Summary: President Donald Trump unveiled architectural drawings of a $400 million, 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom. Trump said the ballroom acts as a shelter for a massive secret military complex being built underneath. The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit challenging the ballroom's construction without required approvals. Trump described the ballroom as privately funded and designed to seat 1,000 people with bulletproof and drone-proof features. President Donald Trump says an important part of the $400 million ballroom he is building for the White House is a "massive military complex" underneath it that was supposed to remain secret. Trump’s explanation came as he unveiled architectural drawings of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which critics have said is out of scale to the rest of the building. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is fighting the ballroom in federal court, which is where details about the military aspect of the project were revealed. “Now the military is building a big complex under the ballroom, which has come out recently because of a stupid lawsuit that was filed, but the military's building a massive complex under the ballroom, and that's under construction and we're doing very well,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on March 29. A bunker was installed beneath the East Wing during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration to protect the chief executive. The Presidential Emergency Operations Center was created and updated over the years to protect the president from attacks, including potentially a nuclear war. Trump has already bulldozed the East Wing, which had been built in 1902 during President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration and expanded in 1942 during Franklin Roosevelt’s administration. Trump argued the White House has needed a ballroom for 150 years because the largest room, the East Room, holds only 125 people for formal dinners. Larger events were held in tents on the South Lawn, where Trump said soggy ground often left foreign leaders with wet feet. Trump has promoted the new ballroom, which is being privately funded, for seating 1,000 people. He showed drawings to reporters of the ballroom flanked by Corinthian columns and featuring bulletproof and drone-proof windows. “I think it'll be the finest ballroom of its kind anywhere in the world,” Trump said. The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit against the ballroom for allegedly building without required approvals or congressional authorization. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon held a hearing on March 17 as he considers whether to block the project temporarily. Trump raised the military aspect of the project during a Cabinet meeting on March 26. “I mean, now it's no secret, the military wanted it more than anybody,” Trump said. “It was supposed to be secret, but it became secret because of people that are really unpatriotic saying things, but doesn't matter, doesn't matter. It's going to be great.” Aboard Air Force One, Trump characterized the ballroom as a shelter for the military component. “The ballroom essentially becomes a shed for what's being built under the military, including from drones and including from any other thing,” Trump said. This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: “Trump defends White House ballroom as 'shed' for secret complex” Reporting by Bart Jansen, USA TODAY Network / The Detroit News USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Summary: 6th Circuit grants qualified immunity to Michigan prison officials Scabies outbreak at women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility Circuit Judge Helene White dissents on immunity ruling Michigan prison officials can't be held liable under the U.S. Constitution for incompetent handling of a scabies outbreak by contracted medical providers, a federal appeals court has ruled. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, overturning a ruling by a federal judge in Detroit, said in a 2-1 opinion March 26 that high-level prison officials have "qualified immunity" from claims under the federal constitution for failing to identify and properly treat a scabies outbreak at Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility near Ypsilanti, which resulted in women suffering from rashes, severe itching and related infections for a more than two-year period, between 2016 and 2019. The appellate court did, however, rule that Michigan prison officials don't enjoy that same immunity under state law, allowing negligence complaints against state officials to proceed. The women can also proceed with their claims against the prison medical provider the state contracted with at the time, Corizon Health. The Detroit Free Press reported extensively on the scabies outbreak at the time it was happening. At one point, prison officials blamed the women inmates for the rashes, wrongly alleging the outbreak was caused by women trying to wash their own clothes instead of sending them to the prison laundry. The scabies determination was only made after a Flint dermatologist, Dr. Walter Barkey, learned about the undiagnosed rashes and itching and asked to be allowed inside the prison to perform skin tests. In 2019, Machelle Pearson, who was an inmate at Women's Huron Valley at the time of the scabies outbreak but was paroled in 2018, along with three other current or former women inmates, sued the Michigan Department of Corrections, MDOC Director Heidi Washington, other prison officials, a Wayne State University official the MDOC hired as a medical director, and Corizon. The case has been complicated by Corizon's 2023 bankruptcy filing and delayed by the state defendants appealing U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy's 2024 denial of their claims of qualified immunity to federal constitutional claims of "deliberate indifference" to the prisoners' medical needs and that they overlooked dangerous and potentially harmful prison conditions. The MDOC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on March 27. Writing for the majority, Circuit Judge Eric Murphy, who is not related to the Detroit federal judge handling the case, said it was reasonable for Michigan prison officials to rely on their medical experts in responding to the scabies outbreak. "Admittedly, the complaint alleges that the Corizon practitioners provided incompetent and delayed care because they should have diagnosed scabies sooner," the opinion reads. Still, "the inmates do not explain why non-treating officials should face liability for this alleged incompetence." In a partial dissent, Circuit Judge Helene White questioned whether it was reasonable for prison officials to rely on Corizon's medical determinations, given how long the rash problem persisted and given Corizon's allegedly "abysmal" track record providing prison health care. White noted that the MDOC had imposed $1.6 million in penalties on Corizon between 2016 and 2018 for failing to meet contractual requirements. "Where such a medical team also fails to remedy a yearslong health crisis, its supervising personnel cannot claim it was reasonable to unquestioningly rely on the team's determinations," White wrote.

Summary: A Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable for a young woman's depression linked to Instagram and YouTube addiction, awarding $6 million. A New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for misleading users about product safety and enabling child exploitation. Both verdicts challenge Section 230 immunity by focusing on platform design decisions rather than user-generated content.   By Diana Novak Jones Jurors in the first two trials in the U.S. from a growing wave of lawsuits targeting social media firms over harm to children have found Meta and Alphabet's Google liable, potentially teeing up an appeals fight that could reshape how U.S. law shields tech companies from lawsuits. In California, a Los Angeles jury on Wednesday found Meta and Google liable for a young woman’s depression and suicidal thoughts after she said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube at a young age, ordering them to pay a combined $6 million in damages. In a separate New Mexico case, jurors on Tuesday ordered Meta to pay $375 million after finding the company misled users about the safety of its products for young users and enabled the sexual exploitation of children on its platforms. The verdicts pierce a legal shield that plaintiffs suing tech companies have long struggled to overcome: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 federal law that generally protects online platforms from liability over user-generated content. In both cases, the plaintiffs sidestepped that hurdle by arguing the companies harmed young users through decisions they made about the platforms' design rather than the content itself. “Courts are increasingly trying to distinguish claims about platform functionality or platform conduct from claims that would really just impose liability for third-party speech,” said Gregory Dickinson, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law who studies the intersection of tech and the law. Meta and Google have denied the claims, arguing they have taken actions to protect young people. META, GOOGLE CLAIMED LIABILITY SHIELD In both cases, Meta urged the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, as did Google in the Los Angeles case, claiming they were shielded from liability by Section 230. The judges rejected the argument, saying the cases could move to trial. “We respectfully disagree with the verdicts and will appeal,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “We remain committed to building safe, supportive environments for young people and will defend our record vigorously." Google has said it plans to appeal in the Los Angeles case, but did not respond to a request for comment. Those appeals are almost certain to center on Section 230 – and they could have broad implications. Meta, Google, Snapchat parent Snap Inc, and TikTok parent ByteDance are facing thousands of lawsuits in both state and federal court over claims their design choices have led to a mental health crisis for teens and young people. More than 2,400 cases have been centralized before a single judge in California federal court, while thousands of cases are consolidated in California state court. Legal experts say courts have been moving toward a narrower view of Section 230’s liability shield. Several lower courts have ruled that companies’ platform design choices are not protected by the law, but no appellate court has weighed in. Appellate courts, not trial judges, are the ones whose rulings bind other courts. IMPLICATIONS BEYOND SOCIAL MEDIA An appellate ruling on Section 230 could have implications beyond social media, legal experts say, shaping lawsuits against other online platforms that host content used by children. More than 130 lawsuits are pending in federal court against Roblox Corporation, for example, accusing the popular gaming site of failing to protect users from sexual exploitation. Roblox denies the claims. “I think the internet is on trial, not social media,” said Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. "If the theories work, they will be deployed elsewhere." Appeals in both cases would be heard first by appeals courts at the state level. But they could go to higher courts after that. The U.S. Supreme Court has shown a willingness to potentially decide the scope of Section 230. In 2023, the court heard a challenge involving Google's video-sharing platform YouTube, but ultimately sidestepped a ruling on the legal protections for internet companies. In 2024, the high court declined to hear a Texas teen's bid to revive his lawsuit accusing Snapchat owner Snap of failing to protect underage users of its social media platform from sexual predators. Two conservative justices - Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch - dissented from that decision, however, warning of further delays in addressing the issue. "Social-media platforms have increasingly used (Section) 230 as a get-out-of-jail free card," they wrote in a dissent. Meetali Jain, director of the Tech Justice Law Project, which brings litigation against tech companies, said she thinks the U.S. Supreme Court may now be open to weighing in on the scope of Section 230. “I personally think that the Supreme Court is even ready for a case like this, for the right case,” Jain said. (Reporting by Diana Novak Jones in Chicago, additional reporting by Andrew Chung in New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Rod Nickel)