Communick News

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/64673855

I googled vagine next, AMAZING.

Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen has twice now brought felony conspiracy and vandalism charges against Stanford University students who occupied a campus building in 2024 in protest of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. After the initial trial ended in a hung jury in February, with jurors unable to reach a determination on either charge, Rosen immediately moved for a retrial. But on May 7, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge removed him and his office from the case, finding that they could not impartially try the protesters—a rare rebuke for a district attorney, and a major twist to one of the harshest prosecutions of student protestors for Palestine anywhere in the US.

Stanford undergraduate student German Gonzalez, one of the defendants, told Bolts that the decision had lifted a weight off his shoulders. “This really feels like a vindication,” he said.

Rosen has said the decision to prosecute the students is neither personal nor political. “I think the best we can hope for in our elected officials is that they recognize the biases, that they set them aside and do their duty,” he told the LA Times in April 2025. “And that’s what I do every day.”

• Proton VPN has hit back at Canada's proposed Bill C-22

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Tennessee officials will pay $835,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a man who was jailed for more than a month over a Facebook post he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

While many people across the U.S. lost their jobs over social media comments about Kirk’s death, Larry Bushart’s case stood out as a rare instance in which such online speech led to criminal prosecution. The 61-year-old retired police officer spent 37 days behind bars before authorities dropped the felony charge against him in October.

During his time in jail, Bushart lost his postretirement job and missed his wedding anniversary and the birth of his granddaughter, according to a federal lawsuit Bushart filed in December against Perry County, its sheriff and the investigator who obtained the arrest warrant.

“I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated,” Bushart said in a statement announcing the settlement Wednesday. “The people’s freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy. I am looking forward to moving on and spending time with my family.”

Perry County Mayor John Carroll did not immediately respond to a Wednesday message left with his office seeking an interview.

Bushart was arrested in September after he refused to take down Facebook memes that joked about Kirk’s killing, which had prompted an outpouring of grief among conservatives, including in Perry County, which is near Bushart’s home and which held a candlelight vigil.