With lake homes, NASCAR stores, and chain restaurants grouped close to the exits, Mooresville is the kind of North Carolina town that most people pass on I-77 without thinking twice. The kind of scandal that is currently taking place inside its Town Hall is not something that typically happens there. And yet here we are, with a sitting mayor, three lawsuits, a 4-2 no-confidence vote, and a piece of surveillance footage from an October 2024 night that no one in the community can seem to put out of their minds. The Republican mayor, Chris Carney, has stated that he will…
Author: Janine Heller
Announcements of data breaches now follow an odd rhythm. Typically on a Friday afternoon, a business notifies employees via email that “certain personal information may have been accessed by an unauthorized party.” The entire text is never read. A few months later, you receive a legal notice in your email stating that you are eligible to make a claim. You click, complete a form, and after perhaps eighteen months, a $7.34 check shows up. It’s difficult to ignore how commonplace this has become. Every year, the numbers underlying this custom become more bizarre. The number of documented data breach incidents…
That Friday afternoon, the courtroom was empty. In these kinds of situations, it is rarely the case. However, what Judge Beryl A. Howell wrote in her ruling has since spread farther than most decisions ever do, passing through the legal departments of studios that had been covertly experimenting with generative models up until recently, Hollywood agencies, and Discord servers full of illustrators. She decided that works of art created without a “guiding human hand” are not protected by copyright. It sounds easy. It isn’t. The case started years ago when Missouri computer scientist Stephen Thaler attempted to register a piece…
The story first appeared in a student newspaper, then in a Reddit thread, and finally in a lawsuit. This is how these stories typically start. Thirty students had already failed, some had already lost scholarships, and a tenured professor was being asked to defend himself before a judge in extremely formal terms by the time most people learned about it. The lawsuit itself isn’t what makes the case unsettling. It’s the fact that very few people in higher education appear shocked. Before the semester ended, the professor used an AI-detection tool on final exams, flagged thirty papers as machine-generated, and…
The classroom where Smith works is located in a typical Toronto school, complete with a slightly sticky coat closet and scuffed linoleum, but what takes place there is anything but typical. A room designed for a more tranquil era is filled with twelve children, all of whom have mild intellectual disabilities and are in grades one through three. Most of the time, one kid is running for the door while another is hiding under a desk with their ears covered, waiting for someone to sneeze. Smith has been doing this work for 25 years as a seasoned educational assistant who…
The majority of attorneys who practice in American courts will acknowledge this change in private before they do so publicly. Punitive damage awards from juries are shocking even the lawyers who requested them. A plaintiff attorney enters with the intention of arguing for forty million dollars and leaves with three hundred and seventy-five. It continues to occur. And no one seems to know exactly why, not even defense attorneys, legal experts, or the insurance sector. Observing this from courtroom to courtroom gives the impression that the jury box has subtly evolved into the most unpredictable space in corporate America. Tethered…
On February 17, there weren’t many people in the Oklahoma Capitol, and the hearing didn’t produce the kind of noise that large floor fights typically do. Nevertheless, a significant event took place. House Bill 3299, which would, for the first time in the state, treat an AI-generated lie about a person’s face or voice the same way older laws treat forgery or fraud, was advanced by the House Criminal Judiciary Committee with an unusual kind of quiet unanimity. There are no opponents. No theatrics on the floor. With just a few nods and a brief vote, the bill is getting…
A recent lawsuit against Amazon has a strangely familiar feel to it. It was filed in a federal court in Denver last October, and it has the kind of quiet weight that labor cases occasionally have before anyone outside the legal press notices them. During the peak of the pandemic, Jennifer Vincenzetti, the plaintiff, was employed at one of Amazon’s Colorado warehouses. Her grievance is straightforward in wording but more pointed in meaning. She claims that before she and thousands of her coworkers could clock in, they had to wait in line for COVID health screenings at Amazon. Twenty minutes,…
Nio appears to have accomplished something unique for a Chinese EV manufacturer in 2026—it made money—somewhere between the disappointment of the previous year and the subdued optimism of this spring. In just a few weeks, the stock has risen nearly to $7 from its February low of $4.37, when investors were still debating dilution and cash burn. Things have cooled down in the last few sessions due to a slight pullback, which is probably healthy. Straight-up rallies are rarely successful. The chart is what distinguishes this particular moment. Technical analysts are observing the formation of a cup-and-handle pattern with the…
Over the past few months, Air Canada’s stock has behaved like a true recovery story, something that its detractors weren’t entirely prepared for. Not flawless. Not a seamless one. However, something more akin to a company regaining its footing following a difficult period. Investors who abandoned it in the middle of 2025 are starting to reappear in a quiet, almost sheepish manner, similar to how people go back to a restaurant they once vowed to avoid. It is difficult to ignore the airline’s presence when strolling through Toronto Pearson on a weekday morning. Wide-bodied ground crews from Frankfurt, Tokyo, and…