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Murdoch family settles dispute over media empire succession

Rupert Murdoch’s children have reached a settlement in their long-running legal dispute over control of the right-wing mogul’s media empire, his companies announced Monday, cementing eldest son Lachlan’s leadership.The agreement resolves litigation after several siblings contested the elder Murdoch’s effort to install as successor his son Lachlan, who shares his father’s political orientation. A Nevada court had previously blocked the 94-year-old’s effort.The new deal establishes a trust to replace the Murdoch Family Trust that had included Lachlan plus three other Murdoch siblings.Under the agreement, Prudence MacLeod, Elisabeth Murdoch and James Murdoch will receive cash based on equity sales and cease to have holdings in either media company.US media reported the value of the settlement would be $3.3 billion, to be split evenly among the three siblings.The eldest daughter, Prudence, has had little involvement in the family business, but James and Elisabeth are known as more politically centrist.”New trusts will be established for the benefit of Lachlan Murdoch, Grace Murdoch and Chloe Murdoch,” said a press release from Fox and News Corp.Meanwhile “the departing beneficiaries” will “cease to be beneficiaries in any trust holding shares in News Corp or Fox Corporation.”- Media transformation -Friction over the future of the holdings — a stable that includes Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and a host of British and Australian media — had been the inspiration for the hit TV series “Succession.”The complicated structure of the trust reflects the colorful familial relationships that shaped Rupert Murdoch’s life as he built the multibillion-dollar empire.The original trust was reported to have been the result of a deal with his second wife — mother of Lachlan, Elisabeth and James — who wanted to ensure her offspring would not be disenfranchised by children Murdoch had with his third wife, Wendi Deng.Murdoch’s daughters with Deng — Grace and Chloe — will be beneficiaries of the new trusts, along with Lachlan.The agreement establishes LGC Holdco, which will own all shares of News Corp and Fox Corp previously held by the original family trust. Voting control for these shares “will rest solely with Lachlan Murdoch through his appointed managing director,” said the press release.The Murdoch empire has transformed tabloid newspapers, cable TV and satellite broadcasting over the last few decades while facing accusations of stoking populism across the English-speaking world.Brexit in Britain and the rise of Donald Trump in the United States are credited at least partly to Murdoch and his outlets.

Killing Hong Kong’s Lai would strengthen democracy message, son says

Locked up for more than four years and ailing, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai would only become a greater symbol if he died in prison, his son said.On a visit to Washington, Sebastien Lai was meeting US officials and lawmakers as he appealed for greater international pressure on China and Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing authorities to free his father.”It’s horrible for me to say this, but if my father dies in prison, he’s actually a stronger symbol of freedom, of martyrdom for your beliefs,” Lai told AFP in an interview Monday.He said that freeing his father would be in Beijing’s own interest.”As you’ve seen with a lot of dissidents, once they’re released, they lose a lot of that, quote-unquote, power,” he said.”He’s already been there for five years. He’s served whatever sham sentence you brought against him.”Lai, 77, founded the Apple Daily, a popular pro-democracy tabloid that was shuttered as China clamped down on the metropolis, despite promises of a separate system when Britain handed it over in 1997.A successful businessman and outspoken opponent of Beijing, Lai was arrested in late 2020 and has been behind bars since, with a judge last month saying only that his verdict would come “in good time.”The charges against him could carry between 15 years and life in prison. His health has significantly worsened as he is diabetic, receives limited medical care and has been kept in solitary confinement without air-conditioning in the sweltering Hong Kong heat, his son said.The younger Lai said the last he heard about his father was that he experienced heart palpitations, an episode earlier described by his defense lawyers.- ‘Very real consequences’ -China imposed a draconian security law in Hong Kong in 2020 after massive and at times destructive protests against Beijing swept the global financial hub.Sebastien Lai said that other countries should persuade China that if “go through with this and kill him, essentially, there will be very real consequences” for Hong Kong.”Hong Kong is based on a strong, rigid legal system. That’s why it’s a financial center. Without the strong, rigid legal system, it’s nothing,” he said.Jimmy Lai visited Washington in 2019 to discuss pro-democracy protests with leaders including then-vice president Mike Pence.Prosecutors later pointed to his meetings, calling them a conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to impose sanctions on China and Hong Kong.Trump, in an interview while on the campaign trail last year, said of Lai, “100 percent, I’ll get him out.”Since returning to the White House, Trump has said he will at least try to free Lai. But Trump, long a harsh critic of China, has recently also spoken fondly of his relationship with President Xi Jinping.The younger Lai voiced appreciation for Trump’s efforts but voiced hope for a more outspoken stance by other Western countries, naming France.He praised the stances of Germany as well as Britain, where Jimmy Lai holds nationality and where the younger Lai lives.Sebastien Lai said Britain understood the importance of defending a person who sacrificed himself for democracy.”It doesn’t really get much better than that if you’re going to give someone citizenship.”

Israel film at Toronto fest entrenches industry split over Gaza

A documentary about an Israeli ex-soldier set to premiere at the Toronto film festival — after initially being cut from the schedule — has become the latest flashpoint in Hollywood’s internal split over the Gaza conflict.”The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” which charts how retired Israeli general Noam Tibon saved his family and others during the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, is due to screen at North America’s biggest movie festival Wednesday.The Canadian-produced film makes use of actual Hamas bodycam footage of the attacks that resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.A lack of “legal clearance” for this footage was the reason given by organizers for withdrawing the film from the festival’s lineup last month — before it was restored amid outrage over alleged censorship.More than 1,000 entertainment industry figures including Amy Schumer and Debra Messing had signed a petition accusing the festival of silencing Jewish voices.Director Barry Avrich this weekend in Toronto expressed skepticism about the official reason his film had been withdrawn.”To the best of my knowledge, I’ve not known Hamas to have a licensing division,” he told a panel.In a statement, festival organizers said they had found “a resolution to satisfy important safety, legal, and programming concerns,” apologizing for “pain and frustration” caused by its initial response.”I was so proud of the film community in Hollywood that started to really react to this,” Avrich told Deadline.- ‘Deep and angry’ -Yet Hollywood is far from unified.In a New York Times op-ed Monday, veteran entertainment reporter Sharon Waxman wrote that the Gaza conflict “has pitted Hollywood against itself.”For a politically liberal industry which contains a powerful pro-Israel lobby, the issue “remains a third rail, with convictions running deep and angry across the board,” she wrote.Also Monday, over 1,500 actors and film industry workers including Olivia Colman and Mark Ruffalo vowed not to work with Israeli cinema bodies they said were “implicated in genocide” in Gaza, in an open letter.Israeli’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 64,522 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run goverment’s health ministry considered reliable by the United Nations.Elsewhere, the recent Venice film festival began with protests and calls to boycott Israeli actors, and ended Saturday with a gut-wrenching new Gaza film taking second prize.”The Voice of Hind Rajab” recounts the killing of a five-year-old Palestinian girl by Israeli forces in Gaza last year.Blending real audio and video of the Red Crescent’s attempted rescue with dramatic reenactments, it drew backing from Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix.It also prompted “thousands and thousands” of intimidating messages to the filmmakers and producers, director Kaouther Ben Hania told AFP. The movie screened at Toronto Sunday, where Ban Hania said “we need the voice of Hind Rajab to echo across borders” and called for anyone in the audience who can help to evacuate the dead girl’s remaining family from Gaza.- ‘A family, not a country’ -Ahead of Wednesday’s premiere of “The Road Between Us” and possible protests, director Avrich told Deadline he planned to bring his own security team to supplement the festival’s.Toronto police told AFP they had a “strong presence across (the festival)” but declined to detail specific security plans for Wednesday’s premiere. The film itself is described as a documentary in the style of an “action thriller.”It recounts how Tibon “journeyed from Tel Aviv to the Nahal Oz kibbutz seeking to rescue his son,” who is a prominent journalist, and other family members.It uses a combination of new interviews and footage from kibbutz security cameras, as well as multiple Hamas bodycams.Avrich has described Tibon as a real-life hero in the style of Liam Neeson’s “Taken” action films.”He is seen as a man that finally, on that day, showed leadership,” said Avrich.But, he told the Hollywood Reporter, “it’s not really a political film. It’s wrapped in the flag of a family, not a country.”Whether Hollywood views it that way, remains to be seen.

OpenAI backs AI-animated film for Cannes debut

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is backing the production of a feature-length animated film created largely with artificial intelligence tools, aiming to prove the technology can revolutionize Hollywood filmmaking with faster timelines and lower costs.The movie, titled “Critterz,” follows woodland creatures on an adventure after their village is disrupted by a stranger, with producers hoping to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2026 before a global theatrical release, they said in statement on Monday.The project has a budget of under $30 million and a production timeline of just nine months — a fraction of the typical $100-200 million cost and three-year development cycle for major animated features.”Critterz” originated as a short film by Chad Nelson, a creative specialist at OpenAI, who began developing the concept three years ago using the company’s DALL-E image generation tool. Nelson has partnered with London-based Vertigo Films and Los Angeles studio Native Foreign to expand the project into a full-length feature.”OpenAI can say what its tools do all day long, but it’s much more impactful if someone does it,” Nelson said in the news release. “That’s a much better case study than me building a demo.”The production will blend AI technology with human work. Artists will draw sketches that are fed into OpenAI’s tools, including GPT-5 and image-generating models, while human actors will voice the characters. The script was written by some of the same writers behind the successful “Paddington in Peru.”However the project comes amid intense legal battles between Hollywood studios and AI companies over intellectual property rights.Major studios including Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery have filed copyright infringement lawsuits against AI firm Midjourney, alleging the company illegally trained its models on their characters.The film is funded by Vertigo’s Paris-based parent company, Federation Studios, with about 30 contributors sharing profits through a specialized compensation model.Critterz will not be the first animated feature film made with generative AI. In 2024, “DreadClub: Vampire’s Verdict,” considered the first AI animated feature film and made with a budget of $405, was released, as well as “Where the Robots Grow.”Those releases, as well as the original “Critterz” short film, received mixed reactions from viewers, with some critics questioning whether current AI technology can produce cinema-quality content that resonates emotionally with audiences.

Ex-WhatsApp executive sues Meta over alleged security failures

A former top security executive at WhatsApp filed a federal lawsuit Monday alleging that parent company Meta systematically violated cybersecurity regulations and retaliated against him for reporting the failures.Attaullah Baig, who served as head of security for WhatsApp from 2021 to 2025, claims that approximately 1,500 engineers had unrestricted access to user data without proper oversight, potentially violating a 2020 US government order that imposed a $5 billion penalty on the company.The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, alleges that Meta failed to implement basic cybersecurity measures, including adequate data handling and breach detection capabilities.According to the 115-page complaint, Baig discovered through internal security testing that WhatsApp engineers could “move or steal user data” — including contact information, IP addresses, and profile photos — “without detection or audit trail.”The filing claims Baig repeatedly raised concerns with senior executives, including WhatsApp head Will Cathcart and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.Baig alleges he faced escalating retaliation after his initial reports in 2021, including negative performance reviews, verbal warnings, and ultimately termination in February 2025 for alleged “poor performance.”The lawsuit also claims Meta blocked implementation of security features intended to address account takeovers affecting an estimated 100,000 WhatsApp users daily, choosing instead to prioritize user growth.Meta strongly disputed the allegations.”Sadly, this is a familiar playbook in which a former employee is dismissed for poor performance and then goes public with distorted claims that misrepresent the ongoing hard work of our team,” Carl Woog, vice president of communications at WhatsApp, told AFP in a statement.”Security is an adversarial space, and we pride ourselves on building on our strong record of protecting people’s privacy,” Woog added.The company said Baig left due to poor performance, with multiple senior engineers independently validating that his work was below expectations.Meta also noted that the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration dismissed Baig’s initial complaint, finding that Meta had not retaliated against him.The company further insisted that Baig’s self-description as head of security was an exaggeration of his role at WhatsApp, and that he was a lower-level engineer.Prior to joining Meta, Baig worked in cybersecurity roles at PayPal, Capital One, and other major financial institutions. The case adds to ongoing scrutiny of Meta’s data protection practices across its platforms — Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — which serve billions of users globally.Meta agreed to the 2020 government settlement following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which involved improper harvesting of data from 50 million Facebook users. The consent order remains in effect until 2040.In his whistleblower complaint, Baig is requesting reinstatement, back pay, and compensatory damages, along with potential regulatory enforcement action against the company.In a separate case targeting Meta first reported by the Washington Post on Monday, current and former employees allege the company suppressed research on child safety risks in its virtual reality products.Meta denies these claims, stating it prioritizes youth safety and complies with privacy laws.

Murdoch family settles dispute on control of media assets

Rupert Murdoch’s children have reached a settlement in the legal dispute over control of the right-wing media mogul’s companies, News Corp and Fox Corp announced Monday.The agreement resolves litigation after siblings had contested Murdoch’s effort to install as successor his son Lachlan, who shares his father’s political orientation. But a Nevada court had blocked the 94-year-old’s effort.The new deal establishes a trust to replace the Murdoch Family Trust that had included Lachlan plus three other Murdoch siblings. Under the agreement, Prudence MacLeod, Elisabeth Murdoch and James Murdoch will receive cash based on equity sales and cease to have holdings in either media company.US media said the value of the settlement would be $3.3 billion, to be split evenly among the three siblings.The eldest daughter, Prudence, has had little involvement in the family business, but James and Elisabeth are known as more politically centrist.”New trusts will be established for the benefit of Lachlan Murdoch, Grace Murdoch and Chloe Murdoch,” said a press release from Fox and News Corp.Meanwhile “the departing beneficiaries” will “cease to be beneficiaries in any trust holding shares in News Corp or Fox Corporation.”- Media transformation -Friction over the future of the holdings — a stable that includes Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and a host of British and Australian media — had been the inspiration for the hit TV series “Succession.”The complicated structure of the trust reflects the colorful familial relationships that shaped Rupert Murdoch’s life as he built the multibillion-dollar empire.The original trust was reported to have been the result of a deal with his second wife — mother of Lachlan, Elisabeth and James — who wanted to ensure her offspring would not be disenfranchised by children Murdoch had with his third wife, Wendi Deng.Murdoch’s daughters with Deng — Grace and Chloe — will be beneficiaries of the new trusts, along with Lachlan.The agreement establishes LGC Holdco, which will own all shares of News Corp and Fox Corp previously held by the original family trust. Voting control for these shares “will rest solely with Lachlan Murdoch through his appointed managing director,” said the press release.The Murdoch empire has transformed tabloid newspapers, cable TV and satellite broadcasting over the last few decades while facing accusations of stoking populism across the English-speaking world.Brexit in Britain and the rise of Donald Trump in the United States are credited at least partly to Murdoch and his outlets.

Trump admin launches immigration raids in Chicago

The Trump administration on Monday launched a new immigration enforcement operation in Chicago, saying the latest federal crackdown in a US city would target the “worst of the worst criminals.”The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcement of “Operation Midway Blitz” comes after President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to send National Guard troops into Illinois, sparring with the state’s governor JB Pritzker in social media posts in recent days.”For years, Governor Pritzker and his fellow sanctuary politicians released Tren de Aragua gang members, rapists, kidnappers, and drug traffickers on Chicago’s streets — putting American lives at risk and making Chicago a magnet for criminals,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.Pritzker, a Democrat, slapped back at the accusations, posting on X that the operation “isn’t about fighting crime” because Washington had done no coordination with Chicago authorities and “the Trump Administration’s focused on scaring Illinoisians.”The DHS statement included a list of names, images and rap sheets for 11 “criminal illegal aliens” it said had been released back onto Illinois streets and are now sought for arrest.Having declared victory with his unpopular troop deployments and deportation raids in Washington and Los Angeles, Republican Trump has turned to Democratic-run Chicago as a fresh talking point in his militarized rollout of anti-immigrant policy. He calls the city a “hell-hole” ravaged by gun crime.US Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois criticized the move as actions that “don’t make us safer. They are a waste of money, stoke fear, and represent another failed attempt at a distraction.””As President Trump continues to wrongly hyper-fixate on deploying the military to Chicago, his administration is now ramping up its campaign to arrest hardworking immigrants with no criminal convictions,” Durbin said.Trump posted new anti-immigrant messaging to social media Monday, sharing sketchy memes and cable news clips, decrying weekend violence and saying “I want to help the people of Chicago, not hurt them. Only the Criminals will be hurt!”The president’s move to dial back his provocative tone against The Windy City came after brazen threats to unleash the military, and public protests that drew thousands of defiant demonstrators to Chicago’s streets.Over the weekend, Trump posted an apparently AI-generated image of himself costumed as blood-thirsty Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore of “Apocalypse Now,” tweaking the famous line to say “I love the smell of deportations in the morning” and depicting the Chicago skyline inundated by smoke, flames and helicopters.In the original line in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film, Kilgore says he loves the smell of napalm, the highly flammable deadly weapon dropped on Vietnam. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” the president wrote Saturday on Truth Social.Pritzker rebuffed the president’s threats saying: “This is not a joke. This is not normal… Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”Pritzker posted advice for how to cope with raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), telling his followers to be loud in their opposition and advising them of their right to deny entry to any agent who lacks a valid warrant.

Ukraine refugee’s US murder fuels political debate on crime

The fatal stabbing of a Ukrainian refugee in the United States has taken on sweeping political dimensions, with the American right denouncing Democrats’ supposed lack of action on crime as President Donald Trump seeks to expand a crackdown.Iryna Zarutska, 23, was sitting quietly on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina on August 22 when she was attacked with no warning by a man sitting behind her, security video shows.Her murder made little national news last month but it recently surged into the spotlight after Republican lawmakers and far-right influencers promoted the graphic CCTV video last weekend. Now it appears to be serving as fuel to support Trump’s plans for sending troops into Democratic-run cities like Chicago. The operations, which Trump opponents see as an authoritarian takeover, are defended by Republicans as needed for fighting crime.”They’re evil people,” Trump said Monday. The president swiftly politicized the murder, taking to his Truth Social platform to slam the attacker as a “career criminal” with 14 prior arrests and saying Zarutska’s “blood is on the hands of the Democrats who refuse to put bad people in jail.””North Carolina and every State needs LAW AND ORDER,” Trump said, “and only Republicans will deliver it!”Zarutska and relatives emigrated from Ukraine in 2022 to escape the war, but her life ended tragically in an unprovoked attack by a man with apparent mental health issues.The detained suspect has been identified as Decarlos Brown, a 34-year-old African-American, and charged with first degree murder. He has multiple prior convictions and spent eight years in prison for armed robbery, according to court documents obtained by local television station WBTV.- ‘Ugly truth’ -The murder only gained national attention after the initial reaction by Charlotte’s Democratic mayor emerged.Days after Zarutska’s death, Mayor Vi Lyles offered “thoughts and prayers” to relatives of the victim, whom she did not identify in her initial statement. Instead she focused on the suspect’s condition.”I am not villainizing those who struggle with their mental health or those who are unhoused,” Lyles said in the statement.Criticism poured in. When footage of the murder was then released last week, and Lyles asked the media not to share it “out of respect for Iryna’s family,” an outcry ensued on the right.”Charlotte’s Mayor doesn’t want the media to show you the ugly truth. Why? Because she and other public officials in her city bear responsibility,” US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted Sunday on X.The following day he accused Democrats of “downplaying murders like this by saying we can’t demonize the homeless or the mentally ill.”Trump advisor Stephen Miller accused Democrats of backing “the monstrous and the depraved.”- Racial dimension -Trump has sent National Guard troops to Washington and is threatening to do the same in Chicago, the country’s third-largest city, even as both have reported substantial reductions in crime in recent years.Zarutska’s murder is now fueling Republican demands — often infused with racial commentary — for more crackdowns.Early Monday, right-wing tech billionaire Elon Musk supported an X post on crime figures that said white people are victims of black violence far more often than the reverse.Conservative activist Charlie Kirk also addressed the race factor.”If a random white person simply walked up to and stabbed a nice law-abiding black person for no reason, it would be an apocalyptically huge national story used to impose sweeping political changes on the whole country,” Kirk posted Monday on X.The comment was an apparent reference to George Floyd, a Black man whose 2020 killing by a white police officer sparked waves of anti-racism protests months before incumbent Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden.

Democrats release Trump’s alleged birthday note to Epstein

A lewd note allegedly from Donald Trump wishing late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein happy birthday in 2003 — and alluding to their unnamed “wonderful secret” — was released Monday by Democratic lawmakers, after the US president denied it existed.Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee, which is probing the handling of criminal investigations into the  financier, published the letter on social media after it was delivered by Epstein’s estate.The note is inserted into the sketched outline of a nude woman, and was allegedly part of a book of letters from Epstein’s friends, compiled by his now imprisoned associate Ghislaine Maxwell for the financier’s fiftieth birthday.The White House reiterated its denial of the authenticity of the letter on Monday, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying “it’s very clear President Donald Trump did not draw this picture and he did not sign it.”The note consists of a short dialogue between “Donald” and “Jeffrey.””We have certain things in common,” says Donald, to which Jeffrey responds: “Yes, we do, come to think of it.””Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?” asks Donald.”As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you,” says Jeffrey.”A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,” the note ends, followed by Trump’s signature, which takes the place of pubic hair on the nude outline.Trump, 79, sued the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion after it originally reported the existence of the letter, insisting that he had never sent it.”President Trump’s legal team will continue to aggressively pursue litigation,” Leavitt said Monday.Epstein, a wealthy financier with high-level connections around the world, was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for alleged sex trafficking of underage girls recruited to provide him with sexual massages.Trump’s supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and held as an article of faith that “deep state” elites were protecting a sex ring of Epstein associates, particularly in the Democratic Party and Hollywood.- Committee investigation -Trump took office in January promising to quickly get to the bottom of the Epstein conspiracies.But many of his supporters have been up in arms since the FBI and Justice Department said in July that Epstein had committed suicide, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a “client list.”Trump himself has repeatedly attempted to bury the controversy as attention intensifies on his own long-term friendship with Epstein.Democrats and a handful of Republicans risking Trump’s ire have doubled down, demanding that all legal files related to Epstein be released.The Republican-controlled Oversight Committee has subpoenaed Justice Department documents as well as testimony from many high-ranking officials, including former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.The Wall Street Journal reported that Epstein’s birthday book contains letters from dozens of people, including former president Clinton.As part of its response to the controversy, Trump’s Justice Department interviewed Epstein associate Maxwell, who is now serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls for the financier.She was interviewed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer.The Justice Department later released a transcript and audio recording of the interview, in which Maxwell says Trump was friendly with Epstein but was “never inappropriate with anybody.”The 63-year-old Maxwell, the only former Epstein associate convicted in connection with his activities, was moved from a prison in Florida to a minimum security facility in Texas following the interview with Blanche.

US Supreme Court allows roving LA immigration patrols

The US Supreme Court on Monday lifted an order preventing government agents from carrying out roving patrols to detain migrants in California, upholding at least for now a practice critics say amounts to racial profiling.The decision is the latest ruling by the country’s highest court in favor of President Donald Trump’s increasingly hardline stance in the wake of ramped up raids across Los Angeles and other parts of California.The conservative majority court announced the decision in an unsigned order that gave no reasons. Its three liberal members dissented. The case remains alive, however, in lower courts and could again end up before the highest court.The ruling came after a lower court said agents must have specific reasons to arrest people, beyond their speaking Spanish or gathering in places popular with those seeking casual work, and issued an order banning the practice.Opponents immediately slammed Monday’s ruling, with California Governor Gavin Newsom saying it was a deliberate attempt to hurt the state and its diverse people.”Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court majority just became the Grand Marshal for a parade of racial terror in Los Angeles,” said Newsom.”This isn’t about enforcing immigration laws — it’s about targeting Latinos and anyone who doesn’t look or sound like Stephen Miller’s idea of an American,” he said, referring to the architect of Trump’s immigration enforcement policy.”Trump’s private police force now has a green light to come after your family — and every person is now a target.”Earlier this year masked and heavily armed agents began targeting groups of people at home improvement stores, car washes or on farms around Los Angeles, sparking weeks of mostly peaceful protests in the city.Critics said the raids — which swept up a number of US citizens, as well as others in the country legally — were bluntly aimed at anyone who appeared to be Latino or who was speaking Spanish.Even after the stay order was issued, agents continued to push the boundaries.In one high-profile case last month ICE agents grabbed more than a dozen people outside a Los Angeles home furnishings store in a “Trojan Horse” raid.Agents sprang from the back of a rented moving truck in an episode filmed by embedded journalists from Fox News. Last month a three-judge panel denied a government appeal to overturn the judge’s original order, after rights groups argued that the raids appeared to be arresting people largely based on their race.While the Supreme Court did not state reasons for its decision, one of the conservative justices, Brett Kavanaugh, wrote a concurring opinion in which he said “illegal immigration is especially pronounced in the Los Angeles area.”One of the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina named to the court, dissented.”We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job,” she wrote.”The Constitution does not permit the creation of such a second-class citizenship status.”