Blake Lively's 'Blunderbuss' $8M Atty Fee Bid Nets $407K

By Hailey Konnath

A New York federal judge Wednesday awarded Blake Lively $407,452 in attorney fees and court costs in her defamation dispute with her "It Ends With Us" co-star Justin Baldoni, significantly less than the $8 million she had requested, citing her "blunderbuss approach" and flaws in records she submitted.

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Top Takeaways From Meta's $17B Kid Safety Deal

By Emily Field and Cara Salvatore

A $17.1 billion deal with 29 states and Meta Platforms Inc. that includes reforms to Facebook and Instagram to protect children is seen as a benchmark for other settlements with social media companies as litigation and public pressure mounts over mental health harms to youth.

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Meta Makes $17B Deal With States Over Child Harms

By Matthew Santoni

Meta has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion and enact reforms to Facebook and Instagram to resolve sprawling social media addiction claims, in the midst of a high-stakes bellwether trial over whether the company hid or downplayed its platforms' allegedly harmful impact on minors, state enforcers say.

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Meta Judge Quickly OKs $17B Deal Over Social Media Harms

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge overseeing a bellwether trial over claims Meta hid social media's harms to youth on Wednesday approved its $17.1 billion deal with 29 states, after a hearing in which she pressed lawyers on details of the deal and raised concerns about how Meta was handling attorney-client privilege issues.

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Prosecutors Say Goldstein Must Stay Behind Bars

By Jared Foretek

Federal prosecutors told the Fourth Circuit on Tuesday to keep convicted Supreme Court attorney Thomas Goldstein behind bars while he appeals his conviction, arguing that he remains a serious flight risk with wealthy overseas connections and "an ongoing danger" whose tax crimes continued "even after conviction."

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Anderson Cooper Can't Get Doctor's Suit Tossed

By David Minsky

A Florida state court judge on Wednesday denied CNN's Anderson Cooper another bid to toss a pediatric doctor's lawsuit alleging defamation over stories on infant mortality rates at his hospital, saying a jury must decide whether Cooper played a significant role in the reporting. 

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X Loses Challenge To NY Social Media Disclosure Law

By Lauren Berg

New York's law requiring social media companies to divulge details of their content-moderation policies does not run afoul of the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, throwing out X Corp.'s challenge seeking to block enforcement of the measure.

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Dodgers, Lakers Owner Denies $12.5B Deal Is 'Fire Sale'

By Charlie Innis

TWG Global, the company that owns the Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers, on Wednesday blasted "attacks" it has faced from "unnamed sources" in the news media over federal probes into its insurance holdings, saying its affiliated transactions are legitimate and a $12.5 billion planned sale of the Lakers is "no fire sale."

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Lawmakers Press Commerce To Curb Exports To Adversaries

By Courtney Bublé

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging the U.S. Department of Commerce to block U.S. citizens and businesses from working for foreign civilian intelligence and security agencies in Russia, China and other "countries of concern."

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9th Circ. Backs Google Privacy Deal With No Class Payouts

By Allison Grande

A split Ninth Circuit panel Wednesday affirmed approval of a location data privacy deal that requires Google to pay $62 million to plaintiffs' counsel and third-party organizations but gives no money to individual class members, agreeing the structure was appropriate because direct distribution to all class members would be "infeasible."

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Libertarian Org. Tells 9th Circ. Not To Let Canadian Sue Google

By Bryan Koenig

The Washington Legal Foundation sought Wednesday to back Google against a British Columbia man's efforts to revive "a thematic copycat" of Epic Games' antitrust lawsuit, telling the Ninth Circuit that a California federal judge rightly deemed Google's Play Store policies too disconnected from prices paid by Canadian Android users.

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MyPillow CEO Lindell Appeals Smartmatic Sanctions Order

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has appealed a D.C. federal judge's sanctions order against him for filing what the court said were "frivolous" third-party claims and counterclaims against election systems company Smartmatic.

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Lowe's Must Face Calif. Privacy Suit Over Web Trackers

By Gina Kim

Lowe's must face a twice-amended proposed class action alleging the home improvement retailer secretly collected and shared information about its website users with TikTok and Microsoft, contrary to its own privacy policy, a California federal judge said Wednesday, rejecting Lowe's argument that the data collection wasn't highly offensive.

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Connecticut Sues Kalshi To End 'Free-For-All' Wagering

By Brian Steele

Connecticut on Wednesday became the latest state to sue prediction market Kalshi for allegedly offering illegal sports gambling to its users, asking a court to shut down unlicensed wagers in the state and opening a new front in a legal battle that has previously reached the Second Circuit.

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Iowa, Montana Ask Justices To Stop Paramount Merger Case

By Matthew Perlman

Iowa and Montana are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop California and other state enforcers from challenging Paramount Skydance Corp.'s planned purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, calling the effort "a partisan enforcement action" that targets a procompetitive deal.

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DOJ Flags Breach Of Internal Policies In Apple Suit

By Bryan Koenig

The U.S. Department of Justice told a New Jersey federal judge Tuesday that its staffers breached internal policies when they shared personally identifiable information with an outside discovery vendor that was hired not by the department, but instead by the DOJ's state attorneys general partners, in the monopolization case against Apple.

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Samsung, Apple Warn Against Google Payment Ban

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

Samsung and Apple told the D.C. Circuit that they are backing he district court's decision to reject a proposed ban on Google's payments to device distributors, with Samsung saying the ban would deprive it of the revenue it needs to help fund research and development in its mobile business unit and Apple saying it would only benefit Google at the expense of customers and third parties. 

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FCC Seeking More Spectrum For Space Launches, Reentry

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission is on the hunt for more spectrum that could support space launches and reentry, and is asking stakeholders to weigh in with their own ideas on how to free up the airwaves.

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NTIA Has Given Final OK To All 56 State, Territory BEAD Plans

By Nadia Dreid

Nearly five years after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act created the BEAD program, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration says it has approved all 56 final proposals from the states and territories.

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Brief

Ky. FM Stations Didn't Follow Licensing Rules, FCC Says

By Christopher Cole

The licensee of four Kentucky FM radio stations reached an agreement with the Federal Communications Commission to end a probe into whether it failed to file the stations' license renewals on time and left them off the air without permission.

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Judge Punts $9.9M Lien Fight In 'Take Care Of Maya' Row

By Carolina Bolado

A Florida judge said Wednesday he would take up the breach of fiduciary duty claims filed by Maya Kowalski, the subject of the Netflix documentary "Take Care of Maya," against her former counsel before addressing the attorney's $9.9 million charging lien for the work he did representing her at trial.

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Conn. Gallery Beats Buyer's $165K Keith Haring Art Claims

By Brian Steele

A Greenwich, Connecticut-based art gallery has prevailed on a buyer's claims that it sold him a fake Keith Haring chalk drawing for $165,000 after vouching for its authenticity.

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Calif. Bill Curbing PE Role In Litigation Heads To Newsom

By Lauren Berg

A California bill to ban corporate investors from influencing litigation strategy is heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk after passing with bipartisan support from the state Legislature.

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Pillsbury Settles Ex-Recruiting Director's Pregnancy Bias Suit

By Grace Elletson

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP has settled a Black former director's suit claiming the law firm fired her weeks after she shared that she was pregnant and would need accommodations, according to a Tennessee federal court filing.

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Arizona Atty Reprimanded For Series Of AI Errors

By Matt Perez

An Arizona federal judge has formally reprimanded a lawyer who admitted to filing four briefs that contained errors including false quotes and a faulty case summary generated with artificial intelligence amid an employment discrimination suit, noting the lawyer previously faced sanctions on two separate occasions for violating court rules.

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House Committee Wants DOL IG To Widen Info-Sharing Probe

By Benjamin Morse

Top House Education and Workforce Committee Republicans urged the U.S. Department of Labor's watchdog Wednesday to expand its review of information-sharing arrangements with outside groups, asking whether three additional agencies improperly disclosed confidential investigative material during the Biden administration.

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