Judge OKs Texas Wind Farm Owner's Cash Collateral In Ch. 11

By Yun Park

A Texas bankruptcy judge Wednesday allowed a wind farm owner in North Texas to access cash collateral, which would enable the company to operate during Chapter 11 proceedings and move to pursue an asset sale as a going concern.

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EPA Begins Rollback Of Biden-Era Smog Control Plan

By Keith Goldberg

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed to reapprove pollution control plans from several states as part of its effort to undo a Biden-era rule curbing cross-border smog formation that was halted by the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2026 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2026 editorial advisory boards.

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Rubio Says There's No Plan For Military Action In Venezuela

By Madeline Lyskawa

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers on Wednesday that future military action is not off the table in Venezuela but that the Trump administration has no intention to take such action at this time, while laying out plans to "normalize" the country's oil industry.

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Unions Say FEMA Staff Cuts Threaten Disaster Readiness

By Lauren Berg

A coalition of unions, nonprofit organizations and local governments that are challenging the Trump administration's federal worker layoffs and agency reorganizations asked a California federal judge Tuesday for permission to add the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a defendant, saying ongoing staff cuts threaten its legally mandated responsibility to respond to disasters.

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7th Circ. Doubtful Climate Fight Belongs In Federal Court

By Lauraann Wood

Seventh Circuit judges seemed skeptical Wednesday of Chevron and other oil giants' argument that a lower court incorrectly sent Chicago's climate deception claims back to state court, questioning whether they've cited the type of contractual government work and relationship that would otherwise keep the suit in federal court.

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$3.1M Legal Fee At Heart Of Latest Feud In Citgo Sale Saga

By Caroline Simson

A dispute over who should pay a more than $3 million bill incurred by special master Robert Pincus as he fended off a disqualification bid has become another flash point in long-running litigation aimed at auctioning off Citgo to satisfy billions of dollars' worth of Venezuelan debt.

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Colo. Drivers Claim $5M Damage From Gas-Diesel Mix-Up

By Rachel Konieczny

Colorado residents filed a proposed class action Tuesday in federal court against two fuel station operators, alleging the companies distributed gasoline contaminated with diesel fuel to major gas stations in early January that caused more than $5 million in damage to their vehicles.

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Enbridge Looks To Keep Pipeline Open Amid 7th Circ. Appeal

By Crystal Owens

Enbridge Energy Inc. is looking to pause a shutdown order of a segment of its Line 5 pipeline that runs through Wisconsin tribal lands pending its Seventh Circuit appeal, arguing to a Wisconsin district court that a cutoff would cause disproportionate economic harm and energy shortages.

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Solar Panel Co. Sunrun Misclassifying Sales Reps, Suit Says

By Julie Manganis

Solar panel company Sunrun Inc. misclassified its sales representatives as independent contractors in violation of Massachusetts workers' compensation law, a coalition of advocacy groups alleged in a complaint filed in state court.

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How FERC Is Shaping The Future Of Data Center Grid Use

Two recent orders from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission affecting the PJM Interconnection and Southwest Power Pool regions offer the first glimpse into how FERC will address the challenges of balancing resource adequacy, grid reliability and fair cost allocation for expansions to accommodate artificial intelligence-driven data centers, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.

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NY Securities Class Action Ruling Holds Rare Timing Insights

A New York federal court's recent decision in Leone v. ASP Isotopes adopted the unusual posture of simultaneously denying a motion to dismiss and certifying claims to proceed as a class action, and its unique scheduling carries certain procedural and substantive implications, say attorneys at Labaton Keller.

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Bid Protest Spotlight: Evaluations, Redactions, Remands

Victoria Angle at MoFo examines three December bid protest decisions highlighting the scope of agency discretion when evaluating contractor proposals, the extent to which an agency may redact documents that comprise the record of its evaluation decisions, and the breadth of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims' discretion to grant government requests for remand.

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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: January Lessons

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five rulings from October and November, and identifies practice tips from cases involving consumer fraud, oil and gas leases, toxic torts, and wage and hour issues.

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Series

Judges On AI: How Judicial Use Informs Guardrails

U.S. Magistrate Judge Maritza Dominguez Braswell at the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado discusses why having a sense of how generative AI tools behave, where they add value, where they introduce risk and how they are reshaping the practice of law is key for today's judges.

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ICE Violated Nearly 100 Court Orders, Minn. Judge Says

By Rae Ann Varona

The Minnesota federal court's chief judge admonished U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday for violating nearly 100 court orders concerning the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota while another judge, on the same day, temporarily blocked ICE from unlawfully arresting and detaining refugees in the North Star State.

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Tobey Maguire Says He Rerouted Fee To Goldstein

By Jared Foretek

"Spider-Man" star Tobey Maguire told the jury Wednesday in Thomas Goldstein's tax fraud trial that he paid $500,000 for his legal services to another poker player the former SCOTUSblog founder owed money to, rather than Goldstein's law firm.

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Tom Goldstein Saga Could Go From Courtroom To Big Screen

By Rachel Rippetoe

As federal prosecutors are two weeks into detailing SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein's storied descent into the world of high-stakes poker during his tax fraud trial in Maryland, Hollywood producers are gearing up to tell the same story on-screen.

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Fla. Prosecutors' Detention Defense Met With Sanction Threat

By Adrian Cruz

The U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, Gregory Kehoe, along with an assistant U.S. attorney have been threatened with sanctions by a federal judge for the methods their office used in defending the mandatory detention of noncitizens.

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Brief

Trump Announces Pick For New Assistant AG For Fraud Role

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday evening that he would be nominating Colin McDonald, associate deputy attorney general, for the newly created assistant attorney general for fraud role.

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USPTO Seeks 'Serious Sanctions' For Chinese Co.'s 19K Apps

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says the "most serious sanctions" are warranted against a China-based company for filing more than 19,000 trademark submissions using names of U.S.-licensed attorneys who did not review the applications, saying submissions were at times filed in 3-minute intervals "or less."

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Prosecutors Form New Group To Fight Federal Overreach

By Ryan Boysen

Several progressive prosecutors have launched a new group to hold accountable federal officials who "exceed their lawful authority," amid a growing backlash to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and the recent killing of two protesters by immigration agents in Minneapolis.

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Analysis

Trade Secret Filings Hit Record High In 2025, Report Finds

By Ivan Moreno

Trade secret litigation reached an all-time high in 2025, with more than 1,500 federal cases filed for the first time ever, according to a new report by legal analytics firm Lex Machina, which also highlights trends about damages, the busiest courts and the law firms most frequently involved.

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