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Daily Mail
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Aaron Rodgers' ex Shailene Woodley shares cryptic message after Pittsburgh Steelers star revealed shock marriage
New Pittsburgh Steelers star Aaron Rodgers confirmed earlier this week that he is married following weeks of speculation. And since he broke the news, fans have been waiting with baited breath for Rodgers' ex-fiancé Shailene Woodley, 33, to issue a public response. Just a day after the revelation, Woodley took to her Instagram stories to post a cryptic message via song. In her upload, Woodley shared the song It's a good day (to fight the system) by Shungudzo, a Zimbabwean-American singer. And while fans might assume that this immediate post following Rodgers' announcement is some sort of response to his marriage, a closer look at the lyrics of the song suggest she has turned her attention elsewhere. Some of the song lyrics include, 'f**k the police,' 'ready to change history,' and 'it's a good day to fight the system.' Woodley currently lives in Los Angeles where protests against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been taking place for days and making national headlines. It's likely that Woodley's Instagram story is a nod to the protesters, as she's been known to be involved in activism. In fact, Woodley was arrested in 2016 for peacefully protesting the creation of the Dakota Access Pipeline - a project that threatened resources of Native American tribes in the area. She has also forged a reputation for herself as an environmental activist, which has included leading a PBS docuseries on sustainable seafood. Still, Woodley's story could be a way to deter fans from expecting a reaction from her about Rodgers' announcement and instead to focus on other issues. Rodgers and Woodley were romantically involved from 2020 to 2022. They eventually broke off their engagement, leaving Woodley 'heartbroken.' In an interview with Bustle, she eventually said, 'I fell in love over and over with unavailability,' hinting at this being the driving force for her and Rodgers' breakup. After their split, Rodgers went on to date long-time friend Mallory Edens. But they too eventually ended things, and it's likely that Rodgers is married to someone named Brittani - the only detail the public has about his new wife. In fact, Rodgers wasn't even the one to really break the news about his marriage. After a practice, the NFL MVP quarterback was asked about a ring he was wearing on his left finger - and he confirmed that it was in fact 'a wedding ring.' When asked when he got married, he responded 'a couple months ago.' Whether or not Woodley decides to speak about her ex's new relationship status three years after their split is still unclear.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
I Am Beyond Thrilled That Corporations Are Defunding Pride. No, Not for the Reason You Think.
This is part of Slate's Pride 2025 package on how America is celebrating queerness during one of the most challenging years on record. I have never seen a group of gays as mad as the ones I met at Washington Pride in 2017. That year, I took part in a protest action that halted the annual parade. A hundred or more of us split into groups to block the passage of three separate marching contingents: the D.C. police department, for perpetrating violence against Black people; Lockheed Martin, for manufacturing weapons of war; and Wells Fargo, for lending money to the Dakota Access Pipeline. The thrust of the protest was simple. There isn't anything inherently queer or trans about these morally objectionable institutions, and they don't improve the lots of LGBTQ+ people in any meaningful way. Why should they get a place of honor at our party? My group filed into the street to block the Lockheed Martin delegation just as their float turned a corner on the parade route. We didn't know in advance what the Lockheed float would look like, and when I saw it, I gasped. Motoring down the street to thumping disco beats and applause from revelers in tutus and jockstraps were two large to-scale models of Lockheed products, a warplane and a drone. This tasteless, macabre display was great for the protest, I figured. There could not be a more vivid illustration of the discord between a celebration of human rights and a purveyor of instruments of death. I guess I thought the Pridegoers would greet us as liberators. That wasn't how it played out. While plenty of spectators cheered us on, many more brimmed with anger. They yelled and cried and spit at us. Trash and cups full of alcohol rained down on us from the apartment balconies above. One man positioned his face an inch from mine and screamed, 'You ruined Pride!' I've given that man a lot of thought in the years since. He was probably talking about the parade as a whole, which was delayed and rerouted by our blockades, and not about our infringement of his right to clap for Lockheed Martin in particular. But to me, they were one and the same, because the D.C. Pride parade was bloated with soulless corporate activations. So while I felt genuine guilt for raining on that man's Pride parade, his words drove home just how differently we saw Pride. If I could ruin his Pride just by pressing pause on an hourslong commercial for goods and services, what did Pride mean to him? This year, as companies pull their sponsorships from major metropolitan Prides in deference to the rising anti-LGBTQ+ movement, the time is ripe to reconsider what Pride has become and what we want it to be. For decades, heavy corporate involvement in Pride events has been a given—welcomed by many, ignored by some, protested by a few. If this year's trend continues, Pride as we know it will drastically change. And that would be a good thing: Even if corporations come crawling back once President Pete Buttigieg clinches the White House in 2028, big-city Pride organizers should rebuff them, in favor of the homegrown celebrations of LGBTQ+ culture and resistance we all deserve. The slowdown of corporate Pride began a few years ago, when right-wing advocates pressured the likes of Target, Starbucks, and Budweiser to back off their LGBTQ+ marketing campaigns. Companies started doing fewer thirsty Pride stunts, like redesigning their social media avatars in rainbow for the month of June. This year, the exodus ramped up. In one survey of 49 executives at Fortune 1000 companies, nearly 40 percent said their businesses planned to dial back their engagement with Pride month this year, either internally or externally. Only 9 percent said the same last year. Pride event sponsorships are a major part of the drop-off. In cities across the country, companies that once gave tens of thousands of dollars or more to individual Pride celebrations have now declined to contribute. San Francisco said goodbye to Anheuser-Busch and Comcast. New York is missing Citi and PepsiCo. D.C. is getting no love from Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, Visa, or Mastercard. These are just a few examples among many, which add up to a multimillion-dollar slump in Pride event funding nationwide. A spokesperson for the United States Association of Prides told reporter Nico Lang that donations to some smaller Prides have dropped 70 to 90 percent. Pride organizers are bemoaning the loss, suggesting they may need to drastically downsize next year's celebrations. It's often said that the first Pride was a riot, because Pride celebrations started out to commemorate the June 1969 Stonewall uprising. But Pride soon became a business proposition. In the late 1970s, less than a decade after Stonewall, activists in San Francisco were already launching an effort to take over what was then called Gay Freedom Day and make it more political, because they that believed local business owners had turned it into a glorified bar crawl. But corporate Pride as we know it today is a more recent invention. Major Prides now rely on big-ticket sponsorships to execute events on a scale and level of professionalism that the first organizers could have never imagined. Today's Prides often comprise a city's largest and most elaborate parade, a festival with multiple stages, a weekend packed with parties, and sophisticated marketing and logistics support. These things cost a lot of money, and corporate sponsors foot the bill in exchange for advertising. We get a bigger party. They get to make nice with potential queer employees and build goodwill among a demographic with robust spending power. Many Pridegoers see this as a fair trade. For some, it feels like even more than that. It's flattering, in a way, to see mainstream brands—the popular clique of American capitalism—beg for our business with rainbow logos and pro-gay slogans. (I still respect the $5 gift card Chipotle gave me at one Pride, which read 'Homo Estás' above a rainbow burrito, essentially outing me when I used it.) If you came of age when gay sex was criminalized and certain professions were unavailable to out queers, seeing big-name brands don your colors for a week could make you feel as if you'd made it, as if you're a fully integrated part of the American project. It could even feel healing to get a nod of recognition from the businesses that take our money and employ our friends. At the very least, it felt like progress. And it was, in a sense. Companies are risk-averse, so they follow the zeitgeist, reflecting changing public views on homosexuality and other social issues. When they adopted corporate Pride, it was likely because their risk-benefit analyses told them that they'd earn more by embracing gays than by ignoring them. That's why they're pulling out of Pride now, to curry favor with Donald Trump and appease a general public that is growing more hostile to LGBTQ+ rights. But the equating of corporate involvement with progress is a trap, because it lends a false sense of permanence to political changes that can be fleeting. If we expected our comrades at Anheuser-Busch and Comcast to have our backs when the going got rough, even if only to keep our business, we were sorely mistaken. 'We need our business allies,' argued a 2022 Washington Blade op-ed in defense of corporate Pride, illustrated with a photo of the Amazon float in the D.C. Pride parade. Two years later, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos quashed the Washington Post's endorsement of Kamala Harris, contorted the paper's opinion section to favor Trump, and got a front-row seat to the president's inauguration, to which Amazon donated $1 million. Business ally indeed. That's not the only pitfall to inviting corporations to our parties. Celebrating them alongside LGBTQ+ activists, nonprofits, and advocacy groups runs the risk of 'pinkwashing,' or papering over major misdeeds with feel-good gestures of support for LGBTQ+ people. (In 2017, as Facebook facilitated a genocide in Myanmar, it released a rainbow Pride 'reaction'—but only in cities deemed to be queer-friendly—then showed off at Prides all June.) And, though it might sound petty, company Pride contingents simply don't feel as if they belong. Credit card companies and consulting firms are culturally and aesthetically irrelevant to Pride events, because they do not pertain to the actual subject matter of Pride: the art, history, sex, politics, and social bonds of queer life. The proliferation of corporations at Pride has opened the door to another entity that has watered down Pride's purpose: straight people. Every Pride, at parades across the country, thousands of queer people who suffer actual trans- and homophobia line the streets to applaud marching cohorts of heterosexual, cisgender people, who do not. Why? Because companies often encourage self-appointed allies to join their queer colleagues in the parade. I've heard of straight people spearheading their companies' Pride floats. Crowds of queer people cheering for rainbow-clad straight people on a day meant to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community—it's as dissonant as sending a model of a drone down the parade route, and it's a sign of how far Pride has drifted from its origins as a show of queer visibility and power. We compromise our self-worth when we lavish praise on straight people and corporations on the one weekend of the year that's ours, simply because they don't profess to hate us. The upshot is that, today, Prides have become too big to fail. Inflated by corporate dollars, they have conditioned urban gays to expect massive, polished productions with celebrity guests and sponsor-branded freebies. Anything less will feel like a letdown—like a 'ruined' Pride. But what Pride is today is not the only thing it can be. Some cities are already reimagining their fundraising models. Cincinnati Pride opted this year to forgo sponsorships from companies that canceled their DEI programs, making up the difference with a wildly successful crowdfunding campaign. Pride organizers in Springfield, Missouri, are courting donations from local independent businesses, like a cannabis dispensary, a boutique hotel, and an 'at-home pet euthanasia service.' In small towns and cities in conservative areas, where new Pride events are springing up and thriving, volunteers make do with ragtag fundraisers, mom-and-pop sponsorships, and right-sized ambitions. The corporate exodus that has sent Pride organizers scrambling for alternative funding sources could be a blessing in disguise, paving the way for more meaningful celebrations. Instead of a four-hour parade for multinational companies, we could have a two-hour parade for community groups, queer businesses, and the local gay baton-twirling club. Instead of spending tens of thousands of Booz Allen Hamilton dollars to hire a heterosexual A-list musical performer for a generic outdoor concert, we could focus on local queer bands, comedians, and DJs. It's time to take better advantage of untapped community spending power: I'd gladly pay $25 to enter a sliding-scale Pride festival if it meant others could attend for free, the drag artists got paid, and Raytheon got no advertising space. Queers in big cities are already hosting massive events with minimal operating costs and no sponsors. They're called Dyke Marches, and they run on volunteer labor, community fundraising, and a lot of nerve. At the annual New York City march, with no permit for their event, marshals block traffic by linking arms across intersections for nearly 2 miles. Tens of thousands of people march the route—waving signs, playing music, running into friends and future friends, exes and future exes. There are children, and there are leather harnesses, and no one cares that they're in the same place. The spectacle—a sea of blissed-out queers blazing down Fifth Avenue, seizing control of the street without anyone's permission—embodies the purest essence of Pride. None of it has been sold off to advertisers. If I had to pinpoint the purpose of Pride, it would be not a specific event or political ambition but a feeling. You find it in those transcendent Pride moments when you're surrounded by a mix of loved ones and strangers, sensing that everyone around you is linked by a mutual history, touching the possibility of a future that gives our freest, most joyous selves adequate space to grow. There are those of us who get that feeling on a sweaty dance floor, at a lesbian photography showcase, or watching young trans people take giddy selfies in their favorite outfits. Others get it at big-budget parades and concerts. But I'm willing to bet that if you stripped away all the commercial elements of Pride, the parade and concert people would still be able to capture that feeling. A more modest, homespun celebration would give us everything we need without commodifying our movement for the benefit of fair-weather friends. There is a long legacy of trans and queer people making unimaginably beautiful, world-changing things from whatever scraps they could get their hands on. It's time we claimed it.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Standing Rock appeals dismissal of latest Dakota Access Pipeline lawsuit
Opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline gather Nov. 1, 2023, in Bismarck ahead of a public meeting on an environmental impact statement. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe opposes the pipeline, citing concerns for its water supply and sovereign rights. (Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor) The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to review a federal judge's decision to dismiss its latest lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the Dakota Access Pipeline. Standing Rock filed the lawsuit in October, asking the court to find the pipeline must be shut down because it still lacks an easement authorizing it to pass under the Missouri River's Lake Oahe reservoir, which is regulated by the Army Corps. 'The Corps of Engineers has not earned the trust of our Tribe,' Standing Rock Chairwoman Janet Alkire said in a statement last week announcing the appeal. 'We cannot rely on the Corps to properly evaluate DAPL, so we are continuing our legal efforts to protect our water and our people from this dangerous pipeline.' Greenpeace seeks reversal of verdict, arguing jury wanted to 'punish' someone for pipeline protests The Army Corps originally granted the easement to the pipeline's developer in 2017, but Boasberg revoked it in 2020 after finding the agency had issued the permit without completing the full environmental review required by federal law. The matter was brought to him through a lawsuit the tribe filed against the Army Corps in 2016. Boasberg at the time directed the Corps to withhold making a decision on the easement until it completes a full environmental impact study. He also ordered the pipeline to be shut down, though that demand was later reversed by an appellate court. Five years later, the Army Corps still has not finished the environmental review. It published a draft in late 2023. Standing Rock in its latest suit argues that keeping the pipeline open without an easement is a violation of federal law. The tribe also alleges the Army Corps is at fault for a number of other regulatory violations related to the pipeline. In court filings, Standing Rock has said it intends to present new evidence related to the pipeline's safety. The pipeline company has indicated previously it does not consider that information credible. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg tossed the suit in March, finding that the courts cannot intervene in the matter until the Army Corps wraps up its environmental study. 'No matter its frustration with Defendants' sluggish pace, it is not yet entitled to a second bite at the apple,' he wrote in his March order. Boasberg previously indicated that while the agency works on the study, it has the option of enforcing its property rights since the pipeline is operating on federal land without authorization. 'The Corps has conspicuously declined to adopt a conclusive position regarding the pipeline's continued operation, despite repeated prodding from this Court and the Court of Appeals to do so,' he wrote in a 2021 order. Standing Rock leaders say they hope the D.C. Circuit will overturn Boasberg's decision to dismiss the case. In her statement, Alkire said the tribe fears the Army Corps' study will 'whitewash' the pipeline's risk to the surrounding environment. The pipeline crosses Lake Oahe just north of the Standing Rock Reservation. The tribe opposes the Dakota Access Pipeline as a threat to its sovereignty, water supply and cultural heritage sites. Federal judge dismisses Standing Rock's latest lawsuit over Dakota Access Pipeline Alkire also underscored the tribe's dismay over a March jury verdict that found the environmental group Greenpeace at fault for damaging the pipeline developers property and business as part of its protests against Dakota Access Pipeline. The jury ordered Greenpeace to pay the company, Energy Transfer, roughly $667 million. Standing Rock has criticized the verdict as based on a false narrative that Greenpeace, and not Standing Rock and other tribes, led the protests. 'We saw Energy Transfer's efforts to re-write history as we know it and lived it in their lawsuit against Greenpeace,' she said. In April, another federal judge ordered the Army Corps to pay North Dakota $28 million in connection to the anti-pipeline protests, finding the agency's actions had wrongfully forced the state to pay millions policing the protests and cleaning up the aftermath. The Dakota Access Pipeline passes through unceded land previously recognized as belonging to the Sioux Nation in 19th century treaties with the U.S. government. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Greenpeace seeks reversal of verdict, arguing jury wanted to ‘punish' someone for pipeline protests
Greenpeace Senior Legal Adviser Deepa Padmanabha, second from left, and other attorneys representing Greenpeace speak to the media March 19, 2025, outside the Morton County Courthouse. (Amy Dalrymple/North Dakota Monitor) Attorneys for Greenpeace argued this week that a jury's decision ordering it to pay $667 million to the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline cannot stand. A Morton County jury delivered the verdict on March 19 after more than three weeks of trial. Jurors found the environmental group responsible for damages related to anti-pipeline protests in North Dakota in 2016 and 2017, as well as for publishing defamatory statements about Energy Transfer. Greenpeace says the jury's decision was not based on fact, but bias against the protest movement. 'What the verdict in this case reflected, your honor, is the community's desire to punish someone who was involved in the protests,' said Everett Jack, an attorney representing Greenpeace's U.S. affiliate. The arguments followed a hearing earlier this month during which Greenpeace asked Southwest Judicial District Court Judge James Gion to reduce the $667 million award if he moves forward with a judgment against the environmental group. Energy Transfer wants Gion to uphold the jury's decision in full. Jury finds Greenpeace at fault for protest damages, awards pipeline developer more than $660 million The award includes more than $200 million of compensatory damages — or money meant to make the plaintiffs whole for financial harms — and another roughly $400 million in punitive damages. Energy Transfer's core argument is that Greenpeace trained protesters to wage violent attacks to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline and that it deliberately published false statements to sabotage the company's business. Greenpeace was one of many activist groups that sent representatives to south-central North Dakota to protest in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. It denies Energy Transfer's allegations and says the lawsuit is an attempt to discourage environmental activism. During a Tuesday hearing, attorneys representing the environmental group doubled down on their claims that Energy Transfer presented no concrete evidence during the trial that Greenpeace caused the company to suffer financially. The lawsuit is against three Greenpeace entities: Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA, and Greenpeace Fund, its United States-based fundraising arm. Only Greenpeace USA had employees at the protests. Greenpeace USA says it had six staff members visit to provide peripheral support to the Indigenous-led demonstrations, including supplies and nonviolent trainings. Energy Transfer attorney Trey Cox argued that Gion has no reason not to honor the jury's verdict. Cox said the acts the jury found Greenpeace liable for — including defamatory speech, trespassing and abuse of property — do not count as constitutionally protected speech. 'They're trying to wrap themselves in the First Amendment,' he said. Cox said Greenpeace is willfully ignoring documentation Energy Transfer presented to the jury linking Greenpeace personnel to attacks against the pipeline, and that the jury's decision is the most important indicator of the evidence's credibility. Attorneys also asked Gion to toss the jury's verdict finding the three organizations liable for defamation. Energy Transfer alleges that Greenpeace published nine defamatory statements about the Dakota Access Pipeline that harmed the energy company's business relationships. In the United States, the standard for proving defamation claims is high — especially for individuals and organizations in the public eye. Greenpeace attorneys said the nine statements don't meet this threshold for multiple reasons. For one, each of the nine statements was either factually true or reflected opinions about what happened at Standing Rock, Jack said. Energy Transfer also did not demonstrate that Greenpeace made the statements knowing they were false or with 'reckless disregard' for their veracity, which are other key standards required for proving defamation, he added. Greenpeace has also said it was not the first to circulate the statements, and that they were contemporaneously published by hundreds of other organizations and media outlets. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Judges must act as the 'gatekeeper' on defamation claims to make sure the decision does not violate free speech rights, Adam Caldwell, an attorney representing Greenpeace International, argued. This standard was set in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case on defamation New York Times v. Sullivan, he said. Jack also argued that under North Dakota law, proving a defamation claim requires that a third party testify that they believe the statements in question are defamatory. He said none of Energy Transfer's witnesses fulfilled this requirement. He pointed to the testimony of Greenpeace employees who said they believed the statements were true and came from credible sources. Cox said jurors likely rejected this testimony as unconvincing. 'Given the very large exemplary damage award, we can readily infer that this jury found these witnesses to be liars,' Cox said. 'We found them to be concealing things, to be hiding things, to be non-credible.' Greenpeace International and Greenpeace Fund — which does not engage in organizing activities — say Energy Transfer has no right to involve them in the case. Neither had any personnel visit North Dakota. Greenpeace International says it is not subject to the court's jurisdiction because it is a Netherlands-based organization that was not involved in the protests. 'The only evidence was affirmative evidence from International that it had never set foot in North Dakota,' Caldwell said. 'It's a textbook case of lack of personal jurisdiction.' While Greenpeace International did sign onto a letter that included two of the statements the jury found defamatory, it was one of more than 500 signatories, he said. Greenpeace Fund similarly said there was no evidence linking it to the case. 'We shouldn't be here,' said Matt Kelly, an attorney representing the organization. Energy Transfer has argued that Greenpeace Fund and Greenpeace International conspired with Greenpeace USA on its anti-pipeline efforts. The jury found Greenpeace International and Greenpeace USA liable for conspiracy, but not Greenpeace Fund. Gion took the motions under advisement. The parties also recently presented arguments on a separate set of motions asking Gion to reduce the jury's nearly $667 million award against Greenpeace. Greenpeace claims the award exceeds statutory caps on damages and that the verdict is riddled with inconsistencies. If the jury's decision is allowed to stand, defendants have the option to appeal the verdict to the North Dakota Supreme Court. Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace International have disclosed their intent to appeal. This story was originally published by the North Dakota Monitor. Like South Dakota Searchlight, it's part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. North Dakota Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Amy Dalrymple for questions: info@
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Greenpeace seeks reversal of verdict, arguing jury wanted to ‘punish' someone for pipeline protests
Snow covers the ground at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on Dec. 3, 2016, outside Cannon Ball, N.D. (Photo by) Attorneys for Greenpeace argued this week that a jury's decision ordering it to pay $667 million to the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline cannot stand. A Morton County jury delivered the verdict on March 19 after more than three weeks of trial. Jurors found the environmental group responsible for damages related to anti-pipeline protests in North Dakota in 2016 and 2017, as well as for publishing defamatory statements about Energy Transfer. Greenpeace says the jury's decision was not based on fact, but bias against the protest movement. 'What the verdict in this case reflected, your honor, is the community's desire to punish someone who was involved in the protests,' said Everett Jack, an attorney representing Greenpeace's U.S. affiliate. More Dakota Access Pipeline coverage The arguments followed a hearing earlier this month during which Greenpeace asked Southwest Judicial District Court Judge James Gion to reduce the $667 million award if he moves forward with a judgment against the environmental group. Energy Transfer wants Gion to uphold the jury's decision in full. The award includes more than $200 million of compensatory damages — or money meant to make the plaintiffs whole for financial harms — and another roughly $400 million in punitive damages. Energy Transfer's core argument is that Greenpeace trained protesters to wage violent attacks to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline and that it deliberately published false statements to sabotage the company's business. Greenpeace was one of many activist groups that sent representatives to south-central North Dakota to protest in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. It denies Energy Transfer's allegations and says the lawsuit is an attempt to discourage environmental activism. During a Tuesday hearing, attorneys representing the environmental group doubled down on their claims that Energy Transfer presented no concrete evidence during the trial that Greenpeace caused the company to suffer financially. The lawsuit is against three Greenpeace entities: Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA, and Greenpeace Fund, its United States-based fundraising arm. Only Greenpeace USA had employees at the protests. Greenpeace USA says it had six staff members visit to provide peripheral support to the Indigenous-led demonstrations, including supplies and nonviolent trainings. Energy Transfer attorney Trey Cox argued that Gion has no reason not to honor the jury's verdict. Cox said the acts the jury found Greenpeace liable for — including defamatory speech, trespassing and abuse of property — do not count as constitutionally protected speech. 'They're trying to wrap themselves in the First Amendment,' he said. Cox said Greenpeace is willfully ignoring documentation Energy Transfer presented to the jury linking Greenpeace personnel to attacks against the pipeline, and that the jury's decision is the most important indicator of the evidence's credibility. Attorneys also asked Gion to toss the jury's verdict finding the three organizations liable for defamation. Energy Transfer alleges that Greenpeace published nine defamatory statements about the Dakota Access Pipeline that harmed the energy company's business relationships. In the United States, the standard for proving defamation claims is high — especially for individuals and organizations in the public eye. Greenpeace attorneys said the nine statements don't meet this threshold for multiple reasons. Jury finds Greenpeace at fault for protest damages, awards pipeline developer more than $660 million For one, each of the nine statements was either factually true or reflected opinions about what happened at Standing Rock, Jack said. Energy Transfer also did not demonstrate that Greenpeace made the statements knowing they were false or with 'reckless disregard' for their veracity, which are other key standards required for proving defamation, he added. Greenpeace has also said it was not the first to circulate the statements, and that they were contemporaneously published by hundreds of other organizations and media outlets. Judges must act as the 'gatekeeper' on defamation claims to make sure the decision does not violate free speech rights, Adam Caldwell, an attorney representing Greenpeace International, argued. This standard was set in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case on defamation New York Times v. Sullivan, he said. Jack also argued that under North Dakota law, proving a defamation claim requires that a third party testify that they believe the statements in question are defamatory. He said none of Energy Transfer's witnesses fulfilled this requirement. He pointed to the testimony of Greenpeace employees who said they believed the statements were true and came from credible sources. Cox said jurors likely rejected this testimony as unconvincing. 'Given the very large exemplary damage award, we can readily infer that this jury found these witnesses to be liars,' Cox said. 'We found them to be concealing things, to be hiding things, to be non-credible.' Greenpeace International and Greenpeace Fund — which does not engage in organizing activities — say Energy Transfer has no right to involve them in the case. Neither had any personnel visit North Dakota. Greenpeace International says it is not subject to the court's jurisdiction because it is a Netherlands-based organization that was not involved in the protests. 'The only evidence was affirmative evidence from International that it had never set foot in North Dakota,' Caldwell said. 'It's a textbook case of lack of personal jurisdiction.' While Greenpeace International did sign onto a letter that included two of the statements the jury found defamatory, it was one of more than 500 signatories, he said. Greenpeace Fund similarly said there was no evidence linking it to the case. 'We shouldn't be here,' said Matt Kelly, an attorney representing the organization. Energy Transfer has argued that Greenpeace Fund and Greenpeace International conspired with Greenpeace USA on its anti-pipeline efforts. The jury found Greenpeace International and Greenpeace USA liable for conspiracy, but not Greenpeace Fund. Gion took the motions under advisement. The parties also recently presented arguments on a separate set of motions asking Gion to reduce the jury's nearly $667 million award against Greenpeace. Greenpeace claims the award exceeds statutory caps on damages and that the verdict is riddled with inconsistencies. If the jury's decision is allowed to stand, defendants have the option to appeal the verdict to the North Dakota Supreme Court. Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace International have disclosed their intent to appeal. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
