Latest news with #Section1
CBC
15-04-2025
- Health
- CBC
Alberta introduces controversial involuntary addictions treatment bill
Social Sharing The Alberta government introduced its long-promised and controversial bill on Tuesday to force people with severe substance addictions into involuntary treatment. Bill 53, the Compassionate Intervention Act, lays out the criteria, guidelines and process for a family member or guardian, health-care professional or police officer to get someone into treatment. "This program is not for the vast majority of Albertans who suffer from addiction," Dan Williams, Alberta's minister of mental health and addictions, told a news conference in Edmonton. "This program is also not a criminal justice program. This is a health-care program … health care should lead to healing, and not harming those who suffer from addiction." The government intends to start opening compassionate intervention beds in existing facilities next year. Construction will start in 2026 on dedicated facilities for northern and southern Alberta. Both are expected to open by 2029. If the bill becomes law, it will be possible to fill out an online application to have someone apprehended. An independent compassionate intervention commission will be responsible for making legally binding treatment decisions. If a lawyer on the commission decides that the subject has shown that he or she is in danger of causing severe harm to themselves or to others, a police officer would apprehend them and take them to a compassionate intervention centre for a full health assessment and detox. A hearing before the entire three-person commission — made up of a lawyer, physician and member of the public — would be required to occur within 72 hours. The commission members would have to agree unanimously to either send the person to a secure compassionate intervention treatment facility for a maximum of three months, send them to a community-based recovery or addiction centre for up to six months, or discharge them completely. The bill says care plans would be reviewed every three weeks over the process. Subjects of the orders could appeal decisions. They could also ask for legal counsel or a mental-health patient advocate to represent them at the hearing. The commission would review progress of secure facility patients at the end of their term. They could then be discharged to a recovery community. Under the law, if passed, a patient won't be able to refuse medications that the commission has decided they will take to treat their addiction. Commission decisions could be challenged in court. Premier Danielle Smith said the government is taking care with the legislation. "We put forward enough protections to not only be compliant with the Alberta Bill of Rights, but also Section 1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms," Smith said Tuesday. "We'll make sure that we're cautious as we go forward, but we also know that this is something that needs to be done." The government intends to have the act also apply to minors who be sent to a youth recovery centre in Edmonton that will open next year.
Reuters
11-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Takeaways for live sports programming from the fuboTV antitrust litigation
April 11, 2025 - In February 2024, Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced plans to form a joint venture (JV) to combine their sports programming content in the first standalone live sports-only streaming service. This service was eventually entitled Venu Sports. Shortly after the JV was announced, Fubo — a distributor offering a specialized streaming service focused on live sports — filed suit in the Southern District of New York to block it. Fubo alleged that the JV members' licensing practices violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act and that the JV would lessen competition under Section 7 of the Clayton Act. After expedited discovery and a six-day preliminary injunction hearing on the Venu-related allegations, on Aug. 16, 2024, Judge Margarett Garnett of the Southern District of New York granted Fubo's request for a preliminary injunction. See fuboTV, Inc. v. Walt Disney Co., No. 1:24-cv-01363, ECF 290 (S.D.N.Y. 2024) (the "PI Opinion"). On Dec. 13, 2024, Judge Garnett also denied Defendants' motions to dismiss Fubo's Section 1 claims. Id. at ECF 367 (the "MTD Opinion"). Venu initially planned to charge consumers $42.99/month for all of the live sports programming of Disney, Fox, and WBD, comprising 14 linear sports networks. The Court found Disney, Fox, and WBD collectively own the broadcast rights to approximately 54% of all U.S. live sports and nearly 98% of all playoff games, demonstrating how transformative the JV could have been. Fubo's Clayton Act Section 7 claim Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits transactions whose effect "may be substantially to lessen competition in any line of commerce in any section of the country." United States v. Phila. Nat'l Bank, 374 U.S. 321, 355 (1963). The PI Opinion found there was a substantial likelihood that Fubo would succeed on the merits of its Section 7 claim. See fuboTV, ECF 290 at 34. Judge Garnett's PI Opinion relied heavily on United States v. Columbia Pictures, 507 F. Supp. 412 (S.D.N.Y. 1980), aff'd, 659 F.2d 1063 (2d Cir. 1981), which she found "strikingly similar to this case." fuboTV, ECF 290 at 36. The Columbia Pictures defendants were film studios that collectively controlled over half of the newly released movies and sought to form a JV to create a pay TV movie channel called "Premiere." The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) challenged the joint venture because it would substantially lessen competition for licensing of movies, and it was enjoined in 1980. But beyond this parallel, Judge Garnett's PI Opinion was also notable for its considerations of (i) the relevant antitrust market, (ii) the application of antitrust law to a JV like Venu, and (iii) Defendants' longstanding bundling practices. Relevant market When analyzing a JV under Section 7, a court must first define a relevant market. See Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U.S. 294, 324 (1962). While Fubo proposed multiple different markets, the Court instead found that Venu likely would lessen competition in a market it defined as the "Live Pay TV Market." fuboTV, ECF 290 at 38. The Court found that the Live Pay TV Market — populated by Programmers (e.g., Defendants), Distributors (e.g., Fubo and DirecTV), and Creators (e.g., sports leagues) — properly accounted for the wide variety of consumers (e.g., fans of particular teams or sports, general sports fans, fans of niche sports). Judge Garnett rejected Defendants' proposed market — the "Pay TV Market," which would include Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) services like Netflix — because most live sports are unavailable on SVODs. Joint ventures While the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the potential benefits of JVs, Judge Garnett's opinion was far more skeptical. Compare Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n v. Alston, 594 U.S. 69, 88 (2021) with fuboTV, ECF 290 at 46-54. Judge Garnett viewed Venu not as a unilateral new actor, but as concerted action by the three Defendants. Judge Garnett found the structure of Venu would have provided "Defendants an unobstructed runway to establish market dominance . . . and drive out competitors [like Fubo]." Id. at 47. Additionally, Judge Garnett found Defendants' core argument — that actions by Venu should be considered unilateral — inapposite. Defendants argued the Court should not consider the underlying creation of Venu, but only Venu's existence as a new competitor in the market, as the Supreme Court did in both Verizon Commc'ns Inc. v. Law Offs. of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP, 540 U.S. 398 (2004) and Pacific Bell Tel. Co. v. linkLine Communications, Inc., 555 U.S. 438, 442 (2009). These cases stand for the proposition that competitors — like Venu would have been to Fubo — have no "duty to deal" with one another. But Judge Garnett found this inapplicable because this case was in the Section 7 context and those cases were in the Section 2 context, which may have broader implications for future JVs among horizontal competitors. Bundling Judge Garnett's PI Opinion did not reach the merits of Fubo's allegations that Defendants' longstanding bundling practices constituted unlawful tying under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Nevertheless, the Court found bundling served as "crucial context" for Fubo's Section 7 claim. See fuboTV, ECF 290 at 46. Without ruling on the issue, the Court found that Defendants' bundling "ha[d] been uniformly and systematically imposed on each distributor in the live pay TV industry except the joint venture." See id. at 45. So, the unbundled nature of Venu would have increased its attractiveness to consumers, further enabling the JV to harm future competition as the only live sports-only streaming service. Id. at 40, 45-48. The appeal Defendants immediately appealed the PI Opinion on various grounds to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeal drew significant attention and amicus briefing from antitrust commentators, sports TV industry groups, state attorneys general, and representatives of the federal government — including the DOJ. Fubo's Sherman Act Section 1 claims After the PI Opinion was issued, Defendants filed renewed motions to dismiss Fubo's Section 1 claims. These claims were separate from Venu and alleged that (i) Fox's and Disney's bundling practices constituted illegal tying of their sports channels with their non-valuable channels, and (ii) all Defendants had separately agreed with their owned subsidiaries to set a price floor through the use of most-favored nation (MFN) clauses. Under Section 1, tying (i.e., the requirement that a customer purchases a different product alongside the one it wants) can be an antitrust violation when the seller has sufficient power in the relevant antitrust market for the product the customer wants to "coerce" the customer to purchase another product. See Jefferson Parish Hospital Dist. No. 2 et al. v. Hyde, 466 U.S. 2, 3 (1984). Similarly, under Section 1, vertical restraints like MFN clauses can be considered anticompetitive when used by firms with market power. See United States v. Apple, Inc., 791 F.3d 290, 320 (2d Cir. 2015). After oral argument on Dec. 13, 2024, Judge Garnett again ruled for Fubo. She found that Fox and Disney had tied two distinct products — sports and non-sports channels — and that Fubo plausibly alleged actual coercion. She also found that even though Fox and Disney had presumptively insufficient market shares to infer either had market power, the combination of their live sports licenses and market shares created market power for both. She found that Fubo sufficiently pleaded that bundling caused Fubo to pay more and pass that cost on to consumers. Regarding the MFN claims, she found that Fubo had plausibly alleged (i) Defendants each had market power and (ii) a connection between the price Fubo pays and the alleged price floor set by Defendants. Aftermath This litigation was ultimately resolved on Jan. 6, 2025, just hours before the parties were set to argue Defendants' appeal before the 2nd Circuit, when Disney announced it was purchasing approximately 70% of Fubo and would combine it with its Hulu + Live TV business. As part of a settlement, Defendants agreed to pay Fubo a total of $220 million and Disney provided Fubo a $145 million loan. Defendants then announced they would be relaunching Venu, but after receiving letters from DirecTV and EchoStar, Dish Network's parent, on Jan. 10, 2025, Defendants decided to "discontinue" Venu to "focus[] on existing products and distribution channels." Press Release, Joint Statement from ESPN, Fox and WBD (Jan. 10, 2025). The Disney/Fubo transaction is being reviewed by the DOJ and has drawn attention from elected representatives like Senator Elizabeth Warren. See Letter from Senator Elizabeth Warren to the DOJ Acting Assistant Attorney General, opens new tab (Feb. 19, 2025). Beyond the eventual fate of Fubo and the live pay TV industry, Judge Garnett's two opinions signal potentially greater judicial skepticism of both horizontal competitor JVs and bundling more broadly. It remains to be seen if these decisions were fact dependent or the start of a growing trend. Notably, from the ashes of Venu came MySports, a $69/month sports-only package from DirecTV containing many of the channels Venu would have included. This emphasized the continued malleability of the live pay TV industry, and it remains to be seen whether or to what extent antitrust law may play a role in such future shifts.
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Yahoo
Enforcing XL bully ban ‘placing huge burden on policing'
Enforcing a ban on XL bully dogs is placing a 'huge burden on policing', with millions of pounds spent on veterinary bills and kennelling, police chiefs have warned. The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) said kennel spaces were 'reaching capacity', with costs 'increasing by the day'. The policing body said veterinary bills and the cost of kennelling banned dog breeds had risen from £4 million in 2018 to more than £11 million between February and September 2024, adding it can cost around £1,000 a month to keep an XL bully in kennels. The NPCC said the figure is expected 'to rise to as much as £25 million' for the period from February 2024 to April 2025 – representing a predicted 500% increase in police costs from 2018. Since February, it has been a criminal offence to own an XL bully dog in England and Wales without an exemption certificate, meaning unregistered pets will be taken and owners possibly fined and prosecuted. As well as the XL bully, other banned types of dog under Section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 include the pit bull terrier, Japanese Tosa, dogo Argentino and fila Brasileiro. Chief Constable Mark Hobrough, the NPCC's lead for dangerous dogs, said the ban was placing 'a huge burden on policing'. The police officer added: 'We are facing a number of challenges in kennel capacity, resourcing and ever-mounting costs, and as of today we have not received any additional funding to account for this. 'We urgently need the Government to support us in coping with the huge demand the ban has placed on our ever-stretched resources.' Mr Hobrough said conversations were 'ongoing with Defra' but there was no formal agreement 'whereby any funding has come into any police force to account for these additional demand factors'. Speaking at a media briefing to mark one year since the ban came into force, Mr Hobrough said a 'huge amount of dogs' had been reported to police over the last year. Police forces seized 4,586 suspected Section 1 banned dogs throughout England and Wales between February and September 2024. According to the NPCC, there were 120 dog liaison officers across England and Wales before the ban, with 100 subsequently trained, and a further 40 to be trained. Mr Hobrough said this meant 'in some areas established dog handlers have been called away from other policing duties'. The NPCC said around £560,000 had been spent by police forces on staff overtime between February and September last year in relation to dogs. The Chief Constable of Gwent Police added: 'We have had to purchase additional vehicles, equipment and find countless extra kennel spaces from the finite that are available within the industry.' He said changes to legislation would be 'beneficial', as it currently gives police forces 'just one route' through the court system to deal with dog owners. The NPCC said it was 'aware of court cases not being scheduled until mid-2026' for some dangerously out of control dog cases. Mr Hobrough told the PA news agency: 'What would be helpful would be if we had alternative methods of dealing with people who were in possession of such dogs. 'I think all of us would agree that an unscrupulous dog breeder keeping their dog in abhorrent conditions – using practices such as ear cropping, artificial insemination and keeping them in squalid conditions – they should definitely be going through a court system.' He added that this was a 'big difference' to people who had 'unwittingly ended up owning a dog from a young age they weren't aware was an XL bully or those who on veterinary advice were unable to have their dog neutered by the deadline'. Mr Hobrough said alternative methods such as out of court disposals would support police 'in taking a proportionate response as required'. The police officer said existing legislation did not give police forces the ability to apply for 'cost recompensation in any shape or form', adding that there needed to be a 'focus on responsible dog ownership'. Discussing the introduction of the ban, Mr Hobrough said there had been a 'real requirement for action' to address the 'increasing problem of XL bullies'. He added: 'We actively encourage people to report dogs that they're concerned about within their communities, so that we can take the appropriate action.' Mr Hobrough said he was 'sure' the number of attacks by XL bullies would 'decline over time' because it was no longer in the interest of organised crime groups to produce them. NPCC tactical lead Superintendent Patrick O'Hara said he did not think all XL bullies were automatically dangerous, but they had the 'propensity' to be by their 'sheer size and power'. Speaking at the briefing, Mr O'Hara added: 'In the right hands, with the right socialisation, with a really responsible owner, a lot of those dogs will never come to notice.' The NPCC said forces in England and Wales seized and euthanised 848 dogs between February and September 2024 at an estimated cost of £340,000. These were dogs which were surrendered to police by owners who had not complied with the ban, nor taken advantage of the compensation scheme.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Birthright Citizenship Is a Sacred Guarantee
The attempt to end birthright citizenship in the United States is an attempt to reverse history, to push our nation back, way back, before the Dred Scott decision of 1857 and the secession crisis that soon delivered the nation into the Civil War. Calling this action 'unconstitutional' is utterly inadequate; the maneuver is the soiling of sacred text with profane lies. Birthright citizenship is a shield of protection to anyone born in this country, as close to a national self-definition as we have; it is our legal DNA. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment should be emblazoned on small laminated cards and carried in every American's pocket. The language is amply clear: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. That language is as fundamental to the Constitution as any other provision, perhaps even more important to the survival and growth of our pluralistic republic than the First Amendment, which protects free speech, free press, the right of assembly, and the right to petition the government. It is as inherent to constitutional function as federalism itself. [Read: The Attack on Birthright Citizenship Is a Big Test for the Constitution] The Trump administration now scoffs at this history, purporting to end this guarantee with an executive order signed on Donald Trump's first day back in the Oval Office and tragically titled, in a fantastic act of Orwellian doublespeak, 'Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.' The administration makes a phony originalist argument based on the claim that the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee extended only to the freedmen and their descendants. Quite the contrary, the amendment's authors explicitly envisioned the immigrant population and its descendants as part of their plan. Congressman John Bingham, Section 1's author, defended the amendment by drawing on the authority of the Constitution's Framers, who had 'invited the workers and builders whose honest toil clothes and shelters nations,' and who hailed from 'every civilized nationality' to become 'citizens of the Republic.' This is why, in blocking Trump's order last week, the Federal District Court Judge John C. Coughenour said without caveat: 'This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.' Section 1's origins lie deep in our past. It is rooted in the petitions of African Americans during and after the American Revolution that demanded freedom and natural rights for their service to the patriot cause. It stems from many ideas and strategies of the British and American abolition movements. It echoes Thomas Jefferson's inclusion of equality among 'these truths' in the Declaration of Independence and Abraham Lincoln's use of the same word in the Gettysburg Address, as well as his full-throated embrace of immigration well before the Civil War. Its most direct and powerful harbinger is the emancipation of nearly 4 million slaves in the midst of the war. Without that greatest transformation in American history, there would be no Fourteenth Amendment—no birthright citizenship and no equal-protection clause either, a codification just as sacred. Most profound, birthright citizenship is rooted in the blood of more than 700,000 Americans who died in the Civil War, a catastrophe that made possible what most historians now call the 'second founding' of America. The rebirth harkened in the Fourteenth Amendment is the core of this phrase's meaning. The Trump administration's desire to obliterate birthright citizenship is part of a larger quest to undo most of this egalitarian tradition, to shift American history into a kind of permanent reverse gear back to an age of secure constitutional white supremacy. [Read: The Coming Assault on Birthright Citizenship] One cannot overstate the gravity of Trump's proposed action, nor the historical ignorance on which it stands. The original Republicans who crafted birthright citizenship into the amendment were doing nothing less than harvesting the greatest results of the Civil War, making good on the promise of freedom for millions of any creed, color, or national origin at the time and for all time to come. Section 1 explained to the world what that war had meant. To erase any part of it now is to tarnish the legacy of William McKinley, Trump's new favorite president, who fought in the Battle of Antietam. The Union victory there is what prompted the Emancipation Proclamation. For Bingham, a deeply Christian abolitionist Republican from Ohio, this debate went back at least to the 1850s crises over the expansion of slavery. In 1858 he said, 'Every man knows that under our free institutions, every person born of free parents within the jurisdiction of the United States … is a citizen of the United States.' Bingham, of course, overestimated such consensus, because Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in Dred Scott v. Sandford had ruled for a 7–2 majority of the Supreme Court the previous year that Black people possessed 'no rights' whatsoever under American law. One of the grand purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment was to relegate the Dred Scott decision to history. By the winter of 1866, as Congress debated the content of an amendment, it faced many overwhelming obstacles, especially bone-level, historical racism and the doctrine of federalism that fundamentally protected states' rights. Congress had just fought an all-out war to restore the Confederate states to the Union and to end slavery with an overwhelming use of federal power. But the Republicans, despite fierce debates, were confident. 'I can hardly believe,' wrote Thaddeus Stevens, the radical floor manager for his party, 'that any person can be found who will not admit that every one of these proposals is just.' They knew exactly what they intended to achieve. Bingham defended the amendment as protection of the 'in-born rights of every person.' Stevens thought they had to 'fix the foundations of the government on principles of eternal justice.' Senator Lyman Trumbull saw them advancing principles 'which the great Author of all has implanted in every human breast.' They believed that they were enacting justice and morality, not only for freed slaves but for the country's immigrant future, a fact they deeply understood because they had lived through the recent waves of Irish and German immigration. [Read: The Real Origins of Birthright Citizenship] As for states' rights, Bingham had a constant answer. For 'generations to come,' he announced, he sought to 'arm Congress … with the power to enforce the Bill of Rights as it stands in the Constitution … in the states.' In the states, by federal power. In floor debates, Bingham spoke with great eloquence about the purposes of the amendment. 'The day of the freedman's deliverance has come,' he declared, 'not without suffering, not without sorrow, not without martyrdom, not without broken altars and broken hearts.' But now he saw potential days of glory, not only for ex-slaves but for the immigrant. The Constitution could now 'provide that no man, no matter what his color, no matter beneath what sky he may have been born, no matter in what disastrous conflict or by what tyrannical hand his liberty may have been cloven down, no matter how poor, no matter how friendless … shall be deprived of life or liberty or property without due process of law.' Above everything, 'all persons born' here were forever citizens. Trump and his allies have picked a fight over this crucial provision in the Constitution. Americans have to engage the fight, in the courts and with every mode of persuasion. Trump and his allies' vision is an egregious abuse of real history and the new Constitution it forged in the 1860s. If they succeed, then Grant has surrendered to Lee at Appomattox. Article originally published at The Atlantic
