The Justice Department has taken a notable step on federal firearms enforcement: its Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that the federal restrictions preventing licensed dealers from selling handguns to otherwise law-abiding adults ages 18 to 20 cannot be constitutionally enforced through criminal prosecution. The opinion addresses 18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(1) and (c)(1), which have long barred federally licensed firearms dealers from completing those sales to that age group.

Although the OLC opinion is not a judicial decision and does not itself strike the statute from the U.S. Code, it is highly consequential as a matter of executive-branch policy.

Credit Acceptance Corp. has agreed to a sweeping $710 million settlement with 40 states and Washington, D.C., resolving allegations that the company pushed financially vulnerable consumers into unaffordable subprime auto loans and sold deceptive add-on products. The deal includes roughly $634 million in debt cancellation for more than 55,000 borrowers, along with restitution, civil penalties, and changes to the company’s lending and servicing practices. It also resolves related claims pending in federal court in Manhattan.

The allegations go to the heart of one of the most scrutinized areas in consumer finance: indirect auto lending.

In a significant ruling for Texas criminal practice, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reportedly vacated the rape convictions of three men and held they are entitled to a new trial because prosecutors allowed false testimony from the accuser to be presented. As flagged in Law360’s appellate coverage, the decision was divided — a reminder that even where appellate courts agree a trial was flawed, the path to relief can turn on contested views of materiality, prosecutorial knowledge, and prejudice.

The legal principle at the center of the ruling is a familiar but powerful one: the state cannot secure or preserve a conviction through testimony it knows, or should know, is false.

Apple Inc. has filed a new inter partes review petition at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, opening IPR2026-00500 on September 19, 2026. For patent litigators and in-house IP teams, the case is worth watching not only because of the petitioner’s profile, but also because early PTAB filings often signal parallel district court strategy, licensing pressure points, or a broader campaign against a patent family.

At this stage, the publicly available case caption identifies Apple Inc. as the petitioner, but the initial docket details provided here do not specify the patent owner or the patent number being challenged.

The federal judiciary is continuing to formalize its approach to artificial intelligence while also widening public remote access to civil and bankruptcy proceedings beyond what existed before the pandemic. The latest report from the Judicial Conference signals that both issues are now firmly part of long-term court administration rather than temporary or experimental measures.

On the AI front, the significance is less about a single headline rule and more about institutional direction.

Apple Inc. has filed a new inter partes review petition at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, opening IPR2026-00491 on September 18, 2026. As with many newly filed PTAB matters, the docket is worth watching from the outset because the petition marks the beginning of a potentially important validity fight that could affect parallel district court litigation, licensing leverage, and broader portfolio strategy.

At this early stage, the available docket information identifies Apple Inc. as the petitioner, but the publicly summarized case caption does not yet reveal all of the key underlying details practitioners will want to monitor closely—most notably, the specific patent owner, the patent number being challenged, and the precise invalidity grounds asserted in the petition.

A closely watched Senate effort to establish a broader federal regulatory framework for cryptocurrency has stalled after Democrats objected that the bill did not adequately address President Donald Trump’s crypto-related financial interests. Although this is a legislative fight rather than a court ruling, the setback is significant for lawyers and compliance professionals because it delays clarity on one of the most unsettled areas in financial regulation: who regulates digital assets, under what standards, and with what enforcement tools.

The proposed legislation was expected to help define the respective roles of securities and commodities regulators in overseeing crypto markets.

Senate Democrats have blocked a major cryptocurrency bill that would have established a broader federal regulatory framework for the industry, delaying what many market participants hoped would become the clearest congressional roadmap yet for digital-asset oversight. The failed push exposed familiar policy divides over market structure and agency authority, but this time the dispute also turned on ethics concerns tied to President Trump’s crypto interests and demands for a stronger role for state attorneys general.

For lawyers, the key takeaway is straightforward: the absence of a comprehensive statute means the current patchwork remains in place.

A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, has kept alive a closely watched challenge to the Trump administration’s proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” signaling she is not persuaded the case should disappear simply because the government now says the plan has been abandoned.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema’s reaction is significant less for the fate of the fund itself than for the constitutional questions still hanging over it.

With Saturday’s reporting cycle still thin, the most consequential U.S. legal developments available to practitioners remain the major court, enforcement, and legislative items that broke on Friday, September 18, 2026. That timing issue is more than a newsroom footnote: for litigators and in-house teams, the “latest” actionable legal news often lands at the end of the week, creating a narrow window for weekend risk assessment and Monday-morning strategy.

What makes this moment notable is not a single blockbuster ruling, but the concentration of activity across multiple legal fronts at once—court decisions, significant lawsuits, government enforcement, criminal matters, and legislative developments.

A September 14, 2026 filing in 4:23-cv-00770 tees up one of the most consequential phases of aggregate litigation: class certification. In No. 418, Motion to Certify Class, plaintiff Jill E. asks the Northern District of California to allow the case to proceed on behalf of a broader group rather than as an individual dispute. View full case on Docket Alarm

At a high level, a class-certification motion seeks a ruling that the plaintiff can represent absent class members under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

A massage therapist has revived sexual assault claims against Harvey Weinstein and Madison Square Garden executive James Dolan in New York state court, reasserting allegations that had previously appeared in a federal sex-trafficking suit that was dismissed. The new filing by Kellye Croft shifts the dispute into a different procedural posture and puts a closely watched celebrity civil case back on the litigation track.

The renewed complaint is significant not only because of the defendants’ profiles, but because it illustrates a familiar strategic move in high-stakes misconduct litigation: when a federal theory fails, plaintiffs may attempt to reframe the case under state-law causes of action with different pleading standards, remedies, and jurisdictional dynamics.

A Texas bankruptcy judge has approved the Chapter 11 plan for CVS subsidiary Omnicare, marking the latest turn in a restructuring shaped by both an asset sale and a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The confirmation is notable not just because it advances Omnicare’s exit from bankruptcy, but because it shows how a company facing major healthcare-related liabilities can use Chapter 11 to resolve overlapping business, litigation, and government enforcement problems in a single forum.

The Omnicare case drew attention after the company was hit with a massive fraud judgment, creating pressure on its balance sheet and forcing hard questions about how private claimants, federal enforcement interests, and the debtor’s remaining enterprise value could be reconciled.

In a closely watched state-law ruling, the Washington Supreme Court struck down Initiative 2066, a voter-approved measure designed to curb state and local efforts to move buildings and utilities away from natural gas. In Climate Solutions v. State, the court held that the initiative violated the Washington Constitution’s single-subject rule, rendering the measure invalid.

The decision matters well beyond ballot-law procedure.

The Associated Press scored a notable courtroom win Thursday in its copyright dispute with the producers behind a documentary tied to the Alex Murdaugh murder trial, after a federal judge ruled that AP owns the rights to a post-verdict interview with the trial’s dismissed “egg juror” and that the agreement used to secure that interview is valid and enforceable.

The dispute centered on whether AP had exclusive rights to the juror’s account after negotiating and paying for the interview shortly after the highly publicized South Carolina trial.