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For Immediate Release
January, 08 2024, 10:44am EDT
Contact:
Cassidy DiPaola, cassidy@fossilfree.media
Supreme Court Allows Minnesota Climate Fraud Lawsuit Against Exxon, Koch, and API to Advance
Today, the Supreme Court denied the petition by ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute (API) to review a decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court allowing the state's consumer protection lawsuit for climate deception to proceed in state court. This marks the third time in the past year that the nation’s highest court has rejected efforts by major oil and gas companies to halt this groundbreaking litigation.
Filed in 2020 by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the lawsuit alleges these companies violated state consumer protection laws by engaging in a coordinated campaign of deception around the role their products play in causing climate change. The complaint points to multiple examples of these companies downplaying global warming despite knowing from their own scientists that burning fossil fuels poses severe threats.
In siding with Minnesota, the Supreme Court has now removed the last potential procedural hurdle to the case advancing to discovery and trial. Cassidy DiPaola, Communications Director for Fossil Free Media and the Make Polluters Pay campaign praised the decision:
“Today’s decision is an important step forward for accountability and justice. The Supreme Court has now laid out an unmistakable path forward for not only Minnesota’s consumer protection case against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and API, but the dozens of cases against the fossil fuel industry popping up across the county.”
With its litigation now cleared to proceed in state court as intended, Minnesota appears well positioned to test longstanding legal principles of consumer protection and fraud against the alleged deception around climate science perpetrated by major oil and gas interests.
Fossil Free Media is a nonprofit media lab that supports the movement to end fossil fuels and address the climate emergency.
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"We cannot turn a blind eye to the Mexicans who have died," said Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Jul 10, 2026
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday that her government intends to pursue criminal charges over the deaths of 17 Mexican nationals in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Associated Press reported that Sheinbaum's administration will submit a request "to state prosecutors' offices and the US Department of Justice, asking them to consider criminal charges against those responsible for the deaths." The request, according to AP, "will be accompanied by civil lawsuits against the companies that operate the detention centers in an effort to put an end to human rights violations in those facilities."
Sheinbaum said her government decided to urgently move forward with its likely doomed push for accountability after an ICE agent killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston earlier this week. Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, had been living in the US for more than three decades.
Mexico's president called the killing "sad and regrettable," arguing that it "appears to have been targeted."
"We are going to do everything in our power, because we cannot stand silent," Sheinbaum said Thursday. "We cannot turn a blind eye to the Mexicans who have died."
According to a recent report by Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch, "the mortality rate of deaths in ICE custody is at its highest level in over a decade and has more than doubled since [US President Donald] Trump’s second term began."
"The rate is nearly four times that of the Biden administration, and more than two and a half times as high as that of the first Trump administration," the report found, noting that a record 71,000 people were in immigration detention in January 2026. "The surge in deaths is much worse than what one would expect even considering the much higher number of people in detention."
Deaths in ICE custody have drawn international alarm, with the United Nations high commissioner for human rights saying last month that "the lack of transparency and clarity surrounding the circumstances of these deaths in custody undermines accountability for them."
“I call for prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigations into all deaths in ICE custody," said Volker Türk. "Those responsible for violations of the law must be held to account, and the rights of the victims’ families to truth, justice and reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence must be upheld."
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"Anybody with eyes and a heart knows the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza," the Maine Senate candidate said.
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As he runs to take the place of Graham Platner as the Democratic US Senate nominee for Maine, former State Senate President Troy Jackson affirmed that he was in step with the majority of Democratic voters and would oppose sending military aid to Israel as it commits what he called a "genocide" in Gaza.
Jackson, a longtime labor activist who finished third in the Democratic gubernatorial primary last month, has been floated by many progressives as a fitting replacement for Platner, who suspended his campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins this week following sexual assault allegations.
In his campaign announcement, Jackson hit many similar themes to Platner, who won the Democratic primary last month.
Jackson billed himself as a "progressive fighter" seeking to build a "powerful movement of working-class people" and emphasizing his support for Medicare for All and "tak[ing] on corporate power."
But some observers noted the absence of any mention of Gaza, which Platner emphasized heavily and which has become a central moral issue for many Democratic voters, who overwhelmingly oppose continued support for Israel as it commits what the majority feel is a genocide against Palestinians.
A review of Jackson's social media history showed that he had no posts about Gaza when he announced his campaign on Wednesday.
But following reports that an Israeli missile strike had killed a Palestinian aid worker who'd organized World Cup watch parties in Gaza, Jackson took the opportunity to make his stance clear.
"This is unconscionable," Jackson wrote on X. "Anybody with eyes and a heart knows the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza. It has to end, and we as Americans have the power to end it."
"When I'm in the US Senate," he continued, "I’ll never vote in favor of US taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel."
Other leading candidates, most of whom ran for governor, have expressed a range of opinions about Israel's conduct.
Nirav Shah, a physician who led the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention from 2019 to 2023 and finished second in the gubernatorial primary, has expressed a similarly strong stance that Israel was committing genocide and that he would support a full arms embargo and would refuse any campaign funding from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Shenna Bellows, who came in fourth place in the governor's race and currently serves as Maine's secretary of state, has not publicly expressed a clear opinion on support for Israel, though in her 2014 Senate run against Collins, she advocated more generally for “deep cuts in defense spending” so public money could be directed toward domestic projects.
The progressive group Our Revolution, which has thrown its support behind Jackson, commended the candidate for taking a forthright stance.
"Troy Jackson doesn’t do word salad," the group said. "He calls a genocide a genocide and says he’ll never vote for taxpayer-funded military aid to fund it. That’s what Maine voters delivered a historic win for on June 9."
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"ICE appears to have lied yet again about killing someone," said one immigration expert.
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The controversy surrounding the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by federal immigration enforcement officials is growing amid new reports that the Trump administration is trying to deport three witnesses to the the fatal shooting.
Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said in a Thursday interview with The New Republic that the witnesses, all undocumented immigrants who were detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials after the shooting, are "being pressured to sign self-deportation orders."
"They’re currently in detention," said Proaño, who is serving as a representative for Salgado Araujo's family. "These men hold the key to what actually happened."
Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national who ran a small construction business and had been living in the US for more than three decades, was pulled over by ICE officers in unmarked vehicles on Tuesday morning.
ICE officers claimed that Salgado Araujo, who was driving to work along with three coworkers, tried to evade arrest by ramming his car into them.
Purportedly fearing for his life, one ICE agent opened fire on Salgado Araujo and killed him, the officers said.
However, The Washington Post reported on Friday that all three men who were in the car with Salgado Araujo are strongly disputing the ICE agents' account of the deadly incident.
In fact, all three witnesses said that the ICE officer involved in the shooting opened fire immediately after exiting his vehicle, and that Salgado Araujo did not try to drive into him.
Detainee Jose Trinidad Rojas, 51, in a hand-written statement obtained by the Post through attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, bluntly contradicted the ICE officers' claims.
"That is a lie,” Trinidad Rojas wrote. “It is impossible for them to say that they were going to get run over … there were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. They were on the sides."
Balderas-Ibarra told the Post that he interviewed the other two men in the car, who both gave the same account.
“All of them reiterated that there were never any ICE agents in front of the van,” Balderas-Ibarra said. “They came in and started shooting from the sides.”
David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said in a Friday social media post that the Post's reporting seems to show "ICE appears to have lied yet again about killing someone."
"Unbelievable," he added, "but actually totally believable given that they lie about events fully captured on video."
In a separate post, Bier examined a video of the shooting scene and noted that there appeared to be no damage to the front of Salgado Araujo's van, even as ICE claimed Salgado Araujo had tried to use it as a weapon against them.
Video appears to show no damage to the vehicle of the man ICE killed in Houston, who had lived in America peacefully for 35 years, despite ICE's claim that he "rammed" an ICE vehicle and "tried to run over" an agent. These people are not credible. https://t.co/3d3cBJBMUg pic.twitter.com/N7GqoW7ycq
— David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) July 9, 2026
"These people are not credible," Bier remarked.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, pointed out that all three witnesses to the shooting were telling the same stories even though they were being detained separately, which he said bolsters their credibility.
"When you add the videos showing a lack of evidence of damage to the front despite ICE's ramming claim," Aaron Reichlin-Melnick added, "ICE's story is falling apart."
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