Analysis

Little-Known Gambling Tax Could Upend Boom In US Betting

By Stephen K. Cooper

After a record year for U.S. commercial gaming, a little-known tax on phantom income in last year's Republican reconciliation law has spurred bipartisan repeal efforts amid concerns it could alter betting behavior and drain state and local economies built on gambling-related tourism.

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Analysis

Gov't Hopes Court Rescues FCC Fines. Here's What Amici Say

By Christopher Cole

A rare U.S. Supreme Court showdown between the Big Three wireless carriers and their regulator takes place Tuesday, when the justices will put the Federal Communications Commission's authority to issue fines under a microscope.

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Analysis

High Court SEC Case Threatens FERC Fraud Clawbacks

By Keith Goldberg

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission efforts to claw back unjust profits from market frauds, a linchpin of the agency's enforcement work, face an uncertain future as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a challenge to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's disgorgement powers.

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Ex-Newman Clerks, Judges Back High Court Suspension Fight

By Adam Lidgett

A group of former clerks for Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman, as well as former federal judges, have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the challenge to her suspension imposed by her colleagues.

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Fox Lawyer In Dominion Case Confirmed To Texas Bench

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 47-46 Monday evening to confirm Andrew Davis, a partner at Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP who defended Fox News in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case, to serve on the bench in the Western District of Texas.

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Justices To Hear Catholic Preschools' Challenge To Colo. Law

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to review two Catholic parishes' challenge to Colorado's universal preschool program, which requires that they accept students from LGBTQ+ families to receive state funding. 

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Justice Jackson Faults Quick Reversal In DC Stop Case

By Marco Poggio

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Monday chided her U.S. Supreme Court colleagues for reversing a D.C. Court of Appeals ruling involving the Fourth Amendment, saying in a dissent that the lower court was correct and that the case "does not merit the use of our summary discretion."

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Tariff Refund Rollout Well Received, But Concerns Persist

By Dylan Moroses

The first phase of U.S. Customs and Border Protection's tariff refund system has largely held up against the influx of importers' initial claims, though some businesses have already identified issues in complying with the process, according to trade lawyers.

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Texas State Judge Resigns After Handcuffing Defense Atty

By Spencer Brewer

A Texas state court judge has resigned after the state's judicial ethics watchdog accused her of wrongly handcuffing a defense attorney, signing off on an agreement that will see disciplinary action relating to the incident dropped.

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Texas AG Says Democratic Fundraiser ActBlue Allows Fraud

By Spencer Brewer

The Texas attorney general has accused Democratic fundraiser ActBlue LLC of misleading consumers by allowing fraudulent and foreign donations to flow through its platform, telling a Texas state court Monday that the fundraiser undermines "the integrity of our nation's elections."

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Justices Won't Hear 1st Circ. Escrow Law Preemption Case

By Jon Hill

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will not review a First Circuit decision allowing Citizens Bank NA to be sued for allegedly failing to comply with a Rhode Island interest-on-escrow law, declining to wade again into a fight over national bank preemption.

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SEC, CFTC Propose Rules To Relax Private Fund Reporting

By Aislinn Keely

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday proposed relaxing certain reporting requirements for hedge funds and other private fund advisers by allowing smaller firms to forego filing a disclosure used to monitor systemic risk and nixing some of its questions around volatility, event reporting and indirect exposure altogether.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court this past week delivered another mix of procedural rulings, fiduciary duty disputes and deal litigation, highlighting both the court's gatekeeping role and its continued focus on stockholder rights and transactional fairness.

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Vt. Court Says Monsanto Must Face Trial Over PCBs At School

By Ganesh Setty

A Vermont school district's lawsuit seeking roughly $135 million in damages against Monsanto entities over toxic chemicals at its now-shuttered high school campus must go to trial, a Vermont federal court ruled, denying the Monsanto defendants a quick win.

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Groups Challenge BP Offshore Project Approval At 11th Circ.

By Ganesh Setty

Conservation groups petitioned the Eleventh Circuit on Monday seeking to block the Trump administration's recent approval of BP's Kaskida offshore drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico, saying Kaskida is in "riskier waters" than where the Deepwater Horizon disaster occurred.

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No High Court Review In NY Nursing Home COVID Death Case

By Gianna Ferrarin

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review the dismissal of a civil suit against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other former state officials over COVID-19-related deaths in nursing homes that allegedly stemmed from the state's controversial early pandemic policies.

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Trump Orders Agencies To Fast-Track Psychedelic Therapies

By Sam Reisman

President Donald Trump on Saturday announced that his administration would instruct federal agencies to accelerate investigations into new therapies derived from psychedelic drugs and streamline patients' access to the treatments.

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Justices Won't Review School's Handling Of Gender Transition

By Julie Manganis

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider a challenge to a Massachusetts school district's decision not to inform parents when their 11-year-old child began using nonbinary pronouns and a new name.

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'Unserious Leaders Are Unsafe': RFK Jr.'s Trans Edict Voided

By Mark Payne

An Oregon federal judge struck down Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s efforts to enforce the agency's restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors, finding the restrictions unlawful and criticizing Kennedy's leadership and the policy declaration that introduced the changes. 

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PBMs Fail To Freeze Discovery In Mich.'s Drug-Pricing Case

By Susan Smiley

A pending motion to dismiss the Michigan attorney general's drug-pricing case against multiple pharmacy benefit managers does not preclude the PBMs from handing over agreements between PBMs and pharmacies to the state, a federal judge said in a motion hearing Monday.

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Pa. Court Strikes Down Ban On Medicaid-Paid Abortions

By Gianna Ferrarin

A divided Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court struck down a ban on Medicaid funding for abortions, declaring Monday that the ban violates a fundamental right to reproductive autonomy under the state's constitution and illegally discriminates on the basis of sex.

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Utah Says Kratom Law Doesn't Clash With Federal Policy

By Sam Reisman

Utah officials have urged a federal judge not to halt enforcement of a new state law reining in psychoactive products derived from the kratom leaf, saying the policy is necessary for consumer safety and public health and is not preempted by federal law.

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Philip Morris Unfairly Gains From Label Ruling, 11th Circ. Told

By Jonathan Capriel

Philip Morris cannot be the only company allowed to not follow a rule requiring cigarette makers to add graphic warnings to their labels, R.J. Reynolds and a coalition of tobacco businesses have told the Eleventh Circuit, suggesting that consumers might assume its cigarettes are safer than theirs.

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Stewart Works Through PTAB Denial Policy With Tech Cos.

By Dani Kass

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Deputy Director Coke Morgan Stewart sat down with representatives of Apple, Nokia, InterDigital and other members of the technology industry on Monday to find "common ground" on discretionary denial policy at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

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Kash Patel Sues Atlantic For $250M Over 'Fabricated' Report

By Jared Foretek

FBI Director Kash Patel sued The Atlantic magazine for $250 million in damages Monday, claiming a recent report about his alleged drinking and absences from work was "fabricated" and designed to "drive him from office."

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W.Va. Trucking Co.'s Facility Counts As A 'Mine,' DC Circ. Says

By Jared Foretek

A split D.C. Circuit panel ruled that a trucking company's West Virginia facility counted as a "mine" under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act because it's within a mile of a coal plant owned by one of the trucking company's clients and is used to support the client's operations.

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Justices Skip Challenge To NC Surveyor License Law

By Matthew Santoni

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it won't take up an appeal from a North Carolina drone operator who says his state's licensing and regulatory requirements for land surveyors restricted his First Amendment rights.

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COVID Not A 'Natural Disaster,' Wash. Panel Rules In Tax Case

By Ben Adlin

A Washington state appeals court declined to revive a hotel trade group's class action seeking tax relief over the governor's COVID-19 emergency declaration in 2020, ruling Monday that the pandemic doesn't qualify as a "natural disaster" under state law.

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Trump's Labor Secretary Steps Down

By Max Kutner

President Donald Trump's labor secretary stepped down on Monday amid fallout from an internal investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor watchdog that apparently probed a relationship she allegedly had with a subordinate, and other issues.

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Justices Won't Consider Union's Right To Seek SpaceX Appeal

By Braden Campbell

The U.S. Supreme Court shut the door Monday on a challenge to a Fifth Circuit ruling that enables the National Labor Relations Board's targets to get its cases blocked, turning away a union's appeal of a decision refusing to let it join the case.

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Uber Flouted Prop 22 With Lack Of Appeals Process, Suit Says

By Max Kutner

Uber failed to provide drivers with a process for challenging deactivations under California's Proposition 22, which provided certain benefits for app-based drivers and exempted them from an independent contractor classification law, a ride-hailing driver advocacy group alleged Monday in state court.

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Unions Can't Sue Over Deferred Resignation, Feds Say

By Katherine Smith

The Trump administration has asked the First Circuit to uphold a decision rejecting a labor coalition's challenge to its deferred-resignation program for federal workers, arguing the coalition's bid to revive the claims falls flat.

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CFPB's Layoff Bid Belongs Before DC Judge, Union Says

By Jon Hill

A federal labor union pushed back Friday against a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau bid to proceed with a plan for shedding roughly half its remaining staffers, telling the D.C. Circuit that the agency's request should go first to the lower-court judge who froze layoffs there.

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Live Nation Wants Expert, Damages Cut After Antitrust Verdict

By Matthew Perlman

Live Nation is asking a New York federal court to strike the testimony of a key expert witness for the states and to wipe the damages awarded by the jury based on her work, in the antitrust case accusing the company of monopolizing the live entertainment industry.

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Live Nation To Pay $9.9M To Ditch DC AG Ticket Pricing Probe

By Nadia Dreid

Live Nation will pay $9.9 million to escape a Washington, D.C., probe accusing it of deploying deceptive ticketing practices over the last decade, just days after a federal jury found that the company and its subsidiary Ticketmaster monopolized ticketing services for major concert venues.

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Video Privacy Law Covers All Consumers, Supreme Court Told

By Allison Grande

A Paramount Global newsletter subscriber is pushing the U.S. Supreme Court to refrain from limiting the reach of the Video Privacy Protection Act to only consumers that directly subscribe to audiovisual goods and services, arguing that such a narrow application would require a rewrite of the decades-old statute. 

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Contractor DEI Order Will Cause 'Irreparable Harm,' Suit Says

By Katherine Smith

A coalition of nonprofits, university professors, federal contractors and subcontractors are seeking to block an executive order requiring government contractors to agree they won't engage in "racially discriminatory DEI activities," telling a Maryland federal court Monday that the directive will cause "irreparable harm" to the groups and their members.

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Illinois' Suit Over Trump's National Guard Deployment Tossed

By Celeste Bott

An Illinois federal judge on Monday threw out a lawsuit filed by the state and the city of Chicago challenging the deployment of National Guard troops to Illinois, agreeing with the Trump administration that the case is now moot because the troops have been demobilized or withdrawn and the orders authorizing their presence "are no longer alive."

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House Panel Probes Reports Of Missing, Killed Scientists

By Craig Clough

Two Republican U.S. congressmen announced a probe Monday into reports of about a dozen scientists or government employees with ties to American nuclear and space programs who were killed or reported missing, penning letters seeking information from NASA, the Department of Energy, the FBI and the Defense Department.

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CIT Directs Commerce To Be More Specific On Korean Duty

By Jack McLoone

The U.S. Department of Commerce must be more specific in its attempt to justify its determination that a South Korean steel plate exporter was benefiting from a government subsidy on electricity, the U.S. Court of International Trade said, ordering another redetermination.

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Suit Fights DHS' Nix Of Automatic Work Permit Extensions

By Britain Eakin

A Mexican national and domestic violence survivor sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Monday, arguing that the October rule eliminating the automatic extension of work permits for immigrants awaiting renewal decisions will severely harm immigrants who get pushed out of the workforce.

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Ill. Judge Orders Five Freed Over ICE Warrantless Arrests

By Celeste Bott

An Illinois federal judge on Monday found that five individuals were arrested in violation of a consent decree prohibiting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from making warrantless arrests without probable cause, but said recent guidance from the Seventh Circuit curbed his authority to provide relief to others.

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Ex-Budget Official's Plea Hearing Fizzles In 2nd Bribery Case

By Aaron Keller

A change of plea hearing scheduled Monday afternoon in the second federal corruption trial of former Connecticut budget official Konstantinos M. Diamantis never materialized, with the parties emerging from chambers and leaving a Bridgeport courthouse without a judge entering the courtroom or going on the record. 

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Alaska Can't Dodge $2M Bill In Fishing Rights Row, Court Told

By Crystal Owens

Indigenous organizations say Alaska is responsible for the length of a dispute rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court over fishing rights in the Kuskokwim River, telling a district court that the state is trying to "foist responsibility" for millions in legal fees onto its Native citizens.

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National Parks Group Seeks To Block Mojave Mine Restart

By Crystal Owens

The National Parks Conservation Association is asking a California federal district court to block a Department of the Interior decision to renew gold mining within the Mojave National Preserve, arguing the department skirted environmental laws by reversing established policy that prioritized the desert ecosystem and Indigenous cultural area's protection.

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Conn. Regulator Hit With Suit Over Pole Attachment Rate Hike

By Nadia Dreid

Connecticut's Public Utilities Regulatory Authority has "significantly altered years of precedent" to approve a rate change that would allow Avangrid Networks Inc.'s United Illuminating Co. to charge significantly more for pole attachment rates, a trade group says in a new lawsuit.

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House Votes To Re-Up National First Responder Network

By Christopher Cole

The U.S. House of Representatives voted Monday to reauthorize the First Responder Network Authority for another decade.

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Brief

E-Rate Bid Revamp Likely To Be Harmful, Advocates Tell FCC

By Nadia Dreid

An organization that normally champions the Federal Communications Commission's E-rate program, which subsidizes internet service for schools and libraries, has told the agency it thinks its plans to consolidate bids into a single competitive portal is a bad idea.

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How Guidance Narrows Federal Telework Accommodations

A recent FAQ from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management offers agencies several ways to narrow telework as an accommodation for federal employees, including through in-office alternatives, revisiting prior approvals and substituting leave for situational telework, says Lori Kisch at Kalijarvi Chuzi.

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Anticipating The Justices' Potential Ruling On Tax Takings

Recent oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court case Pung v. Isabella focused on rules for valuation, timing and administrability of tax auction proceeds and whichever method the court adopts for determining just compensation, it will have far-reaching impacts on tax collection, homeowners' equity and the secondary market for tax-foreclosed property, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

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What GAO Report Reveals About CFPB Cutbacks

The U.S. Government Accountability Office's first report on the downsizing of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau details an agency facing less funding and aggressive efforts to shrink its workforce and docket — suggesting that the bureau will face sharper choices about where to deploy staff and litigation resources, say attorneys at Troutman.

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5 Welcome Changes To Texas' Summary Judgment Rule

Following recent amendments to the Texas rule for summary judgment motions,​​​​​​ practitioners adjusting to the new framework will likely benefit from a more streamlined process that focuses attention on substantive legal arguments rather than procedural uncertainty, say attorneys at Hunton.

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Calif. Truck Regs Now Require Multiple Compliance Strategies

California's various vehicle and truck emissions programs now move on different legal tracks, impose different obligations and create different business risks on different timelines — so companies that treat them as one package subject to a federal Clean Air Act waiver risk missing deadlines and mispricing contracts, says Thierry Montoya at FBT Gibbons.

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10-Year Covington Vet Joins Holland & Knight In DC

By Jack Rodgers

Holland & Knight LLP has hired a litigation and dispute resolution partner, who is joining the firm after more than 10 years with Covington & Burling LLP, where she focused on white collar defense and investigations.

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Philly Zantac Judge Again Declines To Recuse From Cases

By P.J. D'Annunzio

A Philadelphia judge overseeing the Zantac mass tort litigation against GlaxoSmithKline has once again denied a motion to recuse himself from the cases, claiming that his wife's affiliation with a firm representing a defendant in the litigation did not present a conflict that required him to step away.

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Fox Rothschild Hires Holland & Knight Sports Partner In DC

By Jack Rodgers

Fox Rothschild LLP has hired Holland & Knight LLP's co-chair of the sports industry team in Washington, D.C., to work with entertainment and related sports law issues, the firm has announced.

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Calif. Sex Abuse Boutique Sues Wood LLP For Bad Tax Advice

By Emily Sawicki

A West Hollywood boutique law firm formed to represent victims of sex abuse on UCLA's campus has filed a professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty suit against Robert W. Wood and Wood LLP, claiming in California state court that their allegedly faulty financial advice caused the loss of $2 million in interest.

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Ex-Wisc. Judge Argues ICE Case Reversal Backs Her Acquittal

By Craig Clough

Former state Judge Hannah Dugan asked a Wisconsin federal judge Tuesday to reconsider an order not to overturn her felony obstruction conviction for directing a defendant in her courtroom away from immigration agents, arguing the Fourth Circuit recently reversed a decision the trial court repeatedly relied upon.

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Oregon Environmentalists Join ICE Detention Center Fight

By Isaac Monterose

An Oregon federal judge on Tuesday allowed two environmental groups to intervene as plaintiffs in a consolidated suit filed by the state and one of its cities, which are challenging a proposed federal immigrant detention center planned to be built near an airport.

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Ropes & Gray Marks 25 Years In SF With Office Move

By Tracey Read

Ropes & Gray LLP has relocated its San Francisco office to the heart of the Financial District ahead of the firm's 25th anniversary in the City by the Bay.

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Mintz Names Veteran Litigator To Lead New York Office

By Kevin Penton

Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC has promoted a litigator who regularly handles commercial and securities disputes to managing member of its New York office, the firm announced Tuesday.

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Some Firms Break Lobbying Revenue Records Again

By Alison Knezevich

After raking in record-breaking federal lobbying revenue last year, several firms reported this week that they had their strongest quarter ever in the first three months of 2026, with practice leaders predicting another busy period ahead as midterms approach.

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WDTX Judge Albright Stepping Down At End Of Summer

By Dani Kass

U.S. District Judge Alan D Albright is resigning after nearly eight years presiding over cases in the Western District of Texas, Law360 confirmed Tuesday.

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