Have an excellent weekend, one and all.
. . .MINUTE entry before the Honorable John F. Kness:
In-person status hearing held on 10/15/2026. For the reasons stated on the record and that will be memorialized in an opinion to be entered by separate order, the Government's motion to intervene [148] is granted.
The Government is directed to file the complaint in intervention as a separate docket entry on or before 10/23/2026. The parties are directed to meet and confer as to Defendant's motion to bifurcate discovery [45].
A continued telephonic status hearing is set for 10/29/2026 at 11:00 A.M. The parties are to use the following call-in number: 1-855-XXX-XXXX, Access Code: 2315 XXX XXXX. The public and media representatives may have access to the hearing via the same number. Audio recording of the hearing is not permitted; violations of this prohibition may result in sanctions. Participants are directed to keep their device muted when they are not speaking. . . .
So. . . the MAGA kids are fighting among themselves. The MAGA Governor doesn't feel the collusive federal settlement terms from Trump are favorable enough to him, in Texas. Or more likely,he is balking at Texas taxpayers footing the bill for injuries his own installation of razor wire caused on the Rio Grande. He likely expects the feds will pay, since it is likely that Tangerine 1.0 (toward the end) ordered it.
I dunno. I just find it so dearly. . . precious when these MAGA loons fight one another. [Cough -- AG Ken Paxton much?] The wiser, more clear thinking majority of America looks on -- and sees. . . only a flailing criminal enterprise. Trust that. Here's the order, from clear thinking USDC Chief Judge Alia Moses in Del Rio Texas, overnight:
. . .The Court ordered this case to proceed forward by setting deadlines for relevant discovery and briefing. Governor Abbott then filed a brief on behalf of the state of Texas explaining why absent the Governor's approval of any resulting settlement agreement between the United States and Texas would be unauthorized and unenforceable. The Plaintiffs, represented by the Attorney General of the state of Texas, then filed a Motion to Strike contending that the Governor has no independent statutory or constitutional authority to represent Texas in this case. . . .
It is hereby ORDERED that Governor Abbott is hereby added as a plaintiff-interyenor, and a party, in this matter.
SIGNED and ENTERED on this l4th day of October 2026. . . .
Hilarious. And Trump hired a press secretary who falsely claimed she holds a lawyers' license out of the Peoples Republic of China. Of course, there is no bar exam any foreign national may take or pass to be admitted in. . . China. Her ability to make up wholly stupid lies, though make her a perfect fit for Trump's mouthpiece. She understands her. . . assignment.
. . .In conformance with the Court’s directive during hearing on October 8, 2026, Defendants hereby give notice of the filing of Defendants’ responses and objections to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests in Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin, 25-cv-05605 (C.D. Cal.). . . .
Now you know -- on a gray rainy Wednesday -- but we are smiling just the same. . . [and keeping a good thought that my brother depicted above with the camera and at left, will one day be able to walk again].
. . .CREW urged the justices to deny review. It argued that in formulating the new discovery order, the D.C. Circuit had “followed this Court’s instructions” in its earlier ruling on the interim docket “to the letter.” Instead, it contended, the government was seeking “to transform this Court’s carefully crafted stay-stage order into a sweeping ruling that Cheney effectively forecloses discovery in this case. That is not what this Court said,” CREW insisted, “and, especially after remand, this case looks nothing like Cheney. . . .”
UPDATED: 10.14.2026 -- apparently the FTC staffers have moved to seal the 42 page memo of law. It makes sense that the exhibits to the memo would be sealed [for ID info, etc. of the various govt. witnesses], but FTC itself posted the memo's 42 pages on its public website [with very minor redactions], when it announced this filing -- just a day ago. So that link will remain -- the feds cannot seal what they chose to press release, after all. Fair is fair -- and I will note that most of the original FTC order by USDC Judge Cote in 2022 prohibited trying to influence the management of a pharma company, or work for one -- in a policy role.
He was however, prohibited from manipulative stock TRADING (in any public company) by the SEC orders long ago entered in Brooklyn, before USDC Judge Kiko Matsumoto. So this may yet have a few twists and turns. That said, the FTC does offer a transcript of his under oath deposition which we mentioned here. It must be assumed he lied, back then, to the FTC. End, update.
Most here will recall that we have closely followed the criminal travails of Martin Shkreli for over 12 years -- mostly at another property of ours -- and updated, from time to time here, as well. Today's developments will mean he is essentially completely broke -- again, at a minimum. [All his stock trades in the life sciences will be forfeited, without accounting for any potential offsetting losses.]
Moreover, as I directly and clearly predicted several times (see here), the FTC has had enough of his violating his lifetime pharma bans. They have sued him in front of USDC Judge Cote in Manhattan -- for contempt of court, overnight. Here's the 42 page memo of law -- supporting the short motion in full -- and a bit from CNBC (interspersed with snippets from the FTC memo of law):
. . .In addition to the FTC, the states that joined Tuesday’s court filing are New York, California, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The filing asks the judge to order Shkreli’s sister, Leonora Izerne, and his “significant other, Chelsea Voss,” to preserve all evidence relating to potential violations of the injunction against Shkreli because both women “appear to have assisted or be assisting Shkreli in violating the Permanent Injunction. . . .”
“After a full trial, the court found that Martin Shkreli’s conduct drove up prescription drug costs for American patients and blocked the entry of lower-cost generics,“Daniel Guarnera, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in a statement on Tuesday.
The motion alleges that, while livestreaming his trades in pharmaceutical industry stocks, Shkreli told his viewers “I’m showing you how to trade and invest in biotech.” The motion further alleges that, in another livestream, Shkreli confessed his “magic trick”: “It doesn’t matter what trades I make because I can always find a couple of biotech stocks to smoke.” As alleged in the motion, Shkreli used his livestreams to wage multiple public campaigns to short certain pharmaceutical company stocks based on his prediction that their key clinical trials would fail.
In their contempt filing, the FTC and its co-plaintiff states ask the court for an order to show cause why Shkreli should not be held in civil contempt for violating the lifetime ban imposed by the court and ultimately to issue civil sanctions to force Shkreli to comply with the terms of the court’s 2022 injunction.
In September 2024, Shkreli bragged to his viewers that “[t]he last time I shorted a stock, I made $20 million bucks, it was called Vital Therapies . . . . I made a similar amount of money in Celadon. I mean, you can look at my track record of public shorts. . . . It’s very good in biopharma only.” In September 2025, Shkreli declared himself “the GOAT of binary events. . . .”
“When judgment is entered by a court, whether it’s a settlement or an order following a trial, defendants must fulfill their obligations,” Guarnera said. “Today’s action should serve as notice that the FTC will not hesitate to enforce violations of court orders. . . .”
Geez. What a messed up agency ICE is at the moment. The below details the federal violations, against the rights of the people -- primarily, to find out what the feds are doing in our name and with our tax dollars. Sheesh.
Here is all seven pages of that (as a pdf file) -- and a bit:
. . .Plaintiffs’ prayer for relief asks this Court to (1) declare that Defendant United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement has violated FOIA by failing to make a timely determination regarding Plaintiffs’ request for expedited processing, and by failing to grant Plaintiffs a waiver of all fees associated with its FOIA request; (2) declare that each Defendant has violated FOIA by failing to make a timely determination regarding Plaintiffs’ FOIA request and by failing to produce responsive documents; (3) order each Defendant to respond to Plaintiffs’ FOIA request by a date or dates certain and to search for and produce responsive records on an expedited basis; (4) order Defendant United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement to grant Plaintiffs a waiver of all fees associated with their FOIA request; and (5) award Plaintiffs their reasonable costs and attorney fees. . . .
. . .For the reasons stated in detail on the record as to each individual, and in consideration of the recent decision in Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin, No. 2:25-CV-05605-MEMF-SP, 2026 WL 2751388, at *19 n.18 (C.D.Cal. Sept. 2, 2026), where the court found as follows:
In their arrest narratives, Plaintiffs describe arrests where the arrestees did not attempt to flee, agents did not ask any questions to ascertain risk of escape, and agents did not appear to know the names of the arrestees prior to approaching them. Taken together, these observations support the conclusion that no likelihood of escape analysis took place: When an agent approaches someone without knowing who they are, the only way the agent could gather the requisite information for a likelihood of escape analysis is by learning more about the detainee. Where no questions -- or no questions beyond the arrestee’s immigration status -- were asked, no likelihood of escape analysis could have been conducted; this Court grants plaintiffs’ motion to enforce with respect to the following individuals: [Redacted]. . . .
For any of the above eight individuals that remain detained, defendants are ordered to facilitate their immediate release on their own recognizance and without bond or conditions of release as specified in Section IV(E)(2) of the Decree, (Dckt. #155-1 at 9), by no later than 10:00 a.m. CT on October 12, 2026. With respect to those individuals who have already been released, but on bond and with conditions, defendants must take action to refund any bonds and remove all conditions on or before 10:00 a.m. CT on October 12, 2026. Defendants shall file a certification by 5:00 p.m. CT on October 14, 2026, that all individuals have been released on their own recognizance and without bond or conditions of release as required by Section IV(E)(2) of the Consent Decree. . . .
. . .Media are invited to join NASA for a media teleconference at 4 p.m. EDT, Thursday, Oct. 15, to preview the agency’s contributions to JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission.
The mission is scheduled to launch from JAXA’s Tanegashima Space Center in Japan on Monday, Oct. 19 EDT (Tuesday, Oct. 20 JST). . . .
The MMX spacecraft will arrive at Mars in August 2027 to begin its survey of the Red Planet’s two moons, Phobos and Deimos. After surveying Phobos in detail, the spacecraft will collect a sample of the moon’s surface no earlier than December 2028 and deliver it to Earth in 2031. NASA’s contributions to the mission include the MEGANE gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, the spacecraft’s surface sampler mechanism, and communications and navigation support from the agency’s Deep Space Network, as well as funding United States scientists participating on the MMX science team.
The MEGANE instrument was developed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, developed the spacecraft’s pneumatic sampler mechanism. NASA’s contributions to the MMX mission were funded by the agency’s Discovery Program, which provides frequent flight opportunities for high-value, focused planetary science investigations. The Discovery Program is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. . . .
. . .Hong Kong has recorded 21 cases of mpox since August, accounting for 70 per cent of this year’s total, prompting health authorities to urge people who engage in high-risk sexual contact to take protective measures and get vaccinated to reduce their risk of infection.
The latest case, involving a 29-year-old man, brought the total number recorded in Hong Kong this year to 30, comprising 23 local cases and seven imported ones, the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said on Saturday. Twenty-one cases, or 70 per cent of the total, were recorded since August.
Epidemiological investigations showed that all 21 patients reported engaging in high-risk sexual behaviour during the incubation period, including having sex with male strangers or multiple partners, and having sex without a condom, the centre said. . . .
. . .Two months after the Senate confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, her office has moved to allocate new funds for a controversial clinical trial of the hepatitis B vaccine in Guinea-Bissau, which was previously suspended. Researchers revised the study protocol in January, amid an international uproar over medical ethics. While it is not clear how much Schwartz was involved in, or knew about, the budget requests from her office, her appointment to the directorship came amid questions about how independent she would be from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In late September, a staff member within the CDC director’s office instructed the agency’s budget office to set aside $1.6 million to help fund the trial, Rolling Stone has learned. The new funding is being pulled from money directed by Congress for CDC global health security programs, two sources with knowledge of the study plans say.
Amid an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and swirling questions around a possible lab accident in Eastern Siberia that may have resulted in the release of plague bacteria, there are any number of vital uses for such funding. . . .
[The] $1.6 million will be slated for a clinical trial in Guinea-Bissau seeking to examine whether the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine, used safely for decades, has potential negative health effects such as skin ailments or neurodevelopmental disorders. The study would be led by Christine Stabell Benn and Peter Aaby, married researchers at the University of Southern Denmark long lionized by Secretary Kennedy for their controversial vaccine research. Presently, they are facing accusations of scientific misconduct, unrelated to the hepatitis B trial, that are under review by the Danish Committee on Research Misconduct. . . .
However, in a nation where one in five adults have hepatitis B, the study design could result in some of the newborn participants being infected but receiving no birth dose of the vaccine, clinical trial and infectious disease experts contend. The revised protocol from January includes limited measures for screening mothers for hepatitis B, by asking them if they are infected, and blood tests for 250 mothers and children to screen for infection. It was not immediately clear by press time whether the researchers had made further revisions to the protocol.
“It’s a wholly unethical trial, and it shouldn’t be allowed,” says Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It saddens me to think that our country would in any way participate in a trial where half of the children would be receiving substandard care and thousands will be doomed to develop cirrhosis or liver cancer. . . .”
Stabell Benn has vehemently defended the ethics of the clinical trial, asserting that no child would receive less than the standard of care in Guinea-Bissau, and no participant would be denied treatment they would otherwise receive. “The trial complies with current national policy in Guinea-Bissau and has been reviewed and approved by the competent national ethics committee,” she previously told Rolling Stone. The research project she and Aaby run in Guinea-Bissau, the Bandim Health Project, has responded to these concerns on its website.
Professors Stabell Benn and Aaby, and officials from the Health and Human Services Agency and CDC, did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Rolling Stone sent questions for this story to the University of Southern Denmark on October 6. In response, the dean of the faculty of health sciences, Jakob Grauslund, said in a lengthy statement that “as of today, October 7, 2026, I have given the researchers approval to proceed with the revised Hepatitis B study.” He says that he had communicated that decision to Stabell Benn today. The approval was based on an “independent ethical assessment” carried out by the university’s research ethics committee, Grauslund says.
He adds that because a foreign ethics review panel — in this case, one in Guinea-Bissau — had already approved the study, Danish law precluded its regional or national ethics committees from conducting a separate review. Consequently, he says the university approached both the World Health Organization’s Research Ethics Review Committee and the European Network of Research Ethics Committees to conduct an independent review, but both said they were unable to.
He notes that authorities in Guinea-Bissau had yet to give their final approval, and “the study cannot begin until the necessary national authorization has been obtained.”
Inside CDC, proponents of the clinical trial had been waiting on the outcome of the University of Southern Denmark’s ethics review in order to resurrect the study, Rolling Stone has learned from agency sources. . . .
Now it appears that, despite a global effort to stop the Guinea-Bissau trial, Kennedy’s allies within the CDC have made plans to restart it. “Some of these things don’t die,” says a government health official with knowledge of the plans. “They just go into hibernation. . . .”
. . .In a statement on Sunday, Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said no new case had been recorded beyond the single imported case involving a Kenyan who had travelled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo through Uganda. The patient tested positive, was isolated on October 5 and died the following day.
“All 122 contacts of the case have been listed and verified. 108 (88.5 per cent) are in quarantine and being monitored daily, and none have developed any symptoms thus far. Tracing of the remaining contacts is ongoing, in collaboration with international partners where necessary, while surveillance remains active around the clock,” Mr Duale said.
According to the CS, 293 samples were tested from 289 alerts, with only the confirmed case testing positive. . . .
The CDC reported 8,750 confirmed cases of Ebola disease and 4,208 confirmed deaths as of October 6, 2026, in an outbreak caused by Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The agency said the outbreak is spreading substantially faster than previous Ebola outbreaks and is now the second-largest on record. . . .
. . .Kenya said 10 people are in quarantine after a Kenyan man died in Nairobi on Monday from the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola currently circulating in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Officials also said they are attempting to trace 57 other case contacts.
The man, who had lived in DRC for 11 years, arrived in Kenya over the weekend. He had been sick for one month before traveling to Nairobi via a flight from Uganda. Kenyan officials say they do not know why health screenings failed to detect the man in either the DRC, Uganda, or at the Nairobi airport. . . .
[Subsequent Update: It turns out that the] patient travelled by road to Kampala, Uganda, before flying to Nairobi, arriving on October 3. The patient was isolated in hospital and tested positive for the virus. Despite supportive treatment, the patient died on October 5, the WHO said. . . .
The most recent update from the DRC shows 8,665 confirmed and 4,178 deaths, with a case-fatality rate of 48.2%. . . .
. . .[Wed.: The] defense team was told that Pike might be taken off life support to die. That changed Tuesday. She cannot move either arm, and she has not been able to eat because she can’t swallow, he said. “We don’t know the toll all of this will take” (one of her lawyers, Mr. Spicey) says. . . . Pike was aware of the state’s execution attempt and was angry, Spivey said: at the same time, he said, she was suffering cognitive confusion. . . .
Pike was “speaking, limitedly” as of Tuesday, when her lawyers announced that she had regained consciousness. Part of the challenge for Pike’s lawyers is that she has been very involved in her litigation and has not been able to engage in anything that has happened since her failed execution. . . .
[Tues.:] Ms. Pike continues to receive critical medical care at a Nashville hospital, the lawyers said. The prognosis remains unclear, they said, but they expected a long recovery.
“Christa is a survivor and will take recovery one day at a time,” the lawyers said.
Ms. Pike, 50, is believed to be the first person to have survived doses of a lethal injection drug. She has been hospitalized since late Wednesday evening, after it became clear to witnesses that she was still breathing after two doses of pentobarbital, the drug used in lethal injection.
She had been unconscious and on a ventilator in recent days as medical staff worked to rid her body of the drug. The lawyers pointedly noted that Ms. Pike, who they said had sustained burns and other injuries to her arm, remained handcuffed and shackled to her bed. . . .
I'd put this at a fairly small chance that it will end up prevailing at the Supremes -- but here's to hoping!
. . .The justices are about to hear a lawsuit that could determine whether the oil industry faces billions of dollars in liability for damages caused by global warming. . . .
Nearly a decade ago, the outdoorsy, liberal enclave of Boulder, Colo., sued two oil companies over their role in climate change. Now, the Supreme Court will consider whether the groundbreaking lawsuit can ever go to trial.
Its decision will resonate far beyond the Rockies.
A win for Boulder would likely clear the way for dozens of similar lawsuits nationwide aiming to extract billions of dollars from the fossil fuel industry to fight global warming. But if the court kills Boulder’s case, that could doom the others, handing a major victory to oil companies. . . .
. . .Vaxcyte’s investigational pneumococcal conjugate vaccine has achieved “near best-case scenario” data in a late-stage trial, matching existing shots on certain vaccine strains and beating them on others. The results sent the biotech’s shares up by more than 50% as investors welcomed a readout that could inject Vaxcyte into an $8 billion market.
VAX-31 met Pfizer’s existing pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) Prevar 20 and Merck’s Capvaxive on all 28 serotypes that one or both vaccines address, according to a Monday release. Vaxcyte’s option was superior to both vaccines on three unique serotypes. The Phase 3 trial met the co-primary endpoints that assessed non-inferiority of VAX-31 versus the marketed vaccines.
“[It] will be very difficult to refute that VAX-31 is showing best-in-class PCV potential here in this $8Bn+ (and growing) market,” Mizuho wrote in a Monday morning note.
Leerink Partners dubbed the readout “highly impressive. . . .”
". . .From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored — indeed, I have struggled — along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies. The basic question — does the system accurately and consistently determine which defendants "deserve" to die? — cannot be answered in the affirmative. It is not simply that this Court has allowed vague aggravating circumstances to be employed, see, for example, Arave v. Creech, (1993), relevant mitigating evidence to be disregarded, see, for example, Johnson v. Texas, (1993), and vital judicial review to be blocked, see, for example, Coleman v. Thompson, (1991). The problem is that the inevitability of factual, legal, and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent, and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.
It is the decision to sentence a defendant to death — not merely the decision to make a defendant eligible for death — that may not be arbitrary. While one might hope that providing the sentencer with as much relevant mitigating evidence as possible will lead to more rational and consistent sentences, experience has taught otherwise. It seems that the decision whether a human being should live or die is so inherently subjective — rife with all of life’s understandings, experiences, prejudices, and passion — that it inevitably defies the rationality and consistency required by the Constitution.
Perhaps one day this Court will develop procedural rules or verbal formulas that actually will provide consistency, fairness, and reliability in a capital-sentencing scheme. I am not optimistic that such a day will come. I am more optimistic, though, that this Court eventually will conclude that the effort to eliminate arbitrariness while preserving fairness "in the infliction of [death] is so plainly doomed to failure that it — and the death penalty — must be abandoned altogether." Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 442 (1980) (Marshall, J., concurring in the judgment). I may not live to see that day, but I have faith that eventually it will arrive. The path the Court has chosen lessens us all. I dissent. . . ."
. . .MINUTE entry before the Honorable Jeffrey I. Cummings:
Telephonic motion hearing set for 10/9/26 at 1:00 p.m. on plaintiffs' 8/28/26 motion to enforce consent decree [505]. The call-in number for the hearing is (855) 244-8681 and the access code is 2311 121 8062.
Members of the public and media will be able to call in to listen to the hearing. Persons granted remote access to proceedings are reminded of the general prohibition against photographing, recording, and rebroadcasting of court proceedings. . . .
. . .Congo's Ebola outbreak has now recorded more than 4,000 deaths, authorities said as they struggle to contain the spread of the virus.
The latest figures were released by the health ministry on Thursday. They show that 4,018 people have died from among 8,300 confirmed cases in what has become the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history.
More than 2,000 patients have recovered from the disease, the Reuters news agency notes. . . .
. . .Shyam Sankar
Chamath Palihapitiya
Satya Nadella
Lisa Su
Hock Tan
Jensen Huang
Elon Musk [South Africa -- worked unlawfully here, on an expired student visa]
Sundar Pichai
Sanjay Mehrota
Nikesh Arora. . . .
