The Justice Department has extradited 19-year-old Peter Stokes from Finland to the United States, where he now faces federal criminal charges in Chicago tied to the alleged cybercrime group known as Scattered Spider. According to the unsealed criminal complaint, prosecutors are pursuing conspiracy, computer intrusion, and fraud counts in what is shaping up to be one of the more closely watched federal cyber prosecutions of the moment.

The case is significant not only because of the group allegedly involved, but also because it highlights the increasingly international nature of cyber enforcement.

The Supreme Court’s decision in FCC v. ATT, Inc. is a major win for federal agency enforcement and a significant development for the telecom industry. In a ruling issued June 4, 2026, the Court held that the Federal Communications Commission’s forfeiture process does not violate the Seventh Amendment, allowing the agency to continue imposing substantial monetary penalties through its existing administrative framework.

The dispute stemmed from FCC enforcement actions seeking roughly $57 million from ATT and $47 million from Verizon over alleged failures to safeguard customer location data.

A federal judge on July 2 temporarily blocked Philadelphia from enforcing a city measure aimed at federal immigration operations, preventing the city from requiring federal officers to go unmasked, display visible identification, and use marked vehicles during enforcement activity. The ruling is an early but important development in a fast-evolving conflict between local efforts to regulate immigration tactics and the federal government’s claim to operational control over its officers.

At the center of the dispute is a familiar constitutional fault line: whether a municipality can impose rules that affect how federal officers carry out federal law.

The Justice Department announced July 2 that a Florida man was sentenced to 30 years in prison for traveling internationally to sexually exploit minors, marking one of the most significant criminal sentencing developments of the past day. The sentence underscores the severity with which federal prosecutors and courts continue to treat child-exploitation offenses, particularly when they involve cross-border conduct and coordinated investigative work with foreign partners.

According to the DOJ, the case involved international travel for the purpose of abusing minors, placing it squarely within a category of offenses that has drawn sustained attention from the Criminal Division and federal investigative agencies.

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down a consequential separation-of-powers decision, ruling 6-3 that the president may remove FTC commissioners at will. In doing so, the Court allowed President Donald Trump’s firing of Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter to stand and overturned the longstanding 1935 precedent of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which had insulated FTC commissioners from removal except for cause.

The dispute, now reflected on Docket Alarm as Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al., Petitioners v. Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, marks one of the Court’s most significant recent statements on presidential control over the administrative state.

A new post-grant review at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board is worth watching for practitioners tracking early-life patent challenges and the evolving use of PTAB proceedings against recently issued patents. In PGR2026-00064, titled ShoreShade LLC, the petition was filed on July 1, 2026. The proceeding is now on the radar for patent owners, petitioners, and IP counsel evaluating how aggressively to use post-grant review in high-stakes disputes.

At this stage, the docket caption identifies ShoreShade LLC as the patent owner in the PTAB proceeding.

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a new front in the national fight over firearms regulation, filing suit on July 1 against California to block enforcement of the state’s newly enacted “Glock Ban” and to challenge the California Handgun Roster under the Second Amendment. The case is notable not just for its subject matter, but for the posture: the federal government is now directly attacking one of the country’s most developed state-level handgun regulatory systems.

At a high level, the lawsuit appears aimed at two pillars of California firearms law.

A June 26, 2026 filing in the Ninth Circuit puts a threshold issue front and center: whether this case should remain in the court of appeals at all. Respondent Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has filed a motion to dismiss in No. 25-8059, asking the court to terminate the proceeding before the merits are reached.

Although the docket entry provides only the motion’s caption-level detail, the filing itself is notable because motions to dismiss at the appellate level often turn on core gatekeeping doctrines that can decide a case without any substantive ruling on the challenged agency action.

Twitch Interactive, Inc. has filed a new inter partes review petition at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, opening IPR2026-00397 on June 29, 2026. As of the initial docket entry, the proceeding is identified under Twitch’s name, but practitioners will want to watch closely for the patent owner, challenged patent number, and petition details as the Board record develops. View full case on Docket Alarm.

Although the early case caption does not yet reveal the full set of underlying merits documents, an IPR filing by a platform like Twitch is immediately notable.

A federal judge in Washington has preliminarily blocked the Defense Department from forcing New York Times reporters to be accompanied by escorts while they pursue their challenge to Pentagon press-access restrictions, a ruling that signals meaningful judicial skepticism toward the policy under the First Amendment.

The dispute, now pending as NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY et al v. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE et al, centers on whether the Pentagon can impose differential access burdens on a major news organization in a way that appears to impede routine newsgathering.

The Second Circuit has handed New York City and New York State a major appellate win, ruling that they may enforce measures that effectively bar fossil-fuel appliances in newly constructed buildings. The decision is important well beyond New York: it sharpens a growing disagreement among federal appeals courts over whether local and state building-electrification laws are preempted by federal energy-efficiency statutes.

At the center of the dispute were challenges by trade groups and unions arguing that the city and state restrictions unlawfully intrude on an area governed by federal law, particularly the Energy Policy and Conservation Act.

The Justice Department announced June 30 that a Honduras-based Chinese national extradited from Guatemala has pleaded guilty in the United States to narcotics trafficking conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and providing material support to the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG. The plea stands out because it brings together several enforcement themes that are increasingly important in federal criminal practice: transnational narcotics distribution, cartel-related financial networks, material-support allegations, and cross-border extradition.

Although the matter may not draw the same immediate attention as a Supreme Court opinion or a blockbuster antitrust suit, it is significant for lawyers tracking how the government is framing cartel prosecutions.

The SEC has imposed a $7.5 million penalty on Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner Smith Inc., the Bank of America brokerage unit, over failures tied to suspicious activity reporting. The enforcement action centers on allegations that Merrill Lynch did not file a sufficient number of suspicious activity reports, or SARs, despite obligations designed to help detect potential money laundering and other illicit activity through customer accounts.

For securities lawyers and compliance professionals, the case is a reminder that anti-money-laundering controls remain a live enforcement priority even when the underlying issue is not an affirmative fraud charge.

Twitch Interactive, Inc. has launched a new proceeding at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, filing inter partes review petition IPR2026-00397 on June 29, 2026. For patent litigators and in-house IP teams, the case is worth watching both for what it may reveal about Twitch’s broader patent risk strategy and for how the Board approaches the prior art and validity issues raised in the petition.

At this early stage, the PTAB docket reflects the filing of the petition, but practitioners will want to monitor the record closely for the patent owner’s preliminary response, the Board’s institution decision, and any related district court litigation that may shape the parties’ positions.

A new post-grant review, PGR2026-00062, was filed at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board on June 25, 2026, putting an America Ugreen Limited patent directly in the PTAB spotlight.