California
Non-scholarship athletes argue proposal to fix roster-limit rule in lawsuit does not go far enough
A court filing in the multibillion-dollar college sports lawsuit argues the proposed remedy for the roster-limit rule holding up the case does not go far enough in protecting walk-on and other athletes who lost their spots when schools started cutting players in anticipation of the settlement being approved.
Attorneys for Michigan walk-on football player John Weidenbach and Yale rower Grace Menke filed a brief last week responding to the proposal that any athlete who had lost a spot because of the roster-limit rule not count against the cap when it goes in place next school year.
It’s the roster caps that have prevented U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken from approving the $2.78 billion settlement, which is designed to allow schools to pay players directly beginning later this year.
Wilken suggested any athlete already on a roster be “grandfathered in” for the rest of their college career, so as not to count against the new roster limits. The limits, while expanding scholarship opportunities across all sports, are expected to cost thousands of athletes — most of them walk-ons or on partial scholarships — their spots on rosters.
Wilken is accepting objectors’ filings through Tuesday, then giving the NCAA and plaintiffs through Friday to rebut those arguments.
The court filing on behalf of Menke and Weidenbach argues the solution proposed by the NCAA and plaintiffs “fails in numerous respects” to protect those athletes.
Among its arguments is that the proposed remedy makes restoring players to roster spots completely optional for the schools that cut the players. It also says the directive for schools to make a list of players it cut because of roster limits — the list would then be used to determine which players should not count against the new caps — leaves room for the teams to make up other reasons for cutting the players.
“It provides student-athletes with no opportunity to challenge those decisions or prove that roster caps, rather than something else, caused them to be cut,” the filing said.
The NCAA and plaintiffs argue that since none of these roster spots was ever guaranteed, a provision allowing players back on their old teams to compete for their spot leaves them in no worse a situation than before they got cut.
But the filing argues the damage has already been done by schools that cut players with the expectation that Wilken would approve the settlement — an assumption the judge said was incorrect.
“Counsel continues to hear from many athletes and their families whose lives are being turned upside down as a result of the implementation of roster caps,” the filing said. “Defendants’ indifference, when simple fixes were offered to address a problem of their making, is stunning.”
Among the objectors’ proposed fixes was for schools to automatically restore players to their old roster spots, while giving them “discretion to cut athletes for legitimate reasons unrelated to the roster cap, such as conduct violations and poor athletic or academic performance.”
Under the latest proposal, the players would be able to either go back to their old schools or find a new one, but either way, they would not count against that school’s roster limit.
Kansas
Denny Hamlin remains confident in antitrust case brought by 23XI and Front Row against NASCAR
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Denny Hamlin said Saturday that he remains “pretty confident” in the case brought by his 23XI Racing, co-owned by the veteran driver and retired NBA great Michael Jordan, and Front Row Motorsports against NASCAR alleging antitrust violations.
Hamlin spoke one day after a three-judge federal appellate panel indicated it might overturn an injunction that allows 23XI and Front Row to race as chartered teams, even as their lawsuit against the stock car series plays out in court.
“You know, they’re telling me kind of what’s going on. I didn’t get to hear it live or anything like that,” Hamlin said after qualifying 14th for Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway. “But we’re overall pretty confident in our case.”
The teams filed the antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR on Oct. 2 in the Western District of North Carolina, arguing that the series bullied teams into signing charter agreements — essentially franchise deals — that make it difficult to compete financially.
Those were the only two holdouts of 15 charter-holding teams that refused to sign the agreements in September.
The most recent extension of the charters lasts until 2031, matching the current media rights deal. Perhaps the biggest benefit of them is that they guarantee 36 of the 40 spots available in each NASCAR race to teams that own them.
Overturning the injunction would leave 23XI and Front Row racing as “open teams,” meaning they’d have to qualify at every Cup Series event. But there are only four open spots, and 23XI had four cars at Kansas this week — Bubba Wallace, Riley Herbst, Tyler Reddick and Corey Heim — and Front Row had three with Noah Gragson, Zane Smith and Todd Gilliland.
“You know, the judges haven’t made any kind of ruling,” Hamlin said, “so until they do, then we’re going to stay status quo.”
NASCAR attorney Chris Yates had argued the injunction, granted in December by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell, forced the series into an unwanted relationship with unwilling partners, and that it harms other teams because they earn less money. He also said that the teams should not have the benefits of the charter system they are suing to overturn.
“There’s no other place to compete,” countered Jeffrey Kessler, the attorney representing 23XI and Front Row, noting overturning the injunction would cause tremendous damage to the teams, potentially including the loss of drivers and sponsors.
“It will cause havoc to overturn this injunction in the middle of the season,” Kessler said.
There is a trial date set for December, and judge Steven Agee urged the sides to meet for mediation — previously ordered by a lower court — to attempt to resolve the dispute over the injunction. But that seems unlikely.
“We’re not going to rewrite the charter,” Yates told the judges.
Mississippi
Brett Favre’s defamation lawsuit against state auditor will move forward, court says
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A defamation lawsuit filed by retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre against Mississippi Auditor Shad White for his comments on a welfare scandal will move forward after Mississippi’s Supreme Court on Thursday denied White’s appeal to dismiss the lawsuit.
“The facts of this case have not changed and Auditor White will continue to defend himself from this ridiculous and frivolous lawsuit,” White’s office said in a statement.
In March, White asked the court to overturn a ruling by Hinds County Circuit Judge Debra Gibbs, who denied White’s initial dismissal request.
“The continued litigation of this case not only threatens important First Amendment rights. Equally if not more worrisomely, it discourages public servants from doing their jobs,” White’s appeal read.
Favre filed the defamation lawsuit in 2023. It alleges White falsely accused Favre of stealing taxpayer funds in media appearances and in White’s 2024 book, “Mississippi Swindle: Brett Favre and the Welfare Scandal that Shocked America.”
Favre is among more than three dozen people sued by the state in an attempt to recover misspent welfare dollars through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. More than $1 million in TANF funds were funneled through a nonprofit and used to help pay for a $5 million volleyball facility at the University of Southern Mississippi, Favre’s alma mater. Favre’s daughter played volleyball at the university starting in 2017.
Favre has repaid $1.1 million, but White is suing the Pro Football Hall of Fame member, saying Favre still owes about $730,000 because interest caused growth in the original amount he owed.
Favre has not faced any criminal charges related to the scandal and has denied any wrongdoing. He said he did not know the funds were designated for welfare recipients and was attempting to help his alma mater.
The defamation lawsuit now returns to Hinds County Circuit Court. The Associated Press has contacted White’s office.
Texas
Google to pay state $1.4B to settle claims the company collected users’ data without permission
Google will pay $1.4 billion to Texas to settle claims the company collected users’ data without permission, the state’s attorney general announced Friday.
Attorney General Ken Paxton described the settlement as sending a message to tech companies that he will not allow them to make money off of “selling away our rights and freedoms.”
“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law.” Paxton said in a statement. “For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won.”
The agreement settles several claims Texas made against the search giant in 2022 related to geolocation, incognito searches and biometric data. The state argued Google was “unlawfully tracking and collecting users’ private data.”
Paxton claimed, for example, that Google collected millions of biometric identifiers, including voiceprints and records of face geometry, through such products and services as Google Photos and Google Assistant.
Google spokesperson José Castañeda said the agreement settles an array of “old claims,” some of which relate to product policies the company has already changed.
“We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services,” he said in a statement.
The company also clarified that the settlement does not require any new product changes.
Paxton said the $1.4 billion is the largest amount won by any state in a settlement with Google over this type of data-privacy violations.
Texas previously reached two other key settlements with Google within the last two years, including one in December 2023 in which the company agreed to pay $700 million and make several other concessions to settle allegations that it had been stifling competition against its Android app store.
Meta has also agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas in a privacy lawsuit over allegations that the tech giant used users’ biometric data without their permission.
“Plavix has helped millions of people with cardiovascular disease around the world for nearly 30 years and it continues to be endorsed as a first-line therapy by leading treatment guidelines across the globe,” the statement added.
First Circuit Court Judge James Ashford found that there was a risk that about 30% of patients, particularly non-Caucasians, might have a “diminished response” to Plavix but the companies did not update their labels, Attorney General Anne Lopez said last year.
Neither company has admitted wrongdoing.
Gov. Josh Green called it a “landmark settlement” and a “major victory” for the state.
The settlement divides the $700 million equally between Bristol Myers Squibb and Sanofi, with the funds to be paid by wire transfer by June 9, the attorney general’s office said.
Non-scholarship athletes argue proposal to fix roster-limit rule in lawsuit does not go far enough
A court filing in the multibillion-dollar college sports lawsuit argues the proposed remedy for the roster-limit rule holding up the case does not go far enough in protecting walk-on and other athletes who lost their spots when schools started cutting players in anticipation of the settlement being approved.
Attorneys for Michigan walk-on football player John Weidenbach and Yale rower Grace Menke filed a brief last week responding to the proposal that any athlete who had lost a spot because of the roster-limit rule not count against the cap when it goes in place next school year.
It’s the roster caps that have prevented U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken from approving the $2.78 billion settlement, which is designed to allow schools to pay players directly beginning later this year.
Wilken suggested any athlete already on a roster be “grandfathered in” for the rest of their college career, so as not to count against the new roster limits. The limits, while expanding scholarship opportunities across all sports, are expected to cost thousands of athletes — most of them walk-ons or on partial scholarships — their spots on rosters.
Wilken is accepting objectors’ filings through Tuesday, then giving the NCAA and plaintiffs through Friday to rebut those arguments.
The court filing on behalf of Menke and Weidenbach argues the solution proposed by the NCAA and plaintiffs “fails in numerous respects” to protect those athletes.
Among its arguments is that the proposed remedy makes restoring players to roster spots completely optional for the schools that cut the players. It also says the directive for schools to make a list of players it cut because of roster limits — the list would then be used to determine which players should not count against the new caps — leaves room for the teams to make up other reasons for cutting the players.
“It provides student-athletes with no opportunity to challenge those decisions or prove that roster caps, rather than something else, caused them to be cut,” the filing said.
The NCAA and plaintiffs argue that since none of these roster spots was ever guaranteed, a provision allowing players back on their old teams to compete for their spot leaves them in no worse a situation than before they got cut.
But the filing argues the damage has already been done by schools that cut players with the expectation that Wilken would approve the settlement — an assumption the judge said was incorrect.
“Counsel continues to hear from many athletes and their families whose lives are being turned upside down as a result of the implementation of roster caps,” the filing said. “Defendants’ indifference, when simple fixes were offered to address a problem of their making, is stunning.”
Among the objectors’ proposed fixes was for schools to automatically restore players to their old roster spots, while giving them “discretion to cut athletes for legitimate reasons unrelated to the roster cap, such as conduct violations and poor athletic or academic performance.”
Under the latest proposal, the players would be able to either go back to their old schools or find a new one, but either way, they would not count against that school’s roster limit.
Kansas
Denny Hamlin remains confident in antitrust case brought by 23XI and Front Row against NASCAR
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Denny Hamlin said Saturday that he remains “pretty confident” in the case brought by his 23XI Racing, co-owned by the veteran driver and retired NBA great Michael Jordan, and Front Row Motorsports against NASCAR alleging antitrust violations.
Hamlin spoke one day after a three-judge federal appellate panel indicated it might overturn an injunction that allows 23XI and Front Row to race as chartered teams, even as their lawsuit against the stock car series plays out in court.
“You know, they’re telling me kind of what’s going on. I didn’t get to hear it live or anything like that,” Hamlin said after qualifying 14th for Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway. “But we’re overall pretty confident in our case.”
The teams filed the antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR on Oct. 2 in the Western District of North Carolina, arguing that the series bullied teams into signing charter agreements — essentially franchise deals — that make it difficult to compete financially.
Those were the only two holdouts of 15 charter-holding teams that refused to sign the agreements in September.
The most recent extension of the charters lasts until 2031, matching the current media rights deal. Perhaps the biggest benefit of them is that they guarantee 36 of the 40 spots available in each NASCAR race to teams that own them.
Overturning the injunction would leave 23XI and Front Row racing as “open teams,” meaning they’d have to qualify at every Cup Series event. But there are only four open spots, and 23XI had four cars at Kansas this week — Bubba Wallace, Riley Herbst, Tyler Reddick and Corey Heim — and Front Row had three with Noah Gragson, Zane Smith and Todd Gilliland.
“You know, the judges haven’t made any kind of ruling,” Hamlin said, “so until they do, then we’re going to stay status quo.”
NASCAR attorney Chris Yates had argued the injunction, granted in December by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell, forced the series into an unwanted relationship with unwilling partners, and that it harms other teams because they earn less money. He also said that the teams should not have the benefits of the charter system they are suing to overturn.
“There’s no other place to compete,” countered Jeffrey Kessler, the attorney representing 23XI and Front Row, noting overturning the injunction would cause tremendous damage to the teams, potentially including the loss of drivers and sponsors.
“It will cause havoc to overturn this injunction in the middle of the season,” Kessler said.
There is a trial date set for December, and judge Steven Agee urged the sides to meet for mediation — previously ordered by a lower court — to attempt to resolve the dispute over the injunction. But that seems unlikely.
“We’re not going to rewrite the charter,” Yates told the judges.
Mississippi
Brett Favre’s defamation lawsuit against state auditor will move forward, court says
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A defamation lawsuit filed by retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre against Mississippi Auditor Shad White for his comments on a welfare scandal will move forward after Mississippi’s Supreme Court on Thursday denied White’s appeal to dismiss the lawsuit.
“The facts of this case have not changed and Auditor White will continue to defend himself from this ridiculous and frivolous lawsuit,” White’s office said in a statement.
In March, White asked the court to overturn a ruling by Hinds County Circuit Judge Debra Gibbs, who denied White’s initial dismissal request.
“The continued litigation of this case not only threatens important First Amendment rights. Equally if not more worrisomely, it discourages public servants from doing their jobs,” White’s appeal read.
Favre filed the defamation lawsuit in 2023. It alleges White falsely accused Favre of stealing taxpayer funds in media appearances and in White’s 2024 book, “Mississippi Swindle: Brett Favre and the Welfare Scandal that Shocked America.”
Favre is among more than three dozen people sued by the state in an attempt to recover misspent welfare dollars through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. More than $1 million in TANF funds were funneled through a nonprofit and used to help pay for a $5 million volleyball facility at the University of Southern Mississippi, Favre’s alma mater. Favre’s daughter played volleyball at the university starting in 2017.
Favre has repaid $1.1 million, but White is suing the Pro Football Hall of Fame member, saying Favre still owes about $730,000 because interest caused growth in the original amount he owed.
Favre has not faced any criminal charges related to the scandal and has denied any wrongdoing. He said he did not know the funds were designated for welfare recipients and was attempting to help his alma mater.
The defamation lawsuit now returns to Hinds County Circuit Court. The Associated Press has contacted White’s office.
Texas
Google to pay state $1.4B to settle claims the company collected users’ data without permission
Google will pay $1.4 billion to Texas to settle claims the company collected users’ data without permission, the state’s attorney general announced Friday.
Attorney General Ken Paxton described the settlement as sending a message to tech companies that he will not allow them to make money off of “selling away our rights and freedoms.”
“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law.” Paxton said in a statement. “For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won.”
The agreement settles several claims Texas made against the search giant in 2022 related to geolocation, incognito searches and biometric data. The state argued Google was “unlawfully tracking and collecting users’ private data.”
Paxton claimed, for example, that Google collected millions of biometric identifiers, including voiceprints and records of face geometry, through such products and services as Google Photos and Google Assistant.
Google spokesperson José Castañeda said the agreement settles an array of “old claims,” some of which relate to product policies the company has already changed.
“We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services,” he said in a statement.
The company also clarified that the settlement does not require any new product changes.
Paxton said the $1.4 billion is the largest amount won by any state in a settlement with Google over this type of data-privacy violations.
Texas previously reached two other key settlements with Google within the last two years, including one in December 2023 in which the company agreed to pay $700 million and make several other concessions to settle allegations that it had been stifling competition against its Android app store.
Meta has also agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas in a privacy lawsuit over allegations that the tech giant used users’ biometric data without their permission.
“Plavix has helped millions of people with cardiovascular disease around the world for nearly 30 years and it continues to be endorsed as a first-line therapy by leading treatment guidelines across the globe,” the statement added.
First Circuit Court Judge James Ashford found that there was a risk that about 30% of patients, particularly non-Caucasians, might have a “diminished response” to Plavix but the companies did not update their labels, Attorney General Anne Lopez said last year.
Neither company has admitted wrongdoing.
Gov. Josh Green called it a “landmark settlement” and a “major victory” for the state.
The settlement divides the $700 million equally between Bristol Myers Squibb and Sanofi, with the funds to be paid by wire transfer by June 9, the attorney general’s office said.
