Utah
Judge lets state enforce its anti-gambling laws on the prediction market Kalshi
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah can enforce its strict anti-gambling laws on prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket, a federal judge ruled in a win for states seeking to rein in the popular betting platforms.
Utah has been on the front lines of a battle between states and the federal government over who regulates the markets and whether they should be considered finance or gambling. The legal landscape is fragmented, with state and federal courts blocking restrictions in several states and allowing them in others.
Kalshi sued Utah in February, asking a federal judge to prevent the state from enforcing its gambling restrictions on the platform. The lawsuit came as Utah was on the verge of enacting legislation intended to undercut prediction markets from doing business in the state.
State law now bans proposition betting in sports — wagers on certain events happening in a game, rather than the game’s outcome — which is a significant source of revenue for the leading prediction markets.
U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby rejected Kalshi’s request to block the Utah restrictions Tuesday, saying the federal law that Kalshi cited in its argument does not prevent the state from enforcing its laws.
For now, Utah residents can still place bets on the platforms. The state’s attorney general, Derek Brown, said he will enforce state laws on Kalshi, but he was still exploring options.
“Gambling is gambling, no matter what any company calls it,” Brown said.
Kalshi said in a statement that it disagrees with the ruling and plans to appeal.
The company maintains that prediction markets fall exclusively under federal jurisdiction and are not governed by a patchwork of state gambling laws. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating financial markets, agrees and has defended prediction markets in court.
Courts in Maryland, Nevada, Ohio, New York and Wisconsin have ruled against Kalshi in similar lawsuits, while judges in New Jersey, Tennessee, Arizona and Minnesota have sided with the company. Other states have been allowed to restrict certain aspects of Kalshi’s operations without banning them entirely.
The Trump Administration has been supportive of prediction markets, which allow anyone with a smartphone to wager on just about anything. The president’s eldest son is an adviser for both Kalshi and Polymarket, and an investor in the latter through his venture capital firm. Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, is also launching its own cryptocurrency-based prediction market called Truth Predict.
Utah leaders such as Gov. Spencer Cox have treated their fight to keep out anything they deem gambling as a moral crusade. The culture is rooted in the locally headquartered Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church, which views gambling as a vice that leads to selfishness and addiction.
Prediction markets are “causing tremendous harm to countless American families,” Cox said in celebrating the ruling.
South Carolina
Judge won’t make disgraced clerk pay Murdaugh’s $600,000 in legal fees for 1st trial
COLUMBIA, S.C (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by Alex Murdaugh seeking $600,000 in legal fees by the former court clerk whose misconduct led his murder convictions to be overturned on appeal.
Murdaugh sued Becky Hill in May saying she violated his right to a fair trial in the deaths of his wife and son.
A jury found Murdaugh guilty, but the state Supreme Court overturned the convictions and life sentences earlier this year saying Hill’s comments to jurors suggested the once-prominent lawyer was guilty and his testimony in his own defense couldn’t be trusted.
The problem with Murdaugh’s legal reasoning is he would have had to spend the money anyway because it wasn’t Hill who investigated or pursued justice against him, Judge Richard Gergel wrote in his ruling Wednesday.
“Plaintiff’s claim contains a fatal flaw — the lack of a causal connection between the funds he expended for his defense in the first trial and Defendant’s misconduct. Defendant had no role in the initiation of criminal charges against Plaintiff,” Gergel wrote.
Murdaugh’s attorneys filed a notice to appeal about two hours later.
Murdaugh said in court papers he spent $600,000 from a retirement account to pay for his lawyers in his first trial and will need more money to pay them for his retrial next year in the case that has become a true crime sensation with a streaming miniseries, bestselling books and dozens of podcasts.
Even with his murder convictions overturned, Murdaugh remains in prison. He pleaded guilty to stealing around $12 million from his clients and is serving a 40-year federal sentence at the same time as a 27-year state sentence for his financial crimes.
His retrial on the murder charges has been scheduled for April.
Investigators said Murdaugh was addicted to opioids and his complex schemes to steal money from clients and his family’s law firm were starting to unravel so he killed his wife and son to divert attention and buy time to find a way out of his problems.
Philippines
U.S. asks for extradition of Filipino church leader accused of sex crimes, fraud
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The United States has asked the Philippine government to extradite a Filipino church leader, who was once an influential adviser to former President Rodrigo Duterte, to face trial on charges including child sex trafficking and fraud that landed him on the FBI’s most wanted list, two Philippine officials said Thursday.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said it has received the U.S. government request for Apollo Carreon Quiboloy’s extradition and endorsed it to the Department of Justice. That confirmed earlier separate statements to The Associated Press by two high-ranking Philippine officials, who said the U.S. request was transmitted in July.
The request needs the approval of two Philippine courts, which have been trying the detained former televangelist for human trafficking and child abuse charges, according to the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to publicly discuss the issues.
Criminal suspects in the Philippines must finish their trials and serve their sentences if convicted prior to extradition. Philippine justice officials, however, can ask a domestic court to allow the temporary surrender of a suspect to a foreign court to face trial prior to the resolution of their Philippine cases under the 1994 extradition treaty of Washington and Manila.
Quiboloy, 76, leads the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church, which was founded in 1985 in southern Davao city and claims to have a wide following in the Philippines and abroad, including in the U.S.
In his heyday, Quiboloy was one of the most influential religious leaders in the Philippines and regarded as a political kingmaker. He served as spiritual adviser to the equally controversial Duterte, who took office in June 2016.
Duterte was arrested in Manila last year under a warrant from the International Criminal Court and has since been detained in the Netherlands, where he will face trial for alleged crimes against humanity. The charges stem from the killings of large numbers of mostly poor drug suspects under his anti-drugs crackdowns, which alarmed Western governments and rights groups.
Quiboloy claims to be “the appointed son of God” and has made outrageous claims that sparked questions about his character but endeared him to his followers. He once claimed to have stopped a major earthquake from hitting the southern Philippines.
In 2024, Quiboloy went into hiding after a Philippine court ordered his arrest along with several others for alleged child and sexual abuse and human trafficking, police said. The Philippine Senate separately ordered Quiboloy’s arrest at the time for refusing to appear in public hearings about his alleged crimes.
The preacher denied the allegations, saying they were fabricated by critics and former members who were removed from his religious group.
Quiboloy and four others facing accusations surrendered in September 2024 after about 2,000 police raided a 30-hectare (75-acre) compound of his religious group, which included a cathedral, stadium, hangar and taxiway leading to Davao’s international airport. He has been jailed since then.
U.S. federal prosecutors in 2021 separately announced an indictment of Quiboloy for allegedly having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and “eternal damnation” unless they catered to the self-proclaimed “son of God.”
Quiboloy was among nine people named in a superseding indictment returned by a U.S. federal grand jury and unsealed in November 2021. It contained a raft of charges including conspiracy, sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and visa fraud.
After that indictment he was placed on the list of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives.
Texas
Judge rules that law regulating firearm suppressors can’t be enforced
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday struck down a 1930s law that imposed regulations on firearm suppressors and guns that are considered the most dangerous, more than a year after President Donald Trump signed a bill eliminating taxes on those items.
The ruling could allow firearm owners to purchase firearm suppressors — known as silencers — short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and other certain firearms without registration, while also removing a layer of background checks. Last year,
Republicans eliminated a $200 tax on those devices under Trump’s massive tax and spending cut bill.
The regulations are required under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. Groups that support gun restrictions said the law still has important safety protections and criticized the ruling as reckless.
U.S. District Judge James Hendrix said because there were no longer taxes under the act, the regulation should not continue either.
“No longer can the challenged NFA provisions be justified — as they have been for nearly 90 years — under Congress’s taxing power,” Hendrix wrote.
The National Firearms Act has been in effect since 1934 and establishes key differences and regulates firearms considered the most dangerous. Because the act implemented a tax on the item, the registration was often used to ensure the tax was paid, gun rights groups said.
The ruling was a major victory for gun rights groups who said they hoped the decision would create momentum to ultimately send the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“This ruling will set a precedent we can now argue in courts across the country to allow Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights without fear of being placed on some government registry,” the Second Amendment Foundation said in a statement.
While background checks will still be required under federal law, Giffords Law Center Chief Counsel Adam Skaggs said the registration process included notifying local law enforcement and asking if there was any reason to deny the application.
“That process effectively functioned as a heightened background check for NFA weapons, and that process is no longer enforceable,” Skaggs said in a statement.
In June, the number of registered firearm suppressors in the U.S. was more than 6.4 million, according to the ATF.
“Today’s ruling is a dangerous step backward for public safety,” the Giffords Law Center said in a statement.
Judge lets state enforce its anti-gambling laws on the prediction market Kalshi
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah can enforce its strict anti-gambling laws on prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket, a federal judge ruled in a win for states seeking to rein in the popular betting platforms.
Utah has been on the front lines of a battle between states and the federal government over who regulates the markets and whether they should be considered finance or gambling. The legal landscape is fragmented, with state and federal courts blocking restrictions in several states and allowing them in others.
Kalshi sued Utah in February, asking a federal judge to prevent the state from enforcing its gambling restrictions on the platform. The lawsuit came as Utah was on the verge of enacting legislation intended to undercut prediction markets from doing business in the state.
State law now bans proposition betting in sports — wagers on certain events happening in a game, rather than the game’s outcome — which is a significant source of revenue for the leading prediction markets.
U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby rejected Kalshi’s request to block the Utah restrictions Tuesday, saying the federal law that Kalshi cited in its argument does not prevent the state from enforcing its laws.
For now, Utah residents can still place bets on the platforms. The state’s attorney general, Derek Brown, said he will enforce state laws on Kalshi, but he was still exploring options.
“Gambling is gambling, no matter what any company calls it,” Brown said.
Kalshi said in a statement that it disagrees with the ruling and plans to appeal.
The company maintains that prediction markets fall exclusively under federal jurisdiction and are not governed by a patchwork of state gambling laws. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating financial markets, agrees and has defended prediction markets in court.
Courts in Maryland, Nevada, Ohio, New York and Wisconsin have ruled against Kalshi in similar lawsuits, while judges in New Jersey, Tennessee, Arizona and Minnesota have sided with the company. Other states have been allowed to restrict certain aspects of Kalshi’s operations without banning them entirely.
The Trump Administration has been supportive of prediction markets, which allow anyone with a smartphone to wager on just about anything. The president’s eldest son is an adviser for both Kalshi and Polymarket, and an investor in the latter through his venture capital firm. Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, is also launching its own cryptocurrency-based prediction market called Truth Predict.
Utah leaders such as Gov. Spencer Cox have treated their fight to keep out anything they deem gambling as a moral crusade. The culture is rooted in the locally headquartered Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church, which views gambling as a vice that leads to selfishness and addiction.
Prediction markets are “causing tremendous harm to countless American families,” Cox said in celebrating the ruling.
South Carolina
Judge won’t make disgraced clerk pay Murdaugh’s $600,000 in legal fees for 1st trial
COLUMBIA, S.C (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by Alex Murdaugh seeking $600,000 in legal fees by the former court clerk whose misconduct led his murder convictions to be overturned on appeal.
Murdaugh sued Becky Hill in May saying she violated his right to a fair trial in the deaths of his wife and son.
A jury found Murdaugh guilty, but the state Supreme Court overturned the convictions and life sentences earlier this year saying Hill’s comments to jurors suggested the once-prominent lawyer was guilty and his testimony in his own defense couldn’t be trusted.
The problem with Murdaugh’s legal reasoning is he would have had to spend the money anyway because it wasn’t Hill who investigated or pursued justice against him, Judge Richard Gergel wrote in his ruling Wednesday.
“Plaintiff’s claim contains a fatal flaw — the lack of a causal connection between the funds he expended for his defense in the first trial and Defendant’s misconduct. Defendant had no role in the initiation of criminal charges against Plaintiff,” Gergel wrote.
Murdaugh’s attorneys filed a notice to appeal about two hours later.
Murdaugh said in court papers he spent $600,000 from a retirement account to pay for his lawyers in his first trial and will need more money to pay them for his retrial next year in the case that has become a true crime sensation with a streaming miniseries, bestselling books and dozens of podcasts.
Even with his murder convictions overturned, Murdaugh remains in prison. He pleaded guilty to stealing around $12 million from his clients and is serving a 40-year federal sentence at the same time as a 27-year state sentence for his financial crimes.
His retrial on the murder charges has been scheduled for April.
Investigators said Murdaugh was addicted to opioids and his complex schemes to steal money from clients and his family’s law firm were starting to unravel so he killed his wife and son to divert attention and buy time to find a way out of his problems.
Philippines
U.S. asks for extradition of Filipino church leader accused of sex crimes, fraud
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The United States has asked the Philippine government to extradite a Filipino church leader, who was once an influential adviser to former President Rodrigo Duterte, to face trial on charges including child sex trafficking and fraud that landed him on the FBI’s most wanted list, two Philippine officials said Thursday.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said it has received the U.S. government request for Apollo Carreon Quiboloy’s extradition and endorsed it to the Department of Justice. That confirmed earlier separate statements to The Associated Press by two high-ranking Philippine officials, who said the U.S. request was transmitted in July.
The request needs the approval of two Philippine courts, which have been trying the detained former televangelist for human trafficking and child abuse charges, according to the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to publicly discuss the issues.
Criminal suspects in the Philippines must finish their trials and serve their sentences if convicted prior to extradition. Philippine justice officials, however, can ask a domestic court to allow the temporary surrender of a suspect to a foreign court to face trial prior to the resolution of their Philippine cases under the 1994 extradition treaty of Washington and Manila.
Quiboloy, 76, leads the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church, which was founded in 1985 in southern Davao city and claims to have a wide following in the Philippines and abroad, including in the U.S.
In his heyday, Quiboloy was one of the most influential religious leaders in the Philippines and regarded as a political kingmaker. He served as spiritual adviser to the equally controversial Duterte, who took office in June 2016.
Duterte was arrested in Manila last year under a warrant from the International Criminal Court and has since been detained in the Netherlands, where he will face trial for alleged crimes against humanity. The charges stem from the killings of large numbers of mostly poor drug suspects under his anti-drugs crackdowns, which alarmed Western governments and rights groups.
Quiboloy claims to be “the appointed son of God” and has made outrageous claims that sparked questions about his character but endeared him to his followers. He once claimed to have stopped a major earthquake from hitting the southern Philippines.
In 2024, Quiboloy went into hiding after a Philippine court ordered his arrest along with several others for alleged child and sexual abuse and human trafficking, police said. The Philippine Senate separately ordered Quiboloy’s arrest at the time for refusing to appear in public hearings about his alleged crimes.
The preacher denied the allegations, saying they were fabricated by critics and former members who were removed from his religious group.
Quiboloy and four others facing accusations surrendered in September 2024 after about 2,000 police raided a 30-hectare (75-acre) compound of his religious group, which included a cathedral, stadium, hangar and taxiway leading to Davao’s international airport. He has been jailed since then.
U.S. federal prosecutors in 2021 separately announced an indictment of Quiboloy for allegedly having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and “eternal damnation” unless they catered to the self-proclaimed “son of God.”
Quiboloy was among nine people named in a superseding indictment returned by a U.S. federal grand jury and unsealed in November 2021. It contained a raft of charges including conspiracy, sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and visa fraud.
After that indictment he was placed on the list of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives.
Texas
Judge rules that law regulating firearm suppressors can’t be enforced
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday struck down a 1930s law that imposed regulations on firearm suppressors and guns that are considered the most dangerous, more than a year after President Donald Trump signed a bill eliminating taxes on those items.
The ruling could allow firearm owners to purchase firearm suppressors — known as silencers — short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and other certain firearms without registration, while also removing a layer of background checks. Last year,
Republicans eliminated a $200 tax on those devices under Trump’s massive tax and spending cut bill.
The regulations are required under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. Groups that support gun restrictions said the law still has important safety protections and criticized the ruling as reckless.
U.S. District Judge James Hendrix said because there were no longer taxes under the act, the regulation should not continue either.
“No longer can the challenged NFA provisions be justified — as they have been for nearly 90 years — under Congress’s taxing power,” Hendrix wrote.
The National Firearms Act has been in effect since 1934 and establishes key differences and regulates firearms considered the most dangerous. Because the act implemented a tax on the item, the registration was often used to ensure the tax was paid, gun rights groups said.
The ruling was a major victory for gun rights groups who said they hoped the decision would create momentum to ultimately send the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“This ruling will set a precedent we can now argue in courts across the country to allow Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights without fear of being placed on some government registry,” the Second Amendment Foundation said in a statement.
While background checks will still be required under federal law, Giffords Law Center Chief Counsel Adam Skaggs said the registration process included notifying local law enforcement and asking if there was any reason to deny the application.
“That process effectively functioned as a heightened background check for NFA weapons, and that process is no longer enforceable,” Skaggs said in a statement.
In June, the number of registered firearm suppressors in the U.S. was more than 6.4 million, according to the ATF.
“Today’s ruling is a dangerous step backward for public safety,” the Giffords Law Center said in a statement.
