Environmental groups have asked a federal appellate court panel to lift its temporary halt on closing an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades. Known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” the center remains open due to arguments by Florida and the Trump administration. They claimed the state hadn't gotten federal reimbursement, so it wasn’t required to follow federal environmental law. On Tuesday, during a hearing in Miami, the judges questioned how much control the federal government had over the state-built facility. Florida was notified in late September of $608 million in federal funding approval. The environmental lawsuit was one of three federal challenges to the facility since it opened.

A federal judge has halted efforts by the Trump administration to collect data that proves higher education institutions aren’t considering race in admissions. The ruling granting the preliminary injunction follows a lawsuit filed last month by a coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general. President Donald Trump ordered the new policy in August after he raised concerns that colleges and universities were using personal statements and other proxies to consider race. The states argue the data collection effort threats student privacy and could lead to baseless investigations of colleges and universities. The federal judge said the federal government likely has the authority to collect the data, but the demand was rolled out to universities in a “rushed and chaotic” manner.

A federal judge in New York has tossed out Blake Lively's sexual harassment claims against Justin Baldoni over the movie “It Ends With Us" but left intact claims for retaliation. The written ruling by Judge Lewis J. Liman in Manhattan was released late Thursday. Lively will still be allowed to put many of her allegations before a jury. Her lawyer says she looks forward to testifying. Lively sued Baldoni last December, alleging sexual harassment. Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios countersued Lively and her husband, “Deadpool” actor Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of defamation and extortion. The judge dismissed Baldoni’s claims in June.

A new Kentucky law could shield agrochemical maker Bayer from lawsuits claiming it failed to warn that Roundup weedkiller could cause cancer. Kentucky lawmakers overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear to enact the law Wednesday. It's the third state to do so, following North Dakota and Georgia. This comes several weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court is to hear arguments in a case that could give Bayer a nationwide shield against failure-to-warn lawsuits. Meanwhile, Bayer also is seeking approval of a proposed $7.25 billion settlement in Missouri that could resolve thousands of claims about its Roundup weedkiller.

The Trump administration has carried out on a threat to sue the state of Minnesota and its school athletics governing body for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls sports. The Justice Department alleges in a lawsuit filed Monday that the state Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League are violating Title IX, a federal law against sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal money. The administration has filed similar lawsuits against Maine and California, and threatened the federal funding of some universities, including San Jose State in California and the University of Pennsylvania.

It’s too soon to tell if this week’s jury decisions will lead to fundamental changes in how social media treats its young users. But the dual verdicts signal a changing tide of public perception against tech companies that is likely to lead to more lawsuits and regulation. For years, they have argued that the harms their platforms cause to children are the unintentional and inevitable consequences of broader societal issues or bad actors taking advantage of safeguards. These verdicts show public’s growing willingness to hold the companies responsible for harms and demand meaningful changes in how they operate.

Two teenage boys have been given probation after using artificial intelligence to create hundreds of fake nude photos of their classmates. The boys were 14 at the time. Authorities said the boys took images of the girls from school photos, yearbooks, Instagram, TikTok and FaceTime chats, and morphed them with images of adults depicting nudity or sexual activity. At least 59 girls were among the victims, many of them classmates with the boys at Lancaster Country Day School. Many called for the toughest sentence on Wednesday as they described their trauma. The judge said the boys' records will be expunged in two years if they don't reoffend.