DOJ Or Trump: Judge Asks Who Is Deciding Golf Course Plan

By Jared Foretek

Trump administration lawyers continued to insist at a hearing Monday there is no final plan to remake East Potomac Golf Course, and they changed their tune about whether one would require environmental review, despite new social media posts from the president announcing that work on the overhaul would begin "immediately."

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High Court To Mull Home Distilling Ban Following Circuit Split

By Spencer Brewer

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up a case on the federal tax code's ban on distilling whiskey at home after the Fifth Circuit found the ban unconstitutional but the Sixth Circuit upheld the ban.

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Justices Want SG's Input On Block Of Iowa Immigration Law

By Britain Eakin

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday called for the solicitor general's view on whether Iowa can implement a law allowing state officials to arrest previously deported noncitizens and requiring state judges to order that those individuals must leave the U.S.

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Trump Taps DOJ Official, Federal Prosecutor For Judgeships

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump on Monday nominated a senior U.S. Department of Justice attorney for a Nebraska federal judgeship and an assistant U.S. attorney for a seat on the Northern District of Indiana bench.

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Supreme Court To Tackle Admissions Bias Circuit Split

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will decide what type of evidence is needed to claim facially neutral admissions policies are racially discriminatory, after turning away two similar cases in the three years since the justices barred the use of affirmative action in higher education.

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SEC Official Tells Advisers Not To Wait For AI Guidance

By Sarah Jarvis

The director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Investment Management Division said that advisers should not "wait for regulators to hold your hands" as they use artificial intelligence, saying regulatory guidance may be "too limited and too late."

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5th Circ. Says Texas Can Block China-Linked Energy Deal

By Mike Curley

The Fifth Circuit has affirmed an order dismissing a suit from the subsidiary of a Chinese company over the blockage of its investment into Texas energy grid assets, finding that federal regulations don't preempt a state law blocking energy investments by China and other countries.

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Trade Court Whittles Hydropower Co.'s Duty Protest Challenge

By Dylan Moroses

The U.S. Court of International Trade granted the government's request to dismiss a majority of the claims a hydropower equipment importer raised claiming that goods U.S. Customs and Border Protection admitted into the country were misclassified, according to an opinion published Monday.

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Arizona Wants In On Nevada's Fight Over Colorado River Cuts

By Crystal Owens

Arizona is seeking to intervene in Nevada's challenge against the federal government that looks to block a framework that establishes water cuts for the Colorado River, arguing that the state's towns, cities, tribes, farmers, factories and businesses can't survive without sufficient water.

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4 Justices Sit Out Appeal, Leaving Copyright Ruling Intact

By Ivan Moreno

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left intact a far-reaching Fifth Circuit ruling holding that U.S. copyright termination can recapture foreign rights conveyed in a worldwide grant, not by denying an appeal from major music publishers, but because four justices sat out and left the court without enough members to hear the case.

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Analysis

NBA Ushers In A 'Risk-Aversion' Sports Betting Era

By Alex Lawson

More than a decade after the NBA clamored to legalize sports betting, the league opens its new season with an edict to restrict bets placed on its games, reflecting the pressure of a raft of recent gambling scandals.

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3rd Circ. Denies Church Interim Relief In Shrine Zoning Fight

By Matthew Santoni

A church may be likely to win its case that a Pittsburgh-area zoning board violated its religious liberties by rejecting a shrine to the "sanctity of life," but a split Third Circuit panel ruled Monday that it did not merit a preliminary injunction because preserving the "status quo" did not require construction of the shrine.

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NJ Panel Urged To Apply Bias Law To Commercial Tenants

By George Woolston

A clothing boutique owner urged a New Jersey appellate court Monday to revive her sexual harassment claim against her landlord, arguing that the state's discrimination law applies to commercial tenancies.

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Justices Won't Test NLRB Firing Protections After Slaughter

By Braden Campbell

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away former National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox's challenge to a split D.C. Circuit ruling allowing her firing, declining to ponder whether board members' job protections survived last term's decision in Trump v. Slaughter. 

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Brief

EEOC Poised To Withdraw Disparate Impact Guidance

By Patrick Hoff

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is close to nixing decades-old guidelines that help employers ensure that their hiring practices don't inadvertently discriminate against workers, after the proposed rescission was sent to the White House for review.

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CPSC Seeks Toss Of Baby Sleep Sack Maker's $90M Suit

By Emily Field

The federal government on Friday told a California federal court that a $90 million suit filed by baby sleep sack maker Dreamland Baby Co. over comments made by Richard Trumka Jr., former commissioner for the Consumer Product Safety Commission over weighted baby sleep products should be tossed since the statements were true and made without malice.

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Port Of Seattle Challenges Trump Grant Terms Targeting DEI

By Elaine Briseño

The Port of Seattle and several Washington cities and counties asked a federal judge to block the Trump administration from enforcing new grant conditions that would threaten $87 million in funding, arguing the restrictions lack clear standards of conduct.

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Colorado Official Says Rule Can't Sink Graduated Tax Measure

By Zach Dupont

A battle over a Colorado ballot initiative to raise taxes on the state's wealthiest residents underwent a 10-hour evidentiary hearing Monday, featuring testimony from a state official who told the court that rules around ballot initiatives don't allow for signatures to be invalidated.

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Colo. City's Vacancy Tax Proposal Draws County Support

By Sanjay Talwani

Vacant residential properties in Boulder, Colorado, would be subject to an excise tax starting at $4,000 annually under a proposal before voters in November endorsed by county commissioners.

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US Seeks High Court Argument Time In Arizona Voter ID Fight

By Crystal Owens

The federal government is asking the high court to allow it to argue in favor of the Republican National Committee's bid to reverse a Ninth Circuit decision over two Arizona voting laws, saying it has a substantial interest in federal voting laws and their proper interpretation.

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Khalil Asks Justices To Review His Right To Habeas

By Britain Eakin

Former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to decide whether district courts have authority to hear constitutional challenges to immigration detention through habeas corpus petitions.

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Rogoff Tells 9th Circ. Firing Furthers 'Evil' Framers Opposed

By Ben Adlin

Roger Rogoff urged the Ninth Circuit to affirm a lower judge's order reinstating him as Seattle's top federal prosecutor, asserting in a filing Friday that he's entitled to keep the court-appointed U.S. attorney position until President Donald Trump fills the role with a Senate-confirmed nominee.

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House Bill Would Extend Deadline For Lying To Congress

By Courtney Bublé

On the eve of a possible party turnover in Congress, Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., a major player in President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial, introduced a bill that would extend the statute of limitations for making false statements to Congress.

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Intel Seeks FCC Waiver For Vehicles Used In Chip Plants

By Christopher Cole

Intel Corp. has asked the Federal Communications Commission to exempt certain automated vehicles used in its chip-making process from an FCC restriction on foreign-made robotic devices.

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Va. County Warns Against Verizon Copper Retirement Bid

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

A Virginia county has warned the Federal Communications Commission that Verizon should not get to decide whether enough telecommunications services are available for it to retire its legacy copper wire-based service.

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FCC Report Says Tribes Lack Funding For Suicide Hotline

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

A dozen states reported collecting a total of $240.5 million in fees during the 2025 calendar year to support a federal suicide hotline while seven tribal authorities said they lack a funding mechanism to do so, according to a Federal Communications Commission report.

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FCC Urged To Consider New Cellphone Radiation Studies

By Christopher Cole

An environmental group told the Federal Communications Commission it has an obligation to scrutinize existing science rather than lean on years-old conclusions as it examines the health effects of cellphone radiation.

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Psilocybin Church Leader Asks 10th Circ. To Redo Ruling

By Mike Curley

The founder of a Utah church that uses psilocybin in its practices is asking the Tenth Circuit for an en banc rehearing of a decision allowing officials to prosecute him and the church for drug use, saying the decision violates the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

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How Bipartisan Permitting Reform May Boost Green Energy

After years of false starts, Congress may finally be nearing a meaningful overhaul of the federal permitting process — and the proposed legislation could provide renewable energy developers with faster project reviews, more durable permits and greater protections from litigation, says Jon Micah Goeller at Husch Blackwell.

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OCC Plan May Bring Data Sharing Flexibility, Diligence Issues

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's recent proposal to overhaul its supervisory information sharing regime for the first time in decades would provide important flexibility to banks, but it could create new issues around confidentiality agreements, disclosure controls and diligence processes, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

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Where DOJ's Fraud Directive May Actually Affect Enforcement

The U.S. Department of Justice’s recent directive outlining corporate fraud enforcement priorities is mostly a management document instead of a policy, but one part may actually undermine the directive's goals by leading to worse outcomes for organizational defendants and less corporate self-disclosure, says Zachary Warren at Williams & Connolly.

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Tracking The 2027 Va. Bills That May Tighten Data Center Regs

Data center developers and operators should monitor Virginia legislation responding to the state's new data center accountability framework, local moratoria and the end of an electricity consumption tax, which could change review thresholds, impose new energy rules and slow the approval process, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

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2nd Circ. Eases Employer Defense Of Dress Code Rules

The Second Circuit recently sided with Starbucks in a ruling that makes it easier for companies to defend dress code policies against unfair labor practice challenges, but employers shouldn't read it as a license to ban union insignia, say attorneys at Shipman & Goodwin.

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Kagan: High Court 'Blinded Itself' To Election Ruling Effects

By Katie Buehler

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan criticized her conservative colleagues' approach to deciding election law cases Tuesday, saying they often rule without considering the real-world consequences of their decisions. 

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Retired Judges Say DOJ's Ethics Complaint Is Meritless

By Courtney Bublé

A coalition of 61 retired federal judges has admonished the U.S. Department of Justice for filing a complaint against federal judges in Minnesota for speaking to a newspaper about the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in their state.

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Polsinelli Seeks Sanctions For 'Knowingly False' IP Suit

By Elliot Weld

Law firm Polsinelli PC has asked a Tennessee federal judge to sanction a medical device company for advancing what it says were "knowingly false and materially incomplete" positions in a suit accusing the firm of pursuing bad faith patent infringement claims on behalf of a client.

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'Petulant' Attorney Behavior Requires New Trial, 5th Circ. Says

By Cara Salvatore

The Fifth Circuit ordered a new trial Friday for a woman who was halted while speaking at a Louisiana local council meeting, saying defense lawyers for two council members threw "a skunk into the jury box" with a bevy of improper maneuvers.

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Feds Offer Up-Front Payments For Fraud Whistleblower Tips

By Lauren Berg

The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday announced the creation of a whistleblower incentive program offering up-front monetary awards for tips that lead to criminal fraud charges.

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Atty Used Legal Cred To Prop Up Ponzi Schemes, DOJ Says

By David Aaro

A Florida attorney was arrested Tuesday on charges of using his legal bona fides to help run two Ponzi schemes that swindled investors out of nearly $2 million, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Ex-NOLA Injury Atty Gets 32 Months For Staging Crashes

By Christine DeRosa

A former New Orleans personal injury attorney has been sentenced to 32 months in prison for his role in a scheme to fake vehicle accidents with tractor trailers and other commercial vehicles so he could pursue lawsuits and extract settlements.

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