Law

Hey, remember that weird trade The Financial Times highlighted? The one about oil? Paul Krugman doesn’t like it — nor does he like the weird Venezuela trade or the one about death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. I’ve written here about how ill-prepared the CFTC is for insider trading cases. Krugman has a solution: call some of it treason and let the FBI — well, the post-Kash Patel FBI — sort it out.

For those of you not familiar, Afroman was raided by the police and then made two music videos (“Will You Help Me Repair My Door“ and ”Lemon Pound Cake”) about it. The officers sued him for using surveillance footage of their raid in the videos. On cross-examination during the trial, Afroman gave a stirring speech on the importance of the First Amendment. He’s also released another video, “Battle Hymn of the Police Whistleblower.”

In this instance of citing cases that don’t exist, two lawyers were instructed to explain how it happened and specifically explain to the court “whether they used generative AI to write the briefs.”

According to the Arizona attorney general, Kalshi is illegally operating a gambling business. It’s the first criminal case against the prediction market, which told Reuters that “States like Arizona want to ​individually regulate a nationwide financial exchange, and are trying every trick in the book to ‌do ⁠it.” The case is part of an ongoing dispute between states and the CFTC about who has jurisdiction over Kalshi and similar companies.

It’s a joke so good half the comments section had to make it, but sad to say it’s the other Sotomayor who dropped Terrence’s album of the week (which, I’m happy to confirm, is indeed a total bop).

It follows a similar suit filed two weeks ago by New York. Both allege that the loot boxes in games like Counter-Strike 2 are essentially gambling, and the class action accuses Valve of “deceptive, casino-style psychological tactics.”

The events giant is reportedly close to settling its federal antitrust lawsuit without having to sell Ticketmaster, though some state attorneys general may decide to push ahead with the case regardless. The settlement plan would require the Ticketmaster subsidiary to make concessions around exclusive venue contracts and amphitheater usage.

Cookie’s Bustle is an extremely weird PC game released in 1999. And for reasons no one understands, a person by the name Brandon White, through their company Graceware, has been trying to erase all trace of it through non-stop copyright claims. But the VGHF got its lawyers involved and has finally put an end to Graceware’s shenanigans.

On Friday morning, the court ruled against the Trump administration (pdf) in the case of Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, about whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) gave the president the power to impose sweeping tariffs on imports from more than 100 countries.

Otherwise, the TikTok parent will face “immediate litigation” for copyright infringement of Netflix’s Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters, Squid Game, and Bridgerton franchises:

I’m in downtown Los Angeles where a state judge is hearing the first of several landmark trials about how social media allegedly harmed a teen girl going by K.G.M. We expect to hear from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week.

A Washington Post report digs into one 67-year-old man’s experience being targeted by a warrantless administrative subpoena that doesn’t need sign off from a judge or jury.

The Paris Prosecutor’s office announced that it’s abandoning X after French police raided the offices of Elon Musk’s social media network on Tuesday, part of a year-long investigation into whether X’s algorithm was used to interfere in French politics. Here’s a machine translation of its departing post:

US District Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed two of the charges Mangione faced in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year, and doing so, removed the death penalty as a punishment for a potential jury to consider when the case goes to trial.

With less than two days before a partial government shutdown over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, Republican leadership is trying to dodge the hard work.

Today’s reports from Hunterbrook Media and Pablo Torre Finds Out claim the company’s hardware is seemingly easily obtained and popularly used in Russia’s war effort through already-sanctioned distributors and other middlemen.

As reported by NBC News, FBI director Kash Patel said the probe was inspired by conservative journalist Cam Higby, who claims to have “infiltrated” Signal groups from around Minneapolis that were allegedly obstructing law enforcement and tracking ICE agents’ movements.

Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander known for getting into social media fights with people criticizing ICE’s presence in Minnesota, has reportedly been removed from his job as “Commander at large” and will return to his former job in California, where he is expected to retire. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson denied that Bovino had been “relieved of his duties”, but nothing rules out the possibility that he’s being Mike Waltz’ed.