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Musk sued over failure to pay $100 to petition signers

WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) — Elon Musk’s political action committee failed to pay registered swing state voters as promised during last year’s U.S. election in return for signing a petition or referring other voters, according to a proposed federal class action lawsuit.

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Musk’s America PAC helped Republican President Donald Trump beat Democratic challenger Vice President Kamala Harris.

In the lead-up to the November election, Musk offered voters in seven states that were considered key to the election $47 and later $100 for signing a petition supporting the U.S. Constitution. Registered voters were also promised payments for referring voters in the seven states who signed the petition.

The three plaintiffs, residents of Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia, claim that America PAC breached a contract by failing to pay in full. The lawsuit, filed on May 8 in Philadelphia, seeks to represent a class of everyone who signed or referred someone to sign the petition and was not paid in full.

Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and the world’s richest person, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

His PAC also pledged to give away $1 million daily to someone who signed the petition in support of Constitutional guarantees to freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. A separate proposed class action has claimed the giveaway was a fraud.

Russian scientist charged with smuggling

(NYT) — The Trump administration announced criminal smuggling charges Wednesday against Kseniia Petrova, a Harvard scientist who was detained three months ago after failing to declare scientific samples she was carrying in her luggage.

In a hearing in federal district court earlier in the day, a government lawyer told a judge that the Trump administration intends to deport Petrova back to Russia, a country she fled in 2022, despite her fear that she will be arrested there over her history of political protest.

The moves brought the government into conflict with the federal judge in Vermont, who scheduled a bail hearing for Petrova later this month, apparently setting the stage for her release.

Petrova has admitted that she failed to declare the samples, but her lawyer has argued that this would ordinarily be treated as a minor infraction. Instead, a customs official canceled Petrova’s J-1 visa and initiated deportation proceedings.

Christina Reiss, chief judge of U.S. District Court in Vermont, repeatedly quizzed the government lawyers about their grounds for canceling Petrova’s visa and detaining her.

“Where is that authority?” she asked. “Where does a customs and border patrol officer have the authority on his or her own to revoke a visa?” she said. “It’s got to be somewhere. Because there is no way that person has kind of an unlimited determination.”

The criminal charges will further complicate Petrova’s desire to remain in the United States and return to her laboratory at Harvard Medical School. Petrova told colleagues Wednesday afternoon that she had been abruptly told to gather her things because she was leaving Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

Petrova’s attorney, Gregory Romanovsky, said the criminal charge, “filed three months after the alleged customs violation, is clearly intended to make Kseniia look like a criminal to justify their efforts to deport her.”

“Almost immediately after the hearing, we were blindsided by the unsealing of a meritless criminal complaint,” Romanovsky said. “The timing of Kseniia’s transfer out of ICE custody into criminal custody is especially suspect because it happened right after the judge set a bail hearing for her release.”

In the event Petrova is convicted, the smuggling charge could lead to a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, or a fine of up to $250,000.

California governor to scale back health care for migrants

(Reuters) — California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced a budget proposal to scale back a free health care program for low-income undocumented migrants, warning the state must brace for an expected $16 billion dent in state revenues from President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The change formed part of Newsom’s budget presentation released on Wednesday. The governor’s office projected that sharply lower revenues after Trump’s tariffs would require the state “to take corrective action that balances fiscal responsibility while preserving core tenets of key investments.”

Trump’s administration has targeted immigrant-friendly policies in Democratic-dominated states, such as California, pressuring them to end benefits programs for undocumented migrants.

Newsom’s office said that the governor is calling for undocumented adults to pay $100 monthly premiums to receive Medi-Cal health care coverage. He also called to block all new adult applicants for the program starting on January 1, 2026. Coverage for children will not be affected by these changes, nor would “limited-scope coverage” of things like emergency and pregnancy services.

Those changes would save the state $5.4 billion through 2028-2029, the governor’s office said. The program providing free health care for all low-income migrants began on January 1, 2024.