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BALTIMORE — The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit against federal judges in Maryland over an order that blocks the immediate removal of any detained immigrant who requests a court hearing.

The unusual suit filed Tuesday in Baltimore against the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Maryland and the court’s other judges underscores the administration’s focus on immigration enforcement and ratchets up its fight with the judiciary.

At issue is an order signed by Chief Judge George L. Russell III and filed in May blocking the administration from immediately removing from the U.S. any immigrants who file paperwork with the Maryland federal district court seeking a review of their detention. The order blocks the removal until 4 p.m. on the second business day after the habeas corpus petition is filed.

In its suit, the Trump administration says such an automatic pause on removals violates a Supreme Court ruling and impedes the president’s authority to enforce immigration laws.

“Defendants’ automatic injunction issues whether or not the alien needs or seeks emergency relief, whether or not the court has jurisdiction over the alien’s claims, and no matter how frivolous the alien’s claims may be,” the suit says. “And it does so in the immigration context, thus intruding on core Executive Branch powers.”

The suit names the U.S. and U.S. Department of Homeland Security as plaintiffs.

The Maryland district court had no comment, Chief Deputy Clerk David Ciambruschini said in an email.

The Trump administration has repeatedly clashed with federal judges over its deportation efforts.

One of the Maryland judges named as a defendant in Tuesday’s lawsuit, Paula Xinis, has called the administration’s deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador illegal. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia have asked Xinis to impose fines against the administration for contempt, arguing that it ignored court orders for weeks to return him to the U.S. from El Salvador.

And on the same day the Maryland court issued its order pausing removals, a federal judge in Boston said the White House had violated a court order on deportations to third countries with a flight linked to South Sudan.

A fired Justice Department lawyer said in a whistleblower complaint made public Tuesday that a top official at the agency had suggested the Trump administration might have to ignore court orders as it prepared to deport Venezuelan migrants it accused of being gang members.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said court injunctions “designed to halt” the president’s agenda have undermined his authority since the first hours of his administration.

“The American people elected President Trump to carry out his policy agenda: this pattern of judicial overreach undermines the democratic process and cannot be allowed to stand,” she said in a statement announcing the lawsuit against Maryland’s district court.

The order signed by Russell says it aims to maintain existing conditions and the potential jurisdiction of the court, ensure immigrant petitioners are able to participate in court proceedings and access attorneys and give the government “fulsome opportunity to brief and present arguments in its defense.”

In an amended order, Russell said the court had received an influx of habeas petitions after hours that “resulted in hurried and frustrating hearings in that obtaining clear and concrete information about the location and status of the petitioners is elusive.”

The Trump administration has asked the Maryland judges to recuse themselves from the case. It wants a clerk to have a federal judge from another state hear it.

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has filed an extraordinary lawsuit against the Maryland district court system and its federal judges, accusing them of having “used and abused” their powers to stymie deportations.

The complaint was lodged late on Tuesday. In its 22 pages, the administration accuses Maryland’s federal courts of “unlawful, anti-democratic” behaviour for placing limits on Trump’s deportation policies.

Fifteen district judges are named among the defendants, as is a clerk of court, one of the administrative officials in the court system.

The complaint advances an argument that Trump and his allies have long made publicly: that the president has a mandate from voters to carry out his campaign of mass deportation — and that the courts are standing in the way.

“Injunctions against the Executive Branch are particularly extraordinary because they interfere with that democratically accountable branch’s exercise of its constitutional powers,” the lawsuit reads.

It seeks an immediate injunction against a recent ruling from Chief Judge George Russell III, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

Russell had issued a standing order that would automatically take effect each time an immigrant files a petition for habeas corpus — in other words, a petition contesting their detention.

The chief judge’s order prevents the Trump administration from deporting the immigrant in question for a period of two business days after the petition is filed. That time frame, Russell added, can be extended at the discretion of the court.

The idea is to protect an immigrant’s right to due process — their right to a fair hearing in the legal system — so that they have the time to appeal their deportation if necessary.

But the Trump administration said that Russell’s order, and other orders from federal judges in Maryland, do little more than subvert the president’s power to exercise his authority over immigration policy.

“Every unlawful order entered by the district courts robs the Executive Branch of its most scarce resource: time to put its policies into effect,” the lawsuit argued.

Trump’s immigration policies have faced hundreds of legal challenges since the president took office for his second term in January.

Tuesday’s lawsuit admits as much, citing that fact as evidence of judicial bias against Trump’s immigration agenda.

“In the first 100 days of President Trump’s current term, district courts have entered more nationwide injunctions than in the 100 years from 1900 to 2000, requiring the Supreme Court to intervene again and again in recent weeks,” the lawsuit said.

The Supreme Court has upheld the right to due process, writing in recent cases like JGG v Trump that immigrants must be able to seek judicial review for their cases.

But critics have argued that other recent decisions have undermined that commitment. Earlier this week, for instance, the Supreme Court lifted a lower court’s ruling that barred the US government from deporting immigrants to third-party countries without prior notice.

Tuesday’s lawsuit against the Maryland federal court system appears poised to test whether the judicial branch can continue to serve as a check against the executive branch’s powers, at least as far as immigration is concerned.

The lawsuit attacks Maryland’s immigration-related court orders on several fronts. For example, it questions whether “immediate and irreparable injury” is likely in the deportation cases. It also asserts that the federal courts are impeding immigration courts — which fall under the authority of the executive branch — from greenlighting deportations.

But the complaint also emphasises the need for speed in executing the removals of immigrants from the US.

“Removals can take months of sensitive diplomacy to arrange and often do not completely come together until the last minute,” the Trump administration’s lawsuit said.

“A delay can undo all of those arrangements and require months of additional work before removal can be attempted again.”

Maryland is a reliably Democratic-leaning state, and the Trump administration has been dealt some significant setbacks in its federal courts.

That, in turn, has led the president and his allies to denounce the courts for “judicial overreach”, a theme reprised in Tuesday’s court filing.

One of the most prominent immigration cases unfolding in the US is that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant and resident of Maryland who was deported despite a protection order allowing him to remain in the country. His lawyers have maintained he fled El Salvador to escape gang violence.

His deportation was challenged before District Judge Paula Xinis, one of the judges named in Tuesday’s complaint.

Xinis ruled in early April that the US must “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return from the El Salvador prison where he was being held, and the Supreme Court upheld that decision — though it struck the word “effectuate” for being unclear.

The Maryland judge then ordered the Trump administration to provide updates about the steps it was taking to return Abrego Garcia to the US. She has since indicated the administration could be held in contempt of court for failing to do so.

Abrego Garcia was abruptly returned to the US on June 6, after more than two and a half months imprisoned in El Salvador. The Trump administration said it brought him back to face criminal charges for human trafficking in Tennessee. That case is currently ongoing, and Abrego Garcia has denied the charges against him.

That legal proceeding, and Xinis’s orders, were not explicitly named in Tuesday’s lawsuit. But the complaint offered a broad critique of orders like hers.

“Defendants’ lawless standing orders are nothing more than a particularly egregious example of judicial overreach interfering with Executive Branch prerogatives,” the lawsuit argued, “and thus undermining the democratic process.”

June 23 (UPI) — The Trump administration filed a lawsuit Monday in support of a challenge to a new Washington State law mandating clergy to report child abuse, describing the rule as “anti-Catholic” and a violation of the Constitution.

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Catholic, signed Senate Bill 5375 into law early last month. The new law, which goes into effect July 27, adds clergy members — including priests, ministers, rabbi and imam, among others — to the list of people required to report child abuse or neglect to the state or law enforcement under threat of being charged with a gross misdemeanor offense.

The law has received pushback from local Catholics, who have characterized it as forcing them to break the sacred seal of confession in order to avoid prison.

In the Justice Department’s lawsuit, federal prosecutors argue the new law puts Catholic priests at odds with the core tenets and beliefs of their religion and violates their First Amendment right to the freedom of religion “by forcing them to violate the sanctity and confidentiality of confessional communications.

“No other mandatory reporter is required to forego his or her fundamental rights under the Constitution in this manner,” the lawsuit states, while adding that the law will have a “chilling effect” on thousands of Catholic priests and parishioners who may be uncertain about whether adhering to the sacrament of penance will open them to criminal penalties, child welfare investigations, civil liability or excommunication.

“Laws that explicitly target religious practices such as the Sacrament of Confession in the Catholic Church have no place in our society,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division said in a statement.

“Senate Bill 5375 unconstitutionally forces Catholic priests in Washington to choose between their obligations to the Catholic Church and their penitents or face criminal consequences, while treating the priest-penitent privilege differently than other well-settled privileges.”

The lawsuit is an intervention in a complaint filed early this month by Washington State Catholic bishops, who argue it discriminates against them as attorneys are exempt from inclusion as mandatory reporters.

“Washington State has no business intruding into the confessional — particularly when they give a free pass to lawyers who have legally protected confidential relationships with clients,” Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of Becket, a non-profit public interest religious liberty group that is representing the bishops, said in a statement.

“Punishing priests for following the Catholic Church’s millennia-old faith traditions isn’t just wrong, it’s unconstitutional.”

The governor told KUOW in a statement that he wasn’t surprised by the Department of Justice’s intervention.

“It’s disappointing, but not surprising, to see the DOJ seek to shield and protect child abusers.”

For 24 years, immigrants lacking documentation who graduated from high school in California have received in-state tuition benefits at public colleges and universities under a law that’s given tens of thousands access to higher education that many couldn’t otherwise afford.

When the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 540 in 2001, it was the second state in the nation — after Texas — to embrace such tuition policies. Bipartisan efforts quickly grew across the country, with more than 20 states adopting similar policies.

But recent court actions by the Trump administration are causing alarm among immigrant students and casting a shadow over the tuition benefit in California, the state with the largest population of people living in the U.S. without legal authorization.

On June 4, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Texas over its tuition statute for immigrants without authorization, alleging it violated a federal law that prevents people who do not have legal status from receiving public benefits. Texas did not defend its law and instead put its support behind the Trump administration, leaving 57,000 undocumented college students in the state in educational limbo after a federal judge blocked the statute.

Last week, the DOJ launched a similar suit in Kentucky, asking a federal judge to strike down a state practice that it says unlawfully gives undocumented immigrants access to in-state college tuition while American citizens from other states pay higher tuition to attend the same schools.

“Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Atty. Gen. Bondi said of the Texas lawsuit in a statement that signaled a broader fight. “The Justice Department will relentlessly fight to vindicate federal law and ensure that U.S. citizens are not treated like second-class citizens anywhere in the country.”

Is California next?

Legal experts say that it’s not a matter of “if” but when and how the Trump administration will come for California’s law. The White House is already battling the state over liberal policies, including support of transgender students in school sports; sanctuary cities opposing ongoing federal immigration raids; and diversity, equity and inclusion programs in education.

“We are just waiting to see when it’s California’s turn,” said Kevin R. Johnson, the dean of the UC Davis law school, who specializes in immigration. Johnson predicted the White House was going after “lower-hanging fruit” in more conservative states before California, where Trump will face “firm resistance.”

The potential threat has shaken California’s undocumented students.

“If I no longer qualify for lower tuition, I really don’t know what I would do,” said Osmar Enríquez, who graduated last month with an associate’s degree from Santa Rosa Junior College and will enroll at UC Berkeley in August to embark on an undergraduate degree in media studies.

The difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition for people like Enríquez can be thousands of dollars at a community college and tens of thousands at CSU and UC campuses. International students pay out-of-state rates. At Santa Rosa Junior College, the average tuition for two semesters for an in-state student is $621. For an out-of-state student, it’s $5,427.

“What I see the Trump administration doing is trying to exclude us,” said Enríquez, who aspires to one day operate a public relations company. “They don’t want us to get educated or to reach positions of power. And with everything going on now, they are just trying to dehumanize us any way they can.”

More than 80,000 undocumented college students in California

Campus and university-level data on undocumented student populations can be difficult to estimate.

Although universities and colleges keep track of how many students without documentation receive tuition exemptions under AB 540, the data also include citizens who qualify for in-state tuition. These students grew up in the state and graduated from a California high school before their families moved elsewhere.

Numbers are also complicated by changes in the California Dream Act Application, which was established for students lacking documentation to apply for state aid but has expanded to allow students who are citizens and have an undocumented parent.

Out of the University of California system’s nearly 296,000 students, it estimates that between 2,000 and 4,000 are undocumented. Across California State University campuses, there are about 9,500 immigrants without documentation enrolled out of 461,000 total students. The state’s biggest undocumented group, estimated to be 70,000, comprises community college students and recent graduates such as Enríquez.

Born in Mexico and brought by his family to the U.S. when he was a 1-year-old, Enríquez said in-state tuition has made his education monumentally more affordable. At his next stop, UC Berkeley, in-state tuition and fees last year amounted to $16,980. Out-of-state and international students had to pay a total of $54,582.

What students say

Several undocumented students from UCLA, Cal State Los Angeles and other schools declined interviews with The Times or requested to be cited without their names, saying they were fearful of identifying themselves publicly as the federal government undertakes a third week of immigration raids across Southern California.

“I just want to go to school. What is wrong with that?” said an undocumented graduate student at Cal State Los Angeles who received his undergraduate degree at a UC campus. The Latin American studies student asked for his name to be withheld because of concern over immigration enforcement agents targeting him.

“I don’t only want to go a school, I want to go to a public university. I want to contribute to my university. I want to become a professor and teach others and support the state of California,” he said. “Why are we so bent on keeping students from getting an education and giving back?”

Sandra, a Cal State Northridge student who asked to be only identified by her first name, had a similar view. An undocumented immigrant whose parents brought her from Mexico to Los Angeles at age two, she said she would not be in college without the in-state tuition law.

“I was not eligible for DACA, so money is thin,” Sandra said, referencing the Obama-era program that gave work authorization to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children but hasn’t taken new applications since 2021. “We save and we squeeze all we can out of fellowships and scholarships to pay in hopes that we use our education to make a difference and make an income later.”

Legal questions

The Trump administration’s challenge to the tuition rules rest on a 1996 federal law that says people in the U.S. without legal permission should “not be eligible on the basis of residence within a state … for any post-secondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit … without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.”

“There are questions about exactly what that means,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA Law School. “Does that apply to universities that do not use residency as a requirement for the tuition rate but instead use high school graduation in the state?” he said, explaining that state practices differ.

In California, an undocumented immigrant who did not graduate from a high school in the state would typically not qualify for reduced tuition.

The Justice Department has argued in court that giving in-state tuition to immigrants without proper authorization violates the federal law. Some Trump opponents point out that the law does not speak specifically to tuition rates, although courts have interpreted the word “benefit” to include cheaper tuition.

In the recent Texas case, undocumented students, represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, have filed a motion in court, asking the judge to allow them to argue in support of upholding reduced tuition rates.

The tuition policies have survived other legal challenges.

Before Trump administration intervened, the Texas law appeared to be legally sound after a federal appeals court ruled in 2023 that the University of North Texas could charge out-of-state students more than it charges in-state undocumented immigrants. In that case, the court said the plaintiffs did not make good case that out-of state students were illegally treated differently than noncitizens. But the court suggested there could be other legal challenges to tuition rates for immigrants lacking documentation.

The California law has also withstood challenges. The state Supreme Court upheld its legality in 2010 after out-of-state students sued. The next year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the case.

The California court concluded that undocumented immigrants were not receiving preferential treatment because of their immigration status but because they attended and graduated from California schools. Justices said U.S. citizens who attended and graduated from the state’s schools had the same opportunity.

Still, momentum has built to abolish in-state tuition rates for immigrants without legal documentation.

This year, lawmakers in Florida — which had a rule on the books for more than a decade allowing tuition waivers for undocumented students — eliminated the option. Prior to the federal action against Texas, legislators in the state also tried and failed to follow Florida’s lead. During this year’s legislative sessions, bills were also introduced in Kansas and Minnesota, although they have not passed.

Tyler Perry is facing legal backlash to the tune of $260 million from an actor who appeared in his BET drama “The Oval” and is accusing the media mogul of quid pro quo sexual harassment, sexual battery and retaliation, among other counts.

Perry’s accuser, actor Derek Dixon, filed his lawsuit against the billionaire film and TV producer in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Friday. The actor claims Perry leveraged his power and standing in entertainment “to create a coercive, sexually exploitative dynamic with Mr. Dixon — initially promising him career advancement and creative opportunities,” according to court documents reviewed by The Times. Tyler Perry Studios and the And Action production company are listed as co-defendants.

“This is an individual who got close to Tyler Perry for what now appears to be nothing more than setting up a scam,” Perry’s attorney Matthew Boyd said in a statement to The Times. “But Tyler will not be shaken down and we are confident these fabricated claims of harassment will fail.”

In his 46-page complaint, Dixon says he met the “House of Payne” creator in September 2019 when he was working as event staff for one of Perry’s parties. The multi-hyphenate entertainer offered Dixon the chance to audition for his show “Ruthless” a month after their first meeting. Perry claimed he would “change [Plaintiff’s] life” and offered him a small role in the TV series, “setting up the first stage in a series of escalating quid pro quo offers,” the lawsuit alleges.

From January 2020 to June 2024, Perry “sustained a pattern of workplace sexual harassment, assault and retaliation,” the lawsuit alleges. Dixon appeared in 85 episodes of Perry’s presidential drama “The Oval” from 2021 to 2025, according to IMDb.

Dixon accused Perry of relentlessly probing him about his sex life, making suggestive comments and expressing jealousy about his interactions with other men during the duration of their work together. The complaint features multiple screenshots of alleged conversations between Dixon and the media mogul, including messages in which the director asks “What’s it going to take for you to have guiltless sex?” and likens the actor to a rose but says he is “so blocked that you refuse to be smelt [sic] or opened.”

The lawsuit — which evokes cases against Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey and other high-profile Hollywood figures accused of sexual harassment — also details multiple occasions where Perry allegedly groped the actor. The first was in January 2020 when Dixon stayed the night in a guest room at Perry’s home in Georgia and allegedly felt Perry “slip into bed behind him and start rubbing Dixon’s body around his inner thigh in a highly sexual and suggestive manner.” Dixon also accuses Perry of “violently” grabbing his throat in March 2020, groping his buttocks in a trailer later that year, and pulling down his underwear and groping his buttocks again in June 2021.

The complaint underscores that Dixon repeatedly refused Perry’s advances and walked a fine line, keeping his interactions with Perry professional but friendly enough to remain in his good graces. He claims the threat of Perry killing off his character constantly loomed over his “Oval” tenure. In addition to casting Dixon in his series, Perry also expressed interest in helping the actor develop a show, the lawsuit says.

Dixon distanced himself from Perry after the alleged June 2021 assault, the lawsuit says, but the producer’s “fixers” reached out with a new storyline for his “Oval” character and a pay raise. They also allegedly told Dixon he could not tell his castmates about the new perks.

Perry allegedly continued to ask Dixon about his sex life through the years that followed and in March 2024 plans to pitch Dixon’s show began to fall apart. After Perry offered Dixon a writing spot on one of his series in June 2024, Dixon “woke up and realized Perry was never going to be serious about helping Dixon” grow his career, the lawsuit says.

Dixon claims he reported the alleged sexual harassment to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission but the complaint was not investigated. Dixon left “The Oval” and Perry allegedly retaliated by telling Dixon he could say only that he was taking medical leave. “Defendant made the leave of absence unpaid and therefore terminated Plaintiff’s employment causing Dixon additional loss of income and insult,” the suit says.

The lawsuit also includes allegations of work environment harassment, workplace gender violence, sexual assault, negligent retention and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The prominent legal organisation has called the US president’s executive orders against law firms unconstitutional.

The American Bar Association (ABA) has sued the administration of US President Donald Trump, seeking an order that would prevent the White House from pursuing what it called a campaign of intimidation against major law firms.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday in a federal court in Washington, DC, alleged that the administration violated the United States Constitution by issuing a series of executive orders targeting law firms over their past clients and employees.

According to the complaint, those executive orders were used to “to coerce lawyers and law firms to abandon clients, causes, and policy positions the President does not like”.

Dozens of executive agencies and US officials are named in the suit, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Kash Patel and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

In a statement, the ABA — the country’s largest voluntary association for lawyers — called Trump’s attacks on law firms “uniquely destructive”.

“Without skilled lawyers to bring and argue cases, the judiciary cannot function as a meaningful check on the executive branch,” the association wrote.

Four law firms have separately sued the administration over President Trump’s orders, which stripped their lawyers of security clearances and restricted their access to government officials and federal contracting work.

Four different judges in Washington have sided with the firms and temporarily or permanently barred Trump’s orders against them. One of the firms that sued and won a preliminary victory, Susman Godfrey, is representing the ABA in Monday’s lawsuit.

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields responded to Monday’s lawsuit with a statement calling it “clearly frivolous”.

He added that the ABA has no power over the president’s discretion to award government contracts and security clearances to law firms.

“The Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on this issue,” Fields said.

Despite Trump’s court losses, nine law firms have struck deals with the president, pledging to offer nearly $1bn in free legal services to stave off similar executive orders.

Monday’s lawsuit escalates a clash between the ABA and the Trump administration, which has cut some government funding to the group and has moved to restrict its role in vetting federal judicial nominees.

In March, Bondi — the chief law enforcement officer in the US — warned the group that it could lose its role in accrediting law schools unless it cancels a requirement related to student diversity.

MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin dairy farmer alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that the Trump administration is illegally denying financial assistance to white farmers by continuing programs that favor minorities.

The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in federal court in Wisconsin on behalf of a white dairy farmer, Adam Faust.

Faust was among several farmers who successfully sued the Biden administration in 2021 for race discrimination in the USDA’s Farmer Loan Forgiveness Plan.

The new lawsuit alleges the government has continued to implement diversity, equity and inclusion programs that were instituted under former President Biden. The Wisconsin Institute wrote to the USDA in April warning of legal action, and six Republican Wisconsin congressmen called on the USDA to investigate and end the programs.

“The USDA should honor the President’s promise to the American people to end racial discrimination in the federal government,” Faust said in a written statement. “After being ignored by a federal agency that’s meant to support agriculture, I hope my lawsuit brings answers, accountability, and results from USDA.”

Trump administration spokesperson Anna Kelly did not immediately respond to an email Monday seeking comment.

The lawsuit contends that Faust is one of 2 million white male American farmers who are subject to discriminatory race-based policies at the USDA.

The lawsuit names three USDA programs and policies it says put white men at a disadvantage and violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment by discriminating based on race and sex.

Faust participates in one program designed to offset the gap between milk prices and the cost of feed, but the lawsuit alleges he is charged a $100 administrative fee that minority and female farmers do not have to pay.

Faust also participates in a USDA program that guarantees 90% of the value of loans to white farmers, but 95% to women and racial minorities. That puts Faust at a disadvantage, the lawsuit alleges.

Faust has also begun work on a new manure storage system that could qualify for reimbursement under a USDA environmental conservation program, but 75% of his costs are eligible while 90% of the costs of minority farmers qualify, the lawsuit contends.

A federal court judge ruled in a similar 2021 case that granting loan forgiveness only to “socially disadvantaged farmers” amounts to unconstitutional race discrimination. The Biden administration suspended the program and Congress repealed it in 2022.

The Wisconsin Institute has filed dozens of such lawsuits in 25 states attacking DEI programs in government. In its April letter to the USDA, the law firm that has a long history of representing Republicans said it didn’t want to sue “but there is no excuse for this continued discrimination.”

Trump has been aggressive in trying to end the government’s DEI efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and bring about a profound cultural shift across the U.S. from promoting diversity to an exclusive focus on merit.

Bauer writes for the Associated Press.

Alleging widespread and egregious violations of housing and tenant laws, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sued Southern California real estate tycoon Mike Nijjar in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday.

In the lawsuit, Bonta accused Nijjar, family members and their companies of subjecting tenants to vermin infestations and overflowing sewage, overcharging them and violating anti-discrimination laws.

The suit says that Nijjar is one of California’s largest landlords, operating multibillion dollars in holdings. Nijjar family companies, commonly known as PAMA Management, own 22,000 rental units, primarily in low-income neighborhoods in Southern California.

The suit follows a more than two-year California Department of Justice investigation into Nijjar’s holdings, Bonta said.

“PAMA and the companies owned by Mike Nijjar and his family are notorious for their rampant, slum-like conditions — some so bad that residents have suffered tragic results,” Bonta said in a statement. “Our investigation into Nijjar’s properties revealed PAMA exploited vulnerable families, refusing to invest the resources needed to eradicate pest infestations, fix outdated roofs and install functioning plumbing systems, all while deceiving tenants about their rights to sue their landlord and demand repairs.”

Bonta is seeking penalties against Nijjar and his family business entities, restitution for tenants, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and injunctive relief barring Nijjar and PAMA from continuing unlawful business practices.

A representative for Nijjar said he forcefully rejects the claims in the lawsuit.

“The allegations in the complaint are false and misleading, and its claims are legally erroneous,” Nijjar attorney Stephen Larson said in a statement. “We look forward to demonstrating in court that Mr. Nijjar and his companies are not only compliant with the law, but they provide an extraordinary service to housing those disadvantaged and underserved by California’s public and private housing markets.”

Nijjar’s real estate empire has long been on authorities’ radar.

In 2020, LAist detailed wide-ranging dangerous conditions at Nijjar’s properties dating back years, including a fire at a PAMA-owned mobile home in Kern County that resulted in the death of an infant. The mobile home was not permitted for human occupancy, according to the report and Bonta’s lawsuit. Two years later, The Times wrote a series of stories about Chesapeake Apartments, a sprawling 425-unit apartment complex in South L.A., where Nijjar’s tenants complained of sewage discharges, regular mold and vermin infestations and shoddy repairs. Chesapeake had the most public health violations of any residential property in L.A. County over the previous five years, according to a Times analysis at the time.

Prior attempts at accountability for Nijjar and his companies have been spotty and ineffective. After the 2016 mobile home fire that killed the infant in Kern County, the California Department of Real Estate revoked the licenses associated with Nijjar’s company at the time. In response, Nijjar and family members reorganized their business structure, the suit said.

The L.A. city attorney’s office resolved a nuisance abatement complaint against PAMA at Chesapeake in 2018, only for the widespread habitability problems to emerge. A similar case filed by the city attorney’s office against a PAMA property in Hollywood remains in litigation more than three years after it was filed. In the meantime, Nijjar’s companies have settled multiple habitability lawsuits filed by residents.

Bonta said that PAMA has taken advantage of lax and piecemeal accountability efforts and its low-income tenants’ vulnerability. Most residents, he said, have low or fixed incomes with few alternatives other than to endure the shoddy conditions in their rentals.

The lawsuit alleges that the habitability problems at PAMA properties are “ongoing business practices” — the result of decisions to make cheap repairs rather than necessary investments in maintenance, the use of unskilled handymen, lack of staff training and failure to track tenant requests.

“Nijjar and his associates have treated lawsuit after lawsuit and code violation after code violation as the cost of doing business and have been allowed to operate and collect hundreds of millions of dollars each year from families who sleep, shower, and feed their children in unhealthy and deplorable conditions,” Bonta said. “Enough is enough.”

Besides tenants’ living conditions, the suit alleges Nijjar and PAMA have induced residents into deceptive leases, discriminated against tenants on public assistance programs and issued unlawful rent increases.

The suit contends PAMA’s leases attempt to invalidate rights guaranteed under law, including the opportunity to sue and make repairs the landlord neglected and deduct these costs from the rent. The company has told Section 8 voucher holders that there are no units available when others are being rented to applicants without vouchers, the complaint said.

The case alleges that PAMA has violated California’s rent cap law on more than 2,000 occasions. The law limits rent increases to 5% plus inflation annually at most apartments. PAMA, the suit says, shifted mandatory shared utility costs, which used to be paid by the landlord, onto tenants’ bills in an attempt to evade the cap. The combination of the new utility costs and rent hikes resulted in total increases of up to 20%, more than double the allowable amount, according to the suit.

California officials on Monday filed a federal lawsuit over the mobilization of the state’s National Guard during the weekend’s immigration protests in Los Angeles, accusing President Trump of overstepping his federal authority and violating the U.S. Constitution.

As thousands of people gathered in the streets to protest raids and arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Trump mobilized nearly 2,000 members of the National Guard over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said that state officials could handle the situation and that Trump was sowing chaos in the streets for political purposes.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said the decision by Trump and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth violated the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which spells out the limits of federal power. Bonta said the state will seek a restraining order for the “unlawful, unprecedented” deployment of the National Guard, and argues in the 22-page lawsuit that an impending deployment of U.S. Marines was “similarly unlawful.”

“Trump and Hegseth ignored law enforcement’s expertise and guidance and trampled over our state’s, California’s, sovereignty,” Bonta said at a news conference.

Experts and state officials say Trump’s actions and the subsequent lawsuit have thrust the U.S. into uncharted legal territory. Bonta said there have not been many court rulings on the questions at play because the statute Trump cited “has been rarely used, for good reason.”

“It is very unusual and unnecessary, and out of keeping with our constitutional tradition, that they are there without the consent of the governor, in a situation where the governor says that state authorities have the situation under control,” said Laura A. Dickinson, a professor at the George Washington University Law School.

Whether Trump’s action was illegal, Dickinson said, “is really untested.”

Trump and the White House say the military mobilization is legal under Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Forces. The statute gives the president the authority to federalize the National Guard if there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States,” but says the Guard must be called up through an order from the state’s governor.

Because founders distrusted military rule, the Constitution allows the president to deploy the military for civil law enforcement only in “dire, narrow circumstances,” Bonta’s complaint argues. But, the lawsuit says, the Trump administration appears to be using the statute “as a mechanism to evade these time-honored constitutional limits.”

Trump has said that the mobilization was necessary to “deal with the violent, instigated riots,” and that without the National Guard, “Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.”

Days of protests after the ICE raids included some violent clashes involving protesters, local police and federal officials and some vandalism and burglaries. Local officials have decried those actions but have defended the right of Angelenos to peacefully demonstrate.

“It was heading in the wrong direction,” Trump said at the White House. “It’s now heading in the right direction. And we hope to have the support of Gavin, because Gavin is the big beneficiary as we straighten out his problems. I mean, his state is a mess.”

The part of the law that “the Trump administration is going to have difficulty explaining away” requires that orders to call up the National Guard “be issued through the governors, which is obviously not happening here,” said Elizabeth Goitein, the senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

Less black and white, she said, is what happens “if the president tries to exercise the authority provided by that law to federalize the National Guard and the governor refuses to issue the orders.”

As the governor, Newsom is the commander in chief of the California National Guard. On Saturday night, Hegseth sent a memo to the head of the California Guard to mobilize nearly 2,000 members. The leader of the state National Guard then sent the memo to Newsom’s office, the complaint says. Neither Newsom nor his office consented to the mobilization, the lawsuit says.

Newsom wrote to Hegseth on Sunday, asking him to rescind the troop deployment. The letter said the mobilization was “a serious breach of state sovereignty that seems intentionally designed to inflame the situation, while simultaneously depriving the state from deploying these personnel and resources where they are truly required.”

Hegseth issued another memo Monday night deploying another 2,000 members of the National Guard, the lawsuit says.

Newsom has warned that the executive order that Trump signed applies to other states as well as to California, which will “allow him to go into any state and do the same thing.”

Legal experts said the statute that the White House used to justify the National Guard mobilization is usually invoked in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807, a wide-reaching law that gives presidents the emergency power to call up the military in the United States if they believe the situation warrants it.

Goitein said presidents generally invoke the Insurrection Act, then use the statute that Trump cited as the “call-up authority” to actually mobilize the military. How the law stands on its own, she said, “is one of the legal questions that have not come up before in the courts.”

The Insurrection Act has been invoked 30 times in the history of the country, and Trump has not invoked it in Los Angeles. It was last invoked in 1992, when then-Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush to federalize the National Guard in the wake of the Rodney King verdict.

The last time a president sent the National Guard into a state without a request from the governor was six decades ago, when President Lyndon B. Johnson mobilized troops in Alabama to defend civil rights demonstrators and enforce a federal court order in 1965.

Bonta’s office said the specific statute that Trump is using has been invoked only once before, when President Nixon mobilized the National Guard to deliver the mail during a U.S. Postal Service strike in 1970.

The argument that Trump has violated the 10th Amendment is a clever subversion of a line of thinking that has traditionally been backed by conservative judges, said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.

The 10th Amendment says that the federal government has only the powers specifically assigned by the Constitution, and other powers are controlled by the states.

“Deploying over 4,000 federalized military forces to quell a protest or prevent future protests despite the lack of evidence that local law enforcement was incapable of asserting control and ensuring public safety during such protests represents the exact type of intrusion on state power that is at the heart of the 10th Amendment,” state lawyers argue in the lawsuit.

“The state has a strong argument that … by nationalizing the state guard, that Trump is commandeering the state,” Chemerinsky said.

He said the Supreme Court has ruled on the 10th Amendment only a handful of times in recent decades, including saying that Congress couldn’t require states to accept federal mandates related to sports betting, background checks for guns and radioactive waste disposal.

Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

California sued the U.S. Justice Department on Monday over its demand last week that local school districts ban transgender youth from competing in sports, arguing the federal agency had overstepped its authority in violation of both state and federal law.

The “pre-enforcement” lawsuit was filed “in anticipation of imminent legal retaliation against California’s school systems” for not complying with the agency’s directive by its Monday deadline, said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office, which is handling the litigation.

“The President and his Administration are demanding that California school districts break the law and violate the Constitution — or face legal retaliation. They’re demanding that our schools discriminate against the students in their care and deny their constitutionally protected rights,” Bonta said in a statement. “As we’ve proven time and again in court, just because the President disagrees with a law, that doesn’t make it any less of one.”

The lawsuit comes a week after Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump appointee and head of the federal Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, sent a letter to school districts across California warning them that they faced potential “legal liability” if they did not “certify in writing” by Monday that they will break with California Interscholastic Federation rules and state law to ban transgender athletes from competition in their districts.

Dhillon argued that allowing transgender athletes to compete “would deprive girls of athletic opportunities and benefits based solely on their biological sex,” in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond responded last week by saying in his own letter to schools that Dhillon’s warning carried no legal weight and that school districts were still obligated to follow state law, which requires transgender athletes be allowed to compete on teams based on their gender identity.

The California Department of Education sent a letter to federal authorities Monday, informing them that California’s school districts are under no obligation to provide certifications to the Justice Department.

“There are no changes in law or circumstances that necessitate a new certification,” wrote General Counsel Len Garfinkel. “Moreover, the DOJ letter references no law that would authorize the DOJ to require another ‘certification.’”

“All students — not just transgender students — benefit from inclusive school environments that are free from discrimination and harassment,” Garfinkel added. “When transgender students are treated equally, their mental health outcomes mirror those of their cisgender peers.”

Bonta’s lawsuit asks a federal court in Northern California to uphold the constitutionality of California’s antidiscrimination laws protecting transgender athletes, and to bar the Trump administration from withholding funds or taking other retaliatory actions against school districts that refuse to abide by the Trump directive.

The lawsuit falls along one of the fastest growing legal and political fault lines in America: Does the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment — the Constitution’s oft-cited guarantee against discrimination — protect transgender rights or undermine them?

Dhillon, other members of the Trump administration and anti-transgender activists nationwide have argued that the inclusion of transgender girls in youth sports amounts to illegal discrimination against cisgender girls.

Bonta’s office and other LGBTQ+ advocates argue that the exclusion of transgender girls is what constitutes illegal discrimination — and that courts, including the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which governs California and much of the American West, have agreed.

While Dhillon “purports that compliance with the Equal Protection Clause requires the categorical exclusion of transgender girls from girls’ sports, as courts have previously upheld, just the opposite is true: the Equal Protection Clause forbids such policies of total exclusion, as does California law,” Bonta’s office said.

State law that allows transgender students to participate in sports consistent with their identity “is squarely within the State’s authority to ensure all students are afforded the benefits of an inclusive school environment, including participation in school sports, and to prevent the serious harms that transgender students would suffer from a discriminatory, exclusionary policy.”

An attorney who supports keeping transgender athletes out of girls sports said the rights of female athletes are paramount in this situation.

Both the U.S. Constitution and federal statute provide protections for female athletes that California is violating by “allowing males into ‘girls only’ categories,” said Julie A. Hamill, principal attorney with California Justice Center, a law firm that has complaints pending with the federal Office for Civil Rights on behalf of young female athletes.

“By continuing to fan flames of division and play politics, leftist politicians and media outlets are causing further harm to American girls,” Hamill said.

Polls have shown that Americans generally support transgender rights, but also that a majority oppose transgender girls competing in youth sports. Many prominent advocates for excluding transgender girls from sports praised Dhillon’s actions last week as a bold move to protect cisgender girls from unfair competition.

Sonja Shaw, a Trump supporter who is president of the Chino Valley Unified Board of Education, has called on California school systems to adopt resolutions in support of the Trump administration order.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher,” Shaw said last week. “Our daughters deserve safe, fair competition … But radical policies are undermining that right, pushing boys into girls’ sports and threatening their opportunities. We’re not backing down.”

Shaw, a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, said other school systems could model these resolutions on one passed by her school district.

A handful of the state’s 1,000 school districts have passed such resolutions.

The lawsuit’s claim that retaliation from the Trump administration could be imminent for schools that do not comply with the administration’s demands is not entirely speculative. It is based at least in part on repeated threats and actions the administration has already taken against states over its trans-inclusive sports policies.

President Trump has said outright that he wants to cut federal funding to California over its laws allowing transgender athletes to compete in youth sports. The federal Justice Department has announced investigations into the state and the California Interscholastic Federation over its inclusive policies for transgender athletes.

U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli in Los Angeles, a longtime ally of Dhillon and whose appointment has yet to be confirmed, recently threw his office’s support behind a private lawsuit challenging the inclusion of a transgender athlete on the track and field team at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside.

Dhillon issued her letter to California school districts after another transgender athlete from Jurupa Valley High School, 16-year-old AB Hernandez, won multiple medals at the state high school track and field championships despite President Trump demanding on social media that she not be allowed to compete.

The letter came despite attempts by the state to appease concerns.

After Trump’s online threats, for example, the CIF updated its rules for transgender competitors. As a result, Hernandez was allowed to compete at the state finals in the girls’ long jump, high jump and triple jump, but her qualifying did not result in the exclusion of any cisgender girl.

In addition, while Hernandez was awarded several medals, those medals were also awarded to cisgender girls who otherwise would have claimed them had Hernandez not been competing — with the girls sharing those spots on the medal podiums.

Supporters of the rule change said it eliminated concerns about cisgender girls losing opportunities to compete and win to transgender girls, but critics said the changes did not go far enough, and that transgender athletes needed to be fully banned from competition.

Dhillon’s letter demanding school districts certify that such bans were being implemented made no mention of the CIF’s rule change.

June 4 (UPI) — The Democratic mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, has sued the Republican U.S. district attorney of New Jersey over his arrest last month outside of a prison being transformed into a detention facility to hold migrants arrested in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The lawsuit, announced Tuesday, accuses District Attorney Alina Habba and Special Agent in Charge Ricky Patel of the Newark Division of Homeland Security Investigations of violating Baraka’s rights by arresting him without cause, initiating a malicious prosecution and committing defamation.

“They abused their power to violently arrest me at Delaney Hall despite being invited inside,” Baraka said in a statement Tuesday.

“No one is above the law.”

Baraka was arrested on May 9 outside Delaney Hall, a Newark prison owned by GEO Group, which in February signed a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house migrants at the 1,000-bed center for 15 years.

Habba accused Baraka of trespassing at the facility and claimed he was arrested after allegedly “ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center.

“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law,” she said on X following Baraka’s arrest. “That will not stand in this state.”

Habba — formerly a lawyer for President Donald Trump, who appointed her to her current position in New Jersey — announced last month she was dropping the charges against Baraka “for the sake of moving forward.”

According to the lawsuit, Baraka was at the prison at the invitation of Rep. LaMonica McIver, one of three Democratic New Jersey House representatives visiting Delaney Hall that day to inspect it.

Baraka arrived at Delaney Hall at about 1:42 p.m. EDT and spoke with members of the public protesting the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

At 1:50 p.m. a GEO Group guard invited Baraka to enter the inner gate of Delaney Hall, which the mayor did. He waited there for about 40 minutes, apparently for the Democratic lawmakers inside the facility.

According to the lawsuit, Patel confronted Baraka at 2:33 p.m., and told him to leave. Baraka argued he was invited in by the guard, which Patel disputed, the court documents state.

Minutes later, the members of Congress exited the facility after witnessing the confrontation between the two and informed Patel that they had wanted Baraka there.

“After the members of Congress conveyed their thoughts, Defendant Patel threatened to arrest the Mayor,” the lawsuit states. “In response, the Mayor said: ‘I’m leaving now.'”

Baraka was arrested by about 20 DHS agents, some masked, about 5 minutes after he left the GEO Group property, according to the filing.

“Egged on by Defendant Patel, who ordered the DHS agents to ‘take him down’ (meaning violently tackle the Mayor of Newark) the agents pushed, shoved and assaulted the Mayor’s security team and members of Congress before violently pulling Mayor Baraka’s arms and arresting him without probable cause,” the lawsuit states.

“The DHS agents handcuffed the Mayor behind his back in an effort to effect maximum humiliation for what Defendant Habba’s office later admitted was an alleged ‘petty offense.'”

The lawsuit, which is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, also accuses Habba of having a political agenda to forward Trump’s immigration policies and to help Republicans in the state.

When Habba told the court she was ending the prosecution of Baraka, federal Judge Andre Espinosa admonished the district attorney.

“The hasty arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, followed swiftly by the dismissal of the trespassing charges a mere 13 days later, suggests a worrisome misstep by your office,” Espinosa said.

“An arrest, particularly of a public figure, is not a preliminary investigative tool. It is a severe action, carrying significant reputational and personal consequences, and it should only be undertaken after a thorough, dispassionate evaluation of credible evidence.”

On Monday, after learning of Baraka’s intention to sue her, Habba retorted: “My advice to the mayor — feel free to join me in prioritizing violent crime and public safety. Far better use of time for the great citizens of New Jersey.”

Habba later last month filed charges of assaulting law enforcement against McIver in connection with Baraka’s arrest.

Baraka has voiced solidarity with McIver, and McIver described the charges against her as “purely political.”

A New Jersey mayor has filed a lawsuit against a federal prosecutor and close ally of United States President Donald Trump after he was arrested at a protest outside an immigration detention centre.

In a civil complaint filed on Tuesday, Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark, New Jersey, accused acting US Attorney Alina Habba of “subjecting him to false arrest and malicious prosecution”.

The complaint also names Ricky Patel, a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security’s investigations unit, as a co-defendant.

“As a result of this false arrest”, the lawsuit argues that Mayor Baraka “suffered severe reputational harm, emotional distress and other damages”.

The suit is the latest fallout from a May 9 protest outside Delaney Hall, a privately run immigration detention facility in Newark.

Baraka, a longtime critic of the facility, had joined three Democratic members of the US House of Representatives for a tour of the 1,000-bed detention centre, as protesters gathered outside the gate.

The lawsuit alleges that a member of the GEO Group, which owns the facility, allowed Baraka to come inside Delaney Hall’s wire gate. But once inside, it says Patel ordered him to exit again, on threat of arrest.

Baraka complied, but a few minutes later, as he stood with protesters outside the gate, agents with the Department of Homeland Security surrounded the mayor, handcuffed him and led him away.

The complaint alleges that Patel ordered the agents to “take [the mayor] down” and that they “pushed, shoved and assaulted” the mayor’s security team before arresting him. Baraka denies trespassing onto the Delaney Hall grounds.

“They abused their power to violently arrest me at Delaney Hall despite being invited inside,” Baraka wrote on social media on Tuesday. “No one is above the law.”

Habba initially filed a trespassing charge against Baraka for his actions during the protest. But by May 19, she moved to dismiss the charge, prompting a rebuke from the judge overseeing the case.

“Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamour, nor to advance political agendas,” Judge Andre Espinosa told a representative for Habba’s office.

“The hasty arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, followed swiftly by the dismissal of those trespassing charges a mere 13 days later, suggests a worrisome misstep by your office,” Espinosa added.

“An arrest, particularly of a public figure, is not a preliminary investigative tool. It is a severe action, carrying significant reputational and personal consequences, and it should only be undertaken after a thorough, dispassionate evaluation of credible evidence.”

At the same time as she announced she was seeking the dismissal of the trespassing charge, Habba revealed she would be pursuing criminal charges against US Congress member LaMonica McIver, who was also at the Delaney Hall protest.

Habba accused McIver of assaulting law enforcement during Baraka’s arrest. That case is ongoing. But Representative McIver has called the charges against her “purely political”, and she issued a statement on Tuesday in support of Baraka’s lawsuit.

“The way Mayor Baraka was treated at Delaney Hall was outrageous,” the statement reads. “It is beyond clear that there was never any legal or factual basis to arrest or charge him. The administration’s playing politics with our justice system is disgraceful.”

In the lead-up to Baraka’s lawsuit, Habba herself weighed in, suggesting the mayor’s complaint was a waste of time.

“He is planning to sue the Feds,” Habba wrote on social media Monday. “My advice to the mayor – feel free to join me in prioritizing violent crime and public safety. Far better use of time for the great citizens of New Jersey.”

Habba had served as part of Trump’s personal legal team before joining his administration following his second inauguration in January.

Trump has pledged to pursue a policy of “mass deportation” during his second term as president, but that goal has run up against logistical issues, including a lack of detention space. His administration awarded Delaney Hall a 15-year contract to help address the growing demand for beds, and the facility opened this past May.

Baraka, however, has argued that Delaney Hall failed to receive the proper local permitting and has been a visible presence at protests outside the immigration centre. The GEO Group denies any permitting violations.

Critics, particularly on the left, have long accused the Trump administration of retaliating against those who oppose the president’s signature policies, including his crackdown on immigration.

Tuesday’s lawsuit, for example, accuses Habba of defaming Baraka in her efforts to detain and charge him with trespassing.

“In authorizing and/or directing the arrest of Mayor Baraka without proper legal grounds, Defendant Habba was acting for political reasons and fulfilling her stated goal of ‘turning New Jersey red’,” the lawsuit argues.

The complaint further alleges that other members of the Trump administration participated “in promoting a false and defamatory narrative”, including that Baraka “broke into” the detention facility.

Baraka is running this November as a Democratic candidate in the race to be New Jersey governor. His lawsuit alleges the arrest and subsequent trespassing charge was designed to “damage him politically”.

Last month, Trump endorsed one of Baraka’s Republican rivals, businessman and former state Representative Jack Ciattarelli, for the governorship.

NEWARK, N.J. — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka sued New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor on Tuesday over his arrest on a trespassing charge at a federal immigration detention facility, saying the Trump-appointed attorney had pursued the case out of political spite.

Baraka, who leads New Jersey’s biggest city, is a candidate in a crowded primary field for the Democratic nomination for governor next Tuesday. The lawsuit against interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba coincided with the day early in-person voting began.

The lawsuit seeks damages for “false arrest and malicious prosecution,” and also accuses Habba of defamation for comments she made about his case, which was later dropped.

Citing a post on X in which Habba said Baraka “committed trespass,” the lawsuit says Habba issued a “defamatory statement” and authorized his “false arrest” despite “clear evidence that Mayor Baraka had not committed the petty offense of ‘defiant trespass.’” The suit also names Ricky Patel, the Homeland Security Investigations agent in charge in Newark. Baraka’s attorney, Nancy Erika Smith, said they also expect to sue President Trump’s administration but are required to wait six months.

“This is not about revenge,” Baraka said during a news conference. “Ultimately, I think this is about them taking accountability for what has happened to me.”

Emails seeking comment were left Tuesday with Habba’s office and the Homeland Security Department, where Patel works.

Videos capture chaos outside the detention center

The episode outside the Delaney Hall federal immigration detention center has had dramatic fallout. It began on May 9 when Baraka tried to join three Democratic members of Congress — Rob Menendez, LaMonica McIver and Bonnie Watson Coleman — who went to the facility for an oversight tour, something authorized under federal law. Baraka, an outspoken critic of Trump’s immigration crackdown and the detention center, was denied entry.

Video from the event showed him walking from the facility side of the fence to the street side, where other people had been protesting. Uniformed officials then came to arrest him. As they did, people could be heard urging the group to protect the mayor. The video shows a crowd forming and pushing as officials led off a handcuffed Baraka.

He was initially charged with trespass, but Habba dropped that charge last month and charged McIver with two counts of assaulting officers stemming from her role in the skirmish at the facility’s gate.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Andre Espinosa rebuked Habba’s office after moving to dismiss the charges. “The hasty arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, followed swiftly by the dismissal of these trespassing charges a mere 13 days later, suggests a worrisome misstep by your Office,” he wrote.

McIver decried the charges and signaled she plans to fight them. A preliminary hearing is scheduled later this month.

Baraka said the aftermath of the withdrawn charge meant he had to explain it in the media and argue his case when he had done nothing wrong.

“I want somebody to apologize, write a letter, say this was wrong, come out and say, ‘We shouldn’t have done this,’” he said.

New Jersey targeted over its so-called sanctuary policies

Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed facility, opened earlier this year as a federal immigration detention facility. Florida-based Geo Group Inc., which owns and operates the property, was awarded a 15-year contract valued at $1 billion in February. The announcement was part of the president’s plans to sharply increase detention beds nationwide from a budget of about 41,000 beds this year.

Baraka sued Geo soon after that deal was announced.

Then, on May 23, the Trump Justice Department filed a suit against Newark and three other New Jersey cities over their so-called sanctuary policies. There is no legal definition for sanctuary city policies, but they generally limit cooperation by local law enforcement with federal immigration officers.

New Jersey’s attorney general has a statewide directive in place prohibiting local police from collaborating in federal civil immigration matters. The policies are aimed at barring cooperation on civil enforcement matters, not at blocking cooperation on criminal matters. They specifically carve out exceptions for when Immigration and Customs Enforcement supplies police with a judicial criminal warrant. The Justice Department said, though, the cities won’t notify ICE when they’ve made criminal arrests, according to the suit.

It’s unclear whether Baraka’s role in these fights with the White House is affecting his campaign for governor. He’s one of six candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in the June 10 election to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

On Tuesday, Baraka explained the timing of the suit as an effort to get the case before the court before it was too late. He described the arrest and fallout as a distraction during the campaign.

“But I also think that us not responding is consent,” he said.

In a video ad in the election’s final weeks, Baraka has embraced a theme his rivals are also pushing: affordability. He says he’ll cut taxes. While some of the images show him standing in front of what appears to be Delaney Hall, he doesn’t mention immigration or the arrest specifically, saying: “I’ll keep Trump out of your homes and out of your lives.”

Trump has endorsed Jack Ciattarelli, one of several Republicans running in the gubernatorial primary. Ciattarelli has said if he’s elected, his first executive order would be to end any sanctuary policies for immigrants in the country illegally.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.

June 3 (UPI) — The maker of Chips Ahoy cookies is suing a discount grocery store chain, claiming it “blatantly” copied its chocolate chip cookie and other snack packaging to “deceive and confuse” customers.

Mondelez, which also makes Oreos and Wheat Thins, filed the federal lawsuit May 27 against German grocer Aldi, seeking monetary damages and a court order to stop Aldi from selling the products. Aldi has more than 2,400 locations in the United States.

The suit claims the supermarket chain, which has its U.S. headquarters in Illinois, also copied the snack company’s packaging for its Teddy Grahams, Belvita biscuits, Nutter Butters and Ritz crackers.

“Defendant is in the business of selling private label cookie and cracker snacks and has a pattern and practice of selling products in packaging that are unacceptable copies of Mondelez’s trade dress,” the lawsuit states.

“Because of this misconduct, Mondelez has a history of enforcing its intellectual property rights against Defendant,” the filing continues. “Indeed, Mondelez has contacted Defendant on numerous occasions objecting to Defendant’s use of confusingly similar packaging and demanding that Defendant cease and desist its unlawful infringement.”

In the lawsuit, Mondelez displays side-by-side photos of Chips Ahoy cookies in blue and red packaging and Aldi’s Chocolate Chip cookies in a similar blue or red. Nutter Butters in their red packaging are shown next to Aldi’s Peanut Butter Creme-filled cookies also in red, and the yellow Wheat Thins box with small square crackers is shown next to Aldi’s Thin Wheat crackers box, also in yellow with a picture of small square crackers.

“Defendant’s actions are likely to deceive and confuse consumers and dilute the distinctive quality of Mondelez’s unique product packaging,” according to the lawsuit, “and if not stopped, threaten to irreparably harm Mondelez and its valuable brands.”

The lawsuit came three days after a similar case by NPR, which also saw its funds cut.

PBS has filed a lawsuit against United States President Donald Trump and other administration officials to block his order stripping federal funding from the 330-station public television system, three days after NPR did the same for its radio network.

In its lawsuit filed on Friday, PBS relied on similar arguments, saying Trump was overstepping his authority and engaging in “viewpoint discrimination” because of his claim that PBS’s news coverage is biassed against conservatives.

“PBS disputes those charged assertions in the strongest possible terms,” lawyer Z W Julius Chen wrote in the suit, filed in US District Court in Washington, DC. “But regardless of any policy disagreements over the role of public television, our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”

It was the latest of many legal actions taken against the administration for its moves, including several by media organisations impacted by Trump’s orders.

PBS was joined as a plaintiff by one of its stations, Lakeland PBS, which serves rural areas in northern and central Minnesota. Trump’s order is an “existential threat” to the station, the lawsuit said.

A PBS spokesman said that “after careful deliberation, PBS reached the conclusion that it was necessary to take legal action to safeguard public television’s editorial independence, and to protect the autonomy of PBS member stations”.

‘Lawful authority’

Through an executive order earlier this month, Trump told the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal agencies to stop funding the two systems. Through the corporation alone, PBS is receiving $325m this year, most of which goes directly to individual stations.

The White House deputy press secretary, Harrison Fields, said the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers’ dime.

“Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS,” Fields said. “The President was elected with a mandate to ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars, and he will continue to use his lawful authority to achieve that objective.”

PBS, which makes much of the programming used by the stations, said it gets 22 percent of its revenue directly from the feds. Sixty-one percent of PBS’s budget is funded through individual station dues, and the stations raise the bulk of that money through the government.

Interrupting ‘a rich tapestry of programming’

Trump’s order “would have profound impacts on the ability of PBS and PBS member stations to provide a rich tapestry of programming to all Americans”, Chen wrote.

PBS said the US Department of Education has cancelled a $78m grant to the system for educational programming, used to make children’s shows like Sesame Street, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Reading Rainbow.

For Minnesota residents, the order threatens the Lakeland Learns education programme and Lakeland News, described in the lawsuit as the only television programme in the region providing local news, weather and sports.

Besides Trump, the lawsuit names other administration officials as defendants, including Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. PBS says its technology is used as a backup for the nationwide wireless emergency alert system.

The administration has fought with several media organisations. Government-run news services like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty are struggling for their lives. The Associated Press has battled with the White House over press access, and the Federal Communications Commission is investigating television news divisions.

PBS filed a federal lawsuit Friday asking a court to block the May 1 executive order by the Trump White House to cut off funding to public media, calling the move a violation of the 1st Amendment.

The suit from the service that airs “Sesame Street,” Ken Burns documentaries and the “PBS NewsHour” for free to millions of American homes, said that Congress has repeatedly protected PBS from political interference by filtering its funds through the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which is not a federal agency.

“The [executive order] makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech.”

NPR, which also receives CPB funding, filed a suit on similar grounds on Tuesday.

The White House alleges that PBS has “zero tolerance for non-leftist viewpoints.” Trump’s order called for an end to government dollars for CPB, the taxpayer-backed entity that has provided funding to NPR and PBS for decades through Congress.

Trump called the public media outlets “left wing propaganda.” The White House press release announcing the order — titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” — contained 19 bullet points citing news coverage and other content by NPR and PBS that prompted the action.

The PBS suit says the data the White House cited to support that view are inaccurate and misrepresent the balanced range of viewpoints presented on PBS programs.

The White House has also asserted that government funding of broadcast media is no longer necessary in an era when consumers have a vast array of platforms for information and entertainment. PBS was founded when most of the country only had access to the three commercial broadcast networks and a handful of other TV stations.

PBS’ suit also says that, regardless of any policy disagreements the administration may have over the role of public television, “our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”

California on Wednesday joined 15 other states filing suit against the National Science Foundation and its acting director, alleging the agency has illegally terminated millions of dollars in grants and imposed new fees that have ended or crippled research vital to health, the economy and the advancement of knowledge.

The Trump administration has defended its actions as both legal and necessary to align the NSF with the president’s priorities.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, specifically targets the science foundation for “terminating grants for scientific research that seeks to promote and understand diversity in higher education and the workforce,” according to a statement from California Atty. General Rob Bonta.

The suit alleges that the NSF’s actions are illegally arbitrary and capricious and violate federal law on the management and use of federal funding.

Bonta’s office asserted that between 1995 and 2017, the number of women in science and engineering occupations, or with science or engineering degrees, doubled with help from federal support; minorities, meanwhile, went from representing about 15% in the occupations to about 35%.

The suit also seeks to overturn the Trump administration’s 15% cap on indirect costs related to research, which universities say are critical to carrying out their work. Such indirect costs include maintaining lab space, keeping the temperature controlled and the proper handling and disposal of biological, chemical and biochemical materials.

Like other key federal agencies, the National Science Foundation has been in turmoil since Trump took office in January — undergoing across-the-board funding cuts, layoffs and reorganization as well as apparent ideological litmus tests for research, sweeping grant terminations and a funding freeze on grant applications.

The Trump administration has fired back at critics.

Earlier this month Michael Kratsios, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, criticized diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in federally funded research, calling them “close-minded” in a speech before the National Academy of Sciences in Washington.

Kratsios also called for a reduction of “red tape” in scientific research, the online news site FedScoop reported. He said there is a “crisis of confidence in scientists” that comes from fears that political biases are impacting research.

Trump officials also have repeatedly maintained that the federal government is rife with waste and fraud.

The federal actions have come at extreme cost, according to Bonta.

“President Trump wants to make America’s universities second tier with his backwards efforts to slash research funding that has kept us on the cutting edge of science and innovation,” Bonta said. “For more than 50 years, Congress has expressly authorized the National Science Foundation to train up the next generation of talent and invest in the infrastructure necessary to keep our position as a global leader” in science, technology, engineering and math.

“With President Trump’s latest round of indiscriminate funding cuts, America is poised to fall behind its competitors at a critical moment in the global technology race. We’re suing to stop him,” Bonta said.

In California, billions of dollars are at risk across the California State University, University of California and public community college systems.

“Many innovations — like the internet, GPS, and MRI technology — trace their origins to research initially funded by NSF. Without NSF funding, many California colleges and universities will be forced to substantially reduce or stop altogether potentially groundbreaking programs and research projects,” according to Bonta’s office.

Terminated NSF grants, for instance, include a five-year, $3-million project, “Computational Research for Equity in the Legal System.” This study examined crime data for patterns of racial bias while also looking at police misconduct and eviction policies, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Canceled UC Berkeley grants included projects on electoral systems and two on environmental science education.

The NSF has also told staff to screen grant proposals for “topics or activities that may not be in alignment with agency priorities” that had shifted under the Trump administration, the journal Nature reported.

The lawsuit lays out a wide range of benefits and goals of the federal funding.

“From developing AI technology that predicts weather patterns to protect communities, to developing sustainable solutions for environmental and economic challenges, to making power grids more sustainable, NSF-funded research at American universities ensures this nation’s status as a global leader in scientific innovation,” according to the lawsuit.

The other states involved in the litigation are Hawaii, New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Washington.

The pattern of federal cuts and turmoil related to research also is playing out with the National Institutes of Health. And California also is party to a lawsuit over cuts to these grants.

Tara Kerin, a project scientist who works in pediatric infectious disease research at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, said that the funding cuts at the National Science Foundation echoed similar ones made at the National Institutes of Health.

That, she said, makes her “very nervous about the future of science and research.”

Kerin, whose work has partly focused on HIV prevention and detection in young adults, was funded by NIH grants — until they were cut this spring.

Keyshawn Johnson is suing a sports agent for almost $1 million.

Johnson says he recruited several players, who are now in the NFL, to be represented by Christopher Ellison. The former NFL and USC star’s claim is based on an alleged oral agreement the men made a decade ago to pay Johnson for his efforts. Most of the $1 million represents back payments that Johnson feels he is owed.

A lawsuit filed May 23 in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleges that Johnson and Ellison had agreed that Johnson “was to identify players, make the initial contact with them, and recruit them to be represented by” Ellison.

“In return for this player identification, recruitment and eventual entry into the highest level of the game of football, Defendant promised to pay Plaintiff a specific percentage of the player’s signed contract with the NFL,” the lawsuit states. “Each year, Defendant promised to pay Plaintiff one-third of the (3%) three percent commission Defendant made on each of the players’ salary.”

According to the lawsuit, Johnson successfully recruited four players — San Francisco 49ers defensive back Deommodore Lenoir, Chicago Bears defensive back Jaylon Johnson, Atlanta Falcons defensive back Mike Hughes and Green Bay Packers receiver Romeo Doubs — for Ellison but “has not received his earned percentage of Defendant’s full commission.”

Ellison did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment. TMZ reports that the attorney and UCLA adjunct professor “denies all of the claims Johnson made in the suit.”

The lawsuit details each player’s contract and states that Johnson should have been paid “no less than $962,335 from his work on securing these player agreements.” But, according to the filing, no payment has been received.

“For several months, Defendant claimed he had not received any payments for the NFL’s recruitment of the players he represents,” the lawsuit states. “It is our reasonable belief that this is false.”

Since then, the filing alleges, Ellison “has become unresponsive to Plaintiff’s demands for payment.”

Johnson is seeking the full amount he states he is owed — as well as other damages, costs and fees — for causes of action that include breach of contract, unfair business practices and intentional misrepresentation.

A two-time All-American at USC, Johnson was named the MVP of the 1995 Cotton Bowl Classic and the player of the game in the 1996 Rose Bowl. During his 11-year NFL career, Johnson made three Pro Bowls and won Super Bowl XXXVII with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Since retirement, he has become a sports media personality and, according to his lawsuit, “currently works to coach and develop prospective NFL players.”

May 28 (UPI) — The Trump administration is suing North Carolina and the state’s Board of Elections on accusations of maintaining voter registration records that include voters who did not provide required identifying information, in violation of federal law.

The Justice Department filed the lawsuit Tuesday, alleging the defendants violated the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by using a state voter registration form that did not “explicitly require” a voter to provide a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number.

Those who filled out the form, without providing the identifying information, were then added to the voter registration record.

HAVA was sweeping voter reform legislation that included updated voter identification procedures. Under the law, a voter registration application must include either the applicant’s driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

The lawsuit alleges that a “significant number” of North Carolina voters who did not provide the required identifying information were registered to vote by election officials.

“Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections in North Carolina are conducted fairly, accurately and without fraud,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “The Department of Justice will not hesitate to file suit against jurisdictions that maintain inaccurate voter registration rolls in violation of federal voting laws.”

The lawsuit comes after Jefferson Griffin, a Republican Court of Appeals judge, finally conceded defeat to his Democratic opponent for North Carolina’s state Supreme Court seat earlier this month, following six months of litigation over the legality of tens of thousands of votes cast in the election.

Griffin lost to Associate Justice Allison Riggs by 734 votes and sought to have some 60,000 ballots in six Democratic-leaning counties rejected on the same grounds that the Justice Department cited in its lawsuit on Wednesday — the ballots were cast by voters, mostly in the military or overseas, who did not provide photo ID or an ID exception form.

Democrats accused him of attempting to steal the election, and the state’s high court ruled to uphold the validity of the votes cast.

With Riggs’ victory, the state’s Supreme Court maintains a 5-2 Republican majority.

Former Los Angeles Times reporter Maya Lau filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Los Angeles County, former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, a former undersheriff and a former detective, alleging that a criminal investigation into her activities as a journalist violated her 1st Amendment rights.

The suit comes less than a year after a Times article revealed that Lau had been the target of an L.A. County Sheriff’s Department probe that “was designed to intimidate and punish Lau for her reporting” about a leaked list of deputies with a history of misconduct, Lau’s attorneys alleged in an emailed statement.

Lau’s suit seeks unspecified damages to compensate her for alleged violations of her dignity and privacy, as well as the “continuous injuries” and anxiety she says in the complaint that she has faced in the wake of the revelation she had been investigated.

The suit details “six different counts of violating Ms. Lau’s rights under the U.S. constitution and California state law, including retaliation and civil conspiracy to deny constitutional rights,” according to the statement by Lau’s attorneys.

“It is an absolute outrage that the Sheriff’s Department would criminally investigate a journalist for doing her job,” Lau said in the statement. “I am bringing this lawsuit not just for my own sake, but to send a clear signal in the name of reporters everywhere: we will not be intimidated. The Sheriff’s Department needs to know that these kinds of tactics against journalists are illegal.”

The Sheriff’s Department said in an emailed statement that it had “not been officially served with this lawsuit” by late Tuesday afternoon.

“While these allegations stem from a prior administration, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department under Sheriff Robert G. Luna is firmly committed to upholding the Constitution, including the First Amendment,” the statement said. “We respect the vital role journalists play in holding agencies accountable and believe in the public’s right to a free and independent press.”

Villanueva said via email that he had not yet reviewed the complaint in full and that “under the advice of counsel, I do not comment on pending litigation.”

“What I can say is the investigation in question, like all investigations conducted by the Public Corruption Unit during my tenure as Sheriff of Los Angeles County, were based on facts that were presented to the Office of the Attorney General,” he said. “It is the political establishment, of which the LA Times is a part, that wishes to chill lawful investigations and criminal accountability with frivolous lawsuits such as this one.”

A spokesperson for the county counsel’s office declined further comment. The other defendants in the lawsuit, former Undersheriff Tim Murakami and former Detective Mark Lillienfeld, did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday afternoon.

In December 2017, The Times published a story by Lau about a list of about 300 problem deputies. A lengthy case file reviewed by The Times last year found that department investigators launched an initial probe into who provided Lau with the list. The agency’s investigation began when Jim McDonnell was sheriff in 2017. The Sheriff’s Department ultimately dropped the investigation without referring it for proscution after, as Lau’s complaint says, it “turned up no evidence connecting Ms. Lau to any crime.”

The case file reviewed by The Times last year stated that, after Villanueva became sheriff in 2018, he revived the investigation into Lau, which the complaint alleges was part of an “unlawful conspiracy” conducted as part of a policy of “retaliatory criminal charges against perceived opponents of LASD.”

Lillienfeld led the investigation, and Villanueva “delegated to Undersheriff Murakami his decision-making authority” in the probe, which Murakami ultimately referred to the state attorney general’s office for prosecution, Lau’s complaint says. In May 2024, the office declined to prosecute her, citing insufficient evidence.

But Lau alleges that the damage was already done and that her rights under the 1st Amendment and California’s Constitution had been violated. “If LASD’s actions are left unredressed,” according to the complaint, “journalists in Los Angeles will be chilled from reporting on matters of public concern out of fear that they will be investigated and prosecuted.”

The Sheriff’s Department told The Times last year that its probe of Lau was closed and that the department under Luna does not monitor journalists.

David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit free speech and press freedom advocacy organization, told The Times last year that reporting on leaked materials involving a matter of public concern is typically “protected under the 1st Amendment” even if a reporter is aware they were obtained illegally.

“You’re not authorized to break into a file cabinet to get records. You’re not authorized to hack computers. But receiving information that somebody else obtained unlawfully is not a crime,” Snyder said.

The saga of the leaked records began in 2014, when Diana Teran compiled a list of deputies with histories of disciplinary problems. Teran was working for the Office of Independent Review, which conducted oversight of the Sheriff’s Department until it closed down that July.

In 2015, Teran was hired by the Sheriff’s Department to serve in an internal watchdog role. In 2017, according to the investigative file reviewed by The Times last year, she heard that Times reporters including Lau had been asking questions about the list.

After investigating further and learning that the reporters had asked about specific details that matched her 2014 list, she grew worried that it had been leaked.

On Dec. 8, 2017, The Times ran an investigation by Lau and two other reporters that described some of the misconduct detailed in the list, from planting evidence and falsifying records to sexual assault. Some of the deputies on the list, the reporters found, had kept their jobs or been promoted.

Sheriff’s department investigators interviewed Teran and other department officials who all denied leaking the list. The investigation was dropped before Villanueva became sheriff in November 2018.

Several months later, Lillienfeld was assigned to investigate allegations that Teran and other oversight officials had illegally accessed department personnel records, reopening the probe into the leaked list.

Lillienfeld’s inquiry produced an 80-page report that was part of the case file reviewed by The Times last year. It detailed potential times when the list could have been leaked by Teran and stated that she denied doing so.

In fall 2021, Murakami sent the 300-page case file – which identified Lau, Teran, L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman, an assistant to Teran and an attorney in Huntsman’s office as suspects – to California Atty. General Rob Bonta. There was no probable cause to prosecute Lau, according to the complaint.

“Undersheriff Murakami alleged that Ms. Lau had engaged in conspiracy, theft of government property, unlawful access of a computer, burglary, and receiving stolen property,” the complaint says. “Ms. Lau did not commit any of these crimes.”

Bonta declined to prosecute the case.

“The retaliatory investigation against Ms. Lau is one example of how Alex Villanueva used the LASD to target and harass his political opponents,” said Justin Hill, an attorney at Loevy & Loevy representing Lau. “Our communities suffer when governmental leaders try to silence journalists and other individuals who hold those leaders accountable. This lawsuit seeks to re-affirm the protected role that journalism plays in our society.”