DOJ Offers Lawyers $25,000 Signing Bonuses as Hiring Lags –bloomberglaw.com

Ben Penn Senior Reporter

The Justice Department is taking a new tack to overcome hurdles in attracting qualified legal talent and to prevent current lawyers from leaving: offering signing and retention bonuses throughout the Civil Division.

New vacancy postings show signing bonuses of $25,000 are newly available to staff offices investigating youth transgender treatments and litigating the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. 

Further, the head of the Civil Division—which plays a crucial role advancing and protecting the president’s policies in court—informed all his attorneys Monday that they’ll begin receiving a “retention incentive allowance” ranging from around $60 to $220 every pay period through Thanksgiving, according to an internal email reviewed by Bloomberg Law.

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ICE warrants were central to Abbott’s immigration dispute with Texas cities. Here’s how they work.–texastribune.org

Unlike criminal warrants, ICE administrative warrants don’t require approval from an independent judge. ICE defends the practice, but legal experts say they can have errors and risk wrongful detention.

BY ALEX NGUYEN

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Unlike criminal warrants that are served by police for arrests and searches, administrative warrants do not require an independent judge’s authorization. Instead, ICE itself issues two types of these civil documents, according to the agency’s FAQ:

• One, known as Form I-205, is based on final deportation orders that typically come from immigration courts, which operate under the U.S. Department of Justice. 
• The other, Form I-200, covers people suspected of immigration violations, which are primarily civil offenses. This broad category includes those whose immigration proceedings are still underway and who have not been ordered deported. 

How do administrative warrants reach local police? 

In February 2025, ICE entered more than 700,000 administrative warrants into the National Crime Information Center, used by law enforcement agencies across the country to collect information about wanted individuals, missing persons, stolen property and other criminal records. This means the warrants can appear during a traffic stop, a disturbance call or other routine police activities.

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Judge blocks Trump from ending temporary protected status for Yemen–courthousenews.com

A Joe Biden-appointed judge blasted the government for “regurgitating” failed arguments in its bid to end TPS for roughly 3,000 Yemeni nationals by Monday.

ERIK UEBELACKER

MANHATTAN (CN) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary protected status for Yemeni nationals — just three days before its termination was set to take effect next week.

In a scathing 36-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Dale Ho found that there was no meaningful difference between the government’s bid to end TPS for people from Yemen and its unsuccessful attempts to do the same for other countries.

“The court does not write on a blank slate,” the Joe Biden appointee wrote. “Defendants have terminated TPS for more than half a dozen countries in the past six months, under circumstances nearly indistinguishable from those here. And every district court that has considered the principle argument raised by the plaintiffs here has granted a motion to postpone and/or vacate a termination of TPS for failing to comply with the requisite procedures for doing so established by Congress.”

In this case, the government made no arguments that its determination to terminate TPS for Yemen was based on a different rationale, Ho ruled.

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The Yemen TPS decision by Judge Dale Ho issued on May 1, 2026, can be accessed through CourtListener’s RECAP database, which provides free public access to federal court documents. The case is Doe v. Noem, Case No. 1:26-cv-02280, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

You can find the docket and documents at: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72516948/doe-v-noem/

Appeals court blocks access to abortion pills via telehealth and mail nationwide–nbcnews.com

By Aria Bendix

The ruling is a blow for abortion rights advocates, since it reinstates a requirement that mifepristone — one of the two pills used in medication abortions — be distributed in person.

A federal appeals court on Friday granted the state of Louisiana’s request to reinstate a nationwide requirement that abortion pills be dispensed in person. The ruling represents a victory for opponents of abortion rights, since it limits access by blocking people’s ability to obtain mifepristone — one of the two pills used in medication abortions — through telehealth and by mail.

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Read full text of opinion/decision

Monsanto’s big moment – All eyes on Supreme Court hearing over pesticide law–thenewlede.org

CAREY GILLAM 

The US Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in a key pesticide regulation case on Monday, setting the stage for a ruling that could weaken the ability of consumers to sue companies for failing to warn of product risks.

The case, titled Monsanto v Durnell, centers on glyphosate – a weed-killing chemical used in the popular Roundup brand and numerous other herbicide products. The chemical has been scientifically linked to cancer in multiple studies, and was classified as a probable human carcinogen by an arm of the World Health Organization in 2015.

Monsanto, the company that introduced glyphosate to the world in the 1970s and which is now a part of the German conglomerate Bayer, has spent the last decade fighting more than 100,000 lawsuits claiming it failed to warn customers of cancer risks associated with exposure to its glyphosate products.

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U.S. Mint buys drug cartel gold and sells it as ‘American’–NYTimes.com

Submitted by admin on Sun, 2026-04-26 09:33 Section: Daily Dispatches

By Justin Scheck, Simon Posada, and Federico Rios

The United States Mint, which sells more than $1 billion in investment-grade gold coins each year, has been purchasing gold traced to Colombian drug cartel mines, Latin American pawn shops, and a Congolese mine partly owned by the Chinese government, according to an investigation published Sunday by The New York Times.
The findings undercut a federal mandate, established by the Gold Bullion Coin Act of 1985, that the Mint use only gold from “newly mined domestic sources” for its bullion coins. Congress imposed that requirement in part to prevent ties to human rights abuses, particularly those linked to apartheid-era South Africa

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Remainder of report

Advocates Say ‘Chaos’ Is Mounting as Counties Implement New SNAP Rules–nyfocus.com

New rules could result in thousands of New Yorkers losing their food benefits this summer.

Jie Jenny Zou 

NEW YORK COUNTIES are wrestling with strict new federal requirements for food assistance that kicked in last month and will impact hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers for the first time. 

On March 1, expanded work rules went into effect for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as part of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” Until then, New York was among several states that had waivers allowing them to largely suspend work requirements.

Under the new guidelines, snap recipients considered “able-bodied adults without dependents” must document that they spent up to 80 hours every month working, in school, or volunteering. New Yorkers who fail to meet the monthly requirement three times will have their food benefits terminated unless they apply for exemptions that prove they are unfit to work. The new rules also apply to the homeless, veterans, and youth aging out of foster care.

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NTSB urges alcohol detection systems, seat belts after 2024 West Virginia bus crash–wtrf.com

by: Amber Bruce

A federal investigation has determined that a school bus driver’s alcohol impairment caused a 2024 rollover crash in West Virginia that injured multiple students.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday that the crash occurred March 4, 2024, on State Highway 16 near Millstone. The bus, carrying 19 students, veered off the right side of the road, reentered the roadway and overturned onto its side.

The agency said the crash highlights ongoing concerns about impaired school bus drivers. A separate study cited by investigators found that between 2015 and 2019, at least 118 school bus drivers nationwide were cited or arrested on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The NTSB is now urging safety changes, including requiring alcohol detection systems on new school buses. Officials said the technology can prevent a vehicle from operating if the driver is impaired and is already being used in parts of Europe.

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The full report is available HERE.

Judge: Trump Admin ‘Coerced’ Facebook, Apple Into Removing Anti-ICE Content–pcmag.com

Facebook and Apple removed a group and app following ‘thinly veiled threats’ from Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem, which violates the content creators’ First Amendment rights, a judge finds.

By Will McCurdy

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A federal district judge in the Northern District of Illinois has issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from coercing Apple and Facebook into de‑platforming two ICE‑monitoring projects: the “ICE Sightings – Chicagoland” Facebook group and the “Eyes Up” iPhone app.

• The court held that the creators of the group and the app are likely to succeed on their First Amendment claim that DOJ and DHS unconstitutionally pressured the platforms to remove their speech about ICE activity that was based on publicly available information.

Why the First Amendment finding matters
• The judge concluded that federal officials’ outreach to Apple and Facebook amounted to coercion—backed by threats of adverse government action—rather than mere persuasion, which crosses the line into state‑action censorship of private speech.
• Because recording, discussing, and criticizing law‑enforcement activity in public is protected speech, the government cannot lawfully force or strong‑arm private platforms into silencing that speech, even if it is critical of ICE.
Status of the case

• A preliminary injunction is an early, interim remedy; it does not end the case, but it reflects the court’s view that the plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits and a need to prevent ongoing constitutional injury while the lawsuit proceeds.

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Memorandum Opinion and Order (full text}

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Thomas and Madison Woodward, III v. Amanda Lefton–NDNY–filed April 16th, 2026

Civil Action No. 3:26-CV-0736 (AJB/CBF)

Parties and court
• Plaintiffs: Madison Woodward III and his son, Thomas Madison Woodward.
• Defendant: Amanda Lefton (sued in her official capacity).
• Forum: Federal court (United States District Court; captioned Thomas and Madison Woodward, III v. Amanda Lefton).
Property and location
• The Woodwards own 100% of the mineral estate under approximately 162 acres in New York.
• The land is in New York’s portion of the Marcellus Shale region (Delaware County, per local reporting).
Government actions challenged
• New York imposed a statewide ban on high‑volume hydraulic fracturing through executive action in 2014, following a long DEC review.
• The ban was later codified by the Legislature in the FY 2021 state budget, making the fracking ban permanent in statute.
• In December 2024, Governor Hochul signed legislation that further expanded the State’s ban to prohibit newer extraction methods such as carbon dioxide‑based techniques.

Plaintiffs’ core claims
• The suit alleges that the fracking ban and subsequent extensions prohibit any commercially viable method of extracting natural gas from the Woodwards’ mineral estate.
• The complaint claims these actions have rendered the mineral estate essentially worthless.
• Legal theory: a Fifth Amendment “taking” of private property for public use, without just compensation.
• Relief requested: an order requiring New York to pay just compensation for the alleged taking (not primarily an injunction to allow drilling).

Timeline highlights
• 2011: Woodwards purchase the mineral rights under the Delaware County property.
• 2014: DEC review concludes; Governor Cuomo announces a statewide ban on high‑volume hydraulic fracturing.
• 2020: Legislature codifies the fracking ban in the FY 2021 state budget.
• December 2024: Hochul signs legislation further expanding the ban to additional extraction methods.
• April 16, 2026: Pacific Legal Foundation announces filing of Thomas and Madison Woodward, III v. Amanda Lefton in federal court.

What the suit does and does not do
• Does: claim that New York’s cumulative fracking and extraction bans have taken all economically viable use of the plaintiffs’ mineral estate, requiring compensation under the Fifth Amendment.
• Does not (as framed): directly seek to invalidate or “strike down” the statewide fracking ban; the primary requested remedy is monetary compensation.

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Full text of complaint

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