Google agreed to pay $68 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that its voice-activated assistant spied inappropriately on smartphone users, violating their privacy.   A preliminary class action settlement was filed on Jan. 23 in the San Jose, California federal court, and requires approval by U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman. Smartphone users accused Google, a unit of Alphabet, of illegally recording and disseminating private conversations after Google Assistant was triggered, in order to send them targeted advertising. Google Assistant is designed to react when people use "hot words" such as "Hey Google" or "Okay Google," similar to Apple's Siri. Users objected to receiving ads after Google Assistant misperceived what they said as hot words, known as "false accepts." Apple reached a similar $95 million settlement with smartphone users in December 2024. Google denied wrongdoing, but settled to avoid the risk, cost and uncertainty of litigation, court papers show. The Mountain View, California-based company declined to comment on Jan. 26. The settlement covers people who bought Google devices or were subjected to false accepts since May 18, 2016, court papers show. Lawyers for plaintiffs may seek up to one-third of the settlement fund, or about $22.7 million, for legal fees.

U.S. Supreme Court justices appear reluctant to grant President Donald Trump's request to let him immediately remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. But their eventual ruling following this week's arguments in the case may not give Cook a sweeping victory. Rather, according to some legal experts, a likely outcome would be a narrow decision that could return the matter to a trial court for more fact-finding without the justices resolving big questions involving whether Trump has proper cause to oust Cook or whether a president has the power to fire Fed officials. In such a scenario, the case could return later to the Supreme Court. Trump's Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to block U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb's September preliminary injunction that halted his attempt to fire Cook the prior month. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied the administration's subsequent request to lift Cobb's order. A narrow Supreme Court ruling against Trump would leave Cobb's injunction in place and provide instructions to the judge about how to move the case toward a final judgment on the merits of Cook's legal challenge to the Republican president's bid to remove her. The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has backed Trump in numerous other cases decided on an emergency basis since he returned to office 12 months ago, including letting him remove officials from other federal agencies. In creating the Fed, Congress passed a law that included provisions meant to insulate it from political interference, allowing a president to remove central bank governors only "for cause." The law does not define "cause" or establish procedures for removal. During the arguments on Jan. 21, some of the justices noted that Cook's case moved quickly to them, with little time for weighing evidence and resolving complex legal questions. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito asked: "Is there any reason why this whole matter had to be handled by everybody - by the executive branch, by the district court, by the D.C. Circuit - in such a hurried manner?" Cook sued Trump days after he posted to his Truth Social platform a letter informing her that she was "hereby removed." Trump said he had proper cause to fire Cook, citing unproven allegations made by one of his political appointees that she had falsified documents to obtain loans on two different properties she listed as her primary residences. Cook has called these allegations of mortgage fraud a pretext to remove her over monetary policy, as the Fed has resisted Trump's persistent demands for fast and big interest rate cuts. Alito said he did not think Cobb had created a full evidentiary record of Trump's basis for removing Cook. "No court has ever explored those facts," Alito said. "Are the mortgage applications even in the record in this case?" The justices "are wary of the relative paucity of the material for them to go on," said law professor Jane Manners of Fordham University in New York. 'IRREPARABLE HARM' The burden is on Trump to show he is entitled to a stay, or halt, of Cobb's preliminary injunction. The administration must show Trump would be irreparably harmed if a stay is not granted. The justices must also consider whether a stay serves the public interest more broadly. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted that economists had filed briefs with the court arguing that granting Trump's request to remove Cook immediately could trigger a recession, and asked whether that risk meant the court should proceed cautiously. Boston University law professor Jed Shugerman said it is possible the Supreme Court's ruling could come in the form of a one-paragraph order that denies Trump's request for a stay but does not provide much if any legal reasoning. The court, for example, took that approach in an immigration case last year involving Trump that it decided on an emergency basis. The trial judge ruled that Trump's attempt to remove Cook without notice or a hearing likely violated her right to due process under the Constitution's Fifth Amendment and that the mortgage fraud allegations likely were not a sufficient cause to remove a Fed governor under the law. Shugerman said the arguments on Jan. 21 revealed skepticism among the justices toward Trump's legal arguments but a lack of consensus on how to interpret the law that created the Fed, what "for cause" means and how to distinguish the Fed from other government agencies. "I think they hinted at oral argument - if not said explicitly - that they find these issues too historically complicated and too legally complicated to be worthwhile to dig into at this stage," Shugerman said. The court's ruling is expected by the end of June but could come sooner.

Lawmakers in the Kentucky House have formed an impeachment committee to take up three petitions seeking to remove elected officials from office, including a state Supreme Court justice. Legislators announced the committee had been launched on Jan. 20, and its first meeting, where lawmakers adopted rules and formally accepted the trio of petitions, took place Jan. 21. Three impeachment petitions were filed before the start of the 2026 General Assembly. One concerns Ballard County Jailer Eric Coppess, and another is centered around Marshall County Family Court Judge Stephanie K. Perlow. The most notable, though, is an effort to impeach state Supreme Court Justice Pamela Goodwine, who was endorsed by Gov. Andy Beshear ahead of her landslide win in the 2024 election. She is the first Black woman to be elected to the state Supreme Court and had served as a judge on lower courts for 25 years ahead of her election win. The petition was filed by Jack Richardson IV, a Louisville lawyer and Republican Party of Kentucky executive committee member, and alleges Goodwine had a conflict of interest as she ruled on a recent court case that found 2022's Senate Bill 1 — which took power from the Jefferson County Board of Education and gave it to the Jefferson County Public Schools superintendent — was unconstitutional. That 4-3 ruling, with Goodwine in the majority, was a reversal of a previous ruling that took place before she was in office that found the bill was legally sound. The seven-page petition for impeachment argues Goodwine "breached the public trust and engaged in a variety of inappropriate acts" by not recusing herself from the case. Carmine G. Iaccarino, Goodwine's attorney and a partner with Lexington law firm Sturgill Turner, said the justice is aware of the petition and "takes seriously her obligations to the Court, the Rule of Law, and the People of Kentucky, as well as her personal and professional reputation." She "rejects the baseless allegations in the petition," his statement added. The decision overturning the previous ruling drew strong criticism from Attorney General Russell Coleman along with Justice Shea Nickell, who wrote in his dissent that the court's vote amounted to "a brazen manipulation of the rehearing standard."