-minute standoff that ended without anyone being hurt. Bodycam shows police repeatedly shouted at Corvera to drop the weapon and warned passersby to stay back. "Drop that gun on the floor or you will be shot," one officer shouts. "Put it on the floor!" Corvera fired blanks over the course of the standoff, and at least 17 officers responded to...

A transgender woman is suing a Manhattan yoga studio for $5 million because she was forced to use the men’s locker room. It’s the third gender-identity discrimination lawsuit Ali Miles, who also goes by the name Dylan Miles, has filed in the city in 13 months — and could be part of a coming tsunami of trans-rights lawsuits targeting small businesses. Miles claims to be in “the process of transitioning into [a] woman,” wearing women’s clothing and undergoing hormone therapies, according to court papers. The Arizona native turned up at Hot Yoga Chelsea on West 27th Street on May 4...

An Albany mother claims she was left “angry” and “betrayed” when the apple pie she thought she was buying from a local ShopRite turned out to be a cherry pie, leading her daughter to get sick when she ate a piece of it, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Albany County Supreme Court. The supermarket allegedly “misbranded and mislabeled” the pastry as an apple pie that she bought during a trip to the store on April 20, according to legal papers. For that alleged switcheroo, plaintiff Tiffany Brady wants $35,000 in damages. Brady, a mother of five, and her...

A popular Orlando restaurant that regularly features drag shows filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Florida and Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday, less than a week after he signed a bill that targets drag performances. The lawsuit filed in Orlando federal court by the owner of Hamburger Mary’s Orlando claims the state is depriving the business of its First Amendment rights to free expression. The restaurant is asking the court to temporarily stop the law from taking effect while the case moves forwardDeSantis has made anti-LGBTQ+ legislation a large part of his agenda as he prepares to seek...

A federal judge on Thursday imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions on former President Donald Trump and his lawyer for filing a since-dismissed ‘frivolous’ lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and many others, which had claimed they tried to rig the 2016 presidential election in her favor by smearing Trump.“We are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose,” wrote Judge John Middlebrooks in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in his order sanctioning Trump.The judge in his...