Law

Judge Jeannette A. Vargas dismissed Drake’s defamation claim against Kendrick Lamar for “Not Like Us,” a song that “contains lyrics explicitly accusing Drake of being a pedophile, set to a catchy beat and propulsive bassline,” she writes in her opinion. Not only does no one think of rap beefs as being strictly truth-telling, Drake explicitly asked Lamar to do it in “Taylor Made Freestyle,” Vargas notes. I recommend reading the whole thing — Vargas clearly had a good time writing it, especially that footnote about Millie Bobby Brown.

To support their suits against OPM and DOGE, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is selling a retro-looking ringer t-shirt, and honestly it’s kind of a banger. I think I am going to buy one, hem it into a crop top and wear it when I go rock climbing. At $25 it’s a steal.

California is banning streaming ads that are louder than the content around them, bringing streamers in line with broadcast TV. But as some ask whether Big Government has gone too far this time, we say: No, obviously not!

At a hearing in a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, a DOJ attorney defended the president’s federalization of 200 guardsmen. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton said that the president has met the conditions of 10 U.S.C. 12406, having made a proper determination that Portland has become so violent that “regular forces cannot execute the laws of the United States.”

As Mark Gurman noted in a tweet, the lawsuit claims the management of an Apple Store in Reston, VA, “failed to accommodate an employee’s Jewish faith and subsequently fired him because of his religion and in retaliation for complaining of religion-based discrimination.”

Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, aka PomPompurin, is linked to crimes including the 2021 breach that sent out fake cybersecurity warning emails from the FBI. After pleading guilty to one count of access device conspiracy, one count of access device solicitation, and one count of possession of child sexual abuse material, he was originally sentenced to 20 years of supervised release.

Last year, the Archive lost an appeal in its ebook lending case, and now it has settled the lawsuit over its Great 78 Project:

Netherlands-based immigration activist Dominick Skinner claims he’s used AI to unmask “at least 20 ICE officials recorded wearing masks during arrests,” telling Politico that the undisclosed AI tech only requires “35 percent or more of the face visible.” Only 40 percent of the AI facial recognition results are accurate, however.

The new law takes effect in 2026 and targets smartphone use during class in elementary and middle schools, adding South Korea to a growing list of countries that have imposed similar restrictions on the tech:

Raphaël Graven, a 46-year-old French influencer known by his streaming handle, Jeanpormanove, died in his sleep during a live broadcast on Kick earlier this week after being “humiliated and mistreated for months” on the platform, according to French technology minister Clara Chappaz. A judicial investigation into his death is underway.

Politico reports that the courts’ case filing system was accessed. The breach was discovered last month, but its full extent is still unknown — one fear is that hackers may have accessed the identities of confidential informants, while a source told Politico that court dockets may have been tampered with.

Despite police stats showing violent crime in Washington D.C. is down 26 percent from last year, after dropping by 35 percent compared to the year before, the president has continued to insist that crime in the city is “totally out of control,” in posts and comments to reporters.