Prosecutors say Trump falsified business records to conceal hush money paid during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The Middle East was at risk of spiraling into an all-out war after Iran attacked Israel. Tensions are running high across the region as world leaders called for restraint and de-escalation.
The high court seemed unconvinced that the government’s effort to tamp down on illegal gratuities didn’t threaten everyday rewards for a job well done.
Current estimates put an $11 billion price tag on a Mars sample return mission, with the samples not reaching Earth until 2040.
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Science & Research
With reproductive rights in the spotlight, a trial in Virginia focuses on potential lifeforms.
Temperature and migratory data point to climate change as a major contributor to frigid water upwelling from the deep.
The world's most widely consumed coffee species developed hundreds of thousands of years ago, researchers say, in what is now Ethiopia.
Podcast
Without the First Amendment, media, entertainment, arts and technology would look very different. But without copyright, there would be no incentive for a writer to get that manuscript published or a musician to get their song out there for the world to hear.
Courts & the Law
A judge will have to decide whether Huntington Beach has the authority to require a photo ID to vote in the next election.
The Soundcloud rapper asked a New York appellate court to give him another shot at a lawsuit accusing Donald Glover of stealing his flow.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will serve the maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter for her role in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
David Daledien was under an injunction blocking him from publishing illicitly gained footage of abortion provider meetings when he reshared clips used in a congressional hearing.
Three Iraqis held at the notorious prison are suing a government contractor that supplied military interrogators for Abu Ghraib.
The closure comes in the midst of a class action by inmates claiming ongoing abuse and inhumane conditions.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that 2023's Counterman v. Colorado, which deals with free speech protections, could provide lower courts guidance in the case against DeRay Mckesson.
A federal judge rebuffed the 24-year-old's bid to be sentenced to no more than the mandatory minimum of five years in prison.
Around the Nation
The death row inmate claims prosecutors unfairly excluded women from his jury because they tended to be less in favor of the death penalty than white men.
Oakland's first Black district attorney could be ousted after just one year in office.
While the city and county of Denver allocated resources to support an influx of migrants from the southern border, El Paso and Douglas counties have enacted policies to deter immigrants from settling in their towns.
A mother claims government workers used falsehoods and omissions to get a judge to take her children from their home.
Activists in major cities stopped commuters and commerce, standing in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli fire in Gaza.
As the fighting continues, aid organizations are calling for more attention to the growing humanitarian crisis.
Chemical companies spent decades dumping forever chemicals in a North Carolina river, contaminating drinking water for over 500,000 people. Now, the United Nations says U.S. companies have created a global environmental crisis.
A former Honolulu prosecutor is accused of accepting nearly $50,000 from a local engineering firm to go after a former employee with criminal charges.
FLDS leader Samuel Bateman’s plea agreement is contingent on guilty pleas from all of his co-defendants.
The ACLU says the state won't disclose how prisoners died, or how long they were on a waitlist for a treatment bed before they died.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the court should have examined the Ninth Circuit's review of Kurt Michaels' death sentence, since prosecutors showed his illegally taped conviction at trial.
Rulings
A federal court in Washington ruled in partial favor of the state for its complaint against a plastic surgery clinic, which allegedly used nondisclosure agreements to keep thousands of patients from posting negative online reviews. The pre-service NDAs violated the Consumer Review Fairness Act because they restricted patient reviews and explicitly imposed a $250,000 penalty for leaving negative reviews.
A federal court in Arkansas denied summary judgment to the city of McGhee, which was sued by a female paramedic it fired after she refused a new schedule that required her to work 96 consecutive hours. The city has not provided a legitimate, non-retaliatory explanation for why she would be required to work 96 straight hours.
The Fifth Circuit reversed a Texas federal court’s judgment in favor of the state’s criminal justice department, which was sued by a Muslim inmate who says he is unable to pray in peace. He has shown that Muslim inmates are given only one hour weekly for religious programming, much less than the six hours that Jewish and Native American inmates are allowed, and has proposed reasonable solutions to deficiencies in policy.
A federal court in Illinois dismissed a nationwide class action brought by consumers against Abbott Labs, whose baby formula prices spiked during a 2022 recall of tainted formula. The court says that the formula maker was not “obligated to maintain particular levels of formula production or supply or otherwise ensure stable formula prices,” and that precedent shows drug manufacturers are not statutorily required to continue supplying their medicine.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the courts do not have to abstain from deciding a property dispute between the United Methodist Church and a smaller church that seeks to split from it. The ecclesiastical abstention doctrine does not apply here because the dispute is not a church matter as much as it is an issue of property ownership.
From the Walt Girdner Studio
Hot Cases
Hunter Biden filed an interlocutory appeal with the Ninth Circuit on Friday, arguing a federal judge improperly rejected his bid to dismiss tax evasion charges because a plea agreement barred the special counsel from charging him.
Nassau County sued the state of New York over the shift of elections from odd to even years, claiming that doing so shaves a year off the terms of officials elected after enactment.
Jeremy Foster died two days after a Home Depot security guard tased and aggressively tried to detain him when he tried to shoplift building materials, Foster's brother charges in a negligence and wrongful death suit.
“I don’t believe a female should be doing this job," a lieutenant told Police Chief Jennifer Arbogast, part of sustained harassment she underwent until she was forced out of her job, she claims in state court.
Those who are arrested in Travis County aren't provided a counsel for initial bail hearings, one such arrestee says in a class action that accuses the county of creating a "two-tier" system that favors those who can afford to hire an attorney.
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