nixes

Sept. 6 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday dismissed Newmax’s lawsuit accusing Fox News of maintaining a monopoly on conservative news broadcasting on cable television.

Newsmax on Wednesday accused the Fox Corp. and Fox News Network of violating the Sherman Act, Florida Antitrust Act and the Florida Deceptive Trade Practices Act by forcing cable services providers to feature Fox News and its less popular news outlets over Newsmax and other providers of conservative-oriented broadcast news.

U.S. District of Southern Florida Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the complaint without prejudice due to a “shotgun pleading” by Newsmax.

The most common type of shotgun pleading is one in which a complaint contains multiple counts that repeat the allegations of preceding counts, Cannon wrote.

Each successive count “adopts the allegations of all preceding counts, causing each successive count to carry all that came before and the last count to be a combination of the entire complaint,” Cannon wrote.

She said the court is obligated to dismiss shotgun pleadings and require the plaintiff to file an amended case for the matter to proceed in court.

Cannon gave Newsmax through Thursday to file an amended complaint, which “must not contain any successive counts that incorporate all prior allegations.”

She said counts one through five can include the same factual allegations without broadly incorporating the allegations of the prior counts.

“Each count must identify the particular legal basis for liability and contain specific factual allegations that support each cause of action within each count,” Cannon said.

If Newsmax does not file sufficiently amended pleadings by the end of the day on Thursday, Cannon said she might dismiss the case without further notice.

Newsmax called the dismissal a “technical matter” and plans to file an amended complaint, a representative told UPI.

“Newsmax cannot sue their way out of their own competitive failures in the marketplace to chase headlines simply because they can’t attract viewers,” Fox News Media told UPI on Thursday.

The cancellation is Trump’s latest move against renewable energy, which the US president has dismissed a ‘scam’.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has moved to cancel $679m in federal funding for offshore wind projects, in its latest salvo against renewable energy.

The move on Friday is set to affect 12 offshore projects, including a $427m project in California, as Trump pushes to deregulate and re-prioritise fossil fuels.

In a statement, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the funding was a waste of money “that could otherwise go towards revitalising America’s maritime industry”.

“Thanks to President Trump, we are prioritising real infrastructure improvements over fantasy wind projects that cost much and offer little,” he said.

The funding had been awarded under the administration of former President Joe Biden as part of a wider pivot towards green energy.

Among the cancellations was funding for The Humboldt Bay project, which was meant to be the first offshore wind terminal on the Pacific coast.

A spokesperson for California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has emerged as a leading state opponent to Trump, criticised the action as an example of the administration “assaulting clean energy and infrastructure projects – hurting business and killing jobs in rural areas, and ceding our economic future to China”.

The cuts include a $47m grant for an offshore wind logistics and manufacturing hub near the Port of Baltimore in Maryland, as well as $48m awarded in 2022 for an offshore wind terminal project near New York’s Staten Island.

Also cut was $33m for a port project in Salem, Massachusetts, to redevelop a vacant industrial facility for offshore wind projects.

In a statement, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey said cancelling the Salem grant will cost 800 construction workers their jobs.

“The real waste here is the Trump administration cancelling tens of millions of dollars for a project that is already under way to increase our energy supply,” she said.

The latest trimming comes after the Trump administration abruptly halted construction of a nearly complete wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The Department of the Interior said the move was necessary to address national security concerns, without providing further details.

In early August, the Interior Department also cancelled a major wind farm in Idaho, which had been approved in the final days of Biden’s presidency.

Multiple federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Energy and Commerce, said they are reviewing offshore wind farms approved by the Biden administration along the Atlantic coast.

Trump has regularly lashed out at green energy, and particularly wind power, calling it an ugly and expensive form of energy that “smart” countries do not use.

Yet, foreign allies and rivals alike have increasingly embraced renewable energy in an effort to slow the ravages of climate change. China, for instance, has invested heavily in solar and wind energy and has become a leading source for wind turbine parts.

Critics have said Trump’s approach will set the US back behind its competitors.

Last week, as US electricity prices rose at more than twice the rate of inflation, Trump falsely blamed renewable power for the skyrocketing prices, calling the industry a “scam”.

On Tuesday, he pledged not to move forward with any wind power projects.

“We’re not allowing any windmills to go up unless there’s a legal situation where somebody committed to it a long time ago,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting.

A civilian court of appeals says ex-Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin ‘had full legal authority’ to withdraw the plea agreement.

Washington, DC – An appeals court in the United States has validated the decision of former Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin to withdraw a plea deal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001.

A panel of judges at the Washington, DC-based federal court of appeals ruled on Friday that Austin “had full legal authority” to revoke the plea agreement for Mohammed and two other defendants.

That deal would have spared Mohammed the possibility of the death penalty in exchange for a plea of guilty.

Friday’s decision will prolong a decades-long legal saga for Mohammed, who has been imprisoned at a notorious detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since he was captured in Pakistan in 2003.

Austin revoked the deal in August of last year, saying that the US public and victims’ families “deserve the opportunity to see” the case brought to trial before a military commission — an alternative justice system established for Guantanamo detainees.

But any trial is likely to be fraught with challenges — including questions about evidence obtained by torture — and will take years, extending the legal limbo for the Guantanamo detainees.

A military judge reinstated the plea agreements in November, and a military appeals court affirmed the decision one month later.

The administration of former President Joe Biden then took the case to a federal civilian court of appeals.

Lawyers for defendants like Mohammed argued that Austin was too late to revoke the agreements, parts of which were already materialising.

But the court of appeals in Washington, DC, ultimately ruled that Austin was right to wait for the outcome of the plea negotiations before revoking the deals.

Writing on behalf of the court’s majority, Judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao said that preventing the withdrawal of the deal would have sent the message that plea agreements are “irrevocable upon signing”.

“The Secretary acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment,” the ruling read.

However, dissenting Judge Robert Wilkins decried the decision as revoking a contract that was already in effect.

He likened nixing the plea agreement to refusing to pay a painter who has already finished parts of the work stipulated in a home repairs contract.

For years, rights groups have called for shutting down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, known as Gitmo.

The prison opened in 2002 to house prisoners from the so-called “war on terror” following the attacks in the US on September 11, 2001.

Detainees were arrested in countries across the world on suspicions of ties to al-Qaeda and other groups. Many endured torture at secret detention facilities, known as black sites, before being transferred to Guantanamo.

At Gitmo, civil liberty advocates say detainees had few legal rights. Even those cleared for release through the military commissions remained imprisoned for years, with no recourse to challenge their detention.

The detention facility once housed nearly 800 Muslim men and teenage boys. Now only 15 prisoners remain at the prison; three are eligible for release.