Alabama
Lawsuit accuses University of Alabama of censorship in ending student magazines
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Students at the University of Alabama filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging the suspension of two student-run magazines — one primarily focused on Black students and another on women’s issues
The lawsuit accuses university officials of engaging in censorship and viewpoint-based discrimination.
University officials in December informed the editors of the magazines Nineteen Fifty-Six and Alice that they were immediately stopping the magazines. A university official told editors that the problem was that the magazines had a perceived target audience and cited guidance from President Donald Trump’s administration regarding diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit accuses university officials of violating the First Amendment rights of students and asks for the magazines to be reinstated
“These student magazines — unlike other student publications at the University — were suspended and defunded by UA because UA administrators disfavor their editorial perspectives related to race and gender,” the lawsuit states.
The plaintiffs are students who wrote for the magazines. The students are represented by attorneys at the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU of Alabama.
“Students at the University of Alabama deserve the right to freely express themselves, including their viewpoints shaped by their experiences as women and Black people,” said Sam Boyd, a senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Their lived experiences are valid, important to the fabric of this country’s history and should be shared without interference.”
Alex House, a spokesperson for the University of Alabama, said the university has no plans to comment on the pending litigation. House said in December that the university remains committed to supporting all students and “in doing so, we must also comply with our legal obligations.”
The decision to stop the magazines prompted protests on campus.
Nineteen Fifty-Six is named after the year the first Black student, Autherine Lucy Foster, was allowed to enroll at the university. It has been in publication for the past five years. A recent edition included an article on the experiences of international students and another on the importance of “creating camaraderie on campus” amid diversity program rollbacks.
Alice had been published for 10 years. The most recent issue of Alice included beauty content, such as alternatives for high-end cosmetics, and more political pieces about misogyny in heavy metal music and an article on the politics of reproductive issues.
Neither magazine restricted who could work on staff.
Washington
Pentagon will remove media offices after judge reinstates NYT press credentials
The U.S. Defense Department will remove media offices from the Pentagon after a federal judge sided with The New York Times in a lawsuit challenging limits on reporters’ access to the building, a department official announced Monday.
An area of the Pentagon known as “Correspondents’ Corridor” that reporters have used for decades to cover the U.S. military will close immediately, department spokesperson Sean Parnell said. Journalists will eventually be able to work from an “annex” outside the building, which he said “will be available when ready.” He offered no detail about how long that will take.
The Pentagon Press Association said the announcement “is a clear violation of the letter and spirit of last week’s ruling.”
“At such a critical time, we ask why the Pentagon is choosing to restrict vital press freedoms that help inform all Americans,” the association said.
The new policy is the latest dispute over press access to President Donald Trump’s administration, which has limited legacy media while boosting conservative and pro-Trump outlets.
The Times sued the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in December, claiming the agency’s new credentialing policy violated journalists’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process. Dozens of reporters had walked out of the building rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., last week sided with the newspaper. He ordered the Pentagon to reinstate the press credentials of seven Times journalists and struck down some of the agency’s restrictions on news reporting.
Friedman said the “undisputed evidence” shows that the policy is designed to weed out “disfavored journalists” and replace them with those who are “on board and willing to serve” the government, a clear instance of illegal viewpoint discrimination.
Parnell said the Defense Department disagrees with the ruling and is pursuing an appeal. He said security concerns prompted restrictions on press access, a claim that journalists have rejected.
Under the latest Pentagon rules announced Monday, journalists will still have access to the Pentagon for press conferences and interviews arranged through the department’s public affairs team, but they will have to be escorted, Parnell wrote on social media.
The current Pentagon press corps is comprised mostly of conservative outlets that agreed to the policy. Reporters from outlets that refused to consent to the new rules, including from The Associated Press, have continued reporting on the military.
The AP, meanwhile, is awaiting a decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals on its separate lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration. The AP contends that Trump’s White House team punished it by reducing its access to presidential events because the outlet hasn’t followed his lead in renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
Florida
Judge cites ‘stand your ground’ law in clearing 3 more officers in shooting of a UPS driver
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A South Florida judge on Monday cleared three more police officers of wrongdoing in the shooting death of a UPS driver who had been taken hostage during a 2019 robbery.
Broward Circuit Judge Ernest Kollra ruled that Miami-Dade police officers Richard Santiesteban, Leslie Lee and Rodolfo Mirabal — who had been charged with manslaughter in the death of UPS driver Frank Ordonez — could not be prosecuted because Florida’s “stand your ground” law justified the shooting. The same judge cleared officer Jose Mateo in September for the same reason.
The Broward State Attorney’s Office said it will appeal all four rulings.
“Immunity from prosecution is not the same as a defense presented to a jury from this community,” the state attorney’s statement said. “It is our belief that Stand Your Ground immunity does not apply in matters involving innocent bystanders, like Frank Ordonez and Richard Cutshaw, who presented no danger to officers. In this incident, two innocent men were killed, and the lives of numerous other innocent bystanders were endangered.”
Cutshaw was also killed in the barrage of gunfire that afternoon.
Ordonez, 27, had been delivering packages in Miami-Dade County on Dec. 5, 2019, when police said two would-be jewelry store robbers abducted him and forced him to drive from the scene. A rush-hour police chase ended at a busy intersection in neighboring Broward County.
Prosecutors said Mateo fired the shots that killed Ordonez. The two robbers and a passerby were also killed in a hail of gunfire at an intersection in Miramar, Florida.
Footage from a body camera that was played in court showed Mateo’s pursuit of the UPS truck that afternoon. His partner could be seen in the passenger seat with a long gun drawn. The video also showed Mateo approaching the UPS truck. He emptied his firearm’s magazine, reloaded and then pulled Ordonez from the vehicle.
The judge ruled the officers had reason to believe deadly force was necessary to end the confrontation.
The four officers are currently suspended from the their jobs.
New Jersey
Judge appoints new U.S. attorney after Habba, other officials were disqualified
A veteran federal prosecutor was appointed Monday as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, ending a dispute between the judiciary and President Donald Trump over control of the office that included the disqualifications of the administration’s previous picks for the position.
A U.S. District Court judge issued a one-sentence order naming Robert Frazer as the top federal prosecutor in the state — the result of an agreement between federal judges and the U.S. Department of Justice.
“The Department of Justice thanks the district court for working with the Department to appoint Robert Frazer to serve as US Attorney so that once again criminal prosecutions can resume without needless challenge or delay on behalf of the people of New Jersey,” the department said in a statement.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann disqualified three Justice Department officials who were sharing authority over the office, saying they were appointed in an illegal power grab by the Trump administration. They replaced Trump’s first choice for U.S. attorney, his former personal attorney Alina Habba, whom Brann barred from the job last year because she had stayed too long without Senate confirmation.
The three officials — Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox and Ari Fontecchio — had been appointed to replace Habba indefinitely, in an unusual move by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
In a court hearing last week, another federal judge in New Jersey ordered the three to answer his questions under oath and threw another government official out of the proceeding in frustration over the Justice Department’s chaotic oversight of federal prosecutions in the state.
Habba, who is now a senior adviser at the Justice Department, congratulated Frazer in a social media post Monday, saying “New Jersey deserves a great chief federal law enforcement official who is in line with President Trump’s agenda of making this country safe and NJ great!”
Frazer, who had been serving as senior trial counsel in the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office, did not immediately return an email message Monday.
The judiciary and Trump’s administration have been odds over the process for selecting U.S. attorneys, who ordinarily must undergo Senate confirmation to stay in their positions.
Judges have ruled, in separate cases, that people installed as the top federal prosecutors for Nevada, Los Angeles and northern New York were all serving unlawfully.
Lindsey Halligan, who pursued indictments against a pair of Trump’s adversaries, left her position as acting U.S. attorney in Virginia after a judge concluded in November that her appointment was unlawful. The judge also ruled that indictments she brought against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey must be dismissed.
In some instances, judges have exercised their power under the law to appoint U.S. attorneys to oversee prosecutor offices until one of the president’s picks is confirmed by the Senate. The Justice Department has responded by immediately firing those judicial appointees.
Lawsuit accuses University of Alabama of censorship in ending student magazines
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Students at the University of Alabama filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging the suspension of two student-run magazines — one primarily focused on Black students and another on women’s issues
The lawsuit accuses university officials of engaging in censorship and viewpoint-based discrimination.
University officials in December informed the editors of the magazines Nineteen Fifty-Six and Alice that they were immediately stopping the magazines. A university official told editors that the problem was that the magazines had a perceived target audience and cited guidance from President Donald Trump’s administration regarding diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit accuses university officials of violating the First Amendment rights of students and asks for the magazines to be reinstated
“These student magazines — unlike other student publications at the University — were suspended and defunded by UA because UA administrators disfavor their editorial perspectives related to race and gender,” the lawsuit states.
The plaintiffs are students who wrote for the magazines. The students are represented by attorneys at the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU of Alabama.
“Students at the University of Alabama deserve the right to freely express themselves, including their viewpoints shaped by their experiences as women and Black people,” said Sam Boyd, a senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Their lived experiences are valid, important to the fabric of this country’s history and should be shared without interference.”
Alex House, a spokesperson for the University of Alabama, said the university has no plans to comment on the pending litigation. House said in December that the university remains committed to supporting all students and “in doing so, we must also comply with our legal obligations.”
The decision to stop the magazines prompted protests on campus.
Nineteen Fifty-Six is named after the year the first Black student, Autherine Lucy Foster, was allowed to enroll at the university. It has been in publication for the past five years. A recent edition included an article on the experiences of international students and another on the importance of “creating camaraderie on campus” amid diversity program rollbacks.
Alice had been published for 10 years. The most recent issue of Alice included beauty content, such as alternatives for high-end cosmetics, and more political pieces about misogyny in heavy metal music and an article on the politics of reproductive issues.
Neither magazine restricted who could work on staff.
Washington
Pentagon will remove media offices after judge reinstates NYT press credentials
The U.S. Defense Department will remove media offices from the Pentagon after a federal judge sided with The New York Times in a lawsuit challenging limits on reporters’ access to the building, a department official announced Monday.
An area of the Pentagon known as “Correspondents’ Corridor” that reporters have used for decades to cover the U.S. military will close immediately, department spokesperson Sean Parnell said. Journalists will eventually be able to work from an “annex” outside the building, which he said “will be available when ready.” He offered no detail about how long that will take.
The Pentagon Press Association said the announcement “is a clear violation of the letter and spirit of last week’s ruling.”
“At such a critical time, we ask why the Pentagon is choosing to restrict vital press freedoms that help inform all Americans,” the association said.
The new policy is the latest dispute over press access to President Donald Trump’s administration, which has limited legacy media while boosting conservative and pro-Trump outlets.
The Times sued the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in December, claiming the agency’s new credentialing policy violated journalists’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process. Dozens of reporters had walked out of the building rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., last week sided with the newspaper. He ordered the Pentagon to reinstate the press credentials of seven Times journalists and struck down some of the agency’s restrictions on news reporting.
Friedman said the “undisputed evidence” shows that the policy is designed to weed out “disfavored journalists” and replace them with those who are “on board and willing to serve” the government, a clear instance of illegal viewpoint discrimination.
Parnell said the Defense Department disagrees with the ruling and is pursuing an appeal. He said security concerns prompted restrictions on press access, a claim that journalists have rejected.
Under the latest Pentagon rules announced Monday, journalists will still have access to the Pentagon for press conferences and interviews arranged through the department’s public affairs team, but they will have to be escorted, Parnell wrote on social media.
The current Pentagon press corps is comprised mostly of conservative outlets that agreed to the policy. Reporters from outlets that refused to consent to the new rules, including from The Associated Press, have continued reporting on the military.
The AP, meanwhile, is awaiting a decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals on its separate lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration. The AP contends that Trump’s White House team punished it by reducing its access to presidential events because the outlet hasn’t followed his lead in renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
Florida
Judge cites ‘stand your ground’ law in clearing 3 more officers in shooting of a UPS driver
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A South Florida judge on Monday cleared three more police officers of wrongdoing in the shooting death of a UPS driver who had been taken hostage during a 2019 robbery.
Broward Circuit Judge Ernest Kollra ruled that Miami-Dade police officers Richard Santiesteban, Leslie Lee and Rodolfo Mirabal — who had been charged with manslaughter in the death of UPS driver Frank Ordonez — could not be prosecuted because Florida’s “stand your ground” law justified the shooting. The same judge cleared officer Jose Mateo in September for the same reason.
The Broward State Attorney’s Office said it will appeal all four rulings.
“Immunity from prosecution is not the same as a defense presented to a jury from this community,” the state attorney’s statement said. “It is our belief that Stand Your Ground immunity does not apply in matters involving innocent bystanders, like Frank Ordonez and Richard Cutshaw, who presented no danger to officers. In this incident, two innocent men were killed, and the lives of numerous other innocent bystanders were endangered.”
Cutshaw was also killed in the barrage of gunfire that afternoon.
Ordonez, 27, had been delivering packages in Miami-Dade County on Dec. 5, 2019, when police said two would-be jewelry store robbers abducted him and forced him to drive from the scene. A rush-hour police chase ended at a busy intersection in neighboring Broward County.
Prosecutors said Mateo fired the shots that killed Ordonez. The two robbers and a passerby were also killed in a hail of gunfire at an intersection in Miramar, Florida.
Footage from a body camera that was played in court showed Mateo’s pursuit of the UPS truck that afternoon. His partner could be seen in the passenger seat with a long gun drawn. The video also showed Mateo approaching the UPS truck. He emptied his firearm’s magazine, reloaded and then pulled Ordonez from the vehicle.
The judge ruled the officers had reason to believe deadly force was necessary to end the confrontation.
The four officers are currently suspended from the their jobs.
New Jersey
Judge appoints new U.S. attorney after Habba, other officials were disqualified
A veteran federal prosecutor was appointed Monday as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, ending a dispute between the judiciary and President Donald Trump over control of the office that included the disqualifications of the administration’s previous picks for the position.
A U.S. District Court judge issued a one-sentence order naming Robert Frazer as the top federal prosecutor in the state — the result of an agreement between federal judges and the U.S. Department of Justice.
“The Department of Justice thanks the district court for working with the Department to appoint Robert Frazer to serve as US Attorney so that once again criminal prosecutions can resume without needless challenge or delay on behalf of the people of New Jersey,” the department said in a statement.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann disqualified three Justice Department officials who were sharing authority over the office, saying they were appointed in an illegal power grab by the Trump administration. They replaced Trump’s first choice for U.S. attorney, his former personal attorney Alina Habba, whom Brann barred from the job last year because she had stayed too long without Senate confirmation.
The three officials — Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox and Ari Fontecchio — had been appointed to replace Habba indefinitely, in an unusual move by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
In a court hearing last week, another federal judge in New Jersey ordered the three to answer his questions under oath and threw another government official out of the proceeding in frustration over the Justice Department’s chaotic oversight of federal prosecutions in the state.
Habba, who is now a senior adviser at the Justice Department, congratulated Frazer in a social media post Monday, saying “New Jersey deserves a great chief federal law enforcement official who is in line with President Trump’s agenda of making this country safe and NJ great!”
Frazer, who had been serving as senior trial counsel in the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office, did not immediately return an email message Monday.
The judiciary and Trump’s administration have been odds over the process for selecting U.S. attorneys, who ordinarily must undergo Senate confirmation to stay in their positions.
Judges have ruled, in separate cases, that people installed as the top federal prosecutors for Nevada, Los Angeles and northern New York were all serving unlawfully.
Lindsey Halligan, who pursued indictments against a pair of Trump’s adversaries, left her position as acting U.S. attorney in Virginia after a judge concluded in November that her appointment was unlawful. The judge also ruled that indictments she brought against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey must be dismissed.
In some instances, judges have exercised their power under the law to appoint U.S. attorneys to oversee prosecutor offices until one of the president’s picks is confirmed by the Senate. The Justice Department has responded by immediately firing those judicial appointees.
