West Virginia
Judge orders restoration of health program for coal miners
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A judge on Tuesday ordered the restoration of a health monitoring program for coal miners in West Virginia and rescinded layoffs the federal government implemented in a unit of a small U.S. health agency.
U.S. District Judge Irene Berger issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by a coal miner who was diagnosed with a respiratory ailment commonly known as black lung disease.
Nearly 200 workers at a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health facility in Morgantown were told last month that their jobs were being terminated as part of restructuring within Health and Human Services. Berger ordered that jobs be restored within NIOSH’s respiratory health division in Morgantown, although her ruling didn’t specify a number. The division is responsible for screening and reviewing medical exams to determine whether there is evidence that miners have developed black lung.
Federal law mandates that regular health screenings be made available to coal miners. Those diagnosed with black lung also are given the option to transfer to other positions in a mine to protect them from continued dust exposure without a pay reduction.
Berger said the defendants “lack the authority to unilaterally cancel” the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program within NIOSH. She ordered both the surveillance and job transfer programs to be restored, saying that “there be no pause, stoppage or gap in the protections and services” mandated by the federal Mine Safety and Health Act.
Poisonous silica dust has contributed to the premature deaths of thousands of mine workers from black lung disease. Plaintiff Harry Wiley, a West Virginia mine electrician who has worked in coal mines for 38 years, was diagnosed with early-stage black lung last November.
Canceling the health surveillance program would “cost lives,” Berger wrote. “Remaining in a dusty job may reduce the years in which Mr. Wiley can walk and breathe unassisted, in addition to hastening his death. It is difficult to imagine a clearer case of irreparable harm.”
The judge gave Kennedy 20 days to show the federal government is complying with her order.
Rhode Island
20 Democratic AGs sue Trump administration over conditions placed on billions of federal funds
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A coalition of 20 state Democratic attorneys general filed two federal lawsuits on Tuesday, claiming that the Trump administration is threatening to withhold billions of dollars in transportation and disaster-relief funds unless states agree to certain immigration enforcement actions.
According to the complaints, both Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have threatened to cut off funding to states that refuse to comply with President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
While no federal funding is currently being withheld, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said during a news conference on Tuesday that the threat was “imminent.”
“President Donald Trump can’t use these funds as a bargaining chip as his way of ensuring states abide by his preferred policies,” Bonta added.
Department of Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the lawsuit will not stop the Trump Administration from “restoring the rule of law.”
“Cities and states who break the law and prevent us from arresting criminal illegal aliens should not receive federal funding. The President has been clear on that,” she said.
Duffy said in a statement that the 20 states have filed the lawsuit because “their officials want to continue breaking federal law and putting the needs of illegal aliens above their own citizens.”
Both lawsuits say that the Trump administration is violating the U.S. Constitution by trying to dictate federal spending when Congress has that power — not the executive branch.
On April 24, states received letters from the Department of Transportation stating that they must cooperate on immigration efforts and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs or risk losing funds.
Meanwhile, on Feb. 24, states received letters from the Department of Homeland Security declaring that states that “refuse to cooperate with, refuse to share information with, or even actively obstruct federal immigration enforcement reject these ideals and the history we share in common as Americans.”
Attorneys general behind the lawsuits include the following states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont.
The cases are being spearheaded by California and Illinois, but they were filed in federal court in Rhode Island, a detail that the attorneys general defended by saying they filed in “any court that is going to be fair and objective and consider our factual presentation and legal analysis.”
The lawsuits are the latest legal actions that Democratic-led states have taken against Trump since he took office earlier this year. Bonta noted that California has filed more than 20 lawsuits against the administration, while Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said his state has launched more than a dozen.
While the lawsuits have challenged policies on tariffs, federal employee firings and health care research, Trump’s focus on immigration enforcement and the mass deportation of immigrants in the United States illegally have received the most attention.
This has included the president’s promise to mass deport people and the start of a registry required for all those who are in the country illegally.
“What we’re seeing is a creeping authoritarianism,” Neronha said.
Massachusetts
Man pleads guilty to attacking a flight attendant with broken spoon
BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man pleaded guilty Tuesday to attacking a flight attendant with a broken metal spoon and attempting to open an airliner’s emergency door on a cross-country flight.
Francisco Severo Torres, of Leominster, pleaded guilty to one count of interference and attempted interference with flight crew members and attendants using a dangerous weapon in the March 2023 disturbance on United Airlines Flight 2609 from Los Angeles to Boston.
According to prosecutor and witness accounts, Torres went on a midair rant and tried to stab a crew member with a modified metal spoon.
The plane was about 45 minutes from Boston when the crew received an alarm that a side door on the aircraft was disarmed, according to court documents. One flight attendant noticed the door’s locking handle had been moved. Another saw Torres near the door and believed he had moved the handle. Cabin pressure during flight prevents airplane doors from opening.
Torres started loudly rambling that his father was Dracula, that he wanted to be shot so he could be reincarnated and that he would kill everyone on board, another passenger said. He punched a male flight attendant, who felt the metal spoon in Torres’ hand hit him on his shirt collar and tie three times, according to court documents. No one was injured.
Torres was eventually subdued and restrained by other passengers. He was arrested when the flight landed at Boston Logan International Airport, authorities said.
Torres could be sentenced up to life in prison.
A lawyer for Torres could not be reached for comment.
Torres has spent time in mental health facilities, according to court records. The police chief in his hometown said officers have dealt with him several times since 2014, mostly over family issues and mental health episodes.
During one court appearance after his arrest, a federal judge ruled that Torres was not competent to stand trial and that he needed additional treatment. Magistrate Judge Judith Dein based her decision on a mental health evaluation of Torres and her own observations.
New York
Court: Fox News can get access to Smartmatic records about bribery case
NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News can get access to some internal documents at the voting-technology company Smartmatic as part of its effort to defend itself against a $2.7 billion civil defamation lawsuit over its coverage of claims of voting fraud during the 2020 presidential election, a New York appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The documents concern a U.S. corruption case about Smartmatic’s dealings in the Philippines.
The opinion reversed a lower-court judge’s repeated denials of Fox requests to peer into the company’s records about the federal inquiry, which led to criminal charges against Smartmatic co-founder Roger Piñate and two other executives.
Smartmatic says the suit is a world away from the criminal case, which alleges the executives conspired to pay over $1 million in bribes to a Filipino official between 2015 and 2018 to secure business there.
Piñate and at least one co-defendant have pleaded not guilty. It’s unclear from court records whether the third executive has entered a plea or has an attorney who can comment on the charges.
Smartmatic itself isn’t charged and put the defendants on leave.
Florida-based Smartmatic says its business was decimated when Fox aired false claims that the election-tech company helped rig the 2020 voting. Under pressure from Smartmatic, Fox eventually interviewed an election technology expert who refuted the allegations.
The network says it simply reported on newsworthy allegations made by President Donald Trump and his allies, and that Smartmatic is vastly overstating its purported losses.
A five-judge state Appellate Division panel said Fox can get some documents about how the Philippines corruption indictment affected Smartmatic’s business, reasoning that the information is “plainly relevant to its current and future lost profits.”
In court filings and a recent hearing, lawyers for Fox News and Smartmatic disputed how much relevant material already was turned over.
Hailing Tuesday’s ruling, the network said in a statement that evidence “shows that Smartmatic’s business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump’s lawyers on Fox News.”
Smartmatic lawyer Erik Connolly said Fox’s “campaign of lies was the number-one cause of Smartmatic’s injuries.”
Smartmatic is suing the network and some current and former on-air hosts, including Jeanine Pirro, newly tapped as top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital. The lawsuit involves shows in which Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell portrayed Smartmatic as part of a broad conspiracy to steal the 2020 vote from Trump. The Republican was then in his first term.
Federal and state election officials, exhaustive reviews in battleground states and Trump’s own then-attorney general found no widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome of the election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden. Nor did they uncover any credible evidence that the vote was tainted. Dozens of judges, including some whom Trump had appointed, rejected his fraud claims.
Judge orders restoration of health program for coal miners
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A judge on Tuesday ordered the restoration of a health monitoring program for coal miners in West Virginia and rescinded layoffs the federal government implemented in a unit of a small U.S. health agency.
U.S. District Judge Irene Berger issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by a coal miner who was diagnosed with a respiratory ailment commonly known as black lung disease.
Nearly 200 workers at a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health facility in Morgantown were told last month that their jobs were being terminated as part of restructuring within Health and Human Services. Berger ordered that jobs be restored within NIOSH’s respiratory health division in Morgantown, although her ruling didn’t specify a number. The division is responsible for screening and reviewing medical exams to determine whether there is evidence that miners have developed black lung.
Federal law mandates that regular health screenings be made available to coal miners. Those diagnosed with black lung also are given the option to transfer to other positions in a mine to protect them from continued dust exposure without a pay reduction.
Berger said the defendants “lack the authority to unilaterally cancel” the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program within NIOSH. She ordered both the surveillance and job transfer programs to be restored, saying that “there be no pause, stoppage or gap in the protections and services” mandated by the federal Mine Safety and Health Act.
Poisonous silica dust has contributed to the premature deaths of thousands of mine workers from black lung disease. Plaintiff Harry Wiley, a West Virginia mine electrician who has worked in coal mines for 38 years, was diagnosed with early-stage black lung last November.
Canceling the health surveillance program would “cost lives,” Berger wrote. “Remaining in a dusty job may reduce the years in which Mr. Wiley can walk and breathe unassisted, in addition to hastening his death. It is difficult to imagine a clearer case of irreparable harm.”
The judge gave Kennedy 20 days to show the federal government is complying with her order.
Rhode Island
20 Democratic AGs sue Trump administration over conditions placed on billions of federal funds
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A coalition of 20 state Democratic attorneys general filed two federal lawsuits on Tuesday, claiming that the Trump administration is threatening to withhold billions of dollars in transportation and disaster-relief funds unless states agree to certain immigration enforcement actions.
According to the complaints, both Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have threatened to cut off funding to states that refuse to comply with President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
While no federal funding is currently being withheld, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said during a news conference on Tuesday that the threat was “imminent.”
“President Donald Trump can’t use these funds as a bargaining chip as his way of ensuring states abide by his preferred policies,” Bonta added.
Department of Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the lawsuit will not stop the Trump Administration from “restoring the rule of law.”
“Cities and states who break the law and prevent us from arresting criminal illegal aliens should not receive federal funding. The President has been clear on that,” she said.
Duffy said in a statement that the 20 states have filed the lawsuit because “their officials want to continue breaking federal law and putting the needs of illegal aliens above their own citizens.”
Both lawsuits say that the Trump administration is violating the U.S. Constitution by trying to dictate federal spending when Congress has that power — not the executive branch.
On April 24, states received letters from the Department of Transportation stating that they must cooperate on immigration efforts and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs or risk losing funds.
Meanwhile, on Feb. 24, states received letters from the Department of Homeland Security declaring that states that “refuse to cooperate with, refuse to share information with, or even actively obstruct federal immigration enforcement reject these ideals and the history we share in common as Americans.”
Attorneys general behind the lawsuits include the following states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont.
The cases are being spearheaded by California and Illinois, but they were filed in federal court in Rhode Island, a detail that the attorneys general defended by saying they filed in “any court that is going to be fair and objective and consider our factual presentation and legal analysis.”
The lawsuits are the latest legal actions that Democratic-led states have taken against Trump since he took office earlier this year. Bonta noted that California has filed more than 20 lawsuits against the administration, while Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said his state has launched more than a dozen.
While the lawsuits have challenged policies on tariffs, federal employee firings and health care research, Trump’s focus on immigration enforcement and the mass deportation of immigrants in the United States illegally have received the most attention.
This has included the president’s promise to mass deport people and the start of a registry required for all those who are in the country illegally.
“What we’re seeing is a creeping authoritarianism,” Neronha said.
Massachusetts
Man pleads guilty to attacking a flight attendant with broken spoon
BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man pleaded guilty Tuesday to attacking a flight attendant with a broken metal spoon and attempting to open an airliner’s emergency door on a cross-country flight.
Francisco Severo Torres, of Leominster, pleaded guilty to one count of interference and attempted interference with flight crew members and attendants using a dangerous weapon in the March 2023 disturbance on United Airlines Flight 2609 from Los Angeles to Boston.
According to prosecutor and witness accounts, Torres went on a midair rant and tried to stab a crew member with a modified metal spoon.
The plane was about 45 minutes from Boston when the crew received an alarm that a side door on the aircraft was disarmed, according to court documents. One flight attendant noticed the door’s locking handle had been moved. Another saw Torres near the door and believed he had moved the handle. Cabin pressure during flight prevents airplane doors from opening.
Torres started loudly rambling that his father was Dracula, that he wanted to be shot so he could be reincarnated and that he would kill everyone on board, another passenger said. He punched a male flight attendant, who felt the metal spoon in Torres’ hand hit him on his shirt collar and tie three times, according to court documents. No one was injured.
Torres was eventually subdued and restrained by other passengers. He was arrested when the flight landed at Boston Logan International Airport, authorities said.
Torres could be sentenced up to life in prison.
A lawyer for Torres could not be reached for comment.
Torres has spent time in mental health facilities, according to court records. The police chief in his hometown said officers have dealt with him several times since 2014, mostly over family issues and mental health episodes.
During one court appearance after his arrest, a federal judge ruled that Torres was not competent to stand trial and that he needed additional treatment. Magistrate Judge Judith Dein based her decision on a mental health evaluation of Torres and her own observations.
New York
Court: Fox News can get access to Smartmatic records about bribery case
NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News can get access to some internal documents at the voting-technology company Smartmatic as part of its effort to defend itself against a $2.7 billion civil defamation lawsuit over its coverage of claims of voting fraud during the 2020 presidential election, a New York appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The documents concern a U.S. corruption case about Smartmatic’s dealings in the Philippines.
The opinion reversed a lower-court judge’s repeated denials of Fox requests to peer into the company’s records about the federal inquiry, which led to criminal charges against Smartmatic co-founder Roger Piñate and two other executives.
Smartmatic says the suit is a world away from the criminal case, which alleges the executives conspired to pay over $1 million in bribes to a Filipino official between 2015 and 2018 to secure business there.
Piñate and at least one co-defendant have pleaded not guilty. It’s unclear from court records whether the third executive has entered a plea or has an attorney who can comment on the charges.
Smartmatic itself isn’t charged and put the defendants on leave.
Florida-based Smartmatic says its business was decimated when Fox aired false claims that the election-tech company helped rig the 2020 voting. Under pressure from Smartmatic, Fox eventually interviewed an election technology expert who refuted the allegations.
The network says it simply reported on newsworthy allegations made by President Donald Trump and his allies, and that Smartmatic is vastly overstating its purported losses.
A five-judge state Appellate Division panel said Fox can get some documents about how the Philippines corruption indictment affected Smartmatic’s business, reasoning that the information is “plainly relevant to its current and future lost profits.”
In court filings and a recent hearing, lawyers for Fox News and Smartmatic disputed how much relevant material already was turned over.
Hailing Tuesday’s ruling, the network said in a statement that evidence “shows that Smartmatic’s business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump’s lawyers on Fox News.”
Smartmatic lawyer Erik Connolly said Fox’s “campaign of lies was the number-one cause of Smartmatic’s injuries.”
Smartmatic is suing the network and some current and former on-air hosts, including Jeanine Pirro, newly tapped as top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital. The lawsuit involves shows in which Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell portrayed Smartmatic as part of a broad conspiracy to steal the 2020 vote from Trump. The Republican was then in his first term.
Federal and state election officials, exhaustive reviews in battleground states and Trump’s own then-attorney general found no widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome of the election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden. Nor did they uncover any credible evidence that the vote was tainted. Dozens of judges, including some whom Trump had appointed, rejected his fraud claims.
