ByteDance, TikTok seek temporary halt to US crackdown law, judge to decide fate of the Onion's buyout of Infowars, and more ➡️
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ByteDance, TikTok seek temporary halt to US crackdown law pending Supreme Court review
Chinese-based ByteDance and its short-video app TikTok asked an appeals court to temporarily block a law that would require parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok by Jan. 19 or face a ban, pending a review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The companies filed the emergency motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, warning that without the order the law will take effect and will ‘shut down TikTok — one of the nation’s most popular speech platforms — for its more than 170 million domestic monthly users on the eve of a presidential inauguration.’
Last week, a three-judge panel of the appeals court upheld the law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok in the United States by early next year or face a ban in just six weeks.
Lawyers for the companies said the prospect the Supreme Court will take the case ‘and reverse is sufficiently high to warrant the temporary pause needed to create time for further deliberation.’
The companies also noted President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to prevent a ban, arguing the delay ‘will give the incoming administration time to determine its position — which could moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review.’
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👨⚖️Judge weighs fate of the Onion's buyout of Infowars
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is set to urge a U.S. bankruptcy judge to block the sale of his Infowars website to the Onion news parody site in Houston.
The Onion was named the winning bidder for Infowars in a November bankruptcy auction, but Jones and a company affiliated with his dietary supplements sales have argued that the sale process was plagued by fraud and collusion.
Jones declared bankruptcy in 2022 and was forced to liquidate his assets to pay $1.4 billion in legal judgments to the families of 20 students and six staff members who were fatally shot in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Courts in Connecticut and Texas have ruled that Jones defamed the families by making repeated false claims that the mass shooting was staged as part of a government plot to take guns away from Americans.
The Onion has said it plans to re-launch Infowars in 2025 as a parody site filled with ‘noticeably less hateful disinformation’ than before.
The Jones-affiliated company, First American United Companies, was the runner up in the auction. It has claimed that the Onion benefited from a rigged bankruptcy auction and offered only half as much cash as the $3.5 million runner-up bid.
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⚓US judge upholds Naval Academy's race-conscious admissions policies
A federal judge on Friday ruled that the U.S. Naval Academy may continue to consider race when evaluating candidates to attend the elite military school, even after the U.S. Supreme Court last year barred civilian colleges from employing similar affirmative action policies.
U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett in Baltimore rejected arguments by Students for Fair Admissions, a group founded by affirmative action opponent Edward Blum, that the Annapolis, Maryland-based Naval Academy's race-conscious admissions program was unconstitutional.
The decision marked a victory for outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden's administration, which had argued that senior military leaders had long recognized that a scarcity of minority officers could create distrust within the armed forces, which were racially segregated until 1948.
Blum in a statement said the group was disappointed by the ruling and planned to appeal, first to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and, if unsuccessful there, the U.S. Supreme Court.
Whether the federal government will continue to defend the admissions policy against appeals or in other challenges is now in doubt with Republican President-elect Donald Trump poised to take office on Jan. 20. His first administration supported lawsuits challenging affirmative action policies in civilian higher education institutions.
💼Contracts in Texas' BlackRock lawsuit show fees for private law firms
A sizable payday could await two private law firms hired by the state of Texas for its antitrust lawsuit against asset managers BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street for allegedly driving up energy prices through climate activism.
Contracts with the Texas attorney general's office show that the Buzbee Law Firm and Cooper & Kirk stand to receive success fees of up to $3,780 per hour or 10% of Texas' potential recovery in the case.
The law firms will receive whatever option produces the smaller sum, according to contracts obtained by Reuters through a public records request. They are not entitled to any payment if the lawsuit is unsuccessful.
Texas and a coalition of 10 other Republican-led states sued BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street last week in Tyler, Texas federal court, claiming they exploited their market power and involvement with climate advocacy groups to pressure coal companies to slash output and reduce carbon emissions from coal by more than 50% by 2030, driving up consumers' utility bills.
BlackRock and State Street called the lawsuit baseless after it was filed. A spokesperson for Vanguard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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