Tag: lawsuits

Mexico’s Sheinbaum Weighs Legal Action After Musk Alleges Cartel Ties

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she is considering legal action after tech billionaire Elon Musk alleged on social media that she was taking orders from drug cartels.

Speaking at a Feb. 24 news conference in Mexico City, Sheinbaum said government lawyers were reviewing the matter.

“We’re considering whether to take some legal action,” she said.

“The lawyers are looking into it, but what matters to me is what the people say, honestly.”

Musk’s allegation of Sheinbaum’s cartel subservience followed the capture and killing of Jalisco New Generation Cartel (JNGC) leader Nemesio Oseguera, known as “El Mencho,” by Mexican security forces.

In his post on X, Musk responded to a 2025 video of Sheinbaum discussing cartel violence and saying that returning to a war against the cartels is “not an option” because it would mean extrajudicial killings that are “outside the framework of the law.” She added that military force against the cartels would also be counterproductive because it would trigger retaliatory violence that would only “increase homicides in Mexico.”

Responding to those remarks, Musk alleged that she was “saying what her cartel bosses tell her to say.”

“Let’s just say that their punishment for disobedience is a little worse than a ‘performance improvement plan,’” Musk wrote.

He did not provide evidence to support his claims.

Sheinbaum could face difficulty suing Musk for defamation in the United States because of strong legal protections for free speech. To prevail, she would need to show that Musk knowingly made a false statement or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.

Tesla, Musk’s auto company, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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LA County Sues Roblox Over False Child Safety Claims and Lack of Age Verification

Los Angeles County filed a lawsuit against Roblox, alleging the platform has built a system that leaves children exposed to grooming because it does not go far enough in checking user IDs to prove their age.

The suit names the company for public nuisance and violations of California’s false advertising law.

We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.

The complaint is direct: “Roblox portrays its platform as a safe and appropriate place for children to play. In reality, and as Roblox well knows, the design of its platform makes children easy prey for pedophiles.”

If you weren’t aware of how big Roblox is and why this is important, Roblox serves roughly 144 million daily active users. That’s more than both Fortnite and the entire userbase of the Steam platform combined.

The platform also lets people create and play games, chat through customizable avatars, and spend real money on virtual currency.

LA County’s suit argues Roblox has consistently failed to moderate user-generated content, enforce its own age restrictions, or honestly disclose the risks predators pose to children using the service.

There is no doubt the platform’s moderation gaps have attracted scrutiny for years, and that the platform has had issues with grooming of minors, but the LA lawsuit is the latest in a pattern of governments and researchers documenting the same problem Roblox has repeatedly said it’s addressing, and the latest attempt to mandate digital ID checks.

Roblox rejected the suit’s allegations. A company spokesman said the platform was built “with safety at its core” and pointed to existing protections: “We have advanced safeguards that monitor our platform for harmful content and communications, and users cannot send or receive images via chat, avoiding one of the most prevalent opportunities for misuse seen elsewhere online.”

The company added that it takes action against rule violators and cooperates with law enforcement, closing with: “There is no finish line when it comes to protecting kids and, while no system can be perfect, our commitment to safety never ends.”

The false advertising angle is what is most important to note. LA isn’t suing Roblox over what it collects or who can see it. The county is suing because the company told parents the platform was safe for kids while allegedly knowing otherwise.

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Nearly Half of Jury Pool Dismissed in Elon Musk Trial After Prospective Jurors Openly Admit They ‘Hate’ Him

Nearly half of the potential jurors in a class-action lawsuit against Elon Musk were dismissed during selection after admitting they could not remain impartial, with many outright saying that they “hate” him.

The case, playing out in a liberal stronghold, really displays the biases against conservatives within the judicial system.

Jury selection for the trial began this week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, presided over by Judge Charles R. Breyer.

Mediaite reports:

Breyer, a Clinton appointee and younger brother of former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, began jury selection by commenting to the lawyers for both sides that Musk had achieved a level of fame that was “like the President of the United States,” and even if they “search the entire country,” it would probably be nearly impossible to find someone who did not have some sort of opinion about Musk.

“As a public figure he will excite strong views, and for him in particular, people have strong views,” Breyer added. “The question is, and courts are very clear about this, is whether they can set them aside.”

Finding nine jurors who could put their opinions about Musk aside to be properly fair and impartial took over five hours.

“As a public figure he will excite strong views, and for him in particular, people have strong views,” Breyer said. “The question is, and courts are very clear about this, is whether they can set them aside.”

Out of a pool of 93 prospective jurors, 40 were immediately excused after raising their hands to indicate they could not set aside their personal biases against Musk.

Juror questionnaires also revealed deep-seated animosity.

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West Virginia sues Apple, saying iCloud distributed ‘child porn’

West Virginia’s attorney general sued Apple (AAPL.O) on Thursday, accusing the iPhone maker of allowing its iCloud service to become what the company’s own internal communications called the “greatest platform for distributing child porn.”

Attorney General JB McCuskey, a Republican, accused Apple of prioritizing user privacy over child safety. His office called the case the first of its kind by a government agency over the distribution of child sexual abuse material on Apple’s data storage platform.

“These images are a permanent record of a child’s trauma, and that child is revictimized every time the material is shared or viewed,” McCuskey said in the statement.

Apple in a statement said it has implemented features that prevent children from uploading or receiving nude images and was “innovating every day to combat ever-evolving threats and maintain the safest, most trusted platform for kids.”

“All of our industry-leading parental controls and features, like Communication Safety — which automatically intervenes on kids’ devices when nudity is detected in Messages, shared Photos, AirDrop and even live FaceTime calls — are designed with the safety, security, and privacy of our users at their core,” Apple said.

Apple on Thursday said it plans to roll out a feature in the coming weeks that allows users in the U.S. to flag inappropriate content such as nudity directly to Apple via a “Report to Apple” feature. This is already available in Australia and the United Kingdom. Apple said the expansion was previously planned and not in response to West Virginia’s lawsuit.

The U.S. has seen a growing national reckoning over how smartphones and social media harm children. So far, the wave of litigation and public pressure has mostly targeted companies like Meta, Snap, and Google’s YouTube, with Apple largely insulated from scrutiny.

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Vietnam War veterans sue to block Trump’s proposed ‘Triumphal Arch’ monument in DC

A group of Vietnam War veterans has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block President Donald Trump’s proposed “Independence Arch,” a massive monument planned for Memorial Circle between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argues the 250-foot structure would obstruct the historic line of sight between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House at Arlington National Cemetery.

The plaintiffs say that the view was intentionally designed to symbolize national unity following the Civil War and has remained unobstructed for nearly a century.

According to the complaint, the proposed arch would be “as tall as 250 feet,” more than double the height of the Lincoln Memorial, and would be positioned directly on the ceremonial axis connecting the two memorials.

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Texas Sues Drone Maker Anzu Over Alleged Ties to CCP

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing drone-maker Anzu Robotics, alleging that the U.S.-based company misled consumers and concealed its ties with the Chinese communist regime.

Paxton announced the lawsuit on Feb. 19, accusing the Texas-based startup of rebranding products sourced from Chinese drone giant Da Jiang Innovations, commonly known as DJI.

Founded in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in 2006, DJI has been flagged by U.S. regulators as a security risk because of its ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The U.S. Commerce Department added DJI to its export control list in 2020 for aiding the CCP’s human rights abuses. The Treasury banned U.S.-based individuals from trading DJI shares the following year because of similar concerns. The Pentagon blacklisted DJI as a Chinese military company in 2022, noting that the Chinese regime requires all Chinese companies to allow it to use them as part of its military-civil fusion strategy.

In the lawsuit, Paxton accused Anzu of making false and misleading representations to Texans about its business relationship with DJI, data-sharing practices, and software development.

Anzu markets itself as an American-owned, made-in-Malaysia alternative, but much of its drone technology is licensed from DJI, which receives payments for every drone that Anzu orders, the complaint alleges.

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California Planning to Sue Trump Admin Over Revised Child Vaccine Guidelines, Bonta Says

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said on Feb. 17 that the state plans to take legal action against the Trump administration over the recent modifications to the childhood vaccine schedule.

The CDC on Jan. 5, with backing from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., narrowed the number of vaccines routinely recommended by the childhood schedule.

Bonta told Reuters in an interview that he has mobilized his team to identify the necessary details for a possible complaint against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including jurisdiction and legal grounds for pursuing the lawsuit.

“I like the facts. I like science. I don’t want to give any airtime to his—I mean, just conspiracy [expletive],” Bonta told the news agency, referring to Kennedy’s stance on vaccines.

Bonta did not specify when the state might file or whether it would be a multistate filing. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who also spoke to Reuters, indicated his state may join California in the filing.

The Epoch Times reached out to HHS for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

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Teachers Union and School Districts SUE Trump Administration Over ICE

Two Minnesota school districts and the state’s largest teachers union have filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging a new immigration enforcement policy that allows federal agents to operate at or near schools and bus stops. 

The complaint, filed February 4 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, names the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Kristi Noem, and subagencies including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as defendants.

The plaintiffs—Fridley Public Schools, Duluth Public Schools, and Education Minnesota—argue that the administration’s decision to rescind a decades-old “sensitive locations” policy has disrupted school operations across the Twin Cities region. 

They contend that enforcement activity near school grounds has reduced attendance, forced districts to expand remote learning, and diverted administrative resources.

The lawsuit seeks to reinstate restrictions that previously limited immigration enforcement at schools absent exigent circumstances or supervisory approval.

The policy change at the center of the dispute occurred in January 2025, when DHS formally revoked prior guidance that discouraged immigration arrests at schools, churches, and similar locations.

The updated directive replaced categorical restrictions with officer discretion, stating that federal agents would rely on “common sense” rather than bright-line prohibitions. 

DHS defended the move as necessary to prevent criminals from exploiting geographic safe havens to avoid apprehension.

The litigation follows “Operation Metro Surge,” a high-profile federal enforcement initiative in the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, the operation deployed thousands of agents to address what officials described as a backlog of criminal and fraud-related investigations. 

Just days after the lawsuit, thousands of high school students across the country—including students in several Minnesota districts involved in the litigation—staged walkouts to protest ICE and call for the agency’s abolition.

Videos circulated rapidly on social media, showing coordinated demonstrations framed as acts of civic resistance. 

In some districts, students who had walked out to protest immigration enforcement are now enrolled in systems suing the very agency responsible for carrying it out.

Immigration law is written by Congress and enforced by the executive branch. The prior “sensitive locations” guidance was an internal policy, not a statute.

Its rescission does not eliminate constitutional protections, judicial warrants, or due process. Instead, it restores operational flexibility to agents tasked with enforcing federal law.

Democrats maintain that enforcement presence near schools generates fear that undermines educational stability. District officials point to funding formulas tied to attendance and argue that declines in enrollment threaten budgets.

The complaint alleges that DHS failed to provide sufficient justification for abandoning the prior policy and violated administrative rulemaking procedures under the Administrative Procedure Act.

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Florida spent $4 million in opiate settlement to defeat marijuana legalization

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration spent $4 million in cash from a national opiate crisis settlement to defeat a 2024 adult-use marijuana legalization initiative.

DeSantis officials never told the statewide advisory board – set up to determine how to spend that money – that it would go toward an anti-cannabis political campaign, the Orlando Sentinel reported on Sunday.

In all, Florida spent $35 million on television ads and other campaign efforts to defeat Amendment 3, an adult-use legalization constitutional amendment that also had an endorsement from Donald Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, the Sentinel reported.

The measure had 56% voter support but needed 60% to pass.

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A Tiny Alabama Town Ran an Outrageous Speed Trap. Now It Will Pay $1.5 Million To Settle a Lawsuit.

The hamlet of Brookside, Alabama, has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit three years after local news investigations revealed that it was running a predatory speed trap.

The Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that sued Brookside in 2022 on behalf of motorists who said they were framed and swindled by the town, announced on Monday that it had reached a settlement agreement that would require substantial transparency and policing reforms, in addition to payments to the class members.

Brookside became a national news story in 2022 after the Birmingham News reported that the small town’s unusually large police force was bankrolling the city budget by fining people traveling through and towing their cars under what motorists claimed were fabricated charges.

It was one of the worst cases of profit-motivated policing in recent memory: The news investigation found that Brookside, a place with no traffic lights and one commercial property, a Dollar General store, “collected $487 in fines and forfeitures for every man, woman and child.” By 2020, two years after Brookside expanded its police force from one officer to nine and began aggressively pursuing traffic enforcement, income from fines and forfeitures comprised 49 percent of the town’s budget. Motorists alleged that they were getting pulled over for fake traffic violations, slapped with bogus charges, then forced to pay thousands in fines and towing fees after being convicted in Brookside’s municipal court.

The investigations led to the resignation of the Brookside police chief, a Pulitzer Prize for the reporters, and a class action lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice.

“Police are supposed to protect and serve, not ticket and collect,” Chekeithia Grant, one of the named plaintiffs in the case, said in an Institute for Justice press release Monday. “When that gets flipped around, people suffer. We brought this case to remind Brookside of that, and to get the town on the right track. This settlement should do that. And it should be a warning to other towns.”

According to the lawsuit, Grant and her daughter were both arrested by Brookside police following a traffic stop and falsely charged with possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, obstruction of government operations, and resisting arrest. Both were convicted in the Brookside Municipal Court, but town prosecutors agreed to dismiss all the charges after the two women appealed to a county court. But by then, they had already paid roughly $2,000 in fines and fees to Brookside.

Brookside’s racket was so outrageous that the Justice Department filed a “statement of interest” in support of the Institute for Justice’s lawsuit, noting the perverse profit incentives that such schemes create:

Judges should not profit from their decisions in cases. Nor should funding for prosecutors or police officers depend substantially on unnecessarily aggressive law enforcement aimed at generating income through fines and fees. Criminal justice systems tainted by these unreasonable incentives stand to punish the poor for their poverty and put law enforcement at odds with the communities they are meant to serve.

However, Brookside was just a particularly odious example of the classic American speed-trap town, a municipality that survives by latching onto a nearby highway and gorging itself, like a bloated tick, on traffic enforcement revenue.

States have often responded to negative publicity from speed-trap towns with legislative reforms, and Alabama was no different. A few months after Brookside’s practices were exposed, the Alabama state legislature passed a bill capping the revenue municipalities can keep from fines to just 10 percent of their general operating budgets.

In addition to the $1.5 million payout to the lawsuit class, the proposed settlement will require Brookside to end many of the financial incentives tied to its traffic enforcement, such as repealing its fee to retrieve towed cars. The Brookside Police Department would also stay off the nearby interstate for the next 10 years, except for emergency response, and there would be 30 years of strict caps on how much revenue the town could keep from policing and code enforcement.

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