(Reuters) - A federal court in Texas that has become a favored destination for conservatives suing to block President Joe Biden's agenda has decided not to follow a policy adopted by the judiciary's top policymaking body that aims to curtail the practice of "judge shopping."

Chief U.S. District Judge David Godbey of the Northern District of Texas announced the decision in a Friday letter to Democratic U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who had urged him to implement a new policy that aimed to ensure cases challenging federal or state laws are randomly assigned judges.

The policy announced by the U.S. Judicial Conference on March 12 would require a lawsuit challenging federal or state laws to be assigned a judge randomly throughout a federal district rather than stay in the specific, smaller division, or courthouse, where the case was initially filed.

If implemented, that policy would disrupt a tactic used by conservative litigants of filing cases in small divisions in Texas' four federal districts whose one or two judges were appointed by Republican presidents and often rule in their favor on issues like abortion, immigration and gun control.

Following blowback from Senate Republicans and some conservative judges, judicial policymakers later clarified that the policy was discretionary, leaving it to each district court to decide how to implement it.

A Republican-appointed judge denounced Donald Trump’s social media attacks against the judge presiding over the former president’s hush money trial in Manhattan and his daughter, calling them assaults on the rule of law that could lead to violence and tyranny.

“When judges are threatened, and particularly when their family is threatened, it’s something that’s wrong and should not happen,” U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in a live interview Thursday. He added, “It is very troubling because I think it is an attack on the rule of law.”

The unusual media statement by a sitting federal judge came after Trump blasted New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and his daughter, Loren Merchan, criticizing her affiliation with a digital marketing company that works with Democratic candidates and erroneously attributing to her a social media post showing Trump behind bars.

Walton, who was appointed by presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush to courts in Washington in 1981 and 1991, said “any reasonable, thinking person” would appreciate the impact of Trump’s rhetoric on some followers, intentional or not. The judge recalled how a disgruntled litigant killed the son and wounded the husband of New Jersey federal Judge Esther Salas at her home in a 2020 shooting.

Since late 2020, as Trump began escalating his attacks on the judiciary, serious investigated threats against federal judges have more than doubled, from 224 in 2021 to 457 in 2023, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, as first reported by Reuters. Federal judges in Washington say at least half of trial judges handling cases arising from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol have received a surge in threats and harassment, including death threats to their homes, with Trump’s election obstruction trial judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, placed under 24-hour protection.

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A Texas woman who was charged with murder over self-managing an abortion and spent two nights in jail has sued prosecutors along the U.S.-Mexico border who put the criminal case in motion before it was later dropped.

The lawsuit filed by Lizelle Gonzalez in federal court Thursday comes a month after the State Bar of Texas fined and disciplined the district attorney in rural Starr County over the case in 2022, when Gonzalez was charged with murder in “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.”

Under the abortion restrictions in Texas and other states, women who seek abortion are exempt from criminal charges.

The lawsuit argues Gonzalez suffered harm from the arrest and subsequent media coverage. She is seeking $1 million in damages.

“The fallout from Defendants’ illegal and unconstitutional actions has forever changed the Plaintiff’s life,” the lawsuit stated.

Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez said Friday that he had not yet been served the lawsuit and declined comment. Starr County Judge Eloy Vera, the county's top elected official, also declined comment.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A group of Republican-led states is suing the Biden administration to block a new student loan repayment plan that provides a faster path to cancellation and lower monthly payments for millions of borrowers.

In a federal lawsuit filed Thursday, 11 states led by Kansas argue that Biden overstepped his authority in creating the SAVE Plan, which was made available to borrowers last year and has already canceled loans for more than 150,000.

It argues that the new plan is no different from Biden's first attempt at student loan cancellation, which the Supreme Court rejected last year. “Last time Defendants tried this the Supreme Court said that this action was illegal. Nothing since then has changed,” according to the lawsuit.

Biden announced the SAVE repayment plan in 2022, alongside a separate plan to cancel up to $20,000 in debt for more than 40 million Americans. The Supreme Court blocked the cancellation plan after Republican states sued, but the court didn’t examine SAVE, which was still being hashed out.

The new lawsuit was filed a day after the White House hosted a “day of action” to promote the SAVE Plan. The Biden administration says more than 7.7 million borrowers have enrolled in the plan, including more than 5 million who have had their monthly payments reduced to $100 or less because they have lower yearly incomes.

After this week’s oral argument, few court watchers believe the Supreme Court is now ready to limit the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to approve mifepristone, a drug used in more than half of all abortions, as opponents of abortion sought. At oral argument in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, it did not appear that the plaintiff doctors persuaded the court that the law inflicted injuries that would give them standing to sue. The reason for the justices’ skepticism is not hard to find. The doctors built their case on a mountain of remote possibilities. Patients might suffer complications from mifepristone—a drug with an impressively low complication rate—and might seek treatment at emergency rooms, where the plaintiffs may happen to practice, when the plaintiffs might not be able to find another physician willing to intervene. And all of that might mean that the plaintiffs would have to act in violation of their conscience. But then again, it might not. That’s why this case seems dead on arrival: The justices seemed unwilling to engage in the sort of rank speculation the plaintiffs have in mind. If this chain of hypotheticals is enough, anyone can bring a constitutional challenge to any drug approval or any law.

But the case was also a vehicle for advancing ever more expansive conscience-based arguments that have become common currency among Christian conservatives—claims of the kind we have seen in well-known cases like the 2014 Hobby Lobby decision recognizing conscience objections to the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act or even last year’s ruling in 303 Creative v. Elenis that allowed a conservative Christian graphic designer to refuse to make custom websites for same-sex weddings.

Today, those with conscience-based objections seek more than to pray or dress in conformity with religious belief. They object to laws providing Americans access to health care or freedom from discrimination. Compliance with these laws, they claim, would make the objector complicit in the assertedly sinful conduct of others.

Objectors bringing this new generation of complicity-based conscience claims invite courts to deny other Americans the protections of the law. In the FDA case, the plaintiffs do not even seek an exemption from the law; through an expansive standing claim, the doctors claim the only way the court could protect their conscience is to strike down FDA approvals providing all Americans access to medication abortion. Simply having mifepristone on the market, they argue, risks making them complicit in abortion.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky lawmakers gave final approval Thursday to a bill stripping the state's Democratic governor of any role in picking someone to occupy a U.S. Senate seat if a vacancy occurred in the home state of 82-year-old Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

The legislation calls for a special election to fill any Senate vacancy from the Bluegrass State. The special election winner would hold the seat for the remainder of the unexpired term.

“So it would be a direct voice of the people determining how the vacancy is filled,” Republican Senate President Robert Stivers said while presenting the bill to his colleagues.

The state Senate voted 34-3 after a brief discussion to send the bill to Gov. Andy Beshear. The governor has denounced the measure as driven by partisanship, but the GOP supermajority legislature could override a veto when lawmakers reconvene for the final two days of this year's session in mid-April.

The bill's lead sponsor is Republican House Majority Floor Leader Steven Rudy. He has said the measure has nothing to do with McConnell, but instead reflected his long-running policy stance on how an empty Senate seat should be filled.

Rudy refers to McConnell as a “great friend and a political mentor,” and credits the state’s senior senator for playing an important role in the GOP’s rise to dominance in the Kentucky legislature.

In a stunning turn, the Walt Disney Company has dropped its fight against Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for control over $17 billion in planned development at the Disney World theme park complex near Orlando.

Disney’s capitulation followed a legal setback. In January, a federal judge threw out a Disney lawsuit claiming that Mr. DeSantis and his allies had violated the First Amendment by taking over a special tax district that encompasses the company’s 25,000-acre Florida resort, which employs roughly 75,000 people.

As part of a settlement announced on Wednesday, Disney agreed to pause an appeal of that ruling — but not drop it entirely — while negotiating a new comprehensive growth plan with tax district officials. Disney also agreed to stop fighting the tax district in state court, with both sides “choosing to move forward in a spirit of cooperation,” according to the six-page settlement.

“We are pleased to put an end to all litigation pending in state court in Florida,” Jeff Vahle, president of Walt Disney World, said in a statement. He added that the agreement “opens a new chapter of constructive engagement” and would allow the company to continue to invest in the resort. As part of the settlement, the district agreed not to “prohibit or impede” long-term environmental permits granted to Disney.

Mr. DeSantis celebrated the settlement, saying the state has been “vindicated” on all of its actions.

BRISTOL, Tenn.-Va. – A sign overlooking the downtown traffic on State Street marks where Virginia meets Tennessee.

Lauded as the birthplace of country music and home to NASCAR's Bristol Motor Speedway, the two states in this Appalachian community share a library, chamber of commerce and post office.

But the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 tore Bristol in two.

Virginia allows the procedure. Tennessee prohibits it.

In the nearly two years since, this border town has found itself on the front line of the nation's highly charged abortion debate as powerful influencers from both sides moved in, fueling fierce zoning fights, legal battles and fiery protests.

“We are in a unique situation where we are right up against two very different sets of policies,” said Jon Luttrell, an official for Bristol, Tennessee’s City Council.

At the crux of the divide is Bristol Women’s Health, a clinic that opened on the Virginia side weeks before the Tennessee ban prompted a provider there to stop offering abortions.

Its opening means people seeking an abortion don’t have to drive 150 miles to Roanoke, Virginia.