Top Stories

• 

  Ill. Jury Adds $17M Punitive Award To Baby Formula Verdict

  By Lauraann Wood

  Illinois jurors on Friday slapped another $17 million in punitive damages atop the $53 million they awarded the ...(read more)

• 

  Meta Must Face Mass. AG's Instagram Addiction Suit

  By Chris Villani

  Meta Platforms Inc. will have to face a suit brought by the Massachusetts attorney general claiming the company ...(read more)

• IBM To Pay $17M Over DOJ's Claims Of 'Illegal DEI Practices'

  By Lauren Berg

  IBM agreed to pay the Trump administration $17 million to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act with efforts to increase the diversity of its workforce, which the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday said was the first settlement under its initiative against diversity, equity and inclusion.

• ICE Quietly Changes I-9 Offenses, Raising Employer Fine Risk

  By Britain Eakin

  Employers are staring down bigger fines for I-9 violations after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement quietly redefined substantive violations to include common administrative errors that were previously correctable without penalty.

• Tech's AI Coding Boom On Collision Course With Copyright

  By Ivan Moreno

  Tech companies embracing generative tools to write their software code — and boasting about it — may be running into a gap in copyright protection: the more they rely on them, the harder it may be to claim exclusive rights when that code is copied or leaked.

• 'Pay Us Enough To Live': Worker Charged In $500M Depot Fire

  By Bonnie Eslinger

  A Southern California man who compared himself to Luigi Mangione has been charged in federal court with deliberately setting fires that destroyed the 1.2 million-square-foot Ontario warehouse where he worked.

• DLA Piper Partner Rejects Pregnant Atty's Account Of Firing

  By Pete Brush

  The DLA Piper partner who fired a pregnant associate said she did so lawfully, telling a Manhattan federal jury her former employee was "in over her head" and disputing that the associate raised pregnancy bias concerns on a termination call.

• Battery Recycler Files Ch. 11 With $143M+ Debt

  By Emily Lever

  Massachusetts-based battery recycler Ascend Elements has filed for Chapter 11 in Texas with upward of $143 million in debt, saying it is hard up on cash at its early stage of development and needs to reorganize to meet its long-term goals.

• Elon Musk's xAI Says New Colo. Law 'Severely Burdens' AI

  By Hailey Konnath

  X.AI LLC, the company behind Elon Musk's artificial intelligence tool Grok, has asked a Colorado federal court to block a new Centennial State law aimed at AI, claiming that the statute "severely burdens the development and use of AI" and is an "attempted coercion" that's unconstitutional.

• 'Mark Of Autocracy': Court Says Pentagon Defied Press Order

  By Lauren Berg

  The U.S. Department of Defense has not complied with a court order barring the Pentagon from taking press passes away from journalists who report on matters not authorized by the government, a D.C. federal judge ruled Thursday, saying the department's revised rules "achieve that same unconstitutional result."

• Fed. Circ. Chief Feels 'Bright-Line Rule Coming' For IP Marking

  By Dani Kass

  As a Federal Circuit panel reprimanded embattled attorney William Ramey on Thursday for the "disrespect" shown in his failed 3D glasses patent litigation against Volkswagen, the Federal Circuit's chief judge suggested precedent may be needed to define the role of marking in admissionless settlements.

• DOJ Probes NFL TV Contracts For Anticompetitiveness

  By David Steele

  The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the National Football League regarding its broadcast contracts and whether fans are being harmed by the rising cost to view games.

• EPA Plan To Revise Coal Ash Rules Draws Quick Objections

  By Tom Lotshaw

  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed a rule to update coal ash disposal regulations, sparking immediate outcry from environmental groups that accused it of seeking to roll back health protections and cleanup requirements in a Big Coal handout.

• Trump Picks Ohio Ex-Solicitor General For 6th Circ.

  By Courtney Bublé

  President Donald Trump announced Thursday evening that he is tapping Benjamin Flowers, former solicitor general of Ohio, to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.