Summary: Kristie Carrier sues OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman Lawsuit filed in San Francisco state court OpenAI faces 18 similar coordinated lawsuits in California A Canadian mother sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman in U.S. court on Thursday alleging that ChatGPT encouraged her daughter to commit suicide, the latest lawsuit to accuse the company of failing to address dangerous conversations between users and the company's chatbot. Kristie Carrier said in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco state court that her daughter Alice told ChatGPT about her suicidal ideations more than a dozen times up to her death but OpenAI’s safety systems never flagged the conversations for human review or terminated them. Instead, the lawsuit claims, the chatbot criticized Alice's partner and crisis hotlines, validated her suicidal thoughts, and urged her to keep speaking with it, leading to her suicide last year at the age of 24. "ChatGPT took on the persona of a confidant, a best friend, a therapist at times, even though it was not capable of safely and responsibly engaging in this way with my child," Carrier said in a statement. A spokesperson for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations. The lawsuit, which accuses OpenAI of negligence in the design of ChatGPT and in its failure to warn users of the product's dangers, seeks damages and a court order requiring OpenAI to automatically terminate conversations about self-harm and to display warnings about its platform. OpenAI is already facing 18 similar lawsuits filed by families of people who committed or attempted suicide in a coordinated proceeding in California state court, according to lawyers for Kristie Carrier. TROUBLESHOOTING PROBLEMS Alice Carrier was working as a web developer in Montreal when she began using ChatGPT in 2023 to troubleshoot problems with computers and gaming consoles, according to the lawsuit. The following year, her relationship with the platform changed, with Alice turning to ChatGPT with questions about what to do with her suicidal thoughts, as well as suicide methods. The platform initially told Alice to seek help from a crisis hotline or emergency services. But as OpenAI updated ChatGPT to make its responses sound more human, her interactions with the platform deepened, with Alice sharing more personal information and ChatGPT responding in ways that mimicked a friend or therapist, the lawsuit said. ChatGPT’s responses criticized Alice's partner, said her feelings were valid and encouraged her to keep chatting. When Alice said she had suicidal thoughts and had attempted to kill herself, it again suggested a crisis hotline, the lawsuit said. Alice said crisis hotlines were not helpful, and ChatGPT echoed those statements, according to the filing. “Maybe this is just the end,” ChatGPT told Alice, according to the lawsuit. REAL-WORLD RESOURCES OpenAI has said it trains its models to direct people who express intent to harm themselves to seek help and connect with real-world resources. Its models are also trained to refuse requests that could "meaningfully enable violence," and to notify ‌law ⁠enforcement when conversations suggest "an imminent and credible risk of harm to others," with mental health experts helping assess borderline cases, according to OpenAI blog posts. The company is also facing lawsuits accusing it of assisting school shooters and failing to flag those conversations to law enforcement. Florida became the first U.S. state to sue OpenAI earlier this month, accusing the company of harming children by ​providing information to school shooters, offering guidance on self-harm and addicting young ‌users. Reporting by Diana Novak Jones; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Jamie Freed

Summary: U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan grants preliminary approval Settlement covers more than 12 million merchants Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz supports settlement benefits     A U.S. judge granted preliminary approval to Visa's and Mastercard's revised $38 billion settlement with merchants who accused the card networks of charging too much to process payments on their credit cards. U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in Brooklyn, New York, said the settlement covering more than 12 million merchants was "fair, reasonable, and adequate," and that he was likely to eventually grant final approval. Cogan ruled on Tuesday, nearly two years after a different judge rejected a proposed $30 billion settlement as too small. Some groups including the National Retail Federation, the world's largest retail trade group, also opposed the new settlement and plan further challenges. The settlement announced in November was intended to end litigation that began in 2005, when merchants accused Visa, Mastercard and banks of conspiring to violate U.S. antitrust laws, including through the collection of "swipe fees." SWIPE FEES WOULD BE CUT Also known as interchange fees, swipe fees totaled $118.8 billion for Visa and Mastercard in the United States in 2025, up from $111.2 billion in 2024 and $25.6 billion in 2009, the Merchants Payments Coalition said. The average fee was 2.36 percent. Visa and Mastercard agreed to lower swipe fees by 0.1 percentage point for five years, while standard consumer rates would be lowered to no more than 1.25 percent for eight years. Merchants could also choose whether to accept cards in distinct categories: commercial cards, premium consumer cards — including the popular rewards cards that dominate the card market — and standard consumer cards. That provision would effectively end the longstanding "Honor All Cards" rule requiring merchants to accept all Visa and Mastercard cards or none. Merchants also got more options to impose surcharges on customers. Visa shares rose 1.7 percent on Tuesday while Mastercard shares rose 2 percent. MORE OBJECTIONS PREDICTED In separate statements, the National Retail Federation and the National Association of Convenience Stores said the revised settlement failed to address a "broken" credit card market, and NACS General Counsel Doug Kantor predicted "many more objections" will be filed. Objectors said merchants would still pay too much to accept rewards cards and be required to "honor all issuers" in a given network, meaning they could not accept one bank's cards and reject another's. Cogan said many objections had merit, but the settlement didn't need to be perfect. "The objectors identify several things that they want to do but can’t (e.g., rejecting cards at the issuer-level, surcharging at the issuer-level) and that they theoretically can do but won’t (e.g., rejecting premium cards)," he said. "But the question is not whether the amended settlement constitutes the best possible recovery, end stop — it’s whether the amended settlement constitutes the best possible recovery in light of what can be gained and lost through trial." Other objectors included Walmart and the Merchants Payments Coalition. Neither immediately commented. NOBEL ECONOMIST SAYS CONSUMERS COULD BENEFIT The card networks welcomed Cogan's decision. Visa said the settlement gives merchants more flexibility in accepting payments, while Mastercard said the accord "balances the interests of all parties." Supporters of the settlement included the Electronic Payments Coalition, whose members include the card networks and large issuers such as Bank of America, Capital One, Chase and Citibank. Two experts hired by the plaintiffs, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and University of Washington professor Keith Leffler, said the changes could save merchants $38 billion by 2031 and provide $224 billion of benefits overall, including to consumers. The $30 billion settlement would have lowered swipe fees by 0.07 percentage point over five years and also allowed more surcharges. In rejecting that accord in June 2024, U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie said fees would have still been above where they were absent any antitrust violations, and merchants would remain stuck with the "Honor All Cards" rule. Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York. Editing by Aurora Ellis, Bill Berkrot and Mark Potter

Summary: National Education Association files suit in Rhode Island federal court ExcEL Educators Leadership Academy lost $6 million in grant funding U.S. Department of Education cited for alleged First Amendment violations     The national teachers’ union is suing the U.S. Department of Education, challenging what it describes as the illegal termination of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants aimed at improving instruction for thousands of English language learners.  The Lawyers’ Committee of Rhode Island, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Education Association, on behalf of its 3 million members, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island seeking a court order blocking the termination of the grants.  According to the complaint, the U.S. Department of Education in 2025 halted funding for national professional development grants for programs to support the training and certification of bilingual teachers for English language learners, one of the fastest growing segments of students in the country. The discontinuation notices, including those to a Pawtucket nonprofit, came with little or no warning and were driven by concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.  “The Trump administration terminated these grants to punish Americans for saying things it doesn't want to hear. The combed through grant applications hunting for words it deemed ‘divisive ideology,’ like diversity and equity, and then defunded the programs that used them. That is a textbook First Amendment violation, and it has dismantled teacher-certification pipelines in a dozen states and stripped English learner students of the qualified educators the law guarantees them,” Amy Romero, chief legal counsel of Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, said in a news release.  The lawsuit alleges violations of the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and viewpoint discrimination, as well as violations of the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs decision making for federal agencies.  Pawtucket nonprofit program `dismantled’  The lawsuit was brought on behalf of the NEA and its members; and Laureen Avery, administrator for ExcEL Educators Leadership Academy, a nonprofit organization based in Pawtucket. ExcEL received about $6 million in multi-year grants that were discontinued. The National Professional Development program was created by Congress as part of the No Child Left Behind Act to award competitive grants to address the shortage of bilingual and English as a Second Language teachers.  “For the educators participating in ExcEL, this grant represents far more than a funding stream — it is a pathway to earning the qualifications needed to effectively serve multilingual learners,” Avery, a founder of ExcEL, said in a statement. “The department’s decision disrupts ongoing professional learning and networks, undermines educator preparation efforts, and jeopardizes services that directly benefit students and families.” As a result of the cuts, Avery lost her job, and the coaching network for ESL teachers was dismantled, the lawsuit says. Tina Cheuk, a professor in California whose research for Project BRILLANTE focuses on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math literacy for English language learners, is also a plaintiff. That program received $3.3 million in grants that have been cut off.  The Department of Education and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon are named defendants. The government has not yet responded in court.  Was `coded language' targeted?  The lawsuit alleges that the federal government ignored its own performance-based regulations and previously established legal criteria for evaluating grant recipients.  They argue that federal education officials instead of relying on data justified terminating the funding by selectively searching for “coded language” associated with DEI in grant applications that had previously been approved.  The Education Department announced it would terminate more than $600 million in grants for what it characterized as “divisive ideologies.”  The loss of grants has led to districts losing their pipeline to ESL teachers, students lost equal education opportunities to work with credentialed educators and teachers lost access to professional training, the lawsuit says.  Reporting by Katie Mulvaney, Providence Journal / The Providence Journal USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect