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Felicity Huffman arrived at the federal court in Boston on Wednesday, where she and fellow actress Lori Loughlin will appear to face charges tied to what prosecutors call the largest college admissions scam uncovered in U.S. history.

Camera crews crowded the courthouse in anticipation of the arrival of the stars and 13 other wealthy parents accused of engaging in schemes that involved cheating on college exams and paying $25 million in bribes to buy their children spots at well-known universities.

Prosecutors say the scheme was overseen by California college admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer, who has admitted to facilitating the cheating scam and bribing coaches at schools like Yale University and University of Southern California to present the parents’ children as fake athletic recruits.

Continue reading “Felicity Huffman arrives at Boston court to face college admissions cheating charges”

Texas officials on Tuesday sued owners of a Houston area petrochemical storage facility over a fire last week, alleging violations of environmental laws and seeking damages to cover response costs for the disaster that burned for days, releasing chemicals into the air and waterways.

The county and state jointly filed suit in a county court against Mitsui & Co’s Intercontinental Terminals Co (ITC). The suit seeks reimbursement for emergency responders, temporary air and water monitoring systems, and health care workers. An auditor will determine costs, officials said.

Continue reading “Texas sues fuel tank company over Houston chemical fire, aftermath”

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has stepped up its attack on the Obamacare healthcare law, telling a federal appeals court it agrees with a Texas judge’s ruling that the entire law is unconstitutional and should be struck down.

The Justice Department, in a two-sentence letter to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit filed on Monday, said it backed the December ruling by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth finding the Affordable Care Act violated the U.S. Constitution because it required people to buy health insurance.

Continue reading “Trump administration pushes the fight on Obamacare, asks court to overturn law”

Attorney Michael Avenatti, who represented adult film star Stormy Daniels in her legal battles against U.S. President Donald Trump, was arrested on Monday and charged with extorting more than $20 million from Nike, federal prosecutors said.

The U.S. Attorneys offices in New York and Los Angeles separately filed charges against Avenatti, with the California case accusing him of embezzling a client’s money to cover his own debts, as well as using phony tax returns to obtain millions of dollars in loans from a bank.

Avenatti threatened to expose allegations of misconduct from Nike employees unless the apparel company paid him and an unnamed co-conspirator $22.5 million to “buy Avenatti’s silence,” the New York complaint said.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday cast doubt on a $8.5 million settlement Google had agreed to pay to end an internet privacy dispute, directing a lower court to review whether plaintiffs who accused the search engine operator of wrongdoing in a class action lawsuit were legally eligible to sue.

The plaintiffs had argued that Google, part of Alphabet Inc., violated federal privacy law by allowing other websites to see users’ search queries.

Continue reading “U.S. top court undermines Google settlement in internet privacy case”