August, 18 2014, 05:15pm EDT
ACLU and Lambda Legal Ask Supreme Court to Reject Motion to Delay Virginia Marriages
Lawyers for Class of All Same-Sex Couples in Virginia Also Seek Speedy Review on Merits if Stay is Granted
RICHMOND, Va.
Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Virginia, and Lambda Legal will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to deny the motion filed Thursday by Prince William County Clerk Michele McQuigg seeking to stay the recent Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Schaefer v. Bostic striking down Virginia's discriminatory marriage ban.
"We will do everything we can to ensure that same-sex couples do not have to wait a day longer than necessary to finally receive the dignity and protection that only comes with marriage," said James Esseks, director of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project, who argued the case for the class before the federal appeals court. "The historic Supreme Court case that affirmed the right of people of different races to marry started in in Virginia. In the 47 years since then, committed same-sex couples in the commonwealth have been patiently waiting for the freedom to marry the person they love."
The organizations also will request that, if the Court decides to grant the stay, it should accept the case for full review as quickly as possible in order to minimize the harm that would be caused by the delay of the Fourth Circuit decision.
"We will fight these last-ditch desperate attempts to delay the inevitable arrival of the day when same-sex couples can marry in Virginia," Jon Davidson, Legal Director at Lambda Legal, said. "But if the Court grants a stay, we want this issue to be decided as quickly as possible."
"The Fourth Circuit finally ruled to let us get married and we are anxious to finally plan our wedding," said Joanne Harris, who with Jessica Duff is one of the named plaintiff couples in the lawsuit. "Jessi and I are prepared to continue to fight, but we shouldn't have to wait any longer."
The ACLU and Lambda Legal represent a certified class in the lawsuit that includes all Virginia same-sex couples. Harris and Duff of Staunton, who are class representatives, have been together for 11 years and are raising a five-year-old son, Jabari. They had a commitment ceremony in 2011. Christy Berghoff and Victoria Kidd of Winchester, who are also class representatives, were married in Washington, DC two years ago, but are considered single in their home state of Virginia. They have a one-year-old daughter, Lydia.
"Marriage is a fundamental right of all Virginians," said Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia. "The Fourth Circuit's decision sent a message to every committed and married couple in the commonwealth that they are equal in the eyes of the law. The Virginia ACLU is proud to be able to say that we were advocates for the Lovings almost 50 years ago and grateful also to have had the privilege of representing the loving couples across Virginia who should not have to wait even one more day before they gain the freedom to marry."
Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed a district court ruling striking down Virginia's ban on marriage for same-sex couples. The decision did not take effect immediately, but is scheduled to go into effect August 21, unless the stay filed with Chief Justice John Roberts, the Circuit Justice for the Fourth Circuit, is granted. If the Supreme Court doesn't grant review of the decision, the appeals court decision is final and all same-sex couples in Virginia who want to get married or want their marriages recognized will be able to do so. The ruling could also impact similar bans in the remaining Fourth Circuit states (North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia) that continue to discriminate against same-sex couples.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Anthropic CEO 'Cannot in Good Conscience Accede' to Pentagon's AI Demand
"Anthropic and Dario deserve credit for standing up for two very basic and obvious principles: no mass surveillance and no autonomous killer robots," said one progressive commentator.
Feb 26, 2026
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic until Friday evening to agree to let the Pentagon use the company's artificial intelligence technology however it wants, or else. Roughly 24 hours ahead of the deadline, CEO Dario Amodei announced that "we cannot in good conscience accede to their request," and reiterated opposition to enabling autonomous weapons or surveillance of US citizens.
Anthropic's Claude was the first AI model allowed to handle classified US military data. While the Department of Defense (DOD) has now signed an agreement with Elon Musk's xAI and "is getting close to making a deal with Google," as the New York Times reported Monday, Hegseth demanded "unfettered" access to Claude during a Tuesday meeting with Amodei.
Hegseth threatened to declare the Anthropic a "supply chain risk," effectively blacklisting it for military use and ending its current contract, or invoke the Defense Production Act, which would force Anthropic to tailor the product to the DOD’s needs, if Amodei refused to drop the company's guardrails.
The CEO responded publicly with a Thursday blog post. Using President Donald Trump's preferred name for the Pentagon, he wrote that "Anthropic understands that the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions. We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner."
"However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today's technology can safely and reliably do," Amodei continued. He explained the company's position that "using these systems for mass domestic surveillance is incompatible with democratic values."
"AI-driven mass surveillance presents serious, novel risks to our fundamental liberties. To the extent that such surveillance is currently legal, this is only because the law has not yet caught up with the rapidly growing capabilities of AI," he wrote. "For example, under current law, the government can purchase detailed records of Americans' movements, web browsing, and associations from public sources without obtaining a warrant, a practice the Intelligence Community has acknowledged raises privacy concerns, and that has generated bipartisan opposition in Congress. Powerful AI makes it possible to assemble this scattered, individually innocuous data into a comprehensive picture of any person's life—automatically and at massive scale."
The CEO also argued that "frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons. We will not knowingly provide a product that puts America's warfighters and civilians at risk." He noted that Anthropic offered to work directly with the department on research and development to "improve the reliability of these systems, but they have not accepted this offer."
Amodei concluded by expressing hope that the Pentagon revises its position, writing that "our strong preference is to continue to serve the department and our warfighters—with our two requested safeguards in place. Should the department choose to offboard Anthropic, we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider, avoiding any disruption to ongoing military planning, operations, or other critical missions."
Amodei's blog post followed CBS News reporting earlier Thursday that "Pentagon officials on Wednesday night sent Anthropic their best and final offer in negotiations for use of the company's artificial intelligence technology."
It also came just hours after Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell responded to a related post from a Google scientist on Musk's social media platform X. The DOD official claimed that "the Department of War has no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement. This narrative is fake and being peddled by leftists in the media."
"Here's what we're asking: Allow the Pentagon to use Anthropic's model for all lawful purposes. This is a simple, commonsense request that will prevent Anthropic from jeopardizing critical military operations and potentially putting our warfighters at risk. We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions," Parnell added, noting the Friday deadline and the threat to "terminate our partnership with Anthropic and deem them a supply chain risk."
While Amodei and observers await the Pentagon's next move, several Anthropic employees, other tech experts, and critics of the Trump administration praised the CEO for "standing on principle" and choosing "war with the Department of War."
"Anthropic and Dario deserve credit for standing up for two very basic and obvious principles: no mass surveillance and no autonomous killer robots," said progressive commentator Krystal Ball. "Perhaps this is a low bar but it isn’t clear any of the other leading AI companies would put principle above profits in ANY scenario. The Pentagon is sure to make Anthropic pay for daring to defy them."
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Trump's Revived Anti-Worker Rules Condemned as 'Outright Grift'
"Every day, little by little, the Trump administration is rigging the system to benefit giant corporations and shortchange workers," said one senator.
Feb 26, 2026
President Donald Trump's "barrage of attacks on workers" continued on Thursday with announcements about two key labor rules.
The US Department of Labor (DOL) proposed an independent contractor rule that the National Employment Law Project (NELP) called "yet another example of the administration siding with major corporations and stacking the deck against working people" by "effectively allowing employers to strip workers of federal minimum wage and overtime protections."
The DOL's Wage and Hour Division proposal would replace the Biden administration's widely celebrated 2024 policy for when employers can treat workers as independent contractors under the Fair Labor Standards Act with business-friendly guidance that resembles a rule adopted just before the end of Trump's first term.
"This rule will have profound real-world consequences for working people," warned NELP. "Misclassification is common in many labor-intensive, poorly paid jobs—jobs like home healthcare, janitorial work, landscaping, personal services, and increasingly, app-dispatched ride-hail and delivery—where people of color and immigrants are overrepresented, and workers lack the bargaining power to negotiate higher wages and better working conditions."
NELP pointed to research showing that low-paid independent contractors "lag behind their employee counterparts," and some "do not even earn the federal minimum wage." The organization stressed that "this rule threatens to enshrine a two-tiered labor system where similarly situated workers receive vastly different rights and protections based on the classification chosen by the business employing them."
The new rule—which now faces a 60-day public comment period—focuses on two "core factors" to determine an employee's classification: the nature and degree of control over the work, and the worker's opportunity for profit or loss based on initiative or investment.
NELP argued that "by elevating two factors above other equally important factors, the Trump administration's test fails to account for the economic realities of many working relationships. Many workers labeled as independent contractors are not really in business for themselves because they are integrated into the operations of a larger business structure that sets most of the terms of the work."
"In app-dispatched ride-hail and delivery jobs, for example, corporations like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Amazon use apps and algorithms to offer shifts or assignments to so-called independent contractors doing the core work of the business, set the wages these workers receive, surveil and assess their performance, and determine if they are offered future assignments or get 'deactivated,'" the group noted. "App-based ride-hail and delivery workers perform difficult and dangerous work without basic employment protections like the right to minimum wage and overtime, workers' compensation, and unemployment insurance."
As NELP and other critics sounded the alarm over the DOL proposal on Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) also revived an effort from Trump's first term, reinstating that administration's 2020 rule on joint employers.
During Trump's initial administration, the NLRB required joint employers to "possess and exercise substantial direct and immediate control" over at least one aspect of the workers' employment. In 2023, under former President Joe Biden, the board decided that two or more entities could be considered joint employers if they had an employment relationship with the workers and helped to determine their terms and conditions of employment. However, the latter was blocked by a Trump-appointed judge the next year.
Unlike the DOL proposal, the board's rule is final. The NLRB—which has two Trump appointees, one Biden appointee, and two vacancies—said in the Federal Register that "the 2023 rule was vacated by the district court, and the action the board takes today merely implements the court's decision. Our action is ministerial and therefore will have no separate economic effect."
US Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, declared in a Thursday statement that "every day, little by little, the Trump administration is rigging the system to benefit giant corporations and shortchange workers—it's an outright grift and working people should be furious."
"The joint employer rule is nothing more than a return to Trump's anti-worker policies that let giant corporations skirt their basic obligations to employees—Trump is giving the biggest corporations cover to deny workers their ability to band together for better wages and working conditions and leaving millions of workers in the lurch, vulnerable to egregious violations of their rights," she said.
"At the same time, today, the Trump administration announced they're working to rescind the independent contractor rule," Murray continued. "Trump wants to let giant corporations classify workers as contractors so that they don't have to pay them minimum wage and overtime—these workers deserve fair pay."
The senator then took aim at the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act that congressional Republicans passed and the president signed last summer, saying that "under the Trump administration, giant corporations get giant tax breaks paid for by cutting Medicaid—the healthcare that the poorest workers are forced to rely on."
"Now, Trump wants those same corporations off the hook for every benefit, protection, and dollar they'd otherwise owe to millions of workers—it's a shakedown," she asserted. "Republicans are proving time and again, they don't care about workers—they don't want to even let workers have crumbs, but billionaires can get trillions in tax breaks that will blow up our national debt."
Murray isn't up for reelection in November's closely watched midterms, but could lead the Senate Appropriations Committee if Democrats reclaim the chamber. On Thursday, she vowed that "I am going to keep fighting for laws on the books that protect workers and build an economy that grows the middle-class, not just profit margins for the largest corporations on Earth."
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Israel Responsible for Two-Thirds of Journalist Deaths in 2025: Press Freedom Group
The number of journalists killed by Israel is remarkably high even when compared to the number of journalists killed in other conflict zones.
Feb 26, 2026
A new report from a major press freedom group has found that a record 129 journalists were killed in 2025, and that Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the worldwide total.
The Tuesday report from the Committee to Protect Journalists says that the Israeli military has cumulatively killed more journalists than any other government since CPJ started tracking reporter deaths in 1992, with the vast majority being Palestinian media workers in Gaza.
The report also finds an increase in the use of drones to attack journalists, with Israel accounting for more than 70% of the 39 documented instances of reporters killed by drone strikes.
The number of journalists killed by Israel is remarkably high even when compared to the number of journalists killed in other conflict zones.
Only nine journalists were killed in Sudan, for example, while just four journalists were killed in Ukraine, despite both countries being in the midst of brutal conflicts that have collectively killed hundreds of thousands of people.
A report issued in December by Reporters Without Borders similarly found that Israel was responsible for the most journalists deaths in 2025, the third consecutive year that the country had held that distinction.
The CPJ report also points the finger at governments for not taking their responsibilities to protect journalists seriously.
"The rising number of journalist deaths globally is fueled by a persistent culture of impunity," the report states. "Very few transparent investigations have been conducted into the 47 cases of targeted killings (classified as 'murder' in CPJ’s longstanding methodology) documented by CPJ in 2025—the highest number of journalists deliberately killed for their work in the past decade—and no one has been held accountable in any of the cases."
CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg said that attacks on the media are "a leading indicator of attacks on other freedoms, and much more needs to be done to prevent these killings and punish the perpetrators," adding that "we are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.”
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