Latest news with #APMiami
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
08-08-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
Judge orders brief halt to construction at Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz'
The facility can continue to operate and hold detainees for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but workers will be barred from adding any new filling, paving or infrastructure for 14 days AP Miami A federal judge on Thursday ordered a temporary halt to construction at an immigration detention centre built in the middle of the Florida Everglades and dubbed Alligator Alcatraz as attorneys argue whether it violates environmental laws. The facility can continue to operate and hold detainees for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but workers will be barred from adding any new filling, paving or infrastructure for the next 14 days. US District Judge Kathleen Williams issued the ruling during a hearing and said she will issue a written order later Thursday. Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe have asked Williams to issue a preliminary injunction to halt operations and further construction. The suit claims the project threatens environmentally sensitive wetlands that are home to protected plants and animals and would reverse billions of dollars' worth of environmental restoration. Plaintiffs presented witnesses Wednesday and Thursday in support of the injunction, while attorneys for the state and federal government were scheduled to present next week. Following Thursday's testimony, Paul Schwiep, an attorney for the environmental groups, asked Williams to issue a temporary restraining order that would at least prevent any new construction at the site while the preliminary injunction was argued. Williams asked Florida attorney Jesse Panuccio if the state would agree to halt construction so that she wouldn't need to issue the restraining order. She pointed out that anything built at the site would likely remain there permanently, regardless of how the case was ultimately decided. Panuccio said he couldn't guarantee that the state would stop all work. This sparked an hour-long hearing about the temporary restraining order, which will be in place for the next two weeks while the still ongoing preliminary injunction hearing continues. The crux of the plaintiffs' argument is that the detention facility violates the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of major construction projects. Panuccio said during the hearing that although the detention centre would be holding federal detainees, the construction and operation of the facility is entirely under the state of Florida, meaning the NEPA review wouldn't apply. Schwiep said the purpose of the facility is for immigration enforcement, which is exclusively a federal function. He said the facility wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the federal government's desire for a facility to hold detainees. Williams said Thursday that the detention facility was at a minimum a joint partnership between the state and federal government. The lawsuit in Miami against federal and state authorities is one of two legal challenges to the South Florida detention centre which was built more than a month ago by the state of Florida on an isolated airstrip owned by Miami-Dade County. A second lawsuit brought by civil rights groups says detainees' constitutional rights are being violated since they are barred from meeting lawyers, are being held without any charges, and a federal immigration court has cancelled bond hearings. A hearing in that case is scheduled for August 18. Under the 55-year-old federal environmental law, federal agencies should have examined how the detention centre's construction would impact the environment, identified ways to minimise the impact and followed other procedural rules such as allowing public comment, according to the environmental groups and the tribe. It makes no difference that the detention centre holding hundreds of detainees was built by the state of Florida since federal agencies have authority over immigration, the suit said. Attorneys for federal and state agencies last week asked Williams to dismiss or transfer the injunction request, saying the lawsuit was filed in the wrong jurisdiction. Even though the property is owned by Miami-Dade County, Florida's southern district is the wrong venue for the lawsuit since the detention centre is located in neighbouring Collier County, which is in the state's middle district, they said. Williams had yet to rule on that argument. The lawsuits were being heard as Florida Republican Gov Ron DeSantis' administration apparently was preparing to build a second immigration detention centre at a Florida National Guard training centre in north Florida. At least one contract has been awarded for what's labelled in state records as the North Detention Facility. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
22-07-2025
- Automotive
- Business Standard
Can Elon Musk be trusted as two cases threaten Tesla, his car company
In Miami, a Tesla driver who has admitted he was wrong to reach for a dropped cell phone moments before a deadly accident, spoke of the danger of putting too much faith in Musk's technology AP Miami Elon Musk fought court cases on opposite coasts Monday, raising a question about the billionaire that could either speed his plan to put self-driving Teslas on US roads or throw up a major roadblock: Can this wildly successful man who tends to exaggerate really be trusted? In Miami, a Tesla driver who has admitted he was wrong to reach for a dropped cell phone moments before a deadly accident, spoke of the danger of putting too much faith in Musk's technology in this case his Autopilot programme. I trusted the technology too much, said George McGee, who ran off the road and killed a woman out stargazing with her boyfriend. I believed that if the car saw something in front of it, it would provide a warning and apply the brakes. In unusual coincidence, regulators arguing an Oakland, California, case tried to pin exaggerated talk about the same Tesla technology at the centre of a request to suspend the carmaker from being able to sell vehicles in the state. Musk's tendency to talk big whether its his cars, his rockets or his government costing-cutting efforts have landed him in trouble with investors, regulators and courts before, but rarely at such a delicate moment. After his social media spat with President Donald Trump, Musk can no longer count on a light regulatory touch from Washington. Meanwhile, sales of his electric cars have plunged and so a hit to his safety reputation could threaten his next big project: rolling out driverless robotaxis hundreds of thousands of them in several US cities by the end of next year. The Miami case holds other dangers, too. Lawyers for the family of the dead woman, Naibel Benavides Leon, recently convinced the judge overseeing the jury trial to allow them to argue for punitive damages. A car crash lawyer not involved in the case, but closely following it, said that could cost Tesla tens of millions of dollars, or possibly more. I've seen punitive damages go to the hundreds of millions, so that is the floor, said Miguel Custodio of Los Angeles-based Custodio & Dubey. It is also a signal to other plaintiffs that they can also ask for punitive damages, and then the payments could start compounding. Tesla did not reply for a request for comment. That Tesla has allowed the Miami case to proceed to trial is surprising. It has settled at least four deadly accidents involving Autopilot, including payments just last week to a Florida family of a Tesla driver. That said, Tesla was victorious in two other jury cases, both in California, that also sought to lay blame on its technology for crashes. Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Miami case argue that Tesla's driver-assistance feature, called Autopilot, should have warned the driver and braked when his Model S sedan blew through flashing lights, a stop sign and a T-intersection at 62 miles-an-hour in an April 2019 crash. Tesla said that drivers are warned not to rely on Autopilot, or its more advanced Full Self-Driving system. It say the fault entirely lies with the "distracted driver" just like so many other accidents since cellphones were invented. Driver McGee settled a separate suit brought by the family of Benavides and her severely injured boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. McGee was clearly shaken when shown a dashcam video Monday of his car jumping a Key West, Florida, road and hitting a parked Chevrolet Tahoe which then slammed into Benavides and sent her 75 feet through the air to her death. Asked if he had seen those images before, McGee pinched his lips, shook his head, then squeaked out a response, No. Tesla's attorney sought to show that McGee was fully to blame, asking if he had ever contacted Tesla for additional instructions about how Autopilot or any other safety features worked. McGee said he had not, though he was heavy user of the features. He said he had driven the same road home from work 30 or 40 times. Under questioning he also acknowledged he alone was responsible for watching the road and hitting the brakes. But lawyers for the Benavides family had another chance to parry that line of argument and asked McGee if he would have taken his eyes off the road and reached for his phone had he been driving any car other than a Tesla on Autopilot. McGee responded, I don't believe so. The case is expected to continue for two more weeks. In the California case, the state's Department of Motor Vehicles is arguing before an administrative judge that Tesla has misled drivers by exaggerating the capabilities of its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features. A court filing claims even those feature names are misleading because they offer just partial self-driving Musk has been warned by federal regulators to stop making public comments suggesting Full Self-Driving allows his cars to drive themselves because it could lead to overreliance on the system, resulting in possible crashes and deaths. He also has run into trouble with regulators for Autopilot. In 2023, the company had to recall 2.3 million vehicles for problems with the technology and is now under investigation for saying it fixed the issue though it's unclear it has, according to regulatory documents. The California case is expected to last another four days. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
