Summary: U.S. Magistrate Judge Rukhsanah Singh questions causation evidence Approximately 69,000 talc cancer claims consolidated in New Jersey Plaintiffs ordered to respond by November 19 on expert evidence   A federal judge cast doubt on July 22 on claims by approximately 69,000 people alleging that Johnson & Johnson's baby powder and other talc products caused ovarian cancer, saying plaintiffs must provide more specific evidence or risk having their lawsuits dismissed. U.S. Magistrate Judge Rukhsanah Singh in Trenton, New Jersey, said that recent testimony by two of the plaintiffs' experts raised doubts about whether any plaintiffs can provide evidence admissible in court "that talcum powder use specifically caused her ovarian cancer." The two experts, Judith Wolf and Daniel Clarke-Pearson, testified in May in preparation for a set of six "bellwether," or test, trials for the thousands of cases that have been consolidated in New Jersey's federal court. Verdicts in bellwether trials are used to assess the potential value of remaining claims and guide settlement talks. J&J has denied the allegations that its talc products caused cancer, saying that talc was safe and did not contain asbestos. A spokesperson for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a lead attorney for the plaintiffs. Wolf and Clarke-Pearson said they could not completely rule out other possible causes of the plaintiffs' ovarian cancer, according to Singh's opinion. "If such uncertainty is indeed reality, then how can any plaintiff here meet her burden on the merits of her claim?" Singh wrote. Singh said that the debate over causation would not lead to "instant dismissal" of the thousands of cases in the consolidated federal litigation. The judge ordered plaintiffs to respond by Nov. 19, and to explain why their case should not be dismissed over the failure to provide an admissible expert opinion that J&J talc caused their specific cancer. In addition to the consolidated federal court cases, J&J also faces lawsuits in state courts around the U.S. J&J has won some of the recent trials in state courts, but juries ⁠have awarded large verdicts for plaintiffs in other cases. The litigation resumed in March 2025, after being put on hold for more than three years during J&J's repeated failed attempts to resolve the lawsuits through a shell company's bankruptcy. J&J stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the U.S. in 2020, switching to a cornstarch product.

Summary: Roger Rogoff sued after removal as Seattle U.S. attorney Lawsuit challenges president's authority to remove court-appointed U.S. attorneys Justice Department defends president's firing authority   The top federal prosecutor in Seattle who was fired by President Donald Trump last week sued the administration on July 21, in a case testing the president's authority to remove U.S. attorneys appointed by judges to fill vacancies. Roger Rogoff’s lawsuit, filed in the federal court in Seattle, said Trump unlawfully removed him as the court-appointed U.S. attorney in the Western District of Washington immediately after he took office on July 15. The lawsuit contends that federal law allows a court-appointed U.S. attorney to serve until the position is filled by a presidential nominee confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Rogoff asked the court to declare his firing invalid and rule that he remains the U.S. attorney for the district until a Senate-confirmed successor takes office. Trump last week removed Rogoff, a former federal prosecutor and state court judge, one hour after the chief judge in the Western District of Washington swore him in as the district's new U.S. attorney. “The President’s actions violate the law, and they ignore the protections of the Constitution of the United States,” Rogoff said in a statement. “His removal of me, like his removal of other court-appointed U.S. Attorneys across the country, is illegal and cannot stand.” The Justice Department in a statement said the district court "did not coordinate with DOJ on this selection. Consistent with other firings of this type, this is wholly within the President’s authority." Rogoff was appointed after the U.S. attorney’s office's top post had remained vacant without a Senate-confirmed nominee. Rogoff is an attorney at the law firm Osborn Machler & Neff. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a social media post last week that Trump had fired Rogoff. "District court judges can appoint a temporary U.S. Attorney, and POTUS can fire them," Blanche said.

Summary: U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin grants final approval Anthropic settles class action for $1.5 billion Attorneys awarded over $101 million in fees A federal judge in San Francisco on July 20 signed off on artificial intelligence company Anthropic's landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by a group of authors who accused it of misusing their books to train its AI chatbot Claude. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval of the settlement, the largest known settlement of a U.S. copyright case, rejecting arguments that it was too small. The case is one of dozens brought by copyright owners including authors and news outlets against tech companies over the training of their large language models, and the first major U.S. case to settle. Now-retired Judge William Alsup initially approved the deal last September. "We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court's landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law — which remains the law today," Anthropic deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar said in a statement. The authors' lead attorney, Justin Nelson, welcomed what he called a "historic settlement." The writers sued Anthropic in 2024, arguing that the company, which is backed by ⁠Amazon and Alphabet , used pirated versions of their books without permission to teach Claude to respond to human prompts. Alsup ruled last June that Anthropic made fair ⁠use of the authors' work to train Claude, but found that the company violated their rights by saving more than 7 million pirated books to a "central library" that would not necessarily be used for AI training. A trial was scheduled to begin last December ⁠to determine how much Anthropic owed for the alleged piracy, with potential damages running into the hundreds of billions of dollars. The settlement spurred objections from some authors who argued it was not large enough, overcompensated the plaintiffs' attorneys or wrongly excluded some copyright owners. Judge Martinez-Olguin overruled those objections in her ruling on July 20. The judge said that complaints about the settlement's size were "not grounded in a realistic assessment of the overall risks and rewards of a trial," and awarded the attorneys more than $101 million of the $187.5 million they requested in fees. Some authors and publishers opted out of the settlement and have filed separate lawsuits against Anthropic that are still ongoing.