All posts tagged: dismisses

‘You’ve got to be joking’: Mandelson dismisses prospect of UK rejoining EU | Brexit

‘You’ve got to be joking’: Mandelson dismisses prospect of UK rejoining EU | Brexit

Published by skeptic

Peter Mandelson has dismissed the prospect of an incoming Labour government taking Britain back into the EU, saying “you’ve got to be joking” that Brussels would want to renegotiate the UK’s membership. The Labour peer, a former EU trade commissioner and close adviser to Keir Starmer, said rejoining the 27-country bloc would require a referendum that UK voters had little desire for, after the Conservatives’ botched handling of Brexit. “I cannot see the British people running towards [a referendum] for love nor money after what we went through during the last one. I really do not think that people are going to run towards a repeat of that experience,” he told a British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) event at Heathrow airport on Wednesday. Lord Mandelson, speaking at the launch of the lobby group’s report on building “Global Britain” after the general election, added that a Starmer government would build closer ties with the EU without rejoining. The EU wanted a more “stable, constructive relationship” with the UK, Mandelson continued, but there was no desire in …

Judge dismisses ‘vapid’ Elon Musk lawsuit against group that cataloged racist content on X | Elon Musk

Judge dismisses ‘vapid’ Elon Musk lawsuit against group that cataloged racist content on X | Elon Musk

Published by skeptic

A judge in California on Monday dismissed the tech billionaire Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a non-profit that has published reports chronicling the rise of racist, antisemitic and extremist content on X, formerly Twitter, since Musk’s acquisition. The case was dismissed in accordance with the state’s anti-Slapp law, which forbids nuisance lawsuits intended to punish the exercise of free speech. “Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff’s true purpose,” wrote Charles Breyer, the US district judge, in the ruling. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the defendants for their speech.” The dismissal was not unexpected. During a hearing last month, Breyer described parts of Musk’s case as one of the “most vapid extensions of law that I’ve ever heard”. Breyer also grilled Musk’s lawyers on why …

Judge dismisses three counts against Trump in Georgia election case

Judge dismisses three counts against Trump in Georgia election case

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Judge Scott McAfee presides over a hearing regarding media access in the case against former U.S. President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants, at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, on Aug. 31, 2023. Arvin Temkar | AFP | Getty Images A judge on Wednesday dismissed six counts in the Georgia criminal election interference case against former President Donald Trump and five other defendants, saying that the indictment against them failed to sufficiently explain the basis for those specific charges. But other criminal counts against Trump and the defendants remain after the order by Judge Scott McAfee. The dismissed counts had accused Trump and the others of the crime of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer. The counts related to efforts by the defendants to get members of Georgia’s legislature and the secretary of state to delegitimize the election victory of President Joe Biden over Trump in the state’s 2020 contest. Defense lawyers for Trump and the others argued, among other things, that the indictment charging them with that specific count did …

Judge in Georgia election case dismisses six charges against Trump and others | Georgia

Judge in Georgia election case dismisses six charges against Trump and others | Georgia

Published by skeptic

The Georgia judge overseeing the election-interference case against Donald Trump and 14 defendants dismissed six of the charges in the wide-ranging indictment on Wednesday, saying they were not detailed enough. One of the 41 charges Trump and some of the co-defendants in the case were charged with was soliciting officials in Georgia to violate their oath of office. Those charges were dismissed. The other charges in the case against Trump and other defendants remain. The six defendants who had the charge at issue in the case were Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Ray Smith and Robert Cheeley. In different ways all six men attempted to get Georgia officials to violate their oath of office as part of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, prosecutors said in their August indictment. Those efforts ranged from pressuring Georgia lawmakers to appoint fake electors, to Trump’s infamous phone call with the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, urging him to find enough votes to overturn the election. But McAfee said on Wednesday that Fani Willis, the …

Judge in Georgia Election Case Dismisses Some Trump Charges

Judge in Georgia Election Case Dismisses Some Trump Charges

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ATLANTA, GEORGIA —  The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case on Wednesday dismissed some of the charges against former President Donald Trump, but many other counts in the indictment remain. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wrote in an order that six of the counts in the indictment must be quashed, including three against Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee. But the order leaves intact other charges, and the judge wrote that prosecutors could seek a new indictment on the charges he dismissed. The six charges are about soliciting elected officials to violate their oaths of office. That includes two charges related to the phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, on January 2, 2021. “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said. The case accuses Trump and 18 others of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty. …

Georgia Judge Dismisses Several Counts In Trump Election Interference Case

Georgia Judge Dismisses Several Counts In Trump Election Interference Case

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Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee dismissed six charges out of the 40-count indictment in the election interference case against former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants, including three of the counts against Trump. The ruling, which is not linked to Fulton County DA Fani Willis’s (D) relationship with a special prosecutor she hired on the case – however McAfee is expected to rule on that later this week as well. The tossed charges do not impact the RICO charge that serves as the foundation for this unprecedented prosecution. Each of the tossed charges related to alleged efforts by Trump and some of his co-defendants, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, to solicit Georgia officials to violate their oaths of office. The judge ruled that while the charges do contain the “essential” elements of each crime, they fail to provide enough detail for the defendants to mount their defenses. Under the current charges, McAfee said, the defendants could have violated the law in “dozens, …

USC dismisses Arizona upset, instead focuses on Pac-12 tournament

USC dismisses Arizona upset, instead focuses on Pac-12 tournament

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Andy Enfield wasn’t greatly moved by a great win. The USC coach shrugged off the Trojans’ first victory over a top-five team since 2008. “We’ve won a lot of games against good teams over the years,” Enfield told reporters after the Trojans shocked then-No. 5 Arizona at Galen Center on Saturday. The win ended USC’s six-game losing streak in the series and signaled the start of a bigger mission. Needing a miraculous conference championship run to earn their fourth consecutive NCAA bid, the Trojans hope to carry the momentum into the Pac-12 tournament beginning Wednesday at 12 p.m. against eighth-seeded Washington at T-Mobile Arena. The No. 9 seed Trojans (14-17, 8-12 Pac-12) are on a season-long three-game winning streak but face a daunting task in Las Vegas. Since the conference expanded in 2012, only two teams — Colorado in 2012 and Oregon in 2019 — have managed to win four games in four days to steal the Pac-12 title. “I don’t think we can take our foot off the pedal,” junior guard Kobe Johnson told …

US judge says Google must face some advertisers’ antitrust claims, dismisses others

US judge says Google must face some advertisers’ antitrust claims, dismisses others

Published by Sam

Alphabet’s Google must face advertisers’ proposed class action lawsuit claiming that it monopolizes the ad exchange market, a U.S. judge ruled on Friday. But U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel dismissed some other antitrust claims, including those focused on ad-buying tools used by large advertisers. Castel was reviewing a number of cases against Google, and his decision struck down many claims but allowed at least one key set to proceed. The advertisers, he wrote, “have not plausibly alleged antitrust standing in the markets for ad-buying tools used by large advertisers, but they plausibly allege antitrust standing as to injuries they purportedly suffered from anti-competitive practices in the ad-exchange market and the market for small advertisers’ buying tools.” Castel also said Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper chain and publisher of USA Today, could try in a separate case to prove that Google fraudulently concealed anticompetitive effects of some technology. Gannett alleged that it sold some of its ad space directly to advertisers, but Google still made the inventory available for auction on its ad exchange in order …

Kensington Palace dismisses social media speculation around Kate Middleton’s health

Kensington Palace dismisses social media speculation around Kate Middleton’s health

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Kensington Palace has brushed off speculation surrounding the Princess of Wales’s health following wild conspiracy theories on social media. A spokesperson for Kate said: “We were very clear from the outset that the Princess of Wales was out until after Easter and Kensington Palace would only be providing updates when something was significant.” It comes after the Prince of Wales’s last-minute absence from a thanksgiving service for the late King Constantine of Greece on Tuesday sparked speculation. The Palace would only cite the reason as a “personal matter” while Kate was said to be “doing well” amid her recovery from abdominal surgery in January. No further details of the Princess’s condition have been given, but it has been confirmed to be non-cancerous. The Princess was admitted to the private London Clinic on 16 January for surgery. She returned home to Windsor following a 13-day hospital stay. Prince William temporarily stepped back from royal duties to care for his wife and their three children, Prince George, ten, Princess Charlotte, eight, and Prince Louis, five. Kate’s last public …

U.S. court dismisses most claims against OpenAI in copyright class action

U.S. court dismisses most claims against OpenAI in copyright class action

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A U.S. federal court has partially dismissed a class action lawsuit accusing OpenAI of infringing on copyright by training its AI chatbot on authors’ work. This doesn’t mean ChatGPT’s developer is in the clear, though. Brought by authors Paul Tremblay, Sarah Silverman, Christopher Golden, and Richard Kadrey, the lawsuit specifically accuses OpenAI of direct copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, knowingly distributing a work after removing its copyright information, unfair competition, negligence, and unjust enrichment.  However, four of these six allegations were thrown out on Monday, with a California judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín determining that the plaintiffs had not provided enough facts or reasoning to support their claims. SEE ALSO: The New York Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement “Plaintiffs fail to explain what the [OpenAI language model] outputs entail or allege that any particular output is substantially similar — or similar at all — to their books,” Martínez-Olguín wrote, specifically addressing the allegation of vicarious copyright infringement. The only two claims left standing are the allegation of direct copyright infringement, which was the sole …