SAN FRANCISCO: Several social media companies agreed to pay about $27 million to a Kentucky school district as part of a settlement for a lawsuit blaming them for a student mental health crisis, according to court documents reviewed Monday by AFP. The sum included $9 million by Facebook parent company Meta; $8 million each from Snapchat parent Snap and ByteDance, which owns TikTok; and Google, whose portfolio includes YouTube, will pay around $2 million cash and offer training and software licenses valued at $900,000. The case was brought by the Breathitt County school district, a rural district in eastern Kentucky whose lawsuit had been chosen as a test case for more than 1,200 similar suits filed by school districts across the country. The district was seeking more than $60 million to fund a 15-year mental health program, as well as covering costs of remediating the effects of social media on its students, including sleep problems, emotional distress and conflicts. The case was set to go to trial later this month in Oakland, California when the four companies decided to settle. Google&#39;s offerings include an on-site professional development and training coach, a three-year license for its Google AI for Education software, a four-year &quot;Social Emotional Learning&quot; program and technical support of its Google Workspace tools. None of the settlements include any admission of wrongdoing. They are likely to increase pressure on the companies to settle the remaining cases, all of which are being overseen by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who recently presided over the trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI chief Sam Altman. The settlements come after a series of legal rulings against social media companies. In March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable for the addictive nature of their Instagram and YouTube platforms, setting a potential precedent that could impact future social media addiction lawsuits. That same month a jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375 million for exposing minors to inappropriate content and sexual predators. More than 30 states are also suing Meta over similar social media claims in a separate case that could go to trial in August in Oakland.

Artificial Intelligence

Several social media companies agree to pay about $27 million to a Kentucky school district as part of a settlement for a lawsuit blaming them for a student mental health crisis

Social media giants pay $27 mn in US school lawsuit settlement

Web Desk

ISLAMABAD: A court in London has ordered India&rsquo;s low-cost carrier SpiceJet to pay close to $8 million to an overseas aircraft engine lessor, in a ruling that underscores the airline&rsquo;s deepening financial troubles and raises uncomfortable questions about corporate discipline in India&rsquo;s aviation industry. According to the draft report, London&rsquo;s Commercial Court granted summary judgment in favour of Sunbird France 02 SAS over unpaid lease rentals and maintenance charges linked to three aircraft engines. The court found that SpiceJet &ldquo;had no viable defence&rdquo; in the case. The dispute relates to engine lease payments overdue since January 2022 and maintenance charges dating back to November 2020. Default notices were issued in July 2022, with the engines subsequently repossessed between late 2022 and mid-2023. Industry estimates cited in the draft place the award at $7,959,235, excluding interest and legal costs, meaning the final liability could increase further. The ruling represents another setback for the cash-strapped airline, which has been grappling with mounting financial pressure. It also risks denting India&rsquo;s efforts to position itself as a reliable destination for global investment. While formally a commercial dispute, the optics of a prominent Indian airline being ordered by a foreign court to settle unpaid obligations are difficult to ignore. The episode sharpens concerns about &ldquo;financial discipline and contractual reliability&rdquo; within segments of India&rsquo;s corporate sector, as noted in the draft. The case is further complicated by the airline&rsquo;s conduct during proceedings.&nbsp; According to the report, SpiceJet did not file a defense despite initially appointing legal representatives and did not respond to requests for comment following the judgment. The airline remains under sustained strain from the long-term fallout of the Boeing 737 MAX grounding, the COVID-19 pandemic, and intensifying competition from newer entrants such as Akasa Air. The ruling also revives broader concerns about SpiceJet&rsquo;s solvency. Auditors have previously flagged doubts about the airline&rsquo;s ability to continue as a going concern, citing persistent losses and a widening gap between liabilities and assets. Taken together, the case adds to growing scrutiny of India&rsquo;s private aviation sector&mdash;particularly around financial stability, debt obligations, and the enforcement of international contracts.

India

A UK court has ordered India’s SpiceJet to pay nearly $8 million over unpaid engine rent and maintenance charges, intensifying scrutiny of the financially strained airline and raising broader concerns about accountability in India’s aviation sector.


India’s SpiceJet faces fresh blow in UK court

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Monday filed a lawsuit seeking at least $10 billion from the BBC over a documentary that edited his 2021 speech to supporters ahead of the US Capitol riot.&nbsp;The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, seeks &quot;damages in an amount not less than $5,000,000,000&quot; for each of two counts against the British broadcaster, for alleged defamation and violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.&nbsp;Trump, 79, had said earlier on Monday that the lawsuit was imminent, claiming the BBC had &quot;put words in my mouth,&quot; even positing that &quot;they used AI or something.&quot;&nbsp;The documentary at issue aired last year before the 2024 election, on the BBC&#39;s &quot;Panorama&quot; flagship current affairs program.&nbsp;The video spliced together two separate sections of Trump&#39;s speech on January 6, 2021, in a way that made it appear he explicitly urged supporters to attack the Capitol, where lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden&#39;s 2020 election win.&nbsp;&quot;The formerly respected and now disgraced BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election,&quot; a spokesperson for Trump&#39;s legal team said in a statement to AFP.&nbsp;&quot;The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda,&quot; the statement added.&nbsp;The British Broadcasting Corporation, whose audience extends well beyond the United Kingdom, faced a period of turmoil last month after a media report brought renewed attention to the edited clip.&nbsp;The scandal led to the resignation of the BBC director-general and the organisation&#39;s top news executive.&nbsp;Trump&#39;s lawsuit accuses the edited speech in the documentary of being &quot;fabricated and aired by the Defendants one week before the 2024 Presidential Election in a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election&#39;s outcome to President Trump&#39;s detriment.&quot;&nbsp;The BBC has denied Trump&#39;s claims of legal defamation, though BBC chairman Samir Shah has sent Trump a letter of apology.&nbsp;Shah also told a UK parliamentary committee last month that the broadcaster should have acted sooner to acknowledge its mistake after the error was disclosed in a memo, which was leaked to The Daily Telegraph newspaper.&nbsp;The BBC lawsuit is the latest in a string of legal actions Trump has taken against media companies in recent years, several of which have led to multi-million-dollar settlements.

Americas

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, seeks "damages in an amount not less than $5,000,000,000" for each of two counts against the British broadcaster, for alleged defamation and violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Trump sues BBC for $10 billion over documentary speech edit

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump&#39;s second term has seen the United States go all-in to boost Big Oil and block renewables -- yet a wave of state and local climate-damage lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry continues to advance. Now Republicans are moving to shut them down with a two-pronged strategy: pushing for a federal shield law and urging the Supreme Court to intervene. &quot;The issue for the oil companies is that they know they did it,&quot; Richard Wiles, president of the nonprofit Center for Climate Integrity, told AFP. &quot;Their only avenue out of this is to get some kind of a waiver of liability, make the cases go away, bar the courthouse doors, get a &#39;get out of jail free card.&#39;&quot; Dozens of cases modeled on successful actions against the tobacco industry in the 1990s are playing out in state courts nationwide -- including claims of injuries, failure to warn, and even racketeering, meaning acting like a criminal enterprise. Some have been dismissed, and none have yet gone to trial -- though crucially, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to intervene and block them. They have no shameIn June, 16 Republican state attorneys general urged the Trump administration to enact a shield law to end such cases. &quot;Under the banner of &#39;global climate change,&#39; they have effectively declared an all-out war on traditional American energy,&quot; their letter said, calling the lawsuits &quot;lawfare against the energy industry.&quot; It faulted the Supreme Court for not moving the cases to federal court, where companies believe they stand a better chance of winning, and cited a 2005 statute granting gunmakers a similar liability shield. &quot;They have no shame,&quot; said Pat Parenteau, an emeritus professor of environmental law at the University of Vermont, pointing to the epidemic of gun violence. &quot;I mean, come on, that&#39;s your argument?&quot; Congress has yet to act, but observers see worrying signs that it may be edging closer. A recent appropriations bill for the District of Columbia would bar the city from using funds to enforce consumer protection laws &quot;against oil and gas companies for environmental claims.&quot; And just last week, more than 100 House Republicans filed a friend-of-the-court brief in one Colorado case, urging the Supreme Court to &quot;put an end to these unconstitutional attempts to dictate national energy policy.&quot; AFP contacted Nebraska and West Virginia, which led the letter, as well as the Department of Justice, oil majors ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, and BP, and the American Petroleum Institute. None responded. Coordinated campaign&nbsp;The Trump administration, for its part, has escalated attacks on Democrat-led states passing &quot;polluter pays&quot; laws -- suing for example, New York and Vermont to block &quot;Superfunds&quot; that would require companies to pay billions toward climate and extreme weather resilience. The Justice Department has also asked the Supreme Court to weigh in through a friend-of-the-court brief in the Colorado case, where the state&#39;s top court allowed Boulder County to proceed with its lawsuit against Suncor Energy. A constellation of conservative legal scholars has joined what appears to be a coordinated push, including a <a data-fr-linked="true" href="//FoxNews.com">FoxNews.com</a> op-ed by John Yoo -- author of the Bush-era &quot;torture memos&quot; -- urging the Supreme Court to &quot;reaffirm federal authority over national energy.&quot; Results in the cases have so far been mixed: oil firms have won dismissals in some states, while others have allowed cases to advance. &quot;There hasn&#39;t been a big verdict yet. It&#39;s not clear there&#39;s going to be a big verdict. And you&#39;ve always got the Supreme Court lurking in the background,&quot; said Parenteau. That may explain why Congress has hesitated to act, he added -- though &quot;given the craziness that&#39;s going on in America right now, anything&#39;s possible.&quot; Environmental groups have urged Democrats to hold firm, and this summer, the 3,000-member National Association of Counties passed a resolution opposing &quot;any legislation that would limit or preempt counties&#39; access to courts or give companies immunity from lawsuits.&quot; Brigid Shea, commissioner for Texas&#39; Travis County, who helped lead the resolution, told AFP local governments were being &quot;walloped&quot; by extreme weather. &quot;We have to protect our access to the courts,&quot; she said. &quot;This is fundamental to our democratic process.&quot;

Republicans are moving to protect oil giants as climate lawsuits gain traction, pushing for federal immunity and Supreme Court backing. Critics say it’s an effort to dodge accountability as local governments pursue damages for climate-related destruction.

Articles tagged with "Lawsuit"

Social media giants pay $27 mn in US school lawsuit settlement

India’s SpiceJet faces fresh blow in UK court

Trump sues BBC for $10 billion over documentary speech edit

US Republicans seek to shield oil giants as climate lawsuits advance