WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - Five more U.S. states are joining an antitrust lawsuit challenging Nexstar's acquisition of rival broadcaster Tegna after a ‌judge temporarily blocked the deal from proceeding, according to California's attorney general. Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat whose office joined seven other states in suing over the $6.2 billion deal in March, said on April 30 that Massachusetts, Vermont, and his Republican counterparts in Indiana, Kansas, and Pennsylvania were joining the case. "These misguided attorneys general are strangling local journalism," Nexstar said, arguing that the real drivers of local news decline are "the unchecked rise of Big Tech platforms, the spread of misinformation on social media, and the economic pressures that have already led to widespread newsroom closures." Separately, Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said on April 30 that he struck a deal with Nexstar to maintain the independence of two local stations in Columbus and Cleveland where the company would own two affiliates following the merger. The deal requires maintaining separate news teams at each station and preserving existing levels of local programming through 2030. U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley in Sacramento said in an April 17 ruling that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their ​claims that the deal will substantially lessen competition in dozens of ​local television markets. The court’s order bars Nexstar from consolidating its operations with ⁠Tegna pending further litigation, but does not unwind the transaction. The deal quickly closed after the ​Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission approved it on March 19, which Nexstar ​noted in a statement announcing its appeal of Nunley's decision. The deal would create the largest broadcast station group ​in the ⁠United States, reaching 80% of households. The states have argued that the deal would result in lost jobs, increased cable bills and "significantly impact the delivery of news and other ⁠media content ​to Americans nationwide." Nexstar has ​said its deal with Tegna will strengthen local stations and support investment in local journalism. (Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Kirsten Donovan)

Summary: Wayne Hsiung charged with felony burglary in Wisconsin Dane County court commissioner lifts ban on Hsiung in county Ridglan Farms agrees to sell majority of dogs to rescue groups A judge found enough evidence to continue a criminal case against a California attorney accused of leading a break-in at a beagle breeding facility outside of Madison, Wisconsin in March. Wayne Hsiung appeared in Dane County Circuit Court for a preliminary hearing on April 29, where a court commissioner found substantial information to continue the case, after seeing multiple videos of the March 15 break-in at Ridglan Farms in Blue Mounds, about 30 miles outside of Madison. About a dozen of Hsiung's supporters gathered in the courtroom, some suppressing tears as videos of the beagles at Ridglan were played as evidence. Hsuing, a California attorney and animal rights activist, was arrested earlier this month after an attempted raid at Ridglan Farms in Blue Mounds. Speaking to supporters and reporters after the hour-long hearing, Hsiung said he is confident in the case. "We have never had this much evidence of animal abuse in an open rescue, probably in history, and certainly from what I've seen," he said. "And because of that, this case demonstrates the profound failure of the legal system to protect the most vulnerable in our society. Dogs can't file a lawsuit, the can't call 911, they can't file a criminal complaint." Hsiung called his case a "test for our legal system." His attorney said he does not want to see the case dismissed, so that Hsiung gets his day in court. At his initial court appearance April 21, Court Commissioner Brian Asmus banned Hsiung from Dane County, except for hearings or meetings with his attorney. At the April 29 hearing, attorneys for Hsiung asked Asmus to remove the stipulations that prevent him from being in Dane County or speaking with his co-defendants. Asmus agreed to lift the ban on Hsiung being in Dane County, but kept the ban on Hsiung speaking with his co-defendants. He and four co-defendants – Melany Brieno, Aditya Aswani, Michelle Lunsky and Dean Wyrzykowski – have been charged with felony burglary as a party to a crime, a class F felony carrying a maximum penalty of 12 years and six months in prison and a $25,000 fine. Hundreds of animal rights activists descended upon Ridglan to protest against the farm on April 20, which breeds and raises beagles for research. The activists were hoping to take the nearly 2,000 beagles that remain at the facility, but no dogs were removed from the premises. Videos from the day showed people being pepper sprayed and tear-gassed by law enforcement. About 25 people were arrested. In a previous raid in March, dozens of activists managed to get into the facility and removed 23 dogs. Twenty-seven people were arrested in relation to that break-in. The protests followed an October settlement between the state and Ridglan, in which the facility agreed to stop the breeding and sales of dogs by July 1, but was still permitted to conduct its own internal research on the remaining animals. The settlement came after a Dane County judge appointed a special prosecutor last year to examine evidence against Ridglan Farms gathered by several animal rights groups. Former employees testified that dogs were being mistreated, including having their eye glands removed without anesthesia or pain control. The special prosecutor, La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke, determined the eye procedures violated state veterinary standards and constituted animal mistreatment. In exchange for the state not prosecuting, Ridglan agreed to give up its state breeding license, which ends its practice of selling dogs to outside researchers. Following the most recent protests, activists sued Ridglan Farms and the Dane County Sheriff's Department over its response to what they said was initially a peaceful protest. Police deployed tear gas and rubber bullets, which protestors argue was an excessive use of force. According to a report from the Cap Times, the lawsuit argues that law enforcement failed to safely intervene to protect the activists and the dogs inside the facility. Ridglan Farms said the claims in the lawsuit are "without merit," and that law enforcement was keeping the dogs and the property safe. It has repeatedly denied mistreating the dogs in its care. The company says that the beagles have contributed to research on rabies, canine parvovirus, heartworm, dog arthritis and distemper. Ridglan Farms announced plans April 29 to sell a majority of its dogs to two animal rescue groups. Laura Schulte can be reached at [email protected] and on X @SchulteLaura. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Attorney who led beagle farm raid says case will be 'test for our legal system' Reporting by Laura Schulte, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Summary: Supreme Court issues 6-3 ruling authored by Justice Samuel Alito Section 2 of Voting Rights Act now requires proof of intentional discrimination NAACP calls decision a devastating blow to voting rights protections The U.S. Supreme Court on April 29 undermined a key provision of the Voting Rights Act - raising the bar for racial minorities to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory under the landmark civil rights law - in a victory for Louisiana Republicans and President Donald Trump's administration. The justices, in a 6-3 ruling powered by the court's conservative members, upheld a lower court's decision blocking an electoral map that had given the state a second Black-majority congressional district. The lower court had found that the map was guided too much by racial considerations in violation of the constitutional promise of equal protection under the law. The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. The ruling was authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by his five fellow conservative justices. The three liberal justices dissented. The Louisiana case involved a central element of the Voting Rights Act. The law's Section 2 was enacted by Congress to prohibit electoral maps that would result in diluting the clout of minority voters, even without direct proof of racist intent. Alito wrote that the focus of Section 2 must now be to enforce the Constitution's prohibition on intentional racial discrimination under the 15th Amendment. "Only when understood this way does (Section 2) of the Voting Rights Act properly fit within Congress’s Fifteenth Amendment enforcement power," Alito wrote. Interpreting Section 2 to "outlaw a map solely because it fails to provide a sufficient number of majority-minority districts would create a right that the Amendment does not protect," Alito added. Legal analysts said before the ruling was issued that a decision undercutting Section 2 could benefit Republican candidates. REDISTRICTING BATTLES The ruling was issued amid a battle unfolding in Republican-governed and Democratic-led states around the country involving the redrawing of electoral maps to change the composition of congressional districts for partisan advantage ahead of the November congressional elections. Trump's party is aiming in the elections to retain the now razor-thin Republican majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. This provision gained greater significance as a bulwark against racial discrimination in voting after the Supreme Court, in a 2013 ruling authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, gutted a different part of the same law. Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissent joined by the two other liberal justices, said that the ruling will have major consequences. "Under the court's new view of Section 2, a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens' voting power. Of course, the majority does not announce today’s holding that way. Its opinion is understated, even antiseptic. The majority claims only to be 'updating' our Section 2 law, as though through a few technical tweaks," Kagan said. "But in fact, those 'updates' eviscerate the law, so that it will not remedy even the classic example of vote dilution given above," she added. The Trump administration backed the challenge made in the Louisiana case to the Voting Rights Act, advocating for raising the bar for proving a Section 2 violation. Harvard Law School Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos, who filed a brief in the case defending the Voting Rights Act, called the ruling "a complete gutting of Section 2." "It's still there, in theory, but no one will be able to win a claim under the provision," Stephanopoulos said. "States can freely dismantle minority-opportunity districts as long as they make clear they're doing so for partisan or other political reasons." NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the decision a "devastating blow" to the Voting Rights Act. Johnson said the civil rights organization plans to respond by turning out voters in the midterm elections, adding that "our best defense and offense is the ballot box." ANOTHER VOTING RIGHTS ROLLBACK Louisiana, where Black people make up roughly a third of the population, has six U.S. House of Representatives districts. Black voters tend to support Democratic candidates. In a process called redistricting, the boundaries of legislative districts across the United States are reconfigured to reflect population changes as measured by the national census conducted every 10 years. Redistricting typically has been carried out by state legislatures once per decade. After Louisiana's Republican-controlled legislature adopted a map that included just one Black-majority district following the 2020 census, a group of Black Louisiana voters sued. A federal judge then ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, deciding that the map likely harmed Black voters in violation of Section 2. The state legislature responded by drawing a new map that added a second Black-majority district. This map prompted a separate lawsuit by 12 Louisiana voters who described themselves in court papers as "non-African American." They argued that the second Black-majority district unlawfully reduced the influence of non-Black voters like them. White people make up a majority of Louisiana's population. The redrawn map relied too heavily on race in violation of the equal protection principle, a three-judge panel found in a 2-1 ruling, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has rolled back protections under the Voting Rights Act. Its 2013 ruling in a case involving Alabama's Shelby County gutted a Voting Rights Act provision that had required states and locales with a history of racial discrimination to get federal approval to change voting laws. The court, however, ruled 5-4 in 2023 that a Republican-drawn electoral map in Alabama violated Section 2, siding with Black voters who had challenged the map and had sought an additional Black-majority congressional district. Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court's three liberals to form a majority in that decision. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the Louisiana case in October 2025. It previously had heard arguments in the case in March 2025, but sidestepped a decision and ordered another round of arguments. Louisiana initially had appealed the three-judge panel's ruling and argued in March on the same side as the Black voters. But the Republican-led state subsequently reversed its stance.