Federal courts across the United States have ordered bond hearings or immediate release for several Indian nationals held in immigration detention this week.

A federal court has refused to stop Iowa education regulators from investigating complaints against two teachers regarding their social media posts following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

But the case against the California attorney general, prompted by his lawsuit over Exxon’s plastic recycling program, can proceed in Texas federal court.

Argentina's federal courts have begun closing hundreds of tax-evasion cases in bulk following the implementation of the 'Fiscal Innocence' law, a reform that significantly raised the monetary thresholds for tax evasion to be considered a criminal offense.

A judge has ruled that a federal court cannot decide on a challenge to the Orleans sheriff's 'sanctuary' policy, indicating a legal debate over local immigration enforcement.

The Federal Court in Australia has dismissed a significant 'greenwashing' case brought against the energy company Santos.

Several First Nations are asking a federal court to weigh in on whether a deal struck on a carbon capture project was unconstitutional and violated Canada’s duty to consult.

How A Water War Is Brewing Over A Drying Lake In Nevada Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times, A Nevada lawsuit trickling toward trial could determine how the nation’s most arid state balances the legal rights of upstream landowners to divert water from rivers for agricultural irrigation with the impacts those withdrawals have on downstream ecologies and economies. Water rights exceed water supply across much of the western United States. With many watersheds failing to deliver enough water for local needs, the suit is being watched by attorneys, state water managers, and federal agencies. It could potentially set a precedent in revising how states across the West regulate access to water. The Nevada case, filed by the Walker River Paiute Tribe and Mineral County, may also present an opportunity for a win-win solution, in which nonprofits and government entities purchase private water rights from willing upstream sellers and dedicate them to downstream public benefit. Without public-private intervention and the changes in state water law that the suit seeks, geologists and environmental experts agree the future is bleak for Walker Lake, a 13-mile long terminal lake about 75 miles southeast of Reno near the California state line in rural, sparsely populated Mineral County. The lake is completely dependent on diminishing Sierra Nevada snowmelt runoff into the Walker River—runoff that, for decades now, has been almost entirely diverted for irrigation by upstream farmers and ranchers. As a result, a desert oasis that once generated more than half of Mineral County’s economic activity through recreational pursuits such as fishing, migratory bird-watching, boating, and camping is now a lifeless “sludge pond,” while the town of Walker Lake faces an accelerating prospect of extinction. “The last fish was caught in 2013 or 2015, I believe. When the fish died, the fishing died; boating, recreation, that all just disappeared,” Mineral County Commissioner Tony Ruse said. “There were restaurants here. There were hotels here. There were businesses here. Now? All gone, just 300 residents struggling.” A Mineral County native, Ruse returned in 2020 after working 34 years as a Switzerland-trained chef in Europe and Asia, including 20 years in South Korea, to open The Big Horn Crossing, a restaurant and convenience store in a shuttered bait shop. It’s now Walker Lake’s only remaining retail business. “It was dead. There was nothing,” he told The Epoch Times. “We should be selling bait here. We should be selling fishing supplies. There should be boats parked in our driveway right now.” (Top) Mineral County Commissioner Tony Ruse fields a phone call at The Big Horn Crossing, a restaurant and convenience store that is the only remaining retail business in Walker Lake, Nev., in January 2026. (Bottom) Walker Lake, a town of fewer than 400 people, is anchored on the slopes of Mount Grant, but no longer supports a fishery, boat races, or the waterfront restaurants and hotels that once made it a desert oasis for tourists, anglers, and campers, in Mineral County, Nev., in January 2026. John Haughey/The Epoch Times Marlene Bunch and her husband Glenn lead the Walker Lake Working Group, created in 1991 to ensure water reaches the lake to sustain its recreational economy. “Upstream diversions have been our nemesis, and that’s what our legal case is for,” Bunch, a former Mineral County clerk and treasurer, told The Epoch Times. Bunch.has lived in Walker Lake since the 1960s. She recalls a 1991 discussion with Nevada Department of Wildlife fisheries biologist Mike Sevon about what would happen if water levels continued to drop. Diminishing Returns Walker Lake retains water flowing east 100 miles from California’s Bridgeport and Topaz reservoirs through Nevada’s Smith and Mason valleys and the Walker River Paiute Tribe’s reservation. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, its water levels have declined more than 160 feet since 1882. Nearly 30 miles long in 1850, the lake is only 12 miles long today. The runoff provided hydrological pressure that sustained area water wells, especially in Walker Lake, where Ruse said residents are seeing “very brackish” water coming from taps, a potential death knell for the town. “It’s getting harder and harder to keep the federal standards for potable water,” he said. “So there’s going to be a day—and I’m waiting for the call—that we need to put a reverse-osmosis system in, which we couldn’t afford to do.” Walker Lake and nearby Hawthorne, the Mineral County seat, struggle in the desert—Hawthorne has seen its population decline 60 percent from 10,000 in 1980 to just over 3,000 in 2020. Meanwhile, agriculture in the Smith and Mason valleys has thrived. (Top) Walker Lake has receded well beyond the sign on U.S. Route 95, in Mineral County, Nev., in January 2026. Decades ago, anglers could shorecast for fish that can no longer survive in the shrinking lake. (Bottom) Nevada’s Walker Lake, a 13-mile-long lake about 75 miles southeast of Reno near the California state line in rural Mineral County, was once more than 30 miles long and 160 feet higher than it is now, in Mineral County, Nev., in January 2026. John Haughey/The Epoch Times But with mountain runoff unreliable for decades now, when upstream users divert their share, little to no water makes it to Walker Lake, leaving once-bustling waterfront businesses marooned as hulking shells far from a distant, receding shore. The case, United States and Walker River Paiute Tribe v. Walker River Irrigation District, is not a new case, but ongoing litigation arising from a lawsuit filed in 1924. It’s part of a flood of litigation stemming from Walker River allocations, going back to 1902, when rancher Henry Miller sued Thomas Rickey over water rights on the river. A 1936 Walker River Decree issued by the Nevada U.S. District Court finalized water rights for more than 500 private landowners, primarily farmers and ranchers, within the Walker River Basin, including those in the Walker River Irrigation District, under a “first in time, first in right” policy that remains the standard almost a century later. Like Nevada, most western states allocate water by the policy, known as prior appropriation. Therefore, under the 1936 decree, upstream users have legal priority to Walker River water. But in 2015, Mineral County filed a lawsuit citing the public trust doctrine, the legal principle that certain natural and cultural resources be preserved for public use. The lawsuit claimed that under the public trust doctrine, it is the state’s duty to maintain minimum inflows into public waters, such as Walker Lake, to sustain environmental, wildlife, recreational, and economic resources. The U.S. District Court ruled in the county’s favor. The irrigation district appealed. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court overturned the ruling; the public trust doctrine, it held, was a state law issue that had not been decided in Nevada. That kicked the case back to the Nevada Supreme Court, which in 2020 determined all Nevada waters will now be allocated under the public trust doctrine—but that already-issued water rights would not be, and can never be, reallocated. The Supreme Court of Nevada building in Carson City, Nev., in this file photo. In 2020, the court determined that all Nevada waters will now be allocated under the public trust doctrine. Steven Frame/Shutterstock The court directed Mineral County to recommend ways to restore the lake without reallocating water rights, and to work with the Walker Basin Conservancy, a nonprofit created in 2014 with federal funding initially secured by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Walker Basin Restoration Program. In 2021, Mineral County amended its 2015 complaint to intervene in the decades’-long parallel suit by the Walker River Paiute Tribe seeking to boost Walker River flows into a reservation reservoir and secure water rights for 167,460 acres added to the reservation since 1936. The county’s complaint includes 24 “actions … necessary to restore and maintain Walker Lake’s public trust values.” After years of procedural delays, including a requirement to individually serve more than 1,000 watershed landowners across the country, the case is set to proceed into discovery. A potential trial looms. But an alternate “win-win” solution orchestrated by the Walker Basin Conservancy is gaining traction and could, perhaps, mitigate the need for a court-ordered resolution. ‘The Only Solution’ Since its creation, the conservancy has restored public access to 33 miles along the Walker River and purchased more than 13,700 acres of water rights, enough to restore about 60 percent of the river inflow biologists maintain is needed to restore the lake’s fishery. Conservancy CEO Peter Stanton and Water Program Director Carlie Henneman did not return emails and repeated phone requests for comment about the program from The Epoch Times. Nor did the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Walker River Irrigation District attorney Gordon DePaoli, or Walker Basin Working Group’s Oregon-based legal advisers, Jamie Saul of the Wild & Scenic Law Center and Kevin Cassidy of Lewis & Clark Law School’s Earthrise Law Center. Several attorneys representing different parties would only speak off-the-record, underscoring the contentious complexities of the case. A sign of the Walker River Paiute Tribe in Shurz, Nev., on Oct. 16, 2024. Walker Lake retains water flowing east 100 miles from California’s Bridgeport and Topaz reservoirs through Nevada’s Smith and Mason valleys and the Walker River Paiute Tribe's reservation. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images Roderick E. Walston, an attorney with Best Best & Krieger in Walnut Creek, Calif., told The Epoch Times his clients above the Bridgeport Reservoir in California are apprehensive about Mineral County’s suit, which he said essentially demands the federal court to reallocate existing water rights under the public trust doctrine. “Our response is basically that the Nevada Supreme Court resolved that issue four years ago,” he said. Walston was a California deputy attorney general in 1983 and argued the Mono Lake case before the California Supreme Court. In that case, the state’s public trust doctrine was used to thwart Los Angeles from purchasing Mono Lake water rights that would have devastated the lake’s ecology and Sierra Nevada economies. “So I argued both the case in California Supreme Court 40-something years ago and then also argued the case in the Nevada Supreme Court about four years ago,” he said. Walston said the case could have “great impact” on water disputes in states that uphold the prior allocation doctrine. “This is an absolutely large case,” he said. Meanwhile, Mineral County District Attorney Ryan McCormick, who assumed his post seven weeks ago, told The Epoch Times he’s playing catch-up in reading filings “from decades and decades of litigation.” A sign is pictured at Walker Lake in Hawthorne, Nev., on Oct. 16, 2024. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Walker Lake’s water levels have declined more than 160 feet since 1882. Nearly 30 miles long in 1850, the lake is only 12 miles long today. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images “In a perfect world, if we get some specific performance and find a way to divert water back into the lake and have the levels rising again, that would be absolutely ideal,” he said, adding he isn’t privy to the reasoning behind all of the 24 actions assembled by the Walker Lake Working Group. It’s a complicated case in a long-litigated watershed but the best resolution is simple, McCormick said. “With the best interests of Mineral County, Hawthorne, and Walker Lake in mind here, we would like the lake to be receiving fresh water again. It would be nice to see some economic development right now, right?” But Walston said odds are slim the court will cast aside the state’s Supreme Court determination that existing water rights cannot be reallocated. Working with the conservancy and other groups to purchase water rights from willing landowners at $3,000 to $4,000 per acre foot—an acre of one-foot deep water—is a win-win for all involved, he said. “It’s the only solution, really. The Nevada Supreme Court has said you can’t just take water rights that have been adjudicated and take that water and put it into Walker Lake,” Walston said. “But you can go to various water users and negotiate with them and buy their water rights. In that case, then you could reallocate.” Tyler Durden Wed, 02/18/2026 - 22:35

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is arguing in federal court that Coles supermarket breached the law. The ACCC alleges Coles offered "utterly misleading" and "illusory" discounts through its 'Down Down' promotion.

A Virginia man charged with threatening Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell and others pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court,.

Brazil's Supreme Federal Court has convicted brothers Domingos Inácio Brazão and João Francisco Inácio Brazão, sentencing them to 76 years for ordering the 2018 assassination of Rio de Janeiro city councillor Marielle Franco and her driver.

Germany's Federal Court of Justice (BGH) dismissed a lawsuit by the Kingdom of Morocco against German newspapers 'Die Zeit' and 'Süddeutsche Zeitung' regarding their reporting on the Pegasus spyware, affirming press freedom.

Alleged Sinaloa Cartel leader Fidel Felix-Ochoa faces life in prison after appearing in federal court on charges of funneling fentanyl into the U.S.

Federal court rejects GOP-led Utah Legislature's latest try to block House map that helps Democrats  AP News

Argentina's government has reported a theft of IT equipment and other items from offices linked to the Labour Secretariat in central Buenos Aires, initiating both a federal court case and an internal investigation.

JPMorgan has filed a motion arguing that Donald Trump's lawsuit against the bank for alleged debanking should be heard in a New York federal court.

Boasberg Rubber-Stamps DOJ Request To Keep FBI-Twitter Payments Secret When the Twitter files hit in December of 2022, they revealed that the Biden administration had paid Twitter at least $3.4 million between October 2019 and February 2021 to reimburse the pre-Musk, left-leaning social media giant for a flood of requests.  During this period, the Biden DOJ was going after vaccine skeptics, lab-leak proponents, 2020 election 'deniers,' Catholic parents, Hunter Biden laptop / Burisma content, and conservative news outlets. We also learned that the FBI's Elvis Chan and crew were holding weekly meeting with Twitter on "misinformation," and flagged thousands of accounts for the above.  Days after the Twitter files were released, watchdog group Judicial Watch sued the Biden DOJ, which oversees the FBI, over a FOIA request demanding to know how much the FBI paid Twitter from 2016 onward. The FBI initially refused, but eventually released 44-pages of documents with the key payment details redacted - claiming the data was protected under FOIA's "Exemption 7(E)," which lets agencies hide info about law enforcement methods if releasing it could help criminals or enemies dodge detection. Judicial Watch then narrowed their claims to just those redacted payment amounts (JW dropped other issues such as vendor names), however in December of 2025, the Trump DOJ asked Judge James Boasberg for a Motion for Summary Judgement to deny Judicial Watch's request - effectively concealing the extent to which the FBI, under Trump and Biden, was going after Americans.  In its request for summary judgement, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office (say it ain't so!) argued that revealing payments that are tied to real investigations could reveal super secret investigative methods - such as how much the FBI is "engaging" with Twitter vs. other platforms, which could lead to 'bad guys' (criminals, hackers, foreign spies) to switch to platforms with less FBI activity, and that it might reveal shifts in FBI priorities over time. Revealing the quarterly totals could also betray "mosaic theory," where seemingly harmless info (like one quarter's payment) can be pieced together with public data (e.g., Twitter's transparency reports) to form a big picture of FBI strategies. Earlier this month, Boasberg agreed - ruling that revealing the payments could expose FBI "techniques and procedures" (how they monitor online threats) and help bad actors figure out what the FBI is focused on, allowing them to adapt and change strategies.  Boasberg wrote in his opinion that the 7(E) exemption is valid because it could "risk circumvention of the law."  So @JudicialWatch sued to find out how much the Deep State/Biden FBI was paying Twitter (now @X) to censor and spy on Americans. Kash Patel's FBI and Pam Bondi's Justice Department told a federal court we shouldn't get even summary quarterly totals of the payments because it… https://t.co/6P6oqQDxDj February 18, 2026 What the actual... .@FBIDirectorKash this was probably handled by lower-levels — a personal intervention on this one, which impacts 100 million voters & is critically important for Americans to restore trust in the bureau, at zero cost to FBI time or resources, would be greatly appreciated https://t.co/aHwXCi9h55 February 19, 2026 Maybe Elon can just give Tom Fitton the deets?  The filings for your reading pleasure... DOJ request to deny Judicial Watch: Judicial Watch Inc v Us Department of Justice Dcdce-23-03004 0024.0 by Zerohedge Janitor Boasberg's opinion granting the DOJ request: Judicial Watch Inc v Us Department of Justice Dcdce-23-03004 0027.0 by Zerohedge Janitor Tyler Durden Thu, 02/19/2026 - 18:50

Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz have entered not guilty pleas through a translator to a rewritten indictment in Brooklyn federal court regarding a pitch-rigging case.

Supermarket defends pricing practices after ACCC labels discounts ‘utterly misleading’ in federal court case Coles has defended its promotional prices in a high-profile court case brought by the consumer watchdog, arguing that shoppers would understand the supermarket’s well-known “Down Down” promotion to be “fair dinkum”. The federal court battle between the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and Coles began this week, testing allegations the supermarket breached the law by offering “illusory” discounts on many everyday products. Continue reading...

Major Australian supermarkets are in a federal court battle with the competition watchdog over claims of misleading 'fake discounts' that may have breached consumer law.

A federal program providing healthcare for refugees, the Interim Federal Health Program, is once again sparking a heated debate in Canada, echoing past controversies that led to a Federal Court rebuke.

PUTRAJAYA, Feb 25 — The Federal Court today postponed the hearing of Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor’s appeal to re...

A court refused to block a new Utah redistricting map which creates a Democrat-heavy Salt Lake City district, potentially flipping a GOP-held House seat.

Court turns aside GOP request to block new map, second setback in recent days for state’s Republicans New Utah voting districts that give Democrats an improved shot at winning a US House seat can be used in this year’s election, a federal court ruled Monday while turning aside a Republican request to block the new map. The ruling marked the second setback in recent days for Republicans, who also lost an appeal at Utah’s state supreme court. Continue reading...

The Sarawak government has submitted a petition to the Federal Court seeking a determination on the applicability of federal petroleum laws within the state.

A federal appeals court has lifted a block on a Louisiana law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, sparking constitutional debate.

Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet filed an opinion on Friday with the Supreme Federal Court (STF) opposing a request for former President Jair Bolsonaro to serve his sentence under house arrest, arguing that the facility where he is held has adequate medical support.

Medical Groups Sue FTC Over Probe Into Gender Dysphoria Treatments Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Two medical groups on Feb. 17 sued the federal government over its probe into the organizations’ recommendations for children with gender dysphoria, or the belief that they are a different gender. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in Washington on Aug. 6, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society said in separate lawsuits filed in federal court in the District of Columbia that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is unconstitutionally targeting the groups over their speech. “Using the threat of investigation or prosecution against an organization in order to silence speech the government does not like is retaliation, prohibited by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” the American Academy of Pediatrics, which says it represents 67,000 pediatricians, said in its lawsuit. “Moreover, issuing an overbroad subpoena as a tool to compel disclosures in such a retaliatory action violates the Fourth Amendment.” The academy said in a 2018 statement, reaffirmed in 2023, that pediatricians could give drugs such as puberty blockers to children who identify as a gender different from their birth sex. FTC officials in a civil demand in January requested details on how the academy came up with the position, as well as each type of pediatric gender dysphoria treatment the academy had advertised or promoted, and whether there were any financial relationships between the organization and companies or doctors that treat gender dysphoria. Officials demanded similar information from the Endocrine Society, a nonprofit that promotes hormone science research and says it has 18,000 members. The society in 2017 said that people who have gender dysphoria or gender incongruence need “a safe and effective hormone regimen that will (1) suppress endogenous sex hormone secretion determined by the person’s genetic/gonadal sex and (2) maintain sex hormone levels within the normal range for the person’s affirmed gender.” FTC officials said in the demand letters that they are investigating whether false or unsubstantiated representations were made concerning the marketing and advertising of treatments for pediatric gender dysphoria. Federal law prohibits people from engaging in deceptive practices affecting commerce and disseminating false advertisements. The probe targets the Endocrine Society over speech that “reflects pure scientific opinion,” the society said in its legal challenge. If allowed to proceed, the investigation would “endanger the ability of organizations to share information and opinion on any issue, be that vaccine safety and efficacy, environmental health risks, emerging infectious diseases, or gender dysphoria,” it added later. The groups want judges to declare that the civil demands violated the First Amendment. Judges should immediately and permanently bar FTC officials from taking action against the groups over their treatment guidelines and any other statements concerning “gender affirming care,” the groups also said. The Epoch Times reached out to the FTC for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication. Tyler Durden Thu, 02/19/2026 - 17:00

Kalshi's website Thomas Fuller/NurPhoto via Getty Images Nevada regulators sued Kalshi, saying its markets are actually illegal sports gambling. The suit was filed just as the Trump administration sided with prediction markets. Other states have also sued Kalshi, and many legal observers expect the Supreme Court to weigh in. Nevada gambling regulators sued the prediction markets company Kalshi on Tuesday, saying the platform's rapid growth forced their hand. The Nevada Gaming Control Board and the state attorney general sued in Carson City District Court shortly after a federal appeals court rejected a request by Kalshi to stop the state from taking action. The state is seeking an order to stop Kalshi, the country's largest prediction market, from operating what it sees as an unlicensed sports betting operation. "Kalshi has continued to dramatically expand its business, rather than attempting to maintain any kind of status quo," Nevada authorities said in a letter earlier this month. The regulators emphasized that Kalshi has grown rapidly, doing 27 times as much business on Super Bowl Sunday this year compared to the year before. Meanwhile, regulated Nevada gambling operations saw their business shrink, the state said. A Kalshi spokesperson declined to comment on Tuesday afternoon, but the company swiftly asked a federal court to take over the new state case. They argued that only federal law applies to prediction markets, and that the new state enforcement action turns on the same questions that federal courts are already considering. Kalshi has said that its markets are "event contracts," a financial instrument regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. The CFTC on Tuesday sided with another events-contracts company that is fighting with Nevada regulators, and its chairman, Michael Selig, filmed a video statement defending the new platforms. "Today, the CFTC is taking an important step to ensure that these markets have a place here in America," Selig said. "To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear: we will see you in court." Economists and political scientists have long been fascinated by prediction markets as a way to channel the so-called wisdom of the crowds. They were generally a niche activity until the 2024 US presidential election, when people wagered millions of dollars on sites like Polymarket. Since the election, sports and cryptocurrency speculation have become the dominant markets. Today, more than 90% of the money that flows through Kalshi's platform is staked on sports-related events, and the growth of platforms like Kalshi has spurred traditional sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings to create their prediction markets to take advantage of the light-touch regulation and lower taxes they offer. Legal battles are pending on the East Coast as well, with regulators in Maryland and New Jersey having clashed with prediction markets. Attorneys and other industry commentators have said they expect the Supreme Court to eventually weigh in on the legality of sports contracts on prediction markets. Read the original article on Business Insider

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has accused supermarket giant Coles of breaching consumer law by offering 'illusory' discounts on numerous products.

A Filipino man held at Tacoma’s Northwest ICE Processing Centre has been released after a federal court order cited 'unreasonable failures of care' during his detention.