Mississippi
Tech group asks Supreme Court to block Mississippi law on age verification for social media
Technology trade group NetChoice is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop Mississippi from enforcing a law that requires age verification for users of social media.
The group filed an emergency application Monday, days after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Mississippi law could take effect. While NetChoice has sued other states over age-verification laws, the Mississippi case is the first to reach the nation’s high court.
NetChoice argues that Mississippi’s law violates privacy and constitutionally protected speech, while state officials who support the law say it aims to protect children from harm online.
“Social media is the modern printing press — it allows all Americans to share their thoughts and perspectives,” Paul Taske, co-director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, said in a press release Monday. “And, until now, Mississippians could do the same free from government interference.”
In April 2024, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed the Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act, which unanimously passed the Legislature and was named for a teenager who took his own life after sextortion online.
The law says a minor must have permission of a parent or guardian to have a social media account and requires digital service providers to make “commercially reasonable efforts” to verify users’ ages. It also says social media companies could not collect, sell or share minors’ personal information and tech companies must have strategies to prevent minors from accessing “harmful material.”
NetChoice members include Google, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and X. The group sued Mississippi in June 2024 to try to prevent the law from taking effect, arguing that families, not the state, should determine how children interact with social media.
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in July 2024 to prevent Mississippi’s law from taking effect. Last week, the New Orleans-based appeals court granted the state’s request to lift that injunction.
In papers filed with the appeals court, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican, argued that the law “imposes modest duties on the interactive online platforms that are especially attractive to predators.”
California
AG asks court to give state control of Los Angeles County’s troubled juvenile halls
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California’s top prosecutor said Wednesday he has asked a court to give the state control of Los Angeles County’s troubled juvenile detention facilities because incarcerated young people are enduring unsafe conditions, including violence and rampant drug abuse.
Attorney General Rob Bonta said he wants the county to hand over administration of the juvenile jails to a third-party receiver, a court-appointed official who will take over management and operations from the Los Angeles County Probation Department. The official will have control over budgets and staffing decisions.
“This is a last resort, but it’s also the one left to defend the safety of the young people in these facilities,” Bonta said. He said the “extraordinary step” was necessary because the county has failed to comply with a court order his office secured in 2021 requiring sweeping reforms.
The probation department, which oversees the juvenile halls, acknowledged some of the problems raised the by the attorney general, but said it was concerned by Bonta’s request for “expansive state authority.”
Bonta outlined safety concerns such as “youth on youth” violence, riots, “unmet medical needs,” low staffing, inadequate security cameras and drug overdoses, including one that led to the death of a teenager. Earlier this year Bonta indicted 30 probation officers accused of facilitating so-called “gladiator fights” between incarcerated juveniles.
“These young people deserve better, and my office will not stop until they get it,” Bonta said. “A receivership is the best and only option to turn Los Angeles County juvenile halls around, and we believe the court will agree.”
In addition, the attorney general asked the court to establish a compensation fund for incarcerated youth “to redress and repair the injuries suffered in the county’s custody” and to cover medical and education expenses.
A hearing is set for Aug. 15. Bonta said if the court approves the plan, a receiver could be in place by the end of the summer.
“Our hope is that a receivership structure, should it be approved, be used as a collaborative tool to help remove obstacles — not as an isolating mechanism that sidelines the people and systems committed to improvements and reform,” the probation department’s statement said.
The department said Chief Probation Officer Guillermo Viera Rosa has worked to curb “decades-long dysfunction” by stabilizing staffing, improving safety protocols, increasing accountability for guard misconduct and expanding medical access for the incarcerated.
Previously, the Board of State and Community Corrections issued “unsuitable” designations for the Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall and Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall. The state board, which inspects the youth prisons, had determined that the county had been unable to correct problems including inadequate safety checks, low staffing, use of force and a lack of recreation and exercise.
The nonprofit Youth Justice Coalition said whether or not state receivership is implemented, officials should move toward permanently closing the juvenile halls.
“Our tax dollars are being spent to fund the abuse of young people,” the advocacy group said in a statement Wednesday. “Our youth don’t need more red tape and bureaucracy, they need an investment in care.”
The coalition is pushing for “community based services” for young offenders that include a “high school diploma program, free expungements and legal services, substance abuse and overdose prevention education, youth jobs, and community organizing and advocacy training,” the statement said.
Bonta’s request on Wednesday comes four years after California phased out its three remaining state-run youth prisons and shifted the responsibility to counties.
The move to local control was the final step in a lengthy reform effort driven in part by a class-action lawsuit and incentives for counties to keep youths out of the state system. The state-run system also had a troubled history marked by inmate suicides and brawls.
Ohio
Jim Jordan deposed in federal suit tied to sex abuse by late Ohio State team doctor
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan was among those questioned under oath this month about the sexual abuse of Ohio State University athletes decades ago by a team doctor, according to a court filing.
Jordan’s deposition Friday came in a federal lawsuit brought by former student athletes against the university over its failure to stop abuse by Dr. Richard Strauss, who died in 2005. Hundreds say they were abused by Strauss, who worked at the school from 1978 to 1998.
Many ex-wrestlers over the years have accused Jordan, who served as assistant coach of the Ohio State wrestling team from 1986 to 1994, of knowing about the abuse and failing to act.
The 10-term congressman’s office had declined to confirm Friday’s deposition, but it reiterated Jordan’s denial of any awareness of Strauss’ crimes or the cover-up.
“As everyone knows, (House Judiciary) Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it,” a statement said. Jordan formerly sat for questioning during the university’s independent investigation of the matter, but this was his first time under oath.
A Monday court filing shows attorneys for the former athletes also questioned Michael Murphy and John Doe 72, both plaintiffs in the case, on July 9 and July 11 respectively, and former long-time Ohio State Athletic Director Andy Geiger on Wednesday.
The depositions come close on the heels of the release of “Surviving Ohio State,” a documentary on the Strauss scandal produced by George Clooney and directed by Academy and Emmy award-winning director Eva Orner. The film was released June 17 on HBO and Max. An attorney for the student-athletes said the depositions had been previously planned.
Minnesota
Mike Lindell celebrates victory after appeals court voids $5M award in election data dispute
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal appeals court handed a victory Wednesday to Mike Lindell, ruling that the MyPillow founder doesn’t have to pay a $5 million award to a software engineer who disputed data that Lindell claims proves that China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an arbitration panel overstepped its authority in 2023 when it awarded $5 million to the engineer, Robert Zeidman, of Las Vegas, who took Lindell up on his “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge.”
“It’s a great day for our country,” a jubilant Lindell said in an interview. “This is a big win. It opens the door to getting rid of these electronic voting machines and getting paper ballots, hand-counted.”
Lindell, one of the country’s most prominent propagators of false claims that the 2020 election was a fraud, lost in a different case in Colorado last month. A jury ruled that Lindell defamed a former employee of a voting equipment company by accusing him of treason, and awarded $2.3 million in damages.
Lindell said he is appealing, and that he actually considers the verdict a victory because MyPillow itself wasn’t found liable.
President Donald Trump and his allies lost more than 50 court cases trying to overturn the 2020 election results, and his own attorney general at the time said there was no indication of wide-scale fraud.
As part of a “Cyber Symposium” Lindell hosted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 2021, Lindell offered $5 million for anyone who could prove that “packet captures” and other data he released there were not valid data from the 2020 election.
Zeidman entered a 15-page report that he said proved the data wasn’t what Lindell claimed. Contest judges declined to declare Zeidman a winner, so he filed for arbitration under the contest rules. A panel of three arbitrators, including one named by Lindell, concluded that Zeidman had satisfied the rules and awarded him $5 million.
U.S. District Judge John Tunheim affirmed the award last year. He expressed concern about how the arbitrators interpreted what he called a “poorly written contract,” but he said courts have only limited authority to overrule arbitration awards and ordered Lindell to pay up.
But the appeals court ruled Wednesday that the arbitrators went beyond the contractual language of the official contest rules in deciding how to construe them, instead of sticking to the document itself. The appeals court said the rules were unambiguous, even if they might have favored Lindell.
“Whatever one might think of the logic of the panel’s reasoning, it is contrary to Minnesota law. ... Fair or not, agreed-to contract terms may not be modified by the panel or by this court,” the appeals court wrote, and sent the case back to the lower court with instructions to vacate the $5 million award.
Zeidman attorney Brian Glasser urged people to read the arbitrators’ decision and “judge for themselves if the Eight Circuit’s decision today is more persuasive, or rings in truth louder, than the unanimous contrary decision of three arbitrators who heard all the evidence, including one appointed by Mr. Lindell.”
Tech group asks Supreme Court to block Mississippi law on age verification for social media
Technology trade group NetChoice is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop Mississippi from enforcing a law that requires age verification for users of social media.
The group filed an emergency application Monday, days after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Mississippi law could take effect. While NetChoice has sued other states over age-verification laws, the Mississippi case is the first to reach the nation’s high court.
NetChoice argues that Mississippi’s law violates privacy and constitutionally protected speech, while state officials who support the law say it aims to protect children from harm online.
“Social media is the modern printing press — it allows all Americans to share their thoughts and perspectives,” Paul Taske, co-director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, said in a press release Monday. “And, until now, Mississippians could do the same free from government interference.”
In April 2024, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed the Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act, which unanimously passed the Legislature and was named for a teenager who took his own life after sextortion online.
The law says a minor must have permission of a parent or guardian to have a social media account and requires digital service providers to make “commercially reasonable efforts” to verify users’ ages. It also says social media companies could not collect, sell or share minors’ personal information and tech companies must have strategies to prevent minors from accessing “harmful material.”
NetChoice members include Google, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and X. The group sued Mississippi in June 2024 to try to prevent the law from taking effect, arguing that families, not the state, should determine how children interact with social media.
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in July 2024 to prevent Mississippi’s law from taking effect. Last week, the New Orleans-based appeals court granted the state’s request to lift that injunction.
In papers filed with the appeals court, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican, argued that the law “imposes modest duties on the interactive online platforms that are especially attractive to predators.”
California
AG asks court to give state control of Los Angeles County’s troubled juvenile halls
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California’s top prosecutor said Wednesday he has asked a court to give the state control of Los Angeles County’s troubled juvenile detention facilities because incarcerated young people are enduring unsafe conditions, including violence and rampant drug abuse.
Attorney General Rob Bonta said he wants the county to hand over administration of the juvenile jails to a third-party receiver, a court-appointed official who will take over management and operations from the Los Angeles County Probation Department. The official will have control over budgets and staffing decisions.
“This is a last resort, but it’s also the one left to defend the safety of the young people in these facilities,” Bonta said. He said the “extraordinary step” was necessary because the county has failed to comply with a court order his office secured in 2021 requiring sweeping reforms.
The probation department, which oversees the juvenile halls, acknowledged some of the problems raised the by the attorney general, but said it was concerned by Bonta’s request for “expansive state authority.”
Bonta outlined safety concerns such as “youth on youth” violence, riots, “unmet medical needs,” low staffing, inadequate security cameras and drug overdoses, including one that led to the death of a teenager. Earlier this year Bonta indicted 30 probation officers accused of facilitating so-called “gladiator fights” between incarcerated juveniles.
“These young people deserve better, and my office will not stop until they get it,” Bonta said. “A receivership is the best and only option to turn Los Angeles County juvenile halls around, and we believe the court will agree.”
In addition, the attorney general asked the court to establish a compensation fund for incarcerated youth “to redress and repair the injuries suffered in the county’s custody” and to cover medical and education expenses.
A hearing is set for Aug. 15. Bonta said if the court approves the plan, a receiver could be in place by the end of the summer.
“Our hope is that a receivership structure, should it be approved, be used as a collaborative tool to help remove obstacles — not as an isolating mechanism that sidelines the people and systems committed to improvements and reform,” the probation department’s statement said.
The department said Chief Probation Officer Guillermo Viera Rosa has worked to curb “decades-long dysfunction” by stabilizing staffing, improving safety protocols, increasing accountability for guard misconduct and expanding medical access for the incarcerated.
Previously, the Board of State and Community Corrections issued “unsuitable” designations for the Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall and Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall. The state board, which inspects the youth prisons, had determined that the county had been unable to correct problems including inadequate safety checks, low staffing, use of force and a lack of recreation and exercise.
The nonprofit Youth Justice Coalition said whether or not state receivership is implemented, officials should move toward permanently closing the juvenile halls.
“Our tax dollars are being spent to fund the abuse of young people,” the advocacy group said in a statement Wednesday. “Our youth don’t need more red tape and bureaucracy, they need an investment in care.”
The coalition is pushing for “community based services” for young offenders that include a “high school diploma program, free expungements and legal services, substance abuse and overdose prevention education, youth jobs, and community organizing and advocacy training,” the statement said.
Bonta’s request on Wednesday comes four years after California phased out its three remaining state-run youth prisons and shifted the responsibility to counties.
The move to local control was the final step in a lengthy reform effort driven in part by a class-action lawsuit and incentives for counties to keep youths out of the state system. The state-run system also had a troubled history marked by inmate suicides and brawls.
Ohio
Jim Jordan deposed in federal suit tied to sex abuse by late Ohio State team doctor
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan was among those questioned under oath this month about the sexual abuse of Ohio State University athletes decades ago by a team doctor, according to a court filing.
Jordan’s deposition Friday came in a federal lawsuit brought by former student athletes against the university over its failure to stop abuse by Dr. Richard Strauss, who died in 2005. Hundreds say they were abused by Strauss, who worked at the school from 1978 to 1998.
Many ex-wrestlers over the years have accused Jordan, who served as assistant coach of the Ohio State wrestling team from 1986 to 1994, of knowing about the abuse and failing to act.
The 10-term congressman’s office had declined to confirm Friday’s deposition, but it reiterated Jordan’s denial of any awareness of Strauss’ crimes or the cover-up.
“As everyone knows, (House Judiciary) Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it,” a statement said. Jordan formerly sat for questioning during the university’s independent investigation of the matter, but this was his first time under oath.
A Monday court filing shows attorneys for the former athletes also questioned Michael Murphy and John Doe 72, both plaintiffs in the case, on July 9 and July 11 respectively, and former long-time Ohio State Athletic Director Andy Geiger on Wednesday.
The depositions come close on the heels of the release of “Surviving Ohio State,” a documentary on the Strauss scandal produced by George Clooney and directed by Academy and Emmy award-winning director Eva Orner. The film was released June 17 on HBO and Max. An attorney for the student-athletes said the depositions had been previously planned.
Minnesota
Mike Lindell celebrates victory after appeals court voids $5M award in election data dispute
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal appeals court handed a victory Wednesday to Mike Lindell, ruling that the MyPillow founder doesn’t have to pay a $5 million award to a software engineer who disputed data that Lindell claims proves that China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an arbitration panel overstepped its authority in 2023 when it awarded $5 million to the engineer, Robert Zeidman, of Las Vegas, who took Lindell up on his “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge.”
“It’s a great day for our country,” a jubilant Lindell said in an interview. “This is a big win. It opens the door to getting rid of these electronic voting machines and getting paper ballots, hand-counted.”
Lindell, one of the country’s most prominent propagators of false claims that the 2020 election was a fraud, lost in a different case in Colorado last month. A jury ruled that Lindell defamed a former employee of a voting equipment company by accusing him of treason, and awarded $2.3 million in damages.
Lindell said he is appealing, and that he actually considers the verdict a victory because MyPillow itself wasn’t found liable.
President Donald Trump and his allies lost more than 50 court cases trying to overturn the 2020 election results, and his own attorney general at the time said there was no indication of wide-scale fraud.
As part of a “Cyber Symposium” Lindell hosted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 2021, Lindell offered $5 million for anyone who could prove that “packet captures” and other data he released there were not valid data from the 2020 election.
Zeidman entered a 15-page report that he said proved the data wasn’t what Lindell claimed. Contest judges declined to declare Zeidman a winner, so he filed for arbitration under the contest rules. A panel of three arbitrators, including one named by Lindell, concluded that Zeidman had satisfied the rules and awarded him $5 million.
U.S. District Judge John Tunheim affirmed the award last year. He expressed concern about how the arbitrators interpreted what he called a “poorly written contract,” but he said courts have only limited authority to overrule arbitration awards and ordered Lindell to pay up.
But the appeals court ruled Wednesday that the arbitrators went beyond the contractual language of the official contest rules in deciding how to construe them, instead of sticking to the document itself. The appeals court said the rules were unambiguous, even if they might have favored Lindell.
“Whatever one might think of the logic of the panel’s reasoning, it is contrary to Minnesota law. ... Fair or not, agreed-to contract terms may not be modified by the panel or by this court,” the appeals court wrote, and sent the case back to the lower court with instructions to vacate the $5 million award.
Zeidman attorney Brian Glasser urged people to read the arbitrators’ decision and “judge for themselves if the Eight Circuit’s decision today is more persuasive, or rings in truth louder, than the unanimous contrary decision of three arbitrators who heard all the evidence, including one appointed by Mr. Lindell.”
