Louisiana
Suit challenges required minority appointments to state medical licensing board
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A law requiring that some members appointed to the board that licenses and regulates physicians in Louisiana be from minority groups is being challenged in federal court as an unconstitutional racial mandate.
The lawsuit filed Thursday by the conservative group “Do No Harm” seeks a declaration that the law requiring minority appointees to the State Board of Medical Examiners is unconstitutional, and an order forbidding the governor from complying with it.
The governor appoints the members of the 10-member board, subject to state Senate confirmation. One must be a “consumer member” who does not need medical expertise. The other nine must be physicians chosen from among lists submitted by designated medical organizations and medical schools. For example, two must come from a list submitted by the Louisiana State Medical Society, and one from the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. Each member serves a four-year term.
The part of the law targeted in the lawsuit requires that every other consumer member, and every other member appointed from each of the lists compiled the LSU Health Sciences Center at New Orleans, the LSU Health Sciences Center at Shreveport and the Louisiana Hospital Association must be from a minority group.
“Do No Harm has physician and consumer members who are qualified, willing, and able to be appointed to the Board if the racial mandate is enjoined,” the lawsuit said. “The racial mandate prevents these members from equal consideration for appointment to the Board.”
Gov. John Bel Edwards is named as the defendant in his official capacity. However, Edwards, a Democrat who couldn’t seek reelection due to term limits, leaves office Monday. Republican Gov.-elect Jeff Landry’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. State Sen. Katrina Jackson, a Monroe Democrat who sponsored the 2018 legislation that included the minority appointment requirements, did not respond to a Friday afternoon email.
Pennsylvania
Man pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter in 2001 cold case
BLOOMSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A New Jersey man is scheduled for sentencing this week after unexpectedly pleading guilty in the death of a teenager two decades ago in Pennsylvania.
Brian Gregory Quinn, 46, of Woodbury, New Jersey, entered the involuntary manslaughter plea Friday in Columbia County Court in Pennsylvania, PennLive reported. Quinn had been awaiting trial on a homicide charge in the January 2001 death of 17-year-old Shamar Washington of Williamsport.
Quinn has been in custody for about 22 months since his March 2022 arrest, and the plea agreement calls for a maximum term of just under two years. Sentencing was deferred until Wednesday to allow relatives of the victims the opportunity to attend.
In 2001, hunters found Washington’s body without identification, shoes or a jacket down an embankment in a rural part of Hemlock Township outside Bloomsburg, authorities said. Washington had been reported missing from Williamsport six days earlier. An autopsy concluded he had been beaten, stabbed and shot.
Some witnesses tied another person to the crime along with Quinn, but indicated they did not know who might have been responsible for which specific actions. Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Reimiller said Friday there wasn’t enough evidence to charge anyone else in Washington’s death.
“There were a lot of things we don’t have,” she said, citing the lack of DNA, physical evidence or a murder weapon. She said the family was aware of a possible plea agreement, which she called appropriate because it accounted for what she called Quinn’s “reckless and grossly negligent” actions.
Ohio
Trade group representing TikTok, Meta and X sues over new law limiting kids’ use of social media
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A trade group representing TikTok, Snapchat, Meta and other major tech companies sued Ohio on Friday over a pending law that requires children to get parental consent to use social media apps.
The law was part of an $86.1 billion state budget bill that Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law in July. It’s set to take effect Jan. 15. The administration pushed the measure as a way to protect children’s mental health, with Republican Lt. Gov. Jon Husted saying at the time that social media was “intentionally addictive” and harmful to kids.
The NetChoice trade group filed its lawsuit against GOP Attorney General Dave Yost in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. It seeks to block the law from taking effect.
The litigation argues that Ohio’s law — which requires social media companies to obtain a parent’s permission for children under 16 to sign up for social media and gaming apps — unconstitutionally impedes free speech and is overbroad and vague.
The law also requires social media companies to provide parents with their privacy guidelines, so that families can know what content will be censored or moderated on their child’s profile.
“We at NetChoice believe families equipped with educational resources are capable of determining the best approach to online services and privacy protections for themselves,” Chris Marchese, director of the organization’s litigation center, said in a statement. “With NetChoice v. Yost, we will fight to ensure all Ohioans can embrace digital tools without their privacy, security and rights being thwarted.”
The group has won lawsuits against similar restrictions in California and Arkansas.
Husted, who leads Ohio’s technology initiatives and championed the law, called Friday’s lawsuit “cowardly but not unexpected.”
“In filing this lawsuit, these companies are determined to go around parents to expose children to harmful content and addict them to their platforms,” Husted said in a statement.
He alleged the companies know their algorithms are harming children “with catastrophic health and mental health outcomes.”
Pennsylvania
Civil rights lawsuit filed over fire that killed 9 children and 3 adults
Families of the 12 people killed in a Philadelphia row house fire that began in a Christmas tree two years ago sued a pair of city agencies Friday, claiming unsafe conditions on the property violated the victims’ civil rights.
The federal lawsuit against the Philadelphia Housing Authority and the city’s Department of Human Services, and various officials of the agencies, alleges that the housing authority knew the four-bedroom apartment it owns in a brick duplex was overcrowded and unsafe. Specifically, they allege that it lacked a fire escape, smoke detectors and other fire safety features.
Mayor Cherelle Parker’s spokesperson, Joe Grace, declined comment because the matter is in active litigation. Messages seeking comment were left Friday with spokespeople with the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
During two visits to the home in December 2021, a month before the fire, a Human Services social worker noticed the smoke detectors were inoperable, the lawsuit says, but did not return with working detectors as she promised.
Housing authority records show their staff made three visits in December 2021, but the lawsuit says records falsely showed “quality checks were performed on the smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors and they were operable.”
Three women and nine of their children — nearly all of the apartment’s 14 residents — were killed in what was called the city’s deadliest fire in more than a century. Officials reported that the early morning fire in Unit B of 869 N. Third St. started at a Christmas tree.
The housing authority, the lawsuit said, “knew of the grave risks associated with overcrowding, fire hazards and the lack of operable smoke detectors, and the serious dangers that the conditions posed” to the residents who died in the fire.
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages as well as an order that all of city’s public housing units be inspected and tested to ensure there are working smoke detectors.
A separate, negligence lawsuit regarding the fire was filed in March in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. A spokesperson for the Kline and Specter law firm said Friday that case remains pending and is currently in the discovery phase.
New York
Judge blocks Trump lawyers from arguing about columnist’s rape claim at defamation trial
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge late Saturday said former President Donald Trump’s lawyers can’t present legal arguments to a jury assessing damages at a defamation trial on a jury’s conclusion last year that he didn’t rape a columnist in the mid-1990s.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan made the determination in an order in advance of a Jan. 16 trial to determine defamation damages against Trump after a jury concluded Trump sexually abused columnist E. Jean Carroll but did not find evidence was sufficient to conclude that he raped her.
Trump, speaking in Iowa on Saturday as the Republican frontrunning presidential candidate in advance of a Jan. 15 primary, criticized the judge as a “radical Democrat” and mocked E. Jean Carroll for not screaming when she was attacked. “It was all made up,” he said.
Carroll, 80, won a $5 million award last May from a jury that concluded Trump sexually abused her in 1996 in a luxury department store dressing room and defamed her in 2022.
Trump did not attend the Manhattan trial where Carroll testified that a chance encounter at a Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Trump Tower was flirtatious and fun until he slammed her against a wall in a dressing room and attacked her sexually. Trump has vehemently denied it.
In this month’s trial, a jury will consider whether damages should be levied against Trump for remarks he made after last year’s verdict and in 2019 while he was president after Carroll spoke publicly for the first time about her mid-1990s claims in a memoir.
Carroll’s lawyers had asked the judge to issue the order, saying that Trump’s attorneys should not be allowed to confuse jurors this month about last year’s verdict by trying to argue that the jury disbelieved Carroll’s rape claim.
They said the jury’s finding reflected its conclusion that Trump had forcibly and without consent digitally penetrated Carroll’s vagina, which does not constitute rape under New York state law but which constitutes rape in other jurisdictions.
Carroll’s lawyers said the “sting of the defamation was Mr. Trump’s assertions that Ms. Carroll’s charge of sexual abuse was an entirely untruthful fabrication and one made up for improper or even nefarious reasons.”
A lawyer for Trump did not immediately return a message Saturday.
Carroll is seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and substantially more in unspecified punitive damages at the trial. She will testify and Trump is listed as a witness. The trial is expected to last about a week.
Meanwhile, Trump has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in four indictments, two of which accuse him of seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, as well as a classified documents case and charges that he helped arrange a payoff to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her before the 2016 presidential election.
Suit challenges required minority appointments to state medical licensing board
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A law requiring that some members appointed to the board that licenses and regulates physicians in Louisiana be from minority groups is being challenged in federal court as an unconstitutional racial mandate.
The lawsuit filed Thursday by the conservative group “Do No Harm” seeks a declaration that the law requiring minority appointees to the State Board of Medical Examiners is unconstitutional, and an order forbidding the governor from complying with it.
The governor appoints the members of the 10-member board, subject to state Senate confirmation. One must be a “consumer member” who does not need medical expertise. The other nine must be physicians chosen from among lists submitted by designated medical organizations and medical schools. For example, two must come from a list submitted by the Louisiana State Medical Society, and one from the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. Each member serves a four-year term.
The part of the law targeted in the lawsuit requires that every other consumer member, and every other member appointed from each of the lists compiled the LSU Health Sciences Center at New Orleans, the LSU Health Sciences Center at Shreveport and the Louisiana Hospital Association must be from a minority group.
“Do No Harm has physician and consumer members who are qualified, willing, and able to be appointed to the Board if the racial mandate is enjoined,” the lawsuit said. “The racial mandate prevents these members from equal consideration for appointment to the Board.”
Gov. John Bel Edwards is named as the defendant in his official capacity. However, Edwards, a Democrat who couldn’t seek reelection due to term limits, leaves office Monday. Republican Gov.-elect Jeff Landry’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. State Sen. Katrina Jackson, a Monroe Democrat who sponsored the 2018 legislation that included the minority appointment requirements, did not respond to a Friday afternoon email.
Pennsylvania
Man pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter in 2001 cold case
BLOOMSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A New Jersey man is scheduled for sentencing this week after unexpectedly pleading guilty in the death of a teenager two decades ago in Pennsylvania.
Brian Gregory Quinn, 46, of Woodbury, New Jersey, entered the involuntary manslaughter plea Friday in Columbia County Court in Pennsylvania, PennLive reported. Quinn had been awaiting trial on a homicide charge in the January 2001 death of 17-year-old Shamar Washington of Williamsport.
Quinn has been in custody for about 22 months since his March 2022 arrest, and the plea agreement calls for a maximum term of just under two years. Sentencing was deferred until Wednesday to allow relatives of the victims the opportunity to attend.
In 2001, hunters found Washington’s body without identification, shoes or a jacket down an embankment in a rural part of Hemlock Township outside Bloomsburg, authorities said. Washington had been reported missing from Williamsport six days earlier. An autopsy concluded he had been beaten, stabbed and shot.
Some witnesses tied another person to the crime along with Quinn, but indicated they did not know who might have been responsible for which specific actions. Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Reimiller said Friday there wasn’t enough evidence to charge anyone else in Washington’s death.
“There were a lot of things we don’t have,” she said, citing the lack of DNA, physical evidence or a murder weapon. She said the family was aware of a possible plea agreement, which she called appropriate because it accounted for what she called Quinn’s “reckless and grossly negligent” actions.
Ohio
Trade group representing TikTok, Meta and X sues over new law limiting kids’ use of social media
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A trade group representing TikTok, Snapchat, Meta and other major tech companies sued Ohio on Friday over a pending law that requires children to get parental consent to use social media apps.
The law was part of an $86.1 billion state budget bill that Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law in July. It’s set to take effect Jan. 15. The administration pushed the measure as a way to protect children’s mental health, with Republican Lt. Gov. Jon Husted saying at the time that social media was “intentionally addictive” and harmful to kids.
The NetChoice trade group filed its lawsuit against GOP Attorney General Dave Yost in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. It seeks to block the law from taking effect.
The litigation argues that Ohio’s law — which requires social media companies to obtain a parent’s permission for children under 16 to sign up for social media and gaming apps — unconstitutionally impedes free speech and is overbroad and vague.
The law also requires social media companies to provide parents with their privacy guidelines, so that families can know what content will be censored or moderated on their child’s profile.
“We at NetChoice believe families equipped with educational resources are capable of determining the best approach to online services and privacy protections for themselves,” Chris Marchese, director of the organization’s litigation center, said in a statement. “With NetChoice v. Yost, we will fight to ensure all Ohioans can embrace digital tools without their privacy, security and rights being thwarted.”
The group has won lawsuits against similar restrictions in California and Arkansas.
Husted, who leads Ohio’s technology initiatives and championed the law, called Friday’s lawsuit “cowardly but not unexpected.”
“In filing this lawsuit, these companies are determined to go around parents to expose children to harmful content and addict them to their platforms,” Husted said in a statement.
He alleged the companies know their algorithms are harming children “with catastrophic health and mental health outcomes.”
Pennsylvania
Civil rights lawsuit filed over fire that killed 9 children and 3 adults
Families of the 12 people killed in a Philadelphia row house fire that began in a Christmas tree two years ago sued a pair of city agencies Friday, claiming unsafe conditions on the property violated the victims’ civil rights.
The federal lawsuit against the Philadelphia Housing Authority and the city’s Department of Human Services, and various officials of the agencies, alleges that the housing authority knew the four-bedroom apartment it owns in a brick duplex was overcrowded and unsafe. Specifically, they allege that it lacked a fire escape, smoke detectors and other fire safety features.
Mayor Cherelle Parker’s spokesperson, Joe Grace, declined comment because the matter is in active litigation. Messages seeking comment were left Friday with spokespeople with the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
During two visits to the home in December 2021, a month before the fire, a Human Services social worker noticed the smoke detectors were inoperable, the lawsuit says, but did not return with working detectors as she promised.
Housing authority records show their staff made three visits in December 2021, but the lawsuit says records falsely showed “quality checks were performed on the smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors and they were operable.”
Three women and nine of their children — nearly all of the apartment’s 14 residents — were killed in what was called the city’s deadliest fire in more than a century. Officials reported that the early morning fire in Unit B of 869 N. Third St. started at a Christmas tree.
The housing authority, the lawsuit said, “knew of the grave risks associated with overcrowding, fire hazards and the lack of operable smoke detectors, and the serious dangers that the conditions posed” to the residents who died in the fire.
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages as well as an order that all of city’s public housing units be inspected and tested to ensure there are working smoke detectors.
A separate, negligence lawsuit regarding the fire was filed in March in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. A spokesperson for the Kline and Specter law firm said Friday that case remains pending and is currently in the discovery phase.
New York
Judge blocks Trump lawyers from arguing about columnist’s rape claim at defamation trial
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge late Saturday said former President Donald Trump’s lawyers can’t present legal arguments to a jury assessing damages at a defamation trial on a jury’s conclusion last year that he didn’t rape a columnist in the mid-1990s.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan made the determination in an order in advance of a Jan. 16 trial to determine defamation damages against Trump after a jury concluded Trump sexually abused columnist E. Jean Carroll but did not find evidence was sufficient to conclude that he raped her.
Trump, speaking in Iowa on Saturday as the Republican frontrunning presidential candidate in advance of a Jan. 15 primary, criticized the judge as a “radical Democrat” and mocked E. Jean Carroll for not screaming when she was attacked. “It was all made up,” he said.
Carroll, 80, won a $5 million award last May from a jury that concluded Trump sexually abused her in 1996 in a luxury department store dressing room and defamed her in 2022.
Trump did not attend the Manhattan trial where Carroll testified that a chance encounter at a Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Trump Tower was flirtatious and fun until he slammed her against a wall in a dressing room and attacked her sexually. Trump has vehemently denied it.
In this month’s trial, a jury will consider whether damages should be levied against Trump for remarks he made after last year’s verdict and in 2019 while he was president after Carroll spoke publicly for the first time about her mid-1990s claims in a memoir.
Carroll’s lawyers had asked the judge to issue the order, saying that Trump’s attorneys should not be allowed to confuse jurors this month about last year’s verdict by trying to argue that the jury disbelieved Carroll’s rape claim.
They said the jury’s finding reflected its conclusion that Trump had forcibly and without consent digitally penetrated Carroll’s vagina, which does not constitute rape under New York state law but which constitutes rape in other jurisdictions.
Carroll’s lawyers said the “sting of the defamation was Mr. Trump’s assertions that Ms. Carroll’s charge of sexual abuse was an entirely untruthful fabrication and one made up for improper or even nefarious reasons.”
A lawyer for Trump did not immediately return a message Saturday.
Carroll is seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and substantially more in unspecified punitive damages at the trial. She will testify and Trump is listed as a witness. The trial is expected to last about a week.
Meanwhile, Trump has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in four indictments, two of which accuse him of seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, as well as a classified documents case and charges that he helped arrange a payoff to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her before the 2016 presidential election.