‘Don’t threaten our first responders’: Jackson sues FEMA again over withheld public safety funds

Summary: EBay agrees to pay $46.15 million to the Steiners Settlement includes $6 million in charitable contributions Seven former eBay employees pleaded guilty to stalking charges EBay and three former top executives have agreed to pay $55.7 million to resolve a lawsuit by a Massachusetts couple who fell victim to a bizarre stalking and harassment campaign carried out by several of its employees in retaliation for their coverage of the e-commerce company in a newsletter they publish. David and Ina Steiner announced the settlement late on July 27, bringing an end to a case they filed in 2021 in Boston federal court after several former eBay employees were prosecuted for targeting them in a cyber-stalking campaign that involved sending the couple cockroaches, fly larvae and a bloody Halloween pig mask. As part of the settlement, eBay agreed to pay $46.15 million to the couple; fund $6 million in charitable contributions to nonprofit organizations; and issue a "strongly-worded" statement about the conduct of three of its top former executives. "We believe this resolution sends a clear message that corporations and their executives cannot engage in this type of misconduct without facing significant consequences," Christopher Murphy, the Steiners' attorney, said in a statement. EBay said in a statement that what happened to the Steiners was "wrong, reprehensible and should never have happened." "We continue to extend our deepest apologies to the Steiners," the company said. "This agreement is consistent with our commitment to fairly compensate the Steiners and fulfills our efforts to make things right." Seven former eBay workers pleaded guilty and received sentences of as high as 57 months in prison for participating in the scheme, which also involved several of them traveling from California to Natick, Massachusetts, to surveil the Steiners and try to install a GPS tracking device on their car. Prosecutors have said that the aim was to silence them after senior executives deemed their newsletter, EcommerceBytes, critical of the company. The campaign began after then-CEO Devin Wenig in August 2019 texted Steve Wymer, then its chief communications officer, that it was time to "take her down," referring to Ina Steiner, according to prosecutors and the Steiners. EBay itself was criminally charged and agreed in 2024 to pay a $3 million fine. Wenig, a former Thomson Reuters executive who stepped down as eBay's CEO in September 2019, was never charged. His lawyers have argued he had no knowledge or involvement in the harassment campaign and that his messages had been advocating for a public relations strategy to address Ina Steiner's reporting. As part of the settlement, the Steiners' attorneys said Wenig will pay them $2 million and make a $1 million donation to a charity focused on protecting First Amendment rights in the name of Ina Steiner. "No one should ever have been subjected to what the Steiners endured in 2019, and I’m saddened by it, especially because it occurred during my time as CEO of eBay," Wenig said in a statement on July 28. "This behavior is antithetical to everything I stand for and believe in." Wendy Jones, who previously served as senior vice president of global operations, and Wymer will pay the couple $500,000 and $50,000, respectively, the plaintiffs say. Their lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. The Steiners' lawyers said additional settlements were reached with all other eBay employees named in their lawsuit. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Summary: Tennessee attorneys present internal Meta research on teen harm Meta lawyers argue company transparency and shared responsibility New Mexico jury previously ordered Meta to pay $375 million Attorneys for the state of Tennessee told a jury in Nashville on July 27 that Meta Platforms' leadership disregarded internal research about its Instagram platform's impact on teenagers as the company sought to maximize profit from young users. During opening statements in a seven-week trial in state court in Tennessee, the state's lawyers said Meta researchers repeatedly flagged that some teenagers were compulsively using the platform, leading to eating disorders, depression and self-harm. But despite those warnings, Meta did not disable features such as autoplay, notifications and infinite scroll that, the lawyers said, were designed to keep teens on Instagram as long as possible and increase the number of ads they viewed. An attorney for Meta countered that the company has been transparent about the risks teens face on Instagram and the amount of dangerous content that it finds. The company works hard to find problems and fix them, he said. The lawsuit, filed by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti's office, seeks financial penalties and a court order directing Instagram to modify aspects of the platform that the state says are harmful to teens' mental health. If the jury finds the company liable, the trial will enter a second phase before Chancellor Russell Perkins, the judge overseeing the trial, who will decide whether to order the company to pay financial penalties and make changes to Instagram to make it safer for teens. During the opening statements, which Reuters watched on Courtroom View Network, Tom Cartmell, a lawyer for the state, played the familiar dinging sound of a notification hitting a smartphone. Unpredictable rewards like notifications trigger dopamine hits that promote addiction, which has a particularly strong impact on the brains of kids, Cartmell said. Meta understood the brain science behind why teens find its platform so irresistible, Cartmell said. Cartmell showed the jury an internal document from 2017 in which Meta product managers wrote that features like notifications and infinite scroll “are inherently at odds with well-being” and said that the company needed to warn the public. “This warning never came,” Cartmell said. Kevin Huff, a lawyer for Meta, said documents like those Cartmell cited are proof that the company is searching for problems on its platforms, so it can improve them. The company has developed tools to help limit problematic use of Instagram, and seeks to empower teachers and parents to help keep teens safe, Huff said. Huff urged jurors to consider whether Meta should bear sole responsibility for societal problems such as suicide, child exploitation and addiction. "We think the evidence will show that Meta is doing its part and empowering others to do their part, because protecting teens online is a shared responsibility. It takes a village." Nearly every state in the country has filed claims against Meta over its platforms' alleged impact on children. More than two dozen of the lawsuits have been consolidated in multidistrict litigation in San Francisco, while many other states have sued in their own courts. Separately, Meta and other social media companies are facing thousands of lawsuits brought by individuals and school districts. Tennessee's lawsuit is the second state case to reach a jury. Earlier this year, a jury in New Mexico found the company liable and ordered it to pay $375 million. A judge is weighing additional financial penalties as well as an order directing the company to change Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in the state.

Summary: 1st Circuit Court issues 2-1 ruling Judge Indira Talwani's injunction upheld Trump's order challenged by coalition of 23 states A federal appeals court on July 25 declined to allow U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to implement in 23 states his executive order that aims to tighten rules for mail-in voting ahead of November elections that will decide control of Congress. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the administration's request to lift an injunction several Democratic-led states secured on June 25 from a lower-court judge who concluded that key parts of the Republican president's order were unconstitutional. In asking the court to pause U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's ruling while it pursues an appeal, the U.S. Department of Justice had argued that because government agencies had yet to finalize actions and policies to implement Trump's directive, any lawsuit challenging his order was premature. The appeals court, in a 2-1 ruling, rejected that argument. "As the district court reasoned, the (executive order) lays out a clear set of rapidly approaching deadlines by which states must coordinate with federal officials and comply with new voting procedures — all while the states must also ensure that their officials and the public understand the evolving set of rules that would govern the upcoming September and November elections," the judges wrote. "The Plaintiff States have no practical choice but to respond to the (order) now." Before Talwani ruled, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., rejected a related effort by Democrats to block Trump's order on similar grounds. The Justice Department warned that absent a ruling in its favor from the 1st Circuit, it may be forced to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. Trump signed the executive order in March after years of calling for tighter rules on voting by mail and pushing the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud. Under the U.S. Constitution, states are assigned the role of administering federal elections. That order came on top of other efforts by Trump to overhaul elections. He has made winning approval in Congress of a divisive package of voting restrictions called the SAVE America Act a priority. Judges have blocked an earlier executive order he signed requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and restricting the counting of mail ballots. But Talwani, in siding with a coalition of 23 states and the District of Columbia that was led by California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington state, said the president lacked any authority to direct DHS to compile voter eligibility lists for each state to use and that USPS had no statutory authorization to adopt any binding regulations on mail-in voting. The judge said Trump also could not attempt through his order "to intimidate local election officials to use the necessarily incomplete confirmed citizenship lists as a resource, lest they face criminal prosecution."