Alabama
Federal judge orders state’s largest county to redraw racially gerrymandered districts
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Alabama’s largest county to redraw county commission lines after ruling that the districts were unconstitutional because of racial gerrymandering.
U.S. District Judge Madeline H. Haikala ruled the county map was unconstitutional because race was the predominant factor when the Jefferson County Commission drew districts. The ruling came in a 2023 lawsuit that says the plan overly packed Black voters, who make up 40% of the county population, into just two districts.
“Because the 2021 plan violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection against racial gerrymandering, the Court permanently enjoins the Commission and its agents from using the 2021 plan in Jefferson County Commission elections,” Haikala wrote.
Jefferson County is Alabama’s largest county and home to Birmingham, the city center of the largest metropolitan area in the state. A new map could shift the balance of power in the county. The commission is made up of three Republicans and two Democrats.
Cara McClure, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she is looking forward to the commission “coming to the table to finally draw a map that is fair to Black voters in the county.”
“The County Commission is responsible for so many things that impact our everyday life. The main thing is making sure every voice and every vote is heard and counted. And that’s not what has been happening,”
McClure said, who is executive director of Faith and Works Statewide Civic Engagement Collective.
The judge gave the county and plaintiffs 30 days to file a report on the development of a remedial redistricting plan.
Kathryn Sadasivan, assistant counsel with NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said the existing plan overly packed Black voters into the two districts while the county sought to maintain set racial ratios in the other three.
“It’s a problem of not just those two districts that were maintained at super majority Black status without consideration of what the Voting Rights Act required, but also an explicit attempt to maintain the racial ratios of Black voters to white voters in every other district,” Sadasivan said.
Haikala noted in a footnote that the results of the case might be different if the commission showed that the higher percentage of Black voters was required to ensure they could select the candidates of their choice.
But the judge said the commission offered no such evidence.
Jefferson County was the site of some of the most infamous moments of the Civil Rights Movement, including the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four girls. The industrial city has evolved into a corporate economic engine fueled in part by the banking and medical industries.
New York
Judge orders Rudy Giuliani to pay $1.36 million in legal fees
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s another blow to Rudy Giuliani’s withered wallet: A judge has ordered the former New York City mayor to pay $1.36 million in legal fees he racked up during investigations into his efforts to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Judge Arthur Engoron made the ruling Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by lawyer Robert Costello and the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP. In granting summary judgment for Costello and the firm, Engoron rejected Giuliani’s claim that he never received any bills for legal fees.
With interest, Giuliani owes nearly $1.6 million. He must also pay lawyer costs that Costello and the firm incurred in fighting to recoup his unpaid legal fees, the judge ruled.
Engoron, a Democrat, is the same Manhattan judge who last year ordered Trump to pay a massive civil penalty after finding that he had engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades. The fine ballooned to more than $500 million with interest before an appeals court overturned it last month.
Giuliani’s spokesperson said the ex-mayor will appeal.
“The idea that Judge Arthur Engoron is permitted to sit on a case involving President Donald Trump’s good friend and former personal lawyer, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, flies in the face of justice and demonstrates the partisan political nature of this decision,” Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman said.
The decision is the latest financial setback for Giuliani, once celebrated as “America’s mayor” for his leadership after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In recent years, the Republican has filed for bankruptcy; been threatened with jail for failing to pay money owed to his third ex-wife, Judith; and reached an undisclosed settlement to keep his homes and belongings, including prized World Series rings, after he was ordered to pay $148 million to two former Georgia elections workers he defamed.
Last month, Giuliani, 81, sustained a fractured vertebra and other injuries in a car crash in New Hampshire. Soon after, Trump announced he was awarding Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Costello and Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP sued Giuliani in 2023, accusing him of paying only a fraction of nearly $1.6 million in legal fees for their work representing him in investigations related to his alleged election interference.
Giuliani was disbarred in New York and Washington for repeatedly making false statements about the 2020 election, and he was criminally charged in Georgia and Arizona in connection with efforts to undo Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing.
Costello and the law firm alleged Giuliani paid them just $214,000, leaving a $1.36 million tab. Giuliani’s last payment was $10,000 on Sept. 14, 2023, about a week after Trump hosted a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser for Giuliani at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club.
Costello was Giuliani’s lawyer from November 2019 to July 2023. He represented Giuliani in matters ranging from an investigation into his business dealings in Ukraine, which resulted in an FBI raid on his home and office in April 2021, to state and federal probes of his work in the wake of Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Costello and the firm said in their lawsuit that they also helped represent Giuliani in various civil lawsuits filed against him and in disciplinary proceedings that ultimately led to his disbarment. The lawyer and the law firm accused Giuliani of breaching a retainer agreement by failing to pay invoices in full in a timely fashion.
Costello, a former federal prosecutor, has since left Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP and was hired last in September 2024 as a lawyer for Republican-controlled Nassau County on Long Island.
Last year, Trump’s lawyers called Costello as a witness at the president’s hush money criminal trial in an effort to attack the credibility of a key prosecution witness, former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.
Costello irritated the judge, Juan M. Merchan, by making comments under his breath, rolling his eyes and calling called the whole exercise “ridiculous.”
Florida
Law firm sues Disney to use ‘Steamboat Willie’ in law firm ads
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Is Steamboat Willie “For the people?”
That’s a question that one of the largest personal injury law firms in the United States is asking a federal court in central Florida to decide.
The law firm Morgan & Morgan, known for its tagline, “For the people,” in its ubiquitous television commercials, sued Disney on Wednesday in an effort to get a ruling that would allow it to use “Steamboat Willie” in advertisements. “Steamboat Willie” was a groundbreaking 1928 animated short film directed by Walt Disney in which Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse made their first public appearances.
The law firm said that the U.S. copyright expired last year for “Steamboat Willie,” which was a lodestar for U.S. film animation at the time, and that it had reached out to Disney to make sure the entertainment company wouldn’t sue them if they used images from the animated film for their TV and online ads. Disney’s lawyers responded by saying they didn’t offer legal advice to third parties, according to the lawsuit.
Morgan & Morgan said it was filing the lawsuit to get a decision because it otherwise feared being sued by Disney for trademark infringement if it used “Steamboat Willie.”
In the black-and-white animated ad that Morgan & Morgan wants to air, a voiceover announcer starts and ends the commercial by saying that Disney didn’t approve or authorize the advertisement. The ad shows Mickey captaining a boat on land that crashes into a car driven by Minnie, who then pulls out her phone and contacts the law firm.
Minnesota
Man pleads guilty to federal charges for setting fires at 2 mosques
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A man who set fires at two mosques in Minnesota in 2023 pleaded guilty to federal charges Wednesday, federal prosecutors said.
Jackie Rahm Little, 38, admitted to one count of arson and one count of damage to religious property for the fires at the Masjid Al-Rahma Mosque in Bloomington and the Masjid Omar Islamic Center in Minneapolis. A sentencing date has not been set.
Court records show that Little had a history of mental illness, arson or suspected arson and domestic violence.
“When someone sets fire to a house of worship, it is not only a federal crime, it is an attack on the heart of a community,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said in a statement. “Minnesota has endured too many assaults on our sacred spaces.”
The fire that Little started at the Bloomington mosque on April 24, 2023, forced the evacuation of children who were attending day care and caused more than $378,000 in damage. He also lit a cardboard box on fire the day before in a restroom at the Minneapolis mosque, but was interrupted by an employee before the fire could spread.
Leaders said the fires shocked the local Islamic community and saw them as part of a larger trend of increased attacks on mosques and Muslim institutions across the state and country.
Oklahoma
Prosecutor: No charges after report of explicit images on TV of education chief
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma County’s top prosecutor said Wednesday she declined to file criminal charges after two Board of Education members said they saw images of naked women on a television in the office of state School Superintendent Ryan Walters.
District Attorney Vicki Behenna released a statement saying there was “insufficient evidence” to support criminal charges.
Board members Becky Carson and Ryan Deatherage told the online news outlet NonDoc they saw the images on a television in Walters’ office during an executive session in July. Walters has denied any wrongdoing.
Oklahoma County Sheriff Tommie Johnson III, whose office launched an investigation into the allegations, said Wednesday his investigators determined the television in Walters’ office was tuned to a movie channel that was running the 1985 film “The Protector,” starring Jackie Chan. That movie includes a scene in which naked women enter a warehouse to package drugs.
In a statement, Walters blamed the media and “his accusers” of trying to stop his agenda.
“This concludes the biggest witch hunt in Oklahoma history,” Walters said.
Walters, a Republican, has spent much of his first term in office lauding President Donald Trump, feuding with teachers unions and local school superintendents, and trying to end what he describes as “wokeness” in public schools.
Federal judge orders state’s largest county to redraw racially gerrymandered districts
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Alabama’s largest county to redraw county commission lines after ruling that the districts were unconstitutional because of racial gerrymandering.
U.S. District Judge Madeline H. Haikala ruled the county map was unconstitutional because race was the predominant factor when the Jefferson County Commission drew districts. The ruling came in a 2023 lawsuit that says the plan overly packed Black voters, who make up 40% of the county population, into just two districts.
“Because the 2021 plan violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection against racial gerrymandering, the Court permanently enjoins the Commission and its agents from using the 2021 plan in Jefferson County Commission elections,” Haikala wrote.
Jefferson County is Alabama’s largest county and home to Birmingham, the city center of the largest metropolitan area in the state. A new map could shift the balance of power in the county. The commission is made up of three Republicans and two Democrats.
Cara McClure, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she is looking forward to the commission “coming to the table to finally draw a map that is fair to Black voters in the county.”
“The County Commission is responsible for so many things that impact our everyday life. The main thing is making sure every voice and every vote is heard and counted. And that’s not what has been happening,”
McClure said, who is executive director of Faith and Works Statewide Civic Engagement Collective.
The judge gave the county and plaintiffs 30 days to file a report on the development of a remedial redistricting plan.
Kathryn Sadasivan, assistant counsel with NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said the existing plan overly packed Black voters into the two districts while the county sought to maintain set racial ratios in the other three.
“It’s a problem of not just those two districts that were maintained at super majority Black status without consideration of what the Voting Rights Act required, but also an explicit attempt to maintain the racial ratios of Black voters to white voters in every other district,” Sadasivan said.
Haikala noted in a footnote that the results of the case might be different if the commission showed that the higher percentage of Black voters was required to ensure they could select the candidates of their choice.
But the judge said the commission offered no such evidence.
Jefferson County was the site of some of the most infamous moments of the Civil Rights Movement, including the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four girls. The industrial city has evolved into a corporate economic engine fueled in part by the banking and medical industries.
New York
Judge orders Rudy Giuliani to pay $1.36 million in legal fees
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s another blow to Rudy Giuliani’s withered wallet: A judge has ordered the former New York City mayor to pay $1.36 million in legal fees he racked up during investigations into his efforts to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Judge Arthur Engoron made the ruling Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by lawyer Robert Costello and the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP. In granting summary judgment for Costello and the firm, Engoron rejected Giuliani’s claim that he never received any bills for legal fees.
With interest, Giuliani owes nearly $1.6 million. He must also pay lawyer costs that Costello and the firm incurred in fighting to recoup his unpaid legal fees, the judge ruled.
Engoron, a Democrat, is the same Manhattan judge who last year ordered Trump to pay a massive civil penalty after finding that he had engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades. The fine ballooned to more than $500 million with interest before an appeals court overturned it last month.
Giuliani’s spokesperson said the ex-mayor will appeal.
“The idea that Judge Arthur Engoron is permitted to sit on a case involving President Donald Trump’s good friend and former personal lawyer, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, flies in the face of justice and demonstrates the partisan political nature of this decision,” Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman said.
The decision is the latest financial setback for Giuliani, once celebrated as “America’s mayor” for his leadership after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In recent years, the Republican has filed for bankruptcy; been threatened with jail for failing to pay money owed to his third ex-wife, Judith; and reached an undisclosed settlement to keep his homes and belongings, including prized World Series rings, after he was ordered to pay $148 million to two former Georgia elections workers he defamed.
Last month, Giuliani, 81, sustained a fractured vertebra and other injuries in a car crash in New Hampshire. Soon after, Trump announced he was awarding Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Costello and Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP sued Giuliani in 2023, accusing him of paying only a fraction of nearly $1.6 million in legal fees for their work representing him in investigations related to his alleged election interference.
Giuliani was disbarred in New York and Washington for repeatedly making false statements about the 2020 election, and he was criminally charged in Georgia and Arizona in connection with efforts to undo Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing.
Costello and the law firm alleged Giuliani paid them just $214,000, leaving a $1.36 million tab. Giuliani’s last payment was $10,000 on Sept. 14, 2023, about a week after Trump hosted a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser for Giuliani at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club.
Costello was Giuliani’s lawyer from November 2019 to July 2023. He represented Giuliani in matters ranging from an investigation into his business dealings in Ukraine, which resulted in an FBI raid on his home and office in April 2021, to state and federal probes of his work in the wake of Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Costello and the firm said in their lawsuit that they also helped represent Giuliani in various civil lawsuits filed against him and in disciplinary proceedings that ultimately led to his disbarment. The lawyer and the law firm accused Giuliani of breaching a retainer agreement by failing to pay invoices in full in a timely fashion.
Costello, a former federal prosecutor, has since left Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP and was hired last in September 2024 as a lawyer for Republican-controlled Nassau County on Long Island.
Last year, Trump’s lawyers called Costello as a witness at the president’s hush money criminal trial in an effort to attack the credibility of a key prosecution witness, former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.
Costello irritated the judge, Juan M. Merchan, by making comments under his breath, rolling his eyes and calling called the whole exercise “ridiculous.”
Florida
Law firm sues Disney to use ‘Steamboat Willie’ in law firm ads
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Is Steamboat Willie “For the people?”
That’s a question that one of the largest personal injury law firms in the United States is asking a federal court in central Florida to decide.
The law firm Morgan & Morgan, known for its tagline, “For the people,” in its ubiquitous television commercials, sued Disney on Wednesday in an effort to get a ruling that would allow it to use “Steamboat Willie” in advertisements. “Steamboat Willie” was a groundbreaking 1928 animated short film directed by Walt Disney in which Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse made their first public appearances.
The law firm said that the U.S. copyright expired last year for “Steamboat Willie,” which was a lodestar for U.S. film animation at the time, and that it had reached out to Disney to make sure the entertainment company wouldn’t sue them if they used images from the animated film for their TV and online ads. Disney’s lawyers responded by saying they didn’t offer legal advice to third parties, according to the lawsuit.
Morgan & Morgan said it was filing the lawsuit to get a decision because it otherwise feared being sued by Disney for trademark infringement if it used “Steamboat Willie.”
In the black-and-white animated ad that Morgan & Morgan wants to air, a voiceover announcer starts and ends the commercial by saying that Disney didn’t approve or authorize the advertisement. The ad shows Mickey captaining a boat on land that crashes into a car driven by Minnie, who then pulls out her phone and contacts the law firm.
Minnesota
Man pleads guilty to federal charges for setting fires at 2 mosques
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A man who set fires at two mosques in Minnesota in 2023 pleaded guilty to federal charges Wednesday, federal prosecutors said.
Jackie Rahm Little, 38, admitted to one count of arson and one count of damage to religious property for the fires at the Masjid Al-Rahma Mosque in Bloomington and the Masjid Omar Islamic Center in Minneapolis. A sentencing date has not been set.
Court records show that Little had a history of mental illness, arson or suspected arson and domestic violence.
“When someone sets fire to a house of worship, it is not only a federal crime, it is an attack on the heart of a community,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said in a statement. “Minnesota has endured too many assaults on our sacred spaces.”
The fire that Little started at the Bloomington mosque on April 24, 2023, forced the evacuation of children who were attending day care and caused more than $378,000 in damage. He also lit a cardboard box on fire the day before in a restroom at the Minneapolis mosque, but was interrupted by an employee before the fire could spread.
Leaders said the fires shocked the local Islamic community and saw them as part of a larger trend of increased attacks on mosques and Muslim institutions across the state and country.
Oklahoma
Prosecutor: No charges after report of explicit images on TV of education chief
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma County’s top prosecutor said Wednesday she declined to file criminal charges after two Board of Education members said they saw images of naked women on a television in the office of state School Superintendent Ryan Walters.
District Attorney Vicki Behenna released a statement saying there was “insufficient evidence” to support criminal charges.
Board members Becky Carson and Ryan Deatherage told the online news outlet NonDoc they saw the images on a television in Walters’ office during an executive session in July. Walters has denied any wrongdoing.
Oklahoma County Sheriff Tommie Johnson III, whose office launched an investigation into the allegations, said Wednesday his investigators determined the television in Walters’ office was tuned to a movie channel that was running the 1985 film “The Protector,” starring Jackie Chan. That movie includes a scene in which naked women enter a warehouse to package drugs.
In a statement, Walters blamed the media and “his accusers” of trying to stop his agenda.
“This concludes the biggest witch hunt in Oklahoma history,” Walters said.
Walters, a Republican, has spent much of his first term in office lauding President Donald Trump, feuding with teachers unions and local school superintendents, and trying to end what he describes as “wokeness” in public schools.
