Free Republic

Mark-ing his territory in the most Meta way possible. An Indiana lawyer who shares the name Mark Zuckerberg is suing Meta after the social media platform repeatedly shut down his personal and business profiles, claiming he was impersonating its founder. Zuckerberg, an Indianapolis bankruptcy lawyer, has battled mistaken identity issues on Facebook for 15 years, sharing a name with the platform’s billionaire creator. His verified personal account has been shut down five times, and after losing $11,000 in ad funds to Meta when his law firm’s page was taken down in May for the fourth time, he’s taking his fight...

A federal jury ordered Google to pay $425.7 million for invading users' privacy by collecting data over an eight-year period on millions of people who had turned off a tracking feature in their Google account. The verdict on Wednesday in San Francisco comes after a trial in a class-action case applying to roughly 98 million users in the U.S. between July 1, 2016, and Sept. 23, 2024. The jury found that the company had been spying on users in violation of California privacy laws. Google denied that it was improperly accessing devices to collect, save, and use data of people...

A Kentucky judge who was allegedly killed by a local sheriff didn’t have a relationship with the county’s top cop’s daughter, according to new grand jury testimony. Former Letcher County, Kentucky Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines allegedly shot and killed former Kentucky 47th Judicial District Judge Kevin Mullins on Sept. 19, 2024. The shooting happened following a lunch outing that included Mullins and Stines, officials said. Video earlier obtained by Fox News Digital shows Stines entering Mullins’ chambers, where he asked everyone else to leave the room so he could speak with the judge privately. The pair talked for around seven...

The parents of Adam Raine, who died by suicide in April, claim in a new lawsuit against OpenAI that ChatGPT was “explicit in its instructions and encouragement toward suicide.” In the days after their 16-year-old son died by suicide, Matt and Maria Raine say, they searched through his phone, desperately looking for clues about what could have led to the tragedy. “We thought we were looking for Snapchat discussions or internet search history or some weird cult, I don’t know,” Matt Raine said in a recent interview. The Raine family said they did not find their answer until they opened...

The Republican National Committee was dealt a blow by a unanimous decision of the Third Circuit Appeals Court in the RNC's effort to discard undated and misdated ballots in Pennsylvania. The three-judge panel said in the 55-page ruling that the affected ballots needed to be counted and failing to do so was unconstitutional. Pennsylvania voters are required to write the date on the envelope for their mail-in ballots. "The date requirement imposes a burden on Pennsylvanians' constitutional right to vote," the court ruling reads. "And it culminates in county election boards discarding thousands of ballots each time an election is...

Sting's former Police bandmates are suing the frontman for millions of pounds in missing royalties. The singer, 73, was handed a High Court writ by the group's guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland. The 'substantial' damages claim comes after many years of bitter legal disputes. A source told The Sun: 'This has been coming for quite some time. Lawyers tried repeatedly to reach an out-of-court settlement but hit a stalemate. 'Andy and Stewart decided there was no alternative than court so pressed the button. They say they are owed millions in lost royalties.' London's High Court lists the legal...

An appellate court has thrown out the $500 million civil fraud penalty against former President Donald Trump in the high-profile case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.......The panel upheld findings that Trump and his company were liable, affirming that James acted within her authority and that injunctive relief to curb Trump Organization practices was appropriate.The ruling leaves liability intact but eliminates the massive financial penalty.

Hunter Biden dismissed First Lady Melania Trump’s demand for an apology for his statements linking the former super model to Jeffrey Epstein. Hunter’s response, “F*** that! That’s not going to happen.” What a piece of trash.

Daryl Hall and John Oates have resolved their dispute over Oates’ plan to sell his half of their joint venture to Primary Wave Music. Court documents filed Aug. 11 reveal the legal back-and-forth between the duo has now been privately resolved, without any additional information on their deal. The pair started litigation in 2023 when Hall launched arbitration seeking to block Oates from selling his stake in Whole Oats Enterprises — this includes the band’s name and likeness rights as well as royalties — to Primary Wave. Primary Wave has become a music-catalog marketing powerhouse over the past 15 years,...

The brutal seizure and execution of the world’s most famous squirrel threatens to cost the State of New York a staggering eight-figure settlement. Mark Longo and Daniela Bittner, the grieving owners of P’Nut and his raccoon sidekick, Fred, are seeking $10 million in damages for the death of their pets at the hands of investigators, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in New York Court of Claims. A swarm of cops and agents from the state Environmental Conservation and Health departments descended on the couple’s upstate Pine City animal sanctuary Oct. 30, where the animals were living inside Longo and...

When it comes to its “Star Wars” franchise, The Walt Disney’s Company’s Death Star just exploded. On Thursday, in a decisive turn of events, Disney and conservative actress Gina Carano announced the settlement of a lawsuit Carano filed last year accusing the House of Mouse of wrongful termination. And while the exact terms weren’t disclosed, there’s no doubt who the winner was. Carano’s statements on Thursday make it clear. “[A]nd the truth shall set you free,” she wrote in a post on the social media platform X. She followed that up with a lengthier statement that thanked mega-billionaire and Renaissance...

A teacher whom an Indiana school district fired over his religious beliefs opposing radical transgender ideology will be allowed to take the district to court. The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in John Kluge’s favor and reversed a previous district court ruling in a win for First Amendment rights. Brownsburg Community School Corporation fired Kluge, a music teacher, for refusing to use pronouns based on a student’s alleged gender identity instead of biological sex. Kluge cited his religious beliefs, which Brownsburg did not accept as an excuse. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), whose attorneys were defending Kluge, was thrilled...

As you may recall, Candace Owens ran a series of podcasts earlier this year in which she claimed the First Lady of France, Brigitte Macron, was actually a trans woman. A couple weeks ago, the Macrons sued Owens in a US court, seeking damages for 22 separate counts of defamation. There's no dollar amount in the complaint but it's presumably going to run into six or seven figures. For the record, Owens doesn't deny that there was a person named Brigitte Trogneux who was born a woman. Her story is that at some point, for unknown reasons, Brigitte disappeared and...

Los Angeles County is struggling with a massive budget crunch. Sales taxes are rising to over 10% in some areas and many departments are being cut down the line over what Fesia Davenport, the county’s first black female CEO, has described as “unprecedented financial challenges” and “extraordinary budgetary pressures.” But those challenges are not coming so much from the massive wildfires that devastated Los Angeles over the winter, but from the even more massive tide of sexual abuse complaints. Los Angeles County is dealing with $2 billion in costs from the wildfires, after the city’s first black female mayor and...

President Trump has dropped his demand that Rupert Murdoch immediately testify in the president’s libel lawsuit over a Jeffrey Epstein story in the Wall Street Journal, but the 94-year-old media mogul has agreed to provide his health information.Trump initially demanded Murdoch sit for a deposition within 15 days to answer questions about the Epstein story, citing Murdoch’s advanced age and various health complications.But the warring sides reached a truce, agreeing that Murdoch instead would provide “a sworn declaration describing his current health condition,” according to a joint stipulation filed in U.S. District Court in Miami late Monday. “Defendant Murdoch has...

A Miami jury decided that Elon Musk’s car company Tesla was partly responsible for a deadly crash in Florida involving its Autopilot driver assist technology and must pay the victims more than $200 million in punitive damages. The federal jury held that Tesla bore significant responsibility because its technology failed and that not all the blame can be put on a reckless driver, even one who admitted he was distracted by his cell phone before hitting a young couple out gazing at the stars. The decision comes as Musk seeks to convince Americans his cars are safe enough to drive...

A federal judge has dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Illinois and Chicago over sanctuary policies that the government has said interfere with federal immigration enforcement. In a ruling released Friday, U.S. District Judge Lindsay Jenkins said the government lacked standing to override local laws that limit cooperation and information-sharing between law enforcement. Jenkins said the government doesn’t have the legal authority “to commandeer states under the guise of intergovernmental immunity.” The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A federal judge approved a settlement this week between the Davidson County Board of Education and the parents of a student who was suspended for using the term “illegal alien” in class. Leah and Chad McGhee’s 16-year-old son was suspended for three days last year after making what school officials called a “racially insensitive remark.” The parents filed a lawsuit against the Board of Education shortly after the incident. Now, court documents show the parties have reached a settlement. The school board has agreed to issue a public apology for the “mischaracterization of racial bias” of the student’s comments and...

President Donald Trump crowed over the settlement in his lawsuit against “60 Minutes,” CBS, and Paramount on Tuesday — which stemmed from a selectively edited interview of former Vice President Kamala Harris — calling it a “BIG AND IMPORTANT WIN!” Trump first shared the news in a post on his Truth Social platform, where he also took aim at ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos over their recent payout in a similar lawsuit. “BREAKING NEWS! We have just achieved a BIG AND IMPORTANT WIN in our Historic Lawsuit against 60 Minutes, CBS, and Paramount,” Trump posted. “Just like ABC and...

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...