Canadian fiddler sues Google after AI Overview wrongly claimed he was a sex offender; The Guardian, May 4, 2026

 Sian Cain , The Guardian; Canadian fiddler sues Google after AI Overview wrongly claimed he was a sex offender

"An acclaimed Canadian fiddle player has launched a $1.5m civil lawsuit against Google, alleging that the online giant defamed him by falsely identifying him as a sex offender in an AI-generated summary of his life and career.

Ashley MacIsaac, a three-time Juno award-winning musician, filed the claim in the Ontario superior court of justice, asserting that Google was liable for the “foreseeable republication” of its AI-generated Overview feature, which previously published defamatory claims that he had been convicted of multiple criminal offences, including the sexual assault of a woman, internet luring involving a child with the intention of sexual assaulting the child, and assault causing bodily harm.

Google’s AI Overview also wrongly stated that MacIsaac had been listed on the national sex offender registry for life, the lawsuit says."

Trump Would Have Slim Chance in Court Against Trevor Noah, Experts Say; The New York Times, February 2, 2026

 Benjamin Mullin, The New York Times ; Trump Would Have Slim Chance in Court Against Trevor Noah, Experts Say

Legal experts said that jokes like the one told by Mr. Noah at the Grammys on Sunday were protected by the First Amendment.

"President Trump early on Monday added Trevor Noah to the long list of high-profile individuals and institutions in his legal cross hairs after the comedian made a joke while hosting the Grammys about Mr. Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

But legal experts say that Mr. Trump’s threat to sue Mr. Noah, whom he called a “poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C.” on social media, has very little chance of succeeding in a courtroom.

“Trevor Noah is pretty clearly protected by the First Amendment,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “The fact that Noah was hosting the Grammys and not writing a news story in The Washington Post has constitutional significance,” he added.

Mr. Noah said on Sunday evening’s broadcast, which was aired on CBS, that Mr. Trump’s pursuit of Greenland made sense “because Epstein’s island is gone, he needs a new one to hang out with Bill Clinton.” Though Mr. Trump had been a friend of Mr. Epstein’s until the early 2000s, there is no evidence that he visited Mr. Epstein’s private island."

After 36 hours justifying the killing of Alex Pretti, Fox News suddenly changes its narrative; Media Matters for America, January 26, 2026

 MATT GERTZ , Media Matters for America; After 36 hours justifying the killing of Alex Pretti, Fox News suddenly changes its narrative

"On Sunday evening, Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin published a lengthy report detailing internal dissent among his federal immigration enforcement sources regarding the narrative pushed by Department of Homeland Security leaders after Border Patrol officers gunned down Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who had been videotaping their activities, in Minneapolis on Saturday morning. 

Amid the several hundred words describing an internal schism over how DHS is messaging masked agents of the state opening fire on a man who had already been restrained, Melugin slipped in the following statement: “There is no indication Pretti was there to murder law enforcement, as videos appear to show he never drew his holstered firearm.”

Melugin’s stark acknowledgement was whiplash-inducing for anyone who had been following Fox’s on-air coverage of Pretti’s killing up to that point, and it marked the start of a dramatic shift in the network’s treatment of the case.

Fox spent Saturday and much of Sunday blaming the victim and local Democrats for his death while excusing and even valorizing his executioners. In doing so the network was following in the footsteps of the high-ranking administration officials who baselessly argued that Pretti was a “would-be assassin” engaged in “domestic terrorism.” Melugin himself was the vehicle DHS used to launder its excuse that Pretti “was armed.” 

And notably, some Fox contributors repeatedly justified Pretti’s killing by going beyond the official comment to allege that he had drawn the gun he was reportedly legally carrying and that he even pointed it at the Border Patrol officers — the very claim Melugin said Sunday night had been disproved by videos.

The fallacy of the DHS smear of Pretti had long been clear to anyone who had reviewed videos of the shooting, triggering widespread outrage over his killing. But Melugin’s admission — and his reporting on a schism within immigration enforcement over the case — apparently provided his colleagues the permission structure they needed to abandon their narrative."

Honoring the Memory of Alex Pretti; The Bulwark, January 26, 2026

 William Kristol, The Bulwark; Honoring the Memory of Alex Pretti

"It’s fitting to begin with the words of Alex Pretti a little over a year ago at the deathbed of Terrance Lee Randolph, a veteran Pretti had cared for at the VA hospital in Minneapolis.

Today we remember that freedom is not free. We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it. May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served so that we may enjoy the gift of freedom. So in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service to our nation in the cause of our freedom. In this solemn hour, we give them our honor, and our gratitude.

It’s fitting, in the wake of Pretti’s killing Saturday, to remember and give thanks for his dedication and sacrifice in the cause of our freedom. And it’s proper that we resolve that he shall not have died in vain.

What would such a resolve mean? We can be guided by Michael and Susan Pretti, Alex’s parents, who said Saturday,

We are heartbroken but also very angry. . . .

Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However his last thought and act was to protect a woman.

The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. . . .

Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.

The good news is that the administration’s slander campaign against Pretti is failing, underscored by the news this morning that the president is dispatching border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis—a rebuke of those currently in charge. But there will be lasting dishonor for all those who joined in the smears, and on those who kept silent.

But the way to honor Pretti isn’t simply to insist on the truth about him. It’s to end the lawless occupation that took his life. It’s to free his fellow citizens, in Minnesota and beyond, from attacks by masked, trigger-happy government agents. It’s to begin to end the grotesque mass deportation campaign that has led to so much inhumanity, cruelty, and violence across the nation. It’s more broadly to limit the authoritarian depredations of the Trump administration over the next three years. It’s to lay the groundwork for an America in which men and women like Alex Pretti and Renee Good are once again honored rather than killed.

This is a task for all of us, and for many institutions, including the courts, state and local government, civil society, and the private sector. But it’s above all a task for Congress. The simple fact is that DHS, ICE, and CBP are creatures of Congress. They are authorized in legislation; their funds are appropriated; the behavior of their employees can be regulated by Congress as it chooses." 

Alex Pretti’s Friends and Family Denounce ‘Sickening Lies’ About His Life; The New York Times, January 25, 2026

 Talya Minsberg, Corina Knoll and Julie Bosman, The New York Times; Alex Pretti’s Friends and Family Denounce ‘Sickening Lies’ About His Life

[Kip Currier: How despicable and unethical it is to see and hear Trump 2.0 government officials like Kristi Noem, Greg Bovino, Kash Patel, Stephen Miller, J.D. Vance, and others -- whose salaries are paid for by American tax dollars and who take oaths to serve as public servants for U.S. democracy and uphold the Constitution -- wield conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated falsehoods as reputational weapons to defame and slander individuals like Alex Jeffrey Pretti and Renee Nicole Good.]

[Excerpt]

"He was a calm presence amid hospital chaos. A mentor who taught kindness and patience to younger friends and colleagues. A singer with a knack for dancing. A bicyclist who treasured the beauty of Minnesota.

This weekend, the family, co-workers and friends of Alex Pretti, who was killed by immigration agents in a confrontation after he was apparently filming them, remembered his life, even as the circumstances of his death were debated on the national stage.

They shared photos of the Alex they knew: a smiling, bearded Mr. Pretti in the powder-blue scrubs he wore at his job as an intensive-care nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital, an outdoors lover posing with his mountain bike on a wooded trail and a student wearing a green cap and gown as he sang a solo at his high school graduation in Green Bay, Wis.

And they denounced what they saw as smear campaigns in the aftermath of Mr. Pretti’s death.

Within hours of the killing by federal agents on a Minneapolis street, Trump administration officials labeled Mr. Pretti a “would-be assassin” and asserted, with no evidence, that he had committed an act of “domestic terrorism.”

Through their own shock and grief, people who knew him struggled to rise above the lies and insults, they said, to describe who he was.

Rory Shefchek, a friend from high school who now lives in Madison, Wis., said that he hoped that Mr. Pretti would be remembered as the person he knew.

“He was a helpful, kind guy,” Mr. Shefchek said. “He was a confident, diligent and respectful person throughout his life. I hope that Alex’s story can catalyze change, as someone who believed in doing the right thing.”

Of the cellphone footage of Mr. Pretti’s death that has circulated widely in the news and on social media, Mr. Shefchek said, “We have all seen the video and our eyes don’t lie.”"

Who Pays When A.I. Is Wrong?; The New York Times, November 12, 2025

 Ken Bensinger, The New York Times; Who Pays When A.I. Is Wrong?

"Search results that Gemini, Google’s artificial intelligence technology, delivered at the top of the page included the falsehoods. And mentions of a legal settlement populated automatically when they typed “Wolf River Electric” in the search box.

With cancellations piling up and their attempts to use Google’s tools to correct the issues proving fruitless, Wolf River executives decided they had no choice but to sue the tech giant for defamation.

“We put a lot of time and energy into building up a good name,” said Justin Nielsen, who founded Wolf River with three of his best friends in 2014 and helped it grow into the state’s largest solar contractor. “When customers see a red flag like that, it’s damn near impossible to win them back.”

Theirs is one of at least six defamation cases filed in the United States in the past two years over content produced by A.I. tools that generate text and images. They argue that the cutting-edge technology not only created and published false, damaging information about individuals or groups but, in many cases, continued putting it out even after the companies that built and profit from the A.I. models were made aware of the problem.

Unlike other libel or slander suits, these cases seek to define content that was not created by human beings as defamatory — a novel concept that has captivated some legal experts."

Louisiana librarian, anti-book banning author to speak on censorship at Iowa City Book Festival; The Gazette, October 11, 2024

  Elijah Decious, The Gazette; Louisiana librarian, anti-book banning author to speak on censorship at Iowa City Book Festival

"The librarian, who has for decades worked in the same school she attended as a child, filed three police reports — each of which went nowhere.

So the 2020 Louisiana School Librarian of the Year and 2021 School Library Journal Co-Librarian of the Year decided to do something more — sue her harassers for defamation. Requesting damages of just $1, she wanted to set an example for the students who look to her to combat bullies, and for the librarians across the country facing similar challenges.

“I was raised to speak out, love thy neighbor,” she said. “I’m just doing what I was raised to do.”

“That Librarian,” her new book released in August, is part memoir and part manifesto on the front lines of America’s latest culture war. As she maps the book banning crises occurring across the country, she calls on book lovers to fight for intellectual freedom — a right fundamental to everyone’s freedom of speech.

As she studies book bans and court cases, she notices a few trends. Since book bans started in states like Texas, Florida and Louisiana, she said book censorship has spread to all 50 states in some way or another.

But now, in some of the states that were first to initiate the discussion, the pendulum is swinging back as others realize the mistruths they were fed — like the idea that librarians were putting pornography on children’s book shelves."

The former Campbell County Library Director is suing the Bennets and the library; Wyoming Public Radio, October 12, 2023

Jordan Uplinger , Wyoming Public Radio; The former Campbell County Library Director is suing the Bennets and the library

"Terri Lesley, the former Campbell County Library Director, is suing the Campbell County Library System and members of the Bennet family. This comes two months after she was fired with no explanation.

Lesley is arguing discrimination from her former employer and defamation regarding members of the Bennet family. While her case against her former employer will have to be reviewed by the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission before going to court, her case against the Bennet family is expected to take place sooner.

Lesley is also suing the Bennet’s for civil conspiracy and conspiracy to deprive her of her constitutional rights. This refers to an incident in 2021 when members of the Bennet family requested the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office pursue claims that certain books in the library violated child-sex laws."