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Law & Justice

Law and justice news: Supreme Court rulings, federal cases, trials and Justice Department stories, updated daily by the Live News Chat desk.

More in Law & Justice

An armed federal agent in a tactical vest stands beside a blue car where Wilber Rafael Garces Perez sits hunched over after being shot, frame from video aired by CNN

An ICE Officer Shot an Austin Delivery Driver in the Back. By Dawn He Was in a Detention Cell With the Bullet Still in Him

Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker delivering food for DoorDash, was…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 23

Artificial Intelligence

Google Says Gemini Broke Into Three Outside Systems in May, and It Said Nothing Until a Reporter Asked

Google confirmed on Friday that its Gemini model let itself into three live third-party…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 20

A smartphone showing green and red sports odds tiles rests on a dark wood desk beside sealed legal documents and a fountain pen, with a capitol dome visible through the window at sunset

Missouri Told Six Prediction Markets to Stop Because It Would Rather Tax Them

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway sent cease-and-desist orders on Friday to six companies selling…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 20

The Kennedy Center's white marble colonnade glowing gold in late sunlight above the Potomac, under a dramatic broken sky

A Judge Ordered Trump to Give 30 Days’ Notice Before Demolishing the Kennedy Center

On Thursday a federal judge required the United States government to give a month’s…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 18

An empty federal appellate courtroom at dusk, the judges bench and counsel tables unoccupied, a single closed case folder on one table

Trump Ordered the Justice Department to Let the 1934 Gun Registry Die on October 5

Trump told the DOJ not to appeal the Texas ruling that gutted federal registration…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 18

Yellow police tape across the front steps of one house in a row of narrow brick rowhouses, with a white forensics van at the curb

Five Women Are Now Linked to One Olney Rowhouse, a House Narcotics Detectives Had Already Been Inside

Philadelphia police have now connected five missing women to a single house on West…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 16

Rain-speckled windshield view of brick townhouses on a quiet night street, with an unmarked envelope of cash on the passenger seat

Russia Offered $40,000 to Kill a Dissident in Washington. All Five Men Charged Are Already Out of Reach.

The federal indictment unsealed in Manhattan this week does not read like a spy…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 16

An empty phone-booth-sized steel mesh enclosure with a keypad-locked door standing on artificial turf beneath a tent canopy, with razor-wire-topped chain-link fencing and white detention tents behind it

DHS Watchdog Confirms Alligator Alcatraz Held 79 Detainees in Phone-Booth-Sized Metal Cages

A DHS inspector general report confirms Alligator Alcatraz confined 79 detainees in 18-square-foot metal…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 15

Stacks of ballot return envelopes in gray postal sorting trays moving along a conveyor inside a United States Postal Service processing facility

The Supreme Court Left Trump’s Mail Ballot Rule Blocked Through the November Midterms

The Supreme Court denied the Postal Service an emergency stay, leaving Trump's mail ballot…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 14

A pole-mounted automated license plate reader camera stands on the grassy shoulder of a Florida highway at dusk, with car light trails and palms behind it

Florida Ordered Flock Cameras Off State Roads Because That Is Where Its Authority Ends

The Florida Department of Transportation revoked every permit for automated license plate readers sitting…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 14

Rows of empty workstations with dark monitors in an emergency operations center, a wall screen showing a satellite image of a swirling storm

The FEMA Ruling Is a Win on the Law, Not a Rescue for Hurricane Season

Judge Susan Illston ruled the 50% FEMA staffing cut unlawful, but ordered no one…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 14

Yellow police barrier tape blurred across the foreground of a dark residential street lined with moss-draped live oaks, with patrol vehicle emergency lights glowing further down the road

A Louisiana Stabbing Spree Left Four Dead. The Man Now in Custody Was Acquitted of Attempted Murder in 2023.

Four people were killed in a Houma stabbing spree and a child was critically…

By Mark Masterson · Sep 13

Archive

An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 freighter rests nose-down on grass past the Miami airport fence with a scorched wing, surrounded by lime-green fire rescue trucks and a fuel tanker under a bright cloudy sky

Five Airport Cleaners Died in Miami While a Pilot’s Safety Case Against 21 Air Sat Unresolved for Three Years

An elderly man in a dark pinstripe suit and red tie stands alone holding a brown leather briefcase in an empty federal courthouse corridor, an American flag blurred behind him

Trump’s ‘Grand Conspiracy’ Prosecutor Promised Charges in 30 Days, Not a Resignation Letter

Aging municipal water treatment basins and rusted pipework behind a padlocked chain-link fence, with a city skyline on the horizon under an overcast sky

The Fifth Circuit Told Jackson to Elect Better Water Managers. It Has Not Run Its Water Since 2022.

The Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City at dusk, its limestone dome and columned portico lit from within on the bluff above the Missouri River.

Missouri’s Map Fell to 300,000 Signatures, a Veto the Elections Clause Could Not Reach

A tall white steel defendants cage stands in an Egyptian criminal courtroom, lit by daylight from a high window, with an empty judges bench to one side

One Cairo Courtroom Just Matched Egypt’s Entire 2025 Total of Drug Death Sentences

A low rope on white posts runs from the dune line toward the surf, splitting a wide white-sand beach, with pastel beach houses on the dune ridge and one empty folding chair on the open side

The Law That Closed Walton County’s Beaches Was Repealed Fourteen Months Ago

A long line of people of many ages waits on a sidewalk beside a federal office building, with a uniformed guard standing at a single closed glass door

Miami’s In-Absentia Deportation Orders Doubled in Two Months, the Kind That Almost Never Gets Reopened

The United States Supreme Court building lit by floodlights at dusk, with the dish and mast of a television news satellite truck and a broadcast camera silhouetted in the foreground.

The Supreme Court Locked In Midterm Ad Rates Without Ruling on Whether They Are Legal

A woman with long dark hair sits alone at a courtroom table, hands folded, with rows of empty wooden jury seats behind her

Lindsay Clancy’s Jury Deadlocked Over One Holdout, Not Over Postpartum Psychosis

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte stands in a wood-panelled Senate session hall, the Philippine flag behind her

The Case That Can Actually End Sara Duterte’s Career Is Not the One That Just Got Her a Warrant

The neoclassical limestone facade of the United States Department of Justice headquarters in Washington at dusk, an American flag hanging between the tall columns and bare winter branches in the foreground.

An ICE Agent Faces a Lying Charge Because Washington Blocked the Civil Rights Case

One person seated alone at a witness table facing a curved hearing dais lined with four empty leather chairs in a marble committee room

The Agency Claiming Sole Power Over Sports Betting Has Exactly One Commissioner Left

Yellow police tape strung across a wet street at night in front of a tall apartment high-rise washed in red and blue emergency lights, with distant first responders near the entrance

Two Minneapolis Officers Were Shot at Loring Towers in the Building’s Second Ambush in Eleven Months

A tall stack of government documents covered in heavy black redaction bars sits under a brass desk lamp in a dim courtroom, an empty judge's bench behind it

Congress Is Writing a Second Epstein Law Because the Attorney General Already Admitted He Is Breaking the First

A bald man in his sixties with a grey goatee, wearing a dark suit and patterned grey tie, sits at a wooden courtroom defense table with a closed legal folder in front of him

A Jury Took Less Than Three Hours to Convict Duane Davis on Evidence He Supplied Himself

NYPD officers stand behind yellow police tape beside patrol cars with flashing lights on a rain-slicked Seventh Avenue in Times Square at dusk

A Taser Failed in Times Square. The Next Sixty Seconds Were the Whole Story.

The White House lit at dusk beside a floodlit construction site where the East Wing stood, showing an exposed steel frame, a tower crane and workers behind green site fencing

The Supreme Court Let Trump Finish a Ballroom Its Own Chief Justice Calls Likely Unlawful

Oil painting portrait of Tupac Shakur in a black bandana, painted in loose visible brush strokes against an ochre and teal background

The Tupac Jury Is Being Asked About a Promise of Immunity, Not a Drive-By