RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A crusading Brazilian Supreme Court justice included Elon Musk as a target in an ongoing investigation over the dissemination of fake news and opened a separate investigation late Sunday into the executive for alleged obstruction.

In his decision, Justice Alexandre de Moraes noted that Musk on Saturday began waging a public “disinformation campaign” regarding the top court’s actions, and that Musk continued the following day — most notably with comments that his social media company X would cease to comply with the court’s orders to block certain accounts.

“The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, incitement of crime, the public threat of disobedience of court orders and future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect the sovereignty of Brazil,” de Moraes wrote.

Musk will be investigated for alleged intentional criminal instrumentalization of X as part of an investigation into a network of people known as digital militias who allegedly spread defamatory fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices, according to the text of the decision. The new investigation will look into whether Musk engaged in obstruction, criminal organization and incitement.

A Tennessee court on Thursday heard the first arguments in a case concerning the state’s abortion ban from both the state and lawyers for the women whose lives and health were endangered by the law. The women, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, sued the state in 2023 to clarify what the ban’s narrow and confusing medical exceptions actually include.

Joined by physicians who say they’ve been constrained and threatened by the abortion ban, the lawsuit argues that the exception—which only states that it be used for medical emergencies that pose “serious and substantial risk”—is too vague to actually help anyone. Doctors say they’re turning away women facing severe pregnancy complications, fearing prosecution and imprisonment. Meanwhile, lawyers for Tennessee argue the law is clear, along with the typical bullshit about protecting “unborn life” over pregnant women.

In court on Thursday, CRR attorneys including Linda Goldstein and Marc Hearron argued against the state’s motion to dismiss the suit and also called for an injunction to stop the abortion ban from being enforced until there’s clarity in its medical exception. After the state argued that the ban doesn’t harm patients because it’s meant to criminalize abortion providers, Hearron said he didn’t “really know how [the state] can make that argument with a straight face.”

“A few doctors saying as a matter of fact that they are unclear about what serious risk might entail in an edge case does not show vagueness as a matter of law,” Whitney Hermandorfer, a lawyer with the Tennessee attorney general’s office, said in court on Thursday. She also claimed that the women don’t have standing to sue because they aren’t currently undergoing medical emergencies that relate to the ban. “So while we can all agree the past health circumstances are incredibly unfortunate, I submit here that they do not provide a legal reason to invalidate the medical exception at issue in this case,” Hermandorfer said.

Disgraced former 7th Circuit Judge Scott DuPont, whom the state Supreme Court unanimously removed from the bench in 2018, is running for a circuit judge seat.

The Florida Supreme Court removed DuPont, stating that he was unfit in 2018 to serve on the bench and citing egregious campaign violations as well as judicial canon violations. While the order removed him as a judge, it did not bar him from running again.

The Florida Bar also suspended DuPont in 2019 from practicing law for 90 days based on the violations that got him booted from the bench.

But DuPont submitted paperwork this week with the State Division of Elections to run against incumbent Circuit Judge Rose Marie Preddy in the Circuit 7 group 11 seat.

Judicial candidates must still file papers to qualify to run. Qualifying runs from noon, April 22, through noon, April 26.

DuPont has not yet returned a phone call or email from The News-Journal.

The Texas supreme court closed out 2023 by blocking an abortion during a medical emergency, forcing a woman to flee the state. Just days before Christmas, Wisconsin justices struck down the state’s GOP-drawn gerrymanders. So far this year, Montana’s supreme court has stepped in to protect voting rights, while a decision in Alabama threatened in vitro fertilization treatments.

In each of these states, unlike at the federal level, voters chose who sits on the bench and which judges get to dictate such profound consequences. And the 2024 elections may now reshape who holds power on supreme courts across the country.

Thirty-three states have elections for their high courts this year; some have as many as five or six seats on the ballot. In total, 82 seats are up for voters to decide.

These races to decide the composition of state courts could potentially shift the outcome in high-stakes cases that are already in the legal pipeline on everything from the rules of direct democracy to the fate of reproductive rights.

Michigan and Ohio are the two states where a supreme court’s partisan majority could flip outright. Democrats are defending a narrow edge in Michigan; the GOP is doing the same in Ohio.

But the 2024 elections may also affect the ideological balance of other supreme courts, starting with Kentucky, Montana, North Carolina, and Texas. Some of these states hold nonpartisan races where judicial candidates are not affiliated to political parties; but those courts still tend to have liberal, moderate, and conservative wings, and parties and other groups often get involved in their elections, sometimes pouring in huge amounts of money.

Renatha Francis is completely unqualified to be a judge or justice in any court. However, she didn't need to be qualified for DeSantis. She just needed to have the right political ideology.

Justices Francis seems to believe that the Basic Rights Clause of the Florida Constitution (article 1, section 2) protects zygotes and fetuses. The Basic Rights Clause says: All natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty, to pursue happiness, to be rewarded for industry, and to acquire, possess and protect property. No person shall be deprived of any right because of race, religion, national origin, or physical disability.

This is an snip from her opinion dissenting from the Court's opinion allowing the proposed abortion rights amendment to move forward. Overall, Justice Francis writes that the the amendment and ballot summary didn't sufficiently communicate its purpose and scope, and is therefore misleading. Basically, she wanted to amendment to say "CAUTION: THIS AMENDMENT WILL MURDER UNBORN BABIES." This is a strong #1 contender for the dumbest opinion I've ever read.

Justice Francis writes:

Justice Grosshans seems to be in the same boat as Justice Francis. She also believes this would have an impact on the Basic Rights Clause (article 1, section 2 of the Florida Constitution), specifically, an impact who is protected under this clause. The majority opinion says this is speculative. It is speculative because the Court has never defined personhood in this clause. There is no impact to a definition that does not exist.

Justice Grosshans would have rather the amendment's summary advise voters that the amendment would strip rights guaranteed to "the unborn child" under the article 1, section 2 (Basic Rights Clause).

Renatha Francis is completely unqualified to be a judge or justice in any court. However, she didn't need to be qualified for DeSantis. She just needed to have the right political ideology.

Justices Francis seems to believe that the Basic Rights Clause of the Florida Constitution (article 1, section 2) protects zygotes and fetuses. The Basic Rights Clause says: All natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty, to pursue happiness, to be rewarded for industry, and to acquire, possess and protect property. No person shall be deprived of any right because of race, religion, national origin, or physical disability.

This is an snip from her opinion dissenting from the Court's opinion allowing the proposed abortion rights amendment to move forward. Overall, Justice Francis writes that the the amendment and ballot summary didn't sufficiently communicate its purpose and scope, and is therefore misleading. Basically, she wanted to amendment to say "CAUTION: THIS AMENDMENT WILL MURDER UNBORN BABIES." This is a strong #1 contender for the dumbest opinion I've ever read.

Justice Francis writes:

Justice Grosshans seems to be in the same boat as Justice Francis. She also believes this would have an impact on the Basic Rights Clause (article 1, section 2 of the Florida Constitution), specifically, an impact who is protected under this clause. The majority opinion says this is speculative. It is speculative because the Court has never defined personhood in this clause. There is no impact to a definition that does not exist.

Justice Grosshans would have rather the amendment's summary advise voters that the amendment would strip rights guaranteed to "the unborn child" under the article 1, section 2 (Basic Rights Clause).

The Florida Supreme Court tore a page from the Florida Constitution and flung it in the faces of the people Monday by effectively banning abortion in Florida. Six of the seven justices said the word “privacy” does not mean what most people sensibly assume it does.

The 6-1 decision to ban abortions, the most radical act yet of this reactionary court’s contempt for precedents it dislikes, says in effect that the people didn’t know abortion would be affected when they approved Florida’s landmark 1980 privacy amendment to the state Constitution.

That provision guarantees — or did until Monday — that “every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life except as provided herein…”

Ultimate judicial activism

That outcome is no less disgusting for its inevitability since DeSantis began packing the court with candidates curated for their ideologies, first by a nominating commission that DeSantis commands, secondly by a secret cadre of advisers led by a leading abortion opponent, the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, and finally by DeSantis himself.

It was the ultimate in judicial activism, a trait DeSantis and his justices all claim to abhor. Moreover, the majority opinion also focused on what it imagined were the intentions of those who supported the 1980 privacy amendment rather than on the plain and logical meaning of the text.

Whatever happened to textualism?

The decision also contradicted the unmistakable opinion of a majority of voters who rejected the Legislature’s 2012 attempt to do what the court finally did this week. That failed amendment would have barred public funds for abortion and held that the privacy clause could not be used to provide broader privacy rights than those in the U.S. Constitution.

The Florida Supreme Court tore a page from the Florida Constitution and flung it in the faces of the people Monday by effectively banning abortion in Florida. Six of the seven justices said the word “privacy” does not mean what most people sensibly assume it does.

The 6-1 decision to ban abortions, the most radical act yet of this reactionary court’s contempt for precedents it dislikes, says in effect that the people didn’t know abortion would be affected when they approved Florida’s landmark 1980 privacy amendment to the state Constitution.

That provision guarantees — or did until Monday — that “every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life except as provided herein…”

Ultimate judicial activism

That outcome is no less disgusting for its inevitability since DeSantis began packing the court with candidates curated for their ideologies, first by a nominating commission that DeSantis commands, secondly by a secret cadre of advisers led by a leading abortion opponent, the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, and finally by DeSantis himself.

It was the ultimate in judicial activism, a trait DeSantis and his justices all claim to abhor. Moreover, the majority opinion also focused on what it imagined were the intentions of those who supported the 1980 privacy amendment rather than on the plain and logical meaning of the text.

Whatever happened to textualism?

The decision also contradicted the unmistakable opinion of a majority of voters who rejected the Legislature’s 2012 attempt to do what the court finally did this week. That failed amendment would have barred public funds for abortion and held that the privacy clause could not be used to provide broader privacy rights than those in the U.S. Constitution.

A federal appeals court on Monday blocked the Biden administration from proceeding with another piece of its student debt relief agenda, a rule that would make it easier for people who are defrauded by their schools to have their loans forgiven.

At the request of a group representing for-profit colleges, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals prevented the rule from taking effect pending the outcome of an appeal to be heard in November.

The three-judge panel gave no reason for granting the emergency injunction sought by the trade group, Career Colleges and Schools of Texas (CCST), which is appealing a lower-court judge's decision not to block the U.S. Department of Education's rule.

CCST sued in February after the Education Department in October finalized a new rule changing a program that allows students to seek debt relief if their schools mislead them.

The new rule offers greater grounds for borrowers to get debt relief in cases of fraud and establishes a procedure for the Education Department to forgive debt for groups of students at schools where this occurred.