Welcome to Bloomberg Law’s Wake Up Call, a daily rundown of the top news for lawyers, law firms, and in-house counsel.

Zeeshan “Zee” Ahmedani joined Proskauer as a partner in its private funds group in Los Angeles, the firm announced Tuesday.

A recent state lawsuit against a service with an AI chatbot, combined with other state and federal inquiries, may signal a new wave of enforcement. Companies with AI chatbots should reassess risk exposure across operations, say O’Melveny’s Daniel Suvor and Lindsey Greer Dotson.

The US Supreme Court in the 2022 case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, took an important step to help local governments and lower courts better understand the law of the Establishment Clause, which had long been a confusing mess. However, it set our nation on a new adventure with very little guidance other than a woefully undertheorized opinion, writes Steven Collis of the University of Texas at Austin.

Congress gave the Office of Personnel Management the discretion to craft a better reduction-in-force appeal process—and that is exactly what the agency is seeking to do, OPM senior adviser Noah Peters writes.

Pro-crypto policy isn’t just about friendlier tax rules and less regulation. Without good data governance, compliance databases can become criminal target lists. To make the US the world’s crypto capital, the Trump administration and Congress must ensure stronger privacy protections, Andrew Leahey says.

Meta Platforms Inc. is working on a financing package for a data center in El Paso, Texas, that could total roughly $13 billion, underscoring Big Tech’s growing reliance on debt to bankroll the infrastructure behind the AI boom.

For a bunch of unremarkable warehouses, they’re generating a lot of controversy. Data centers — low-slung facilities that house the server racks and energy systems that underpin the digital economy — have become a heated issue on the campaign trail. Politicians from both parties are pushing bills to restrict them. Some want a nationwide “moratorium.” That would be a historic mistake.

The Justice Department’s environmental division is increasingly playing offense and taking states to court in the second Trump administration—a shift from its historical defensive role, the department’s head told Bloomberg Law in an interview.

Since President Nicolás Maduro was captured by US forces and ousted from office on Jan. 3, Venezuela has entered a fast-changing and uncertain phase shaped heavily by Washington. Relations between the US and Venezuela have shifted from isolation to direct engagement: The Trump administration has restored diplomatic ties and is working with interim President Delcy Rodríguez. But that relationship is highly conditional. The US is using sanctions relief, access to global finance and control over oil revenues as leverage to steer policy and shape what comes next.

Hundreds of vessels were seen clustering near Dubai on Tuesday, as more ships moved away from a still-empty Strait of Hormuz in response to Iran’s efforts to widen its area of control.

A Canadian mining company that is among Cuba’s largest foreign investors is consulting with advisers and stakeholders after President Donald Trump expanded US sanctions against the struggling Caribbean nation.

Market-maker Jump Trading is working with tokenization firm Securitize Inc. in a push to move stock trading onto blockchain-based systems within existing regulatory framework.

The Justice Department’s environmental division is increasingly playing offense and taking states to court in the second Trump administration—a shift from its historical defensive role, the department’s head told Bloomberg Law in an interview.

Since President Nicolás Maduro was captured by US forces and ousted from office on Jan. 3, Venezuela has entered a fast-changing and uncertain phase shaped heavily by Washington. Relations between the US and Venezuela have shifted from isolation to direct engagement: The Trump administration has restored diplomatic ties and is working with interim President Delcy Rodríguez. But that relationship is highly conditional. The US is using sanctions relief, access to global finance and control over oil revenues as leverage to steer policy and shape what comes next.

Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. included in their latest quarterly profits financial boosts tied to refunds on certain US tariff payments, while Rivian Automotive Inc. joined Tesla Inc. in holding off for now.

Banks are ramping up their use of significant risk transfers to hedge against commercial real estate defaults as economic fallout from conflict in the Middle East piles pressure on the sector.

Hundreds of vessels were seen clustering near Dubai on Tuesday, as more ships moved away from a still-empty Strait of Hormuz in response to Iran’s efforts to widen its area of control.

Washington state’s new income tax on high earners won’t be put to voters, after the state high court ruled that it falls under an exception to the constitutional right to subject legislation to a popular referendum.

Market-maker Jump Trading is working with tokenization firm Securitize Inc. in a push to move stock trading onto blockchain-based systems within existing regulatory framework.

The Justice Department’s environmental division is increasingly playing offense and taking states to court in the second Trump administration—a shift from its historical defensive role, the department’s head told Bloomberg Law in an interview.

Federal appeals courts recently diverged over whether state laws mandating so-called cooling off periods for firearms purchases implicate the Second Amendment and trigger the historical analogue test set out in the US Supreme Court’s landmark Bruen ruling.

A recent state lawsuit against a service with an AI chatbot, combined with other state and federal inquiries, may signal a new wave of enforcement. Companies with AI chatbots should reassess risk exposure across operations, say O’Melveny’s Daniel Suvor and Lindsey Greer Dotson.

The US Supreme Court in the 2022 case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, took an important step to help local governments and lower courts better understand the law of the Establishment Clause, which had long been a confusing mess. However, it set our nation on a new adventure with very little guidance other than a woefully undertheorized opinion, writes Steven Collis of the University of Texas at Austin.