Tag: judges

Federal appeals court orders Trump admin to release Los Angeles homeless funds

federal appeals court on Thursday ordered the Department of Housing and Urban Development to release federal funding that has already been allocated to homeless service organizations in Los Angeles but was not distributed. 

The court order was in response to the Trump administration’s attempt to oversee how homeless service organizations in Los Angeles can seek millions of dollars in federal funding, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Los Angles Homeless Services Authority was seeking up to $239 million on behalf of dozens of organizations, but HUD suspended LAHSA in June, citing a record of mismanagement, and directed the groups to apply directly through the federal government.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday largely upheld a district court ruling in a 2-1 split, which restored LAHSA as the applicant for the organizations.

The court determined that HUD “chose to suspend LAHSA at a time when it would leave the Los Angeles region particularly vulnerable” with ill effects on “vulnerable populations, critical programs and ongoing services.” 

“It is likely that its plan is unworkable and, at this late stage, extremely difficult if not virtually impossible to implement,” the decision added.

The new deadline for LAHSA to apply for HUD funding is Oct. 14. The original deadline was the end of August.

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New York Teen Forced Out of School After Judge Denies Medical Exemption

A senior at a New York high school can no longer attend class as of today, after a federal judge declined to extend a medical exemption from the school’s vaccine mandates for the current school year.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Gary Brown of the Eastern District of New York ordered a New York school district to allow Sarah Doe, who had obtained a medical exemption, to attend high school during the 2025-2026 school year.

But in a ruling issued late Wednesday in Jane Doe v. Oceanside Union Free School District, Brown denied the renewed medical exemption request for the 2026-2027 school year.

Last year, Brown granted an emergency preliminary injunction allowing Sarah to attend 11th grade without receiving the third dose of the hepatitis B (Hep B) vaccine — the only recommended shot she hadn’t taken at the time — because her severe reactions to previous doses had left her sick and disabled.

When the lawsuit was filed, at least six treating physicians certified to the school district that Sarah could be harmed by taking the shot, according to court documents. The district nonetheless repeatedly denied her exemption requests. Since then, more doctors have affirmed that assessment.

Brown said last year’s decision rested in part on a physician’s report that Sarah experienced an anaphylactic reaction to an earlier dose, and evidence she had received the first two doses and had some immunity.

Brown also based his previous decision on an appeals court precedent stating that there had never been definitive proof that hepatitis B could be transmitted through “non-parenteral” routes like saliva — meaning passed in ways not transmitted through blood or broken skin.

After attending school last year under the court order, Sarah applied for a medical exemption from the Hep B vaccine and also the second meningococcal vaccine required for this school year.

The school district again denied her request. Sarah’s lawyers responded by filing an emergency motion seeking a new court order allowing her to return to school this year.

Explaining his latest decision, Brown said this year’s circumstances were “substantially different.” This year, Sarah would be attending school without two of the mandated vaccines, instead of one. And, he said, there was insufficient medical evidence showing that she could not receive the meningococcal vaccine.

“At the end of the day, Sarah is a child who just wants to go to school,” her attorney, Sujata Gibson, told The Defender.

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PETA Appears to Run Cover for Brutal Monkey Torturer After Obama-Appointed Judge Reverses Trump’s Harvard Funding Freeze

PETA has spent three years telling its donors that the “lights are out” on Harvard neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone’s cruel infant-monkey lab, but federal records say otherwise.

A new notice of funding, thanks at least in part to an Obama-appointed judge reversing President Donald Trump’s Harvard funding freeze, came just sixteen months after PETA toasted “the end of Margaret Livingstone’s career as tormenter of baby monkeys.”

NIH RePORTER still lists Livingstone as the contact principal investigator on a National Eye Institute award at Harvard Medical School with an award notice dated September 11, 2026, fiscal year 2026 funding of $850,148; a budget period running September 1, 2026, through August 31, 2027; and a project end date of August 31, 2028.

Livingstone was also awarded a new grant on April 17, 2025, with fiscal year 2025 funding of $576,474; a project start date of May 1, 2025; a subsequent award notice dated June 1, 2026, for fiscal year 2026 funding of $576,201; and a project end date of April 30, 2029.

PETA’s May 27, 2025, release claimed a “massive victory” and said funding for the baby-monkey experiments “has been terminated.”

A PETA news post updated May 28, 2025, said “the lights have finally gone out on Margaret Livingstone’s dark experiments on baby monkeys” and that the work was on Harvard’s list of canceled federal grants.

PETA2 told younger readers the same week, “the lights are finally out” and “NIH just pulled the plug.

NIH itself posted on May 29, 2025, that it had “terminated funding at Harvard University for studies that included sewing the eyes of young monkeys shut.”

Then, a Boston judge gave the money back.

On September 3, 2025, U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, an Obama appointee, granted Harvard summary judgment, vacated the administration’s freeze orders and termination letters, and barred the government from giving those letters any force.

The NIH termination letter dated May 6, 2025, was among the letters she set aside. The judgment vacated “all freezes and terminations of funding to Harvard made pursuant to the Freeze Orders and Termination Letters on or after April 14, 2025.”

The Daily Caller reported this week that taxpayer money is still moving through multiple Livingstone grants, including the new $850,000 award posted this month and a multi-year grant running through 2029.

PETA’s own description of the “maternal deprivation” horrors in Livingstone’s lab includes infant macaques taken from their mothers, some raised with only a cloth surrogate, some fitted with vision-distorting goggles or strobe-like conditions for months, some with eyelids sewn shut, some implanted with electrode arrays, and many later killed and dissected.

Former NIH Director Francis Collins privately called related maternal-deprivation work “third-rate,” according to the Daily Caller.

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Appeals Court Upholds Hawaii’s Rules For Gun Buyers

Hawaii’s rules for gun buyers were upheld by a federal appeals court Tuesday in a ruling that reversed a lower court’s injunction.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii by a vote of 6 to 5.

In Todd Yukutake and David Kikukawa v. Anne Lopez and the City and County of Honolulu, the court found that the law imposing a list of rules on gun buyers is constitutional under the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Writing for the majority of the Ninth Circuit’s en banc panel, Judge John B. Owens stated that a footnote in the Bruen decision holds that objective, “shall-issue” licensing standards comply with the Second Amendment.

A “shall-issue” standard means the state must grant a permit to a qualified applicant.

The dissenting judges say this is a misapplication of the Bruen standard.

The law in question requires a state-issued license to purchase a handgun. The licensing process requires applicants to submit fingerprints, a mental health check and their Social Security number. It also sets a 30-day limit for purchasing the gun once the license is issued. If the licensee fails to meet that deadline, the process must be restarted.

Once the firearm purchase is complete, the new gun owner is required to provide information about the gun to the police department. Under some circumstances the gun must be inspected by the police.

Under Bruen, a gun law is constitutional if it fits the plain text of the Second Amendment and has a historical analogue from the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification.

The majority wrote that footnote nine of the Bruen decision allows requiring a license to carry a handgun in public for protection as long as the licensing requirements are based on objective standards.

Owens wrote that the plaintiffs failed to show that the law effectively denied them their Second Amendment rights or impeded their ability to acquire firearms. He stated that, according to footnote nine, “non-abusive, shall-issue laws comport with the Second Amendment.”

Joining Owens in reversing the injunction were Chief Judge Mary H. Murguia and judges Kim McLane Wardlaw, Jacqueline H. Nguyen, Gabriel P. Sanchez, and Holly A. Thomas.

Judge Ryan Nelson joined Judges Daniel Bress, Lawrence VanDyke, Bridget Bade, and Danielle J. Forrest in dissenting in part.

The dissenters wrote that footnote nine does not apply since it covers the carrying of a firearm and not the acquisition of one. They also noted that the state did not identify a historical analog for the licensing requirement.

The lawsuit was filed on Oct. 21, 2021, by the Honolulu County residents. The pair said the licensing process was an unconstitutional infringement on their Second Amendment rights. In August 2021 the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii found in their favor.

Gun rights activists say this is not the end of the case. Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Council, called the decision a “roadmap for abusing gun owners.”

Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, vowed to continue the legal fight.

“This case will be headed to the Supreme Court and I believe that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will be overturned,” Gottlieb stated in an email to The Epoch Times.

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Wicked Brazilian Justice Alexandre de Moraes Caught in Major Scandal – May End His Tyrannical Reign

The chickens come home to roost.

Wicked Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the man behind the socialist takeover of Brazil and punisher of all good conservatives, is caught up in a scandal that may end his tyrannical career.

How wicked is Brazilian Justice Alexandre de Moraes?

Moraes returned former President Jair Bolsonaro back to prison based on trumped-up charges immediately after Jair’s eighth surgery due to the aftermath of a 2018 attempted assassination.  The popular former president remains in prison to this day. He pulled out the same playbook to destroy his political opposition that Democrats used against President Trump.

In September 2004, social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, revealed the shocking rationale behind the recent ban imposed by communist Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

This explosive Twitter expose’ revealed de Moraes’s involvement in serious crimes and human rights violations, all under the guise of upholding “democracy.”

In a decision issued on August 18, 20214, de Moraes justified his orders to ban social media accounts and suppress dissenting voices by claiming that anyone attempting to expose him or his allies must be silenced in the name of “democracy.”

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Alaskan Sex Offender Given Probation After Bringing Migrant Mom, Child Across Border

A previously convicted sex offender from Alaska received a sentence of three years’ probation for paying to have a woman from Honduras and her 14-year-old daughter brought over the border.

This week, Douglas Eugene Price went before U.S. Southern District of Texas Chief District Court Judge Randy Crane, who accepted a recommendation from federal prosecutors after Price had pleaded guilty to one count of harboring aliens. Prosecutors dropped a second count of the same charge in consideration for the plea agreement.

As Breitbart Texas’s Randy Clark reported, the case began on January 16, when a 14-year-old girl from Honduras crossed into Hidalgo, Texas, with the intention of being released to Price as her sponsor through the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). The girl’s mother crossed into the country separately, planning to meet up with them and stay in Alaska.

However, during an investigation by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, agents learned that Price was a convicted sex offender and was listed on child abuse and kidnapping registries.

Agents interviewed the woman’s mother, who said she had known Price for years and that they had worked together in the past. The woman had also worked as Price’s housekeeper and babysitter before she was detained by immigration authorities in 2025 and deported to Honduras.

During the investigation, agents found messages between the two and a transfer of $5,000 meant to pay for the smuggling fees to have the woman and her daughter illegally brought into the country.

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HORROR: Pediatric ICU Doctor Who Cared for Critically Ill Children Stabbed to Death in His Bed While His Children Slept — Suspect Was Out on Non-Monetary Bail in Felony Burglary Case

A respected pediatric critical-care doctor who dedicated his career to treating gravely ill children was stabbed to death inside his Pennsylvania home early Thursday morning while his own two children were sleeping nearby.

And the man accused of the horrific attack was reportedly already facing felony burglary charges, and had been released on non-monetary bail.

Dr. Idris V.R. Evans, 46, served as co-medical director of the Pediatric Critical Care Transport Team at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and as an assistant professor of critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, according to his profile on the University of Pittsburgh.

Colleagues described him as a dedicated caregiver whose work focused on the sickest kids, pediatric sepsis, critical care transport, and keeping children alive when they arrived at the hospital in the worst possible shape.

That life ended around 12:30 a.m. Thursday in the family’s Edgewood home on Linden Avenue, KDKA reported.

According to WPXI, citing Allegheny County police and court documents, 32-year-old Elijah Hemingway of Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood entered the home through a window, went to the third-floor bedroom, and attacked Evans and his wife with a kitchen knife while they slept.

Hemingway was wearing only underwear and reportedly talked about “being God” during the assault.

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Same Trump-Appointed DC Judge Who Saved Jim Acosta Just ORDERED the White House to Hand Hard Passes Back to Fake News CNN, MS NOW, and Politico

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered the Trump administration to restore White House access for journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, ruling that President Donald Trump’s ban on the outlets was likely unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee from 2017 and the same judge who forced the White House to give CNN’s Jim Acosta his pass back in 2018, signed a Temporary Restraining Order in the early hours of Thursday morning.

The outlets only had to post a laughable $1 bond.

The order directs administration officials, excluding President Trump personally, and those acting with them to return and reinstate the affected passes. The order covers credentials revoked on or about September 18.

The Gateway Pundit reported on Wednesday that Judge Kelly appeared skeptical during a hearing on Trump’s media ban.

A lawyer for the outlets accused the Trump Administration of banning the news organizations “completely out of the blue” and urged the judge to immediately restore their access.

“I think it is fair to say that process … wasn’t followed here, talking about predeprivation process,” Judge Kelly said, according to CNBC.

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Toronto Judge Acquits Man Who Attacked and Choked 7-Year-Old Girl While Shouting About Allah, Naked, Because He Was in a ‘Cannabis Psychosis’

An Ontario judge has acquitted a Toronto man who threw a seven-year-old girl to the ground, punched her, and choked her in her family’s driveway after he argued the attack was involuntary because he was in a cannabis-induced psychosis.

The man, Ahmed Baig, did not dispute that he attacked her.

Justice Mara Greene found him not guilty of assault causing bodily harm and assault by choking because he was so high at the time.

The attack happened August 2, 2023, in North York.

Greene wrote that Baig left his house wearing only a towel after vaping cannabis at home for anxiety. The towel fell off as he chased the child in the driveway.

“On August 2, 2023, Mr. Baig exited his residence wearing only a towel. He ran into the street, and as he did so, his towel fell off. Now fully naked, Mr. Baig chased a family who lived across the street. He ran into the driveway and picked up a seven-year-old girl. He threw her to the ground, punched her and strangled her. He then abruptly left the driveway, and a short time later was arrested by police. At the time of arrest, he wore only a t-shirt.”

The attack was captured on video.

The girl’s mother told the court he said both “I will kill you” and “I won’t kill you,” according to a report from the Toronto Star.

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DHS Lawyer Says Minnesota Judges Coordinated To Block Immigration Enforcement

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) top lawyer accused a federal judge of working with other judges to block immigration law enforcement after the jurist said that the Trump administration’s Minnesota enforcement surge created “a grave threat to the rule of law.”

The accusations followed a New York Times article published on Sept. 17 featuring a joint interview with seven Minnesota judges.

It is unusual for federal judges to sit for wide-ranging media interviews dealing with their rulings and what impact they have had. The high-profile enforcement surge in the Twin Cities ran from December 2025 to the middle of February 2026.

On Jan. 28, U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz issued an order saying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had failed to comply with nearly a hundred court orders. Schiltz, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2006 after being nominated by President George W. Bush, previously clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

“ICE is not a law unto itself,” the judge said in a written order. “ICE has every right to challenge the orders of this Court, but, like any litigant, ICE must follow those orders unless and until they are overturned or vacated.”

During the surge, DHS moved detainees out of Minnesota almost as quickly as attorneys could get into court. DHS General Counsel James Percival said Minnesota judges sat ready to issue emergency orders to keep those cases from leaving the judicial district. Schiltz said the court was responding to the government’s failure to obey its orders.

Judge Nancy Brasel said judges “are allowed to speak out about judicial independence” and “should, in order to keep it.” Judge Eric Tostrud said Schiltz was “the perfect person to lead us” during the surge, calling him “independent, brilliant, courageous. And not faint of heart.” Judge John Tunheim said the government “wasn’t arresting, in my view, people who were dangerous criminals on the street.”

Percival said on X on Sept. 17 that Schiltz’s comments that appeared that day in The New York Times show “profound bias against DHS and the current [administration] and he admits to extreme misconduct.” Percival said that Schiltz admitted to “essentially conspiring with his judicial colleagues to thwart DHS’s immigration enforcement in Minnesota.”

Percival said the next day on X that the article described “judges sitting by their phones ready to issue [temporary restraining orders] ASAP,” during the surge even though “there was no emergency.” The restraining orders were issued “to prevent judges from outside [Minnesota] from hearing the cases,” he said.

The judge said in the interview that his Jan. 28 order was prompted by concern that the federal government’s failure to obey court orders had clogged court dockets, exacerbated tensions in the protest-riven metropolis, and jeopardized the constitutional order. He said he believed most of the noncompliance arose from incompetence and understaffing, rather than conscious decisions to defy the court.

Several federal district judges, appointed by presidents from both parties, also spoke with the newspaper.

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