New York
Federal appeals panel upholds Connecticut’s ban on assault weapons
NEW YORK (AP) — A ban on assault weapons that Connecticut put in place after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is constitutional, a federal appeals court said Friday, as it rejected challenges by gun rights advocates who claim it violates the Second Amendment.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said groups challenging a 2013 law banning assault weapons and a second gun control law enacted a decade later could not show that the guns they are still able to possess, including several semi-automatic handguns, are not sufficient for self-defense purposes.
The 2nd Circuit also said public interest favors allowing the ban.
The appeals court said the Second Amendment lets legislators implement targeted regulations designed to protect residents and their children from experiencing tragedies like the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that claimed 26 lives.
The ruling came at an early stage for two lawsuits brought by individuals and gun rights groups. It upheld a Connecticut judge’s ruling that plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a sufficient likelihood that they would win their challenge to block enforcement of the laws while the lawsuits proceed.
The appeals court said the proliferation of unusually dangerous weapons has “led to a frequent, growing, and extremely lethal threat to public safety, actual and widely perceived” that the authors of the Constitution could not have imagined.
“And such incidents remain distressingly frequent,” it said. “The Founders faced no problem comparable to a single gunman carrying out a mass murder in seconds.”
The 2nd Circuit, based in Manhattan, said it joined all five other federal appeals courts that have addressed the issue by upholding the ban.
In doing so, it said it recognized “a historical tradition of regulating unusually dangerous weapons after their use in terror or to perpetuate mass casualties.”
It noted that the development of the Thompson submachine gun in 1918 and its subsequent use by gangsters in mass shootings, led to the National Firearms Act of 1934. That law prohibited ownership of machine guns, submachine guns, and short-barreled shotguns.
“Historical legislators regulated these unusually dangerous arms, like here, after observing the regulated weapons’ unprecedented lethality. They did so, like here, to prevent the use of these especially dangerous variants of otherwise lawful types of weapons in further acts of mass homicide and terror,” the judges wrote.
Lawyers who argued the case before the appeals court did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
California
Musk’s X reaches tentative settlement with former Twitter workers in $500 million lawsuit
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk’s X has reached a tentative settlement with former employees of the company then known as Twitter who’d sued for $500 million in severance pay.
The parties disclosed the deal in a Wednesday court filing asking for a scheduled Sept. 17 hearing in the case to be postponed. The San Francisco federal appeals court on Thursday agreed to postpone the hearing so that both sides could finalize the settlement agreement.
The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The proposed class action lawsuit by former Twitter employees Courtney McMillan and Ronald Cooper, who said the company failed to pay them and other fired workers severance they were owed.
Musk took over the social media platform in 2022 and let thousands of employees go, eliminating entire teams dedicated to trust and safety, human rights and making the site accessible to people with disabilities. Other lawsuits, including one filed by Twitter executives including former CEO Parag Agrawal, are still pending.
The billionaire’s approach to gutting Twitter’s workforce served as a template for his months-long leadership of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as it cut tens of thousands of federal workers earlier this year.
An email announcing a “deferred resignation offer” to federal workers, promising pay through September without having to work, was titled “Fork in the Road,” echoing a similar email Musk sent to the Twitter workforce in 2022.
Musk’s drawn-out legal battles with more than 2,000 former Twitter workers were also a precursor to the court battles the Trump administration is now fighting over federal downsizing, though the circumstances are different.
New York
Passengers sue United and Delta for selling ‘window’ seats next to blank walls
NEW YORK (AP) — A pair of federal lawsuits filed in San Francisco and New York this week accuse Delta Air Lines and United Airlines of misleading passengers by charging premium fees for window seats next to blank walls.
A New York law firm brought the cases as proposed class actions on behalf of any passengers who say they wouldn’t have selected or paid more for their reserved places if they had known the seats did not include a window.
“We have received a flood of interest from passengers who feel they have been harmed by this practice and who wish to join the lawsuits,” the Greenbaum Olbrantz firm said in a statement. “It makes sense that people are upset. The majority of Americans fly on one of these airlines at some point and a large proportion of them want or need a window, and they pay good money for the privilege.”
Both Delta and United declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
The lawsuit against Delta Air Lines states that when New York resident Nicholas Meyer arrived at row No. 23 for a flight to California earlier this month, he discovered the seat he bought was next to a blank wall.
At no point during the seat selection process did Delta warn him that 23F was a windowless window seat, according to Meyer, one of the lead plaintiffs.
Alaska Airlines and American Airlines also sell such seats but disclose the information when customers choose their seats, the lawsuits assert.
The lawsuits allege that United and Delta long have been aware of consumer complaints posted on social media about the windowless seats yet continued charging extra for window seats without windows.
The Delta lawsuit includes screenshots of some of those complaints.
“Your seat map should not consider this premium, nor should it call it a window seat ... There is actually LESS leg room and no perks,” one Delta customer said in a post on Reddit.
The proposed class actions are seeking millions of dollars in damages from each carrier.
Illinois
Northwestern reaches settlement with football coach
CHICAGO (AP) — Northwestern University has reached a settlement with former longtime football coach Pat Fitzgerald two years after he sued the prestigious school amid a team hazing scandal, attorneys and the school announced Thursday.
“Though I maintain Northwestern had no legal basis to terminate my employment for cause under the terms of my Employment Agreement, in the interest of resolving this matter and, in particular, to relieve my family from the stress of ongoing litigation, Northwestern and I have agreed to a settlement,” Fitzgerald said in a statement through his attorneys.
Details of the settlement weren’t made public.
The private university in the Chicago suburb of Evanston has been reeling from the scandal that rocked the athletic department. Former football players filed the first lawsuits in 2023, alleging sexual abuse and racial discrimination on the team. Similar allegations then spread across several sports.
Fitzgerald was initially suspended then later fired after an investigation. The school concluded that he had a responsibility to know that hazing was occurring and should have stopped it.
Fitzgerald denied wrongdoing and sued for $130 million. He alleged the school illegally terminated his employment and damaged his reputation, among other things. His case was set to go to trial in November.
Last year, a judge consolidated his complaint and the student lawsuits for the discovery process. Dozens of students provided testimony that was used for both cases. The school settled lawsuits brought by former football players earlier this year.
Fitzgerald said Thursday that the “rush to judgement” following the lawsuits caused his family stress, embarrassment and reputational harm.
“I have engaged in a process of extensive fact and expert discovery, which showed what I have known and said all along — that I had no knowledge of hazing ever occurring in the Northwestern football program, and that I never directed or encouraged hazing in any way,” he said.
On Thursday, Northwestern echoed the same sentiment.
“The evidence uncovered during extensive discovery did not establish that any player reported hazing to Coach Fitzgerald or that Coach Fitzgerald condoned or directed any hazing,” the university said in a statement. “When presented with the details of the conduct, he was incredibly upset and saddened by the negative impact this conduct had on players within the program.”
Northwestern hired former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch in July 2023 to lead an investigation into the culture of the school’s athletic department. The school says it has since taken steps to improve, including adding more anti-hazing training requirements for athletes and additional steps to report hazing.
Utah
Prosecutors to seek death penalty for man accused of killing 2 police officers
TREMONTON, Utah (AP) — Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty for a man accused of fatally shooting two police officers in northern Utah last weekend, according to new court documents.
Ryan Michael Bate faces 20 charges, including two counts of capital murder, for the deaths of Sgt. Lee Sorensen and Officer Eric Estrada. The Box Elder County Attorney’s Office filed a notice to the court late Wednesday that they plan to seek the death penalty for Bate.
Police say Bate, 30, killed the officers from the Tremonton-Garland Police Department with a high-powered rifle while they were responding to a domestic disturbance call at his home. Bate’s wife had called 911 and hung up multiple times to get help after Bate “slammed her head with a door, and grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the wall,” according to charging documents. She later told police he had repeatedly threatened to kill her.
Box Elder County sheriff’s deputy Mike Allred and his police K-9 Azula, a 3-year-old Belgian Malinois, arrived at the scene as backup and were injured in the shooting.
Bystanders persuaded Bate to drop the gun and he was taken into custody.
Bate was arrested last year on aggravated assault and domestic violence charges that were later dismissed, according to court records. He was charged late Wednesday with several counts of assault and domestic violence, in addition to the murder and attempted murder charges.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox told reporters on Thursday that he thinks it is appropriate for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case.
An attorney was not listed for Bate in court documents Thursday.
Federal appeals panel upholds Connecticut’s ban on assault weapons
NEW YORK (AP) — A ban on assault weapons that Connecticut put in place after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is constitutional, a federal appeals court said Friday, as it rejected challenges by gun rights advocates who claim it violates the Second Amendment.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said groups challenging a 2013 law banning assault weapons and a second gun control law enacted a decade later could not show that the guns they are still able to possess, including several semi-automatic handguns, are not sufficient for self-defense purposes.
The 2nd Circuit also said public interest favors allowing the ban.
The appeals court said the Second Amendment lets legislators implement targeted regulations designed to protect residents and their children from experiencing tragedies like the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that claimed 26 lives.
The ruling came at an early stage for two lawsuits brought by individuals and gun rights groups. It upheld a Connecticut judge’s ruling that plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a sufficient likelihood that they would win their challenge to block enforcement of the laws while the lawsuits proceed.
The appeals court said the proliferation of unusually dangerous weapons has “led to a frequent, growing, and extremely lethal threat to public safety, actual and widely perceived” that the authors of the Constitution could not have imagined.
“And such incidents remain distressingly frequent,” it said. “The Founders faced no problem comparable to a single gunman carrying out a mass murder in seconds.”
The 2nd Circuit, based in Manhattan, said it joined all five other federal appeals courts that have addressed the issue by upholding the ban.
In doing so, it said it recognized “a historical tradition of regulating unusually dangerous weapons after their use in terror or to perpetuate mass casualties.”
It noted that the development of the Thompson submachine gun in 1918 and its subsequent use by gangsters in mass shootings, led to the National Firearms Act of 1934. That law prohibited ownership of machine guns, submachine guns, and short-barreled shotguns.
“Historical legislators regulated these unusually dangerous arms, like here, after observing the regulated weapons’ unprecedented lethality. They did so, like here, to prevent the use of these especially dangerous variants of otherwise lawful types of weapons in further acts of mass homicide and terror,” the judges wrote.
Lawyers who argued the case before the appeals court did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
California
Musk’s X reaches tentative settlement with former Twitter workers in $500 million lawsuit
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk’s X has reached a tentative settlement with former employees of the company then known as Twitter who’d sued for $500 million in severance pay.
The parties disclosed the deal in a Wednesday court filing asking for a scheduled Sept. 17 hearing in the case to be postponed. The San Francisco federal appeals court on Thursday agreed to postpone the hearing so that both sides could finalize the settlement agreement.
The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The proposed class action lawsuit by former Twitter employees Courtney McMillan and Ronald Cooper, who said the company failed to pay them and other fired workers severance they were owed.
Musk took over the social media platform in 2022 and let thousands of employees go, eliminating entire teams dedicated to trust and safety, human rights and making the site accessible to people with disabilities. Other lawsuits, including one filed by Twitter executives including former CEO Parag Agrawal, are still pending.
The billionaire’s approach to gutting Twitter’s workforce served as a template for his months-long leadership of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as it cut tens of thousands of federal workers earlier this year.
An email announcing a “deferred resignation offer” to federal workers, promising pay through September without having to work, was titled “Fork in the Road,” echoing a similar email Musk sent to the Twitter workforce in 2022.
Musk’s drawn-out legal battles with more than 2,000 former Twitter workers were also a precursor to the court battles the Trump administration is now fighting over federal downsizing, though the circumstances are different.
New York
Passengers sue United and Delta for selling ‘window’ seats next to blank walls
NEW YORK (AP) — A pair of federal lawsuits filed in San Francisco and New York this week accuse Delta Air Lines and United Airlines of misleading passengers by charging premium fees for window seats next to blank walls.
A New York law firm brought the cases as proposed class actions on behalf of any passengers who say they wouldn’t have selected or paid more for their reserved places if they had known the seats did not include a window.
“We have received a flood of interest from passengers who feel they have been harmed by this practice and who wish to join the lawsuits,” the Greenbaum Olbrantz firm said in a statement. “It makes sense that people are upset. The majority of Americans fly on one of these airlines at some point and a large proportion of them want or need a window, and they pay good money for the privilege.”
Both Delta and United declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
The lawsuit against Delta Air Lines states that when New York resident Nicholas Meyer arrived at row No. 23 for a flight to California earlier this month, he discovered the seat he bought was next to a blank wall.
At no point during the seat selection process did Delta warn him that 23F was a windowless window seat, according to Meyer, one of the lead plaintiffs.
Alaska Airlines and American Airlines also sell such seats but disclose the information when customers choose their seats, the lawsuits assert.
The lawsuits allege that United and Delta long have been aware of consumer complaints posted on social media about the windowless seats yet continued charging extra for window seats without windows.
The Delta lawsuit includes screenshots of some of those complaints.
“Your seat map should not consider this premium, nor should it call it a window seat ... There is actually LESS leg room and no perks,” one Delta customer said in a post on Reddit.
The proposed class actions are seeking millions of dollars in damages from each carrier.
Illinois
Northwestern reaches settlement with football coach
CHICAGO (AP) — Northwestern University has reached a settlement with former longtime football coach Pat Fitzgerald two years after he sued the prestigious school amid a team hazing scandal, attorneys and the school announced Thursday.
“Though I maintain Northwestern had no legal basis to terminate my employment for cause under the terms of my Employment Agreement, in the interest of resolving this matter and, in particular, to relieve my family from the stress of ongoing litigation, Northwestern and I have agreed to a settlement,” Fitzgerald said in a statement through his attorneys.
Details of the settlement weren’t made public.
The private university in the Chicago suburb of Evanston has been reeling from the scandal that rocked the athletic department. Former football players filed the first lawsuits in 2023, alleging sexual abuse and racial discrimination on the team. Similar allegations then spread across several sports.
Fitzgerald was initially suspended then later fired after an investigation. The school concluded that he had a responsibility to know that hazing was occurring and should have stopped it.
Fitzgerald denied wrongdoing and sued for $130 million. He alleged the school illegally terminated his employment and damaged his reputation, among other things. His case was set to go to trial in November.
Last year, a judge consolidated his complaint and the student lawsuits for the discovery process. Dozens of students provided testimony that was used for both cases. The school settled lawsuits brought by former football players earlier this year.
Fitzgerald said Thursday that the “rush to judgement” following the lawsuits caused his family stress, embarrassment and reputational harm.
“I have engaged in a process of extensive fact and expert discovery, which showed what I have known and said all along — that I had no knowledge of hazing ever occurring in the Northwestern football program, and that I never directed or encouraged hazing in any way,” he said.
On Thursday, Northwestern echoed the same sentiment.
“The evidence uncovered during extensive discovery did not establish that any player reported hazing to Coach Fitzgerald or that Coach Fitzgerald condoned or directed any hazing,” the university said in a statement. “When presented with the details of the conduct, he was incredibly upset and saddened by the negative impact this conduct had on players within the program.”
Northwestern hired former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch in July 2023 to lead an investigation into the culture of the school’s athletic department. The school says it has since taken steps to improve, including adding more anti-hazing training requirements for athletes and additional steps to report hazing.
Utah
Prosecutors to seek death penalty for man accused of killing 2 police officers
TREMONTON, Utah (AP) — Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty for a man accused of fatally shooting two police officers in northern Utah last weekend, according to new court documents.
Ryan Michael Bate faces 20 charges, including two counts of capital murder, for the deaths of Sgt. Lee Sorensen and Officer Eric Estrada. The Box Elder County Attorney’s Office filed a notice to the court late Wednesday that they plan to seek the death penalty for Bate.
Police say Bate, 30, killed the officers from the Tremonton-Garland Police Department with a high-powered rifle while they were responding to a domestic disturbance call at his home. Bate’s wife had called 911 and hung up multiple times to get help after Bate “slammed her head with a door, and grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the wall,” according to charging documents. She later told police he had repeatedly threatened to kill her.
Box Elder County sheriff’s deputy Mike Allred and his police K-9 Azula, a 3-year-old Belgian Malinois, arrived at the scene as backup and were injured in the shooting.
Bystanders persuaded Bate to drop the gun and he was taken into custody.
Bate was arrested last year on aggravated assault and domestic violence charges that were later dismissed, according to court records. He was charged late Wednesday with several counts of assault and domestic violence, in addition to the murder and attempted murder charges.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox told reporters on Thursday that he thinks it is appropriate for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case.
An attorney was not listed for Bate in court documents Thursday.
