The launch of Venu Sports will be delayed after a federal judge granted FuboTV’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the planned sports streaming venture by ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery.
U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett in the Southern District of New York said in her 69-page ruling that Fubo was likely to be successful in proving during a trial that the joint venture would violate antitrust laws, and Fubo and consumers would “face irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction.”
ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery said they would appeal the ruling.
FuboTV filed the lawsuit two weeks after ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu announced their plan to offer a sports streaming service on Feb. 6.
FuboTV said in its filing that it has tried for years to offer a sports-only streaming service but has been prevented from doing so because of ESPN. Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have imposed bundling requirements on FuboTV which it says forces “Fubo to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to license and broadcast content that its customers do not want or need.”
“Today’s ruling is a victory not only for Fubo but also for consumers. This decision will help ensure that consumers have access to a more competitive marketplace with multiple sports streaming options,” Fubo co-founder and CEO David Gandler said in a statement. “But our fight continues. Fubo has said all along that we seek equal treatment from these media giants, and a level playing field in our industry.”
“A fair and competitive marketplace is necessary to provide consumers with multiple, robust and more affordable sports streaming options,” Gandler continued. “We will continue to fight for fairness and for what’s best for consumers.”
Venu Sports announced on Aug. 1 it would be available for $42.99 per month with its planned launch in the fall. That launch will likely be delayed until at least next year.
The platform would include offerings from 14 linear networks — ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNEWS, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, TNT, TBS, truTV — as well as ESPN+.
Subscribers would have the ability to bundle the product with Disney+, Hulu and/or Max.
ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery said in a joint statement: “We believe that Fubo’s arguments are wrong on the facts and the law, and that Fubo has failed to prove it is legally entitled to a preliminary injunction. Venu Sports is a pro-competitive option that aims to enhance consumer choice by reaching a segment of viewers who currently are not served by existing subscription options.”
ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery will each share one-third ownership in the joint venture. The initial term for the three companies to be involved in Venue Sports is nine years, according to term sheets and court filings.
The ruling also drew reaction from cable and satellite companies, who are watching with interest due to their bundling requirements and what companies generally charge in subscriber fees.
“We are pleased with the court decision and believe that it appropriately recognizes the potential harms of allowing major programmers to license their content to an affiliated distributor on more favorable terms than they license their content to third parties,” DirecTV spokesman Jon Greer said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Missouri woman has been arrested on charges she orchestrated a brazen scheme to defraud Elvis Presley’s family by trying to auction off his Graceland mansion and property before a judge halted the mysterious foreclosure sale, the Justice Department said Friday.
Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, of Kimberling City, falsely claimed Presley’s daughter borrowed $3.8 million from a bogus private lender and had pledged Graceland as collateral for the loan before her death last year, prosecutors said. She then threatened to sell Graceland to the higher bidder if Presley’s family didn’t pay a $2.85 million settlement, according to authorities.
Finley posed as three different people allegedly involved with the fake lender, fabricated loan documents, and published a fraudulent foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper announcing the auction of Graceland in May, prosecutors said. A judge stopped the sale after Presley’s granddaughter sued.
Experts were baffled by the attempt to sell off one of the most storied pieces of real estate in the country using names, emails and documents that were quickly suspected to be phony.
Graceland opened as a museum and tourist attraction in 1982 and draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. A large Presley-themed entertainment complex across the street from the museum is owned by Elvis Presley Enterprises. The announcement of charges came on the 47th anniversary of Presley’s death at the age of 42.
“Ms. Findley allegedly took advantage of the very public and tragic occurrences in the Presley family as an opportunity to prey on the name and financial status of the heirs to the Graceland estate, attempting to steal what rightfully belongs to the Presley family for her personal gain,” said Eric Shen, inspector in charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service Criminal Investigations Group.
AP correspondent Jackie Quinn reports an arrest had been made in an effort to steal away the ownership of Elvis Presley’s Graceland property.
An attorney for Findley, who used multiple aliases, was not listed in court documents. A voicemail left with a phone number believed to be associated with Findley was not immediately returned, nor was an email sent to an address prosecutors say she had used in the scheme.
She’s charged with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. The mail fraud charge carries up to 20 years in prison. She remained in custody after a brief federal court appearance in Missouri, according to court papers.
In May, a public notice for a foreclosure sale of the 13-acre (5-hectare) estate said Promenade Trust, which controls the Graceland museum, owes $3.8 million after failing to repay a 2018 loan. Riley Keough, Presley’s granddaughter and an actor, inherited the trust and ownership of the home after the death of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, last year. An attorney for Keough didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Friday.
Keough filed a lawsuit claiming fraud, and a judge halted the proposed auction with an injunction. Naussany Investments and Private Lending — the bogus lender authorities now say Findley created — said Lisa Marie Presley had used Graceland as collateral for the loan, according to the foreclosure sale notice. Keough’s lawsuit alleged that Naussany presented fraudulent documents regarding the loan in September 2023 and that Lisa Maria Presley never borrowed money from Naussany.
Kimberly Philbrick, the notary whose name is listed on Naussany’s documents, indicated she never met Lisa Marie Presley nor notarized any documents for her, according to the estate’s lawsuit. The judge said the notary’s affidavit brings into question “the authenticity of the signature.”
The judge in May halted the foreclosure sale of the beloved Memphis tourist attraction, saying Elvis Presley’s estate could be successful in arguing that a company’s attempt to auction Graceland was fraudulent.
The Tennessee attorney general’s office had been investigating the Graceland controversy, then confirmed in June that it handed the probe over to federal authorities.
A statement emailed to The Associated Press after the judge stopped the sale said Naussany would not proceed because a key document in the case and the loan were recorded and obtained in a different state, meaning “legal action would have to be filed in multiple states.” The statement, sent from an email address listed in court documents, did not specify the other state.
After the scheme fell apart, Findley tried to make it look like the person responsible was a Nigerian identity thief, prosecutors said. An email sent May 25 to the AP from the same email as the earlier statement said in Spanish that the foreclosure sale attempt was made by a Nigerian fraud ring that targets old and dead people in the U.S. and uses the Internet to steal money.
Nearly a year after AI-generated nude images of high school girls upended a community in southern Spain, a juvenile court this summer sentenced 15 of their classmates to a year of probation.
But the artificial intelligence tool used to create the harmful deepfakes is still easily accessible on the internet, promising to “undress any photo” uploaded to the website within seconds.
Now a new effort to shut down the app and others like it is being pursued in California, where San Francisco this week filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit that experts say could set a precedent but will also face many hurdles.
“The proliferation of these images has exploited a shocking number of women and girls across the globe,” said David Chiu, the elected city attorney of San Francisco who brought the case against a group of widely visited websites based in Estonia, Serbia, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
“These images are used to bully, humiliate and threaten women and girls,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And the impact on the victims has been devastating on their reputation, mental health, loss of autonomy, and in some instances, causing some to become suicidal.”
The lawsuit brought on behalf of the people of California alleges that the services broke numerous state laws against fraudulent business practices, nonconsensual pornography and the sexual abuse of children. But it can be hard to determine who runs the apps, which are unavailable in phone app stores but still easily found on the internet.
Contacted late last year by the AP, one service claimed by email that its “CEO is based and moves throughout the USA” but declined to provide any evidence or answer other questions. The AP is not naming the specific apps being sued in order to not promote them.
“There are a number of sites where we don’t know at this moment exactly who these operators are and where they’re operating from, but we have investigative tools and subpoena authority to dig into that,” Chiu said. “And we will certainly utilize our powers in the course of this litigation.”
Many of the tools are being used to create realistic fakes that “nudify” photos of clothed adult women, including celebrities, without their consent. But they’ve also popped up in schools around the world, from Australia to Beverly Hills in California, typically with boys creating the images of female classmates that then circulate widely through social media.
In one of the first widely publicized cases last September in Almendralejo, Spain, a physician whose daughter was among a group of girls victimized last year and helped bring it to the public’s attention said she’s satisfied by the severity of the sentence their classmates are facing after a court decision earlier this summer.
But it is “not only the responsibility of society, of education, of parents and schools, but also the responsibility of the digital giants that profit from all this garbage,” Dr. Miriam al Adib Mendiri said in an interview Friday.
She applauded San Francisco’s action but said more efforts are needed, including from bigger companies like California-based Meta Platforms and its subsidiary WhatsApp, which was used to circulate the images in Spain.
While schools and law enforcement agencies have sought to punish those who make and share the deepfakes, authorities have struggled with what to do about the tools themselves.
In January, the executive branch of the European Union explained in a letter to a Spanish member of the European Parliament that the app used in Almendralejo “does not appear” to fall under the bloc’s sweeping new rules for bolstering online safety because it’s not a big enough platform.
Organizations that have been tracking the growth of AI-generated child sexual abuse material will be closely following the San Francisco case.
The lawsuit “has the potential to set legal precedent in this area,” said Emily Slifer, the director of policy at Thorn, an organization that works to combat the sexual exploitation of children.
A researcher at Stanford University said that because so many of the defendants are based outside the U.S., it will be harder to bring them to justice.
Chiu “has an uphill battle with this case, but may be able to get some of the sites taken offline if the defendants running them ignore the lawsuit,” said Stanford’s Riana Pfefferkorn.
She said that could happen if the city wins by default in their absence and obtains orders affecting domain-name registrars, web hosts and payment processors “that would effectively shutter those sites even if their owners never appear in the litigation.”
“These defendants took advantage of Mr. Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves. They knew what they were doing was wrong,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said Thursday while announcing the charges.
The five have been charged for their respective roles in supplying Perry with large amounts of ketamine, causing his October 2023 overdose death.
Here is what we know so far about those charged after a sweeping investigation into Perry’s death.
Dr. Salvador Plasencia
Plasencia, a Santa Monica area doctor, was arrested Thursday and charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, seven counts of distribution of ketamine and two counts of altering and falsifying documents or records related to the federal investigation.
He pleaded not guilty in his first court appearance Thursday, where he wore street clothes and was in handcuffs and leg chains. A judge ruled he can be released after posting a $100,000 bond.
An indictment filed Wednesday alleges that Plasencia, who was commonly known as “Dr. P,” used encrypted messaging applications and coded language to discuss drug deals, referring to bottles of ketamine as “Dr. Pepper,” “cans,” and “bots.” He is accused of facilitating the transfer of drugs from himself and others who have been charged to Perry’s personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa.
According to the indictment, Plasencia exchanged text messages with others involved in the drug sales, sending ones that said: “I wonder how much this moron will pay” and “Lets find out.”
After Plasencia’s court appearance, his attorney, Stefan Sacks, said: “Ultimately, Dr. Plasencia was operating with what he thought were the best of medical intentions,” and his actions “certainly didn’t rise to the level of criminal misconduct.
“His only concern was to give the best medical treatment and to do no harm,” Sacks said. “Unfortunately harm was done. But it was after his involvement.”
Plasencia, 42, graduated from medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2010 and has not been subject to any disciplinary actions, records show. His license is due to expire in October.
Possible sentence: Imprisonment for up to 10 years for each ketamine-related count and up to 20 years for each records falsification count.
Jasveen Sangha
Prosecutors allege Sangha is a drug dealer whose North Hollywood residence was a distribution point for the ketamine that killed Perry. She is known as the “Ketamine Queen,” according to court filings.
Sangha, 41, was arrested Thursday and charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one count of possession with intent to distribute ketamine, and five counts of distribution of ketamine.
The indictment alleges that Sangha’s distribution of ketamine on October 24, 2023, caused Perry’s death days later.
She pleaded not guilty on Thursday, but a magistrate judge said she should remain in custody. Her attorney derided the “media-friendly nickname” — Ketamine Queen — that prosecutors used for her client. Her attorney declined comment outside of the courtroom.
Possible sentence: 10 years to life in prison.
Kenneth Iwamasa
Iwamasa worked as Perry’s live-in personal assistant and often communicated in coded language with the others charged in connection with Perry’s death to obtain ketamine, authorities said. He has admitted to administering several ketamine injections to Perry, including on the day he died.
He has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death.
Iwamasa, 59, did not have any medical training or specific knowledge of how to administer controlled substances, prosecutors say. He found Perry dead in his home.
Attorneys for Iwamasa did not return requests for comment.
Possible sentence: 15 years in prison.
Dr. Mark Chavez
Chavez, a doctor from San Diego, has agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine. Chavez sold ketamine that he had previously obtained by writing a fraudulent prescription to Plasencia, who then sold it to Iwamasa.
Chavez, who used to run a ketamine clinic, also got additional ketamine from a wholesale distributor of controlled substances and falsified statements on forms, saying the drug would not be sold to a third party or distributed or used for any other purpose.
Chavez, 54, graduated from medical school at UCLA in 2004 and started a company, The Health MD, that appears to be a concierge medicine practice focused on longevity and fitness. Like Plasencia, Chavez has not been subject to any disciplinary actions, according to his records. His medical license expires in 2026.
Multiple messages left seeking comment from Chavez’s company and his personal email address have not yet been returned.
Possible sentence: 10 years in prison.
Erik Fleming
Fleming, 54, was a friend of Perry’s and communicated with Iwamasa to sell drugs to him for Perry’s use. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.
Prosecutors say Fleming got ketamine from Sangha and distributed it to Iwamasa. In all, he delivered 50 vials of ketamine for Perry’s use, including 25 handed over four days before the actor’s death.
Attorneys for Fleming did not return requests for comment.
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Donald Trump ally who faces felony charges of trying to illegally access and tamper with voting machines is seeking the Republican nomination for the highest court in Michigan, an epicenter of efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
In June, attorney Matthew DePerno announced his intent to run for the state Supreme Court, almost one year after he was charged and arraigned.
Delegates will vote on nominees Saturday, Aug. 24, at the Michigan GOP party convention for two state Supreme Court seats in a battleground state where the court has the potential final say in Michigan election matters.
Michigan Supreme Court races are officially nonpartisan — meaning candidates appear on the ballot without party labels — but candidates are nominated at party conventions. Democratic-backed justices currently hold a 4-3 majority. Republican nominees would have to win both seats to take back majority control while Democrats stand to gain a 5-2 favorability.
DePerno was named as a “prime instigator” in the voting machine tampering case. Five vote tabulators were illegally taken from three Michigan counties and brought to a hotel room, according to documents released in 2022 by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office. Investigators found the tabulators were broken into and “tests” were performed on the equipment.
He was charged with undue possession of a voting machine and conspiracy. A state judge has ruled it is a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, to take a machine without a court order or permission directly from the secretary of state’s office.
DePerno has denied wrongdoing. He’s not due back in court until Nov. 21 after the general election and no trial date has been set. He also faces a separate complaint from the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission, threatening his law license, over accused attorney misconduct when he represented a former state lawmaker.
DePerno in a phone interview said both the felony charges and the attorney misconduct allegations are politically motivated.
Michigan is just one of at least three states where prosecutors say people breached election systems while embracing and spreading Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
DePerno is seeking nomination to run for a partial-term seat currently held by Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer after a Democratic-backed justice announced she was resigning by the end of 2022 with six years left on her term.
Bolden is seeking the Democratic nomination for the seat she was appointed to in January 2023. She is the first Black woman to sit on the state’s highest bench and would be the first elected if successful in November.
Republican-backed conservative Justice David Viviano announced in March that he would not seek reelection, opening another seat.
The Democratic Party is holding its convention the same day as the GOP, Aug. 24.
What to know about the 2024 Election
Campaign finance reports showed an astounding gap between candidates seeking Democratic and Republican nominations and a serious lack of fundraising on DePerno’s part.
Bolden, seeking the Democratic party’s backing, has raised more than $1.1 million as of Aug. 8th, while DePerno has only raised $136, according to the most recent campaign finance reports.
DePerno has focused on shoring up delegate support, not fundraising and expressed confidence that he can out-fundraise Bolden if nominated for the general election, citing his own name recognition, he said.
“I don’t think the other candidates in my race can raise any money in the general election,” he said.
DePerno’s Republican competitors at the party convention include Detroit attorney Alexandria Taylor and Circuit Court Judge Patrick O’Grady. Both have outraised DePerno so far by thousands of dollars according to campaign filings.
State Court of Appeals Judge Mark Boonstra and state Rep. Andrew Fink are competing for the Republican nomination for Viviano’s seat. Boonstra was endorsed by Trump in May. On the Democratic side, University of Michigan Law School professor Kimberly Ann Thomas is seeking nomination for the opening.
Michigan’s Democratic Party executive committee has endorsed Bolden and Thomas and they face no nominating challengers.
Thomas reported raising over $826,603 as of Aug. 8 in recent campaign filings, hundreds of thousands more than Fink and Boonstra.
State Supreme Court races have taken on new meaning in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, shifting abortion policy to the states. Millions of dollars were spent in hotly contested races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2023. Supreme Court races in Ohio and Montana are expected to be heated because of potential rulings on abortion.
“Michigan is one of only two state Supreme Courts in the country that could flip to a conservative majority this cycle — putting abortion access, unions and workers, and our very democracy at risk,” Lavora Barnes, the Michigan Democratic Party chair, said in a statement.
Republicans in the state have framed the race as a fight to stop government overreach while Democrats say it’s a fight to preserve reproductive rights. Abortion rights were added to the state constitution by voters in 2022, months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“We continue to respect the laws that are in place in Michigan here,” Republican party executive director Tyson Shepard said. “We’re tired from the fearmongering from the left.”
___
Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.
LANSING, Mich. — A Donald Trump ally who faces felony charges of trying to illegally access and tamper with voting machines is seeking the Republican nomination for the highest court in Michigan, an epicenter of efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
In June, attorney Matthew DePerno announced his intent to run for the state Supreme Court, almost one year after he was charged and arraigned.
Delegates will vote on nominees Saturday, Aug. 24, at the Michigan GOP party convention for two state Supreme Court seats in a battleground state where the court has the potential final say in Michigan election matters.
Michigan Supreme Court races are officially nonpartisan — meaning candidates appear on the ballot without party labels — but candidates are nominated at party conventions. Democratic-backed justices currently hold a 4-3 majority. Republican nominees would have to win both seats to take back majority control while Democrats stand to gain a 5-2 favorability.
DePerno was named as a “prime instigator” in the voting machine tampering case. Five vote tabulators were illegally taken from three Michigan counties and brought to a hotel room, according to documents released in 2022 by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office. Investigators found the tabulators were broken into and “tests” were performed on the equipment.
He was charged with undue possession of a voting machine and conspiracy. A state judge has ruled it is a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, to take a machine without a court order or permission directly from the secretary of state’s office.
DePerno’s case has not gone to trial and he has denied wrongdoing. He also faces a separate complaint from the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission, threatening his law license, over accused attorney misconduct when he represented a former state lawmaker.
DePerno in a phone interview said both the felony charges and the attorney misconduct allegations are politically motivated.
Michigan is just one of at least three states where prosecutors say people breached election systems while embracing and spreading Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
DePerno is seeking nomination to run for a partial-term seat currently held by Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer after a Democratic-backed justice announced she was resigning by the end of 2022 with six years left in her term.
Bolden is seeking the Democratic nomination for the seat she was appointed to in January 2023. She is the first Black woman to sit on the state’s highest bench and would be the first elected if successful in November.
Republican-backed conservative Justice David Viviano announced in March that he would not seek reelection, opening another seat.
The Democratic Party is holding its own convention the same day as the GOP, Aug. 24.
Campaign finance reports showed an astounding gap between candidates seeking Democratic and Republican nominations and a serious lack of fundraising on DePerno’s part.
Bolden, seeking the Democratic party’s backing, has raised more than $1.1 million dollars as of Aug. 8th, while DePerno has only raised $136, according to the most recent campaign finance reports.
DePerno has focused on shoring up delegate support, not fundraising and expressed confidence that he can out-fundraise Bolden if nominated for the general election, citing his own name recognition, he said.
“I don’t think the other candidates in my race can raise any money in the general election,” he said.
DePerno’s Republican competitors at the party convention include Detroit attorney Alexandria Taylor and Circuit Court Judge Patrick O’Grady. Both have outraised DePerno so far by thousands of dollars according to campaign filings.
State Court of Appeals Judge Mark Boonstra and state Rep. Andrew Fink are competing for the Republican nomination for Viviano’s seat. Boonstra was endorsed by Trump in May. On the Democratic side, University of Michigan Law School professor Kimberly Ann Thomas is seeking nomination for the opening.
Michigan’s Democratic Party executive committee has endorsed Bolden and Thomas and they face no nominating challengers.
Thomas reported raising over $826,603 as of Aug. 8 in recent campaign filings, hundreds of thousands more than Fink and Boonstra.
State Supreme Court races have taken on new meaning in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, shifting abortion policy to the states. Millions of dollars were spent in hotly contested races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2023. Supreme Court races in Ohio and Montana are expected to be heated because of potential rulings on abortion.
“Michigan is one of only two state Supreme Courts in the country that could flip to a conservative majority this cycle — putting abortion access, unions and workers, and our very democracy at risk,” Lavora Barnes, the Michigan Democratic Party chair, said in a statement.
Republicans in the state have framed the race as a fight to stop government overreach while Democrats say it’s a fight to preserve reproductive rights.
“We continue to respect the laws that are in place in Michigan here,” Republican party executive director Tyson Shepard said. “We’re tired from the fearmongering from the left.”
___
Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.
TikTok on Thursday pushed back against U.S. government arguments that the popular social media platform is not shielded by the First Amendment, comparing its platform to prominent American media organizations owned by foreign entities.
Last month, the Justice Department argued in a legal brief filed in a Washington federal appeals court that neither TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, nor the platform’s global and U.S. arms — TikTok Ltd. and TikTok Inc. — were entitled to First Amendment protections because they are “foreign organizations operating abroad” or owned by one.
TikTok attorneys have made the First Amendment a key part of their legal challenge to the federal law requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok to an approved buyer or face a ban.
On Thursday, they argued in a court document that TikTok’s U.S. arm doesn’t forfeit its constitutional rights because it is owned by a foreign entity. They drew a parallel between TikTok and well-known news outlets such as Politico and Business Insider, both of which are owned by German publisher Axel Springer SE. They also cited Fortune, a business magazine owned by Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon.
“Surely the American companies that publish Politico, Fortune, and Business Insider do not lose First Amendment protection because they have foreign ownership,” the TikTok attorneys wrote, arguing that “no precedent” supports what they called “the government’s dramatic rewriting of what counts as protected speech.”
In a redacted court filing made last month, the Justice Department argued ByteDance and TikTok haven’t raised valid free speech claims in their challenge against the law, saying the measure addresses national security concerns about TikTok’s ownership without targeting protected speech.
The Biden administration and TikTok had held talks in recent years aimed at resolving the government’s concerns. But the two sides failed to reach a deal.
TikTok said the government essentially walked away from the negotiating table after it proposed a 90-page agreement that detailed how the company planned to address concerns about the app while still maintaining ties with ByteDance.
However, the Justice Department has said TikTok’s proposal “failed to create sufficient separation between the company’s U.S. operations and China” and did not adequately address some of the government’s concerns.
The government has pointed to some data transfers between TikTok employees and ByteDance engineers in China as why it believed the proposal, called Project Texas, was not sufficient to guard against national security concerns. Federal officials have also argued that the size and scope of TikTok would have made it impossible to meaningfully enforce compliance with the proposal.
TikTok attorneys said Thursday that some of what the government views as inadequacies of the agreement were never raised during the negotiations.
Separately the DOJ on Thursday evening asked the court to submit evidence under seal, saying in a filing that the case contained information classified at “Top Secret” levels. TikTok has been opposing those requests.
Oral arguments in the case are scheduled to begin on Sept. 16.
With the removal of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office by a court ruling after less than a year in power, Thailand has been thrown into political turmoil once again.
Reading the constitutional court’s decision on Wednesday, judge Punya Udchachon, said the judges ruled 5-4 in favour of dismissing Srettha of the Pheu Thai Party, as he had shown “no honesty and breached ethical standards” by appointing someone with a criminal conviction to his cabinet.
Udchachon said the real estate tycoon had failed to perform his duty with integrity and “grossly” violated ethics as he must have known about former lawyer Pichit Chuenban’s criminal record when he appointed him as a minister in his office in a cabinet reshuffle in April.
Pichit, who was jailed for six months in 2008 for attempting to bribe court officials with 2 million baht ($55,218) placed in a paper grocery bag, resigned from the post in May in an attempt to protect Srettha.
But that month, constitutional court judges voted 6-3 to accept a petition submitted by 40 senators to remove Srettha from office. Wednesday’s ruling came at the end of their investigation into the allegations.
Srettha’s dismissal means he is Thailand’s fourth prime minister in 16 years to be removed following rulings by the constitutional court.
He told reporters outside his office that while he “respect[ed] the verdict”, he was “sad” to be labelled dishonest.
The decision came as a surprise to many in Thailand, according to Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang, a lecturer in the faculty of political science at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University.
“Most speculated that Srettha would be acquitted, so it’s a big shock that I don’t think many people were prepared for,” he told Al Jazeera. “The accusation itself is very trivial. [Appointing Pichit] is a bad political decision, for sure, but to say that he is acting in a dishonest or criminal way, that’s too far for most people.”
Khemthong said the ruling shows “no office is secure in this country” and “there’s always some legal pitfall that anyone can fall into”.
Who could replace Srettha?
Pheu Thai is now scrambling to firm a replacement candidate, with the Thai parliament to convene a special session to vote on the issue at 10am (03:00 GMT) on Friday.
The party can choose only those who were nominated as prime ministerial candidates prior to the 2023 election.
Ken Mathis Lohatepanont, a Thai political commentator and PhD candidate in the department of political science at the University of Michigan, told Al Jazeera that 75-year-old former Pheu Thai justice minister Chaikasem Nitisiri was currently the favourite to get the nod.
Another leading contender is 37-year-old Pheu Thai leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and niece of Yingluck Shinawatra, also a former prime minister. Thaksin was removed in a military coup in 2006, and Yingluck in 2014.
Pheu Thai Party members attend a meeting at Parliament House in Bangkok on August 15 to select a prime ministerial candidate [Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters]
Lohatepanont described Chaikasem, who was a prime ministerial candidate for Pheu Thai in 2019 and 2023, as a “dark horse”, with reports of his ill health meaning few had considered him as a potential leader. But with his condition reportedly improving in recent months, the veteran politician is now a “logical choice for Pheu Thai”.
“[Chaikasem] keeps the heat off Paetongtarn, who many see as either too inexperienced or too valuable to Thaksin to risk at this fraught juncture,” Lohatepanont said.
“[He also] keeps the premiership with Pheu Thai itself, without having to allow another party such as Bhumjaithai to take over the government’s leadership,” he added, referring to another major party in the Pheu Thai-led coalition.
Other members of the coalition, which came to power in controversial circumstances a year ago, will also field candidates. Not all are expected to do so, however, and negotiations will be held between parties as political backing is exchanged for cabinet positions.
If, as currently seems most likely, the coalition puts forward a Pheu Thai candidate and that candidate receives parliament’s backing, Lohatepanont said the “government will almost certainly remain [the same]”.
“Fundamentally, there is likely to be a fair amount of personnel and policy continuity,” he said.
Party manoeuvres
Srettha’s removal was the second significant ruling by Thailand’s constitutional court in a week, after it dissolved the Move Forward Party (MFP) on August 7. The judges ruled that the progressive party had violated the country’s constitution with its proposed reforms to Section 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code, which restricts criticism of the monarchy.
The MFP won a shock election victory in Thailand’s 2023 general election, campaigning on a progressive platform that galvanised younger voters. Winning 151 seats in Thailand’s 500-seat House of Representatives, 10 more than second-placed Pheu Thai, MFP attempted to form a coalition with other pro-democracy parties.
But, using power handed to it by a 2017 military-drafted constitution, the military-installed Senate blocked MFP from power, while its leader Pita Limjaroenrat was suspended as an MP and barred from becoming prime minister.
Pheu Thai subsequently formed its own 11-party coalition under Srettha, incorporating government and military-aligned parties and excluding the MFP. The move was viewed by many as a betrayal of the pro-democracy movement, after Srettha broke a campaign promise to not work with the military-aligned Phalang Pracharat and United Thai Nation parties.
Their inclusion in the coalition was believed to have been part of a political deal struck to reduce the prison time facing Pheu Thai founder Thaksin, who returned to Thailand in 2023 after 15 years in self-imposed exile evading royal defamation charges.
Khemthong pointed to Thaksin, who was again indicted for royal defamation in June, as one possible explanation for the constitutional court’s surprising ruling against Srettha. He said people have speculated the move is a “rebuff to Thaksin” and there could be some “internal politics at play”.
Either way, he described Thaksin as “being held hostage” in this situation, meaning Pheu Thai was unlikely to challenge the ruling.
“Thaksin can’t leave the country, and so his bail can be revoked and he can be physically imprisoned at any minute, so there’s a big constraint on him,” he said.
Last week’s ruling by the constitutional court confirmed MFP’s swift downfall, mirroring what happened to its predecessor Future Forward after its strong showing in the 2019 elections. The ruling dissolved the party and banned its executive board, including Pita and current chief Chaithawat Tulathon, from politics for 10 years.
But 143 of the party’s lawmakers were able to keep their parliamentary seats by shifting to the Thinkakhao Chaowilai Party and renaming it the People’s Party. Rangsiman Rome, one such former MFP member, and now People’s Party MP, told Al Jazeera that Wednesday’s ruling against Srettha was a “coup by the court”.
He added that Move Forward was interested in working with Pheu Thai in order to “stop this madness”, referring to the military and ruling elite’s meddling in politics.
“This should be a good chance for us to reconsider the constitution, our constitution that was written by the coup maker,” he said, referring to the 2017 bill, drafted by army chief turned Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.
Rome said the People’s Party MPs would gauge the mood among Pheu Thai members in parliament on Friday. But he cautioned that given the serious criminal cases hanging over Thaksin, he was not optimistic about a new alliance being formed.
“If Pheu Thai tries to challenge the power in Thailand, I’m not sure they can have a free view when Thaksin has a case like this,” he said.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A third person is set to be executed by nitrogen gas, Alabama authorized Wednesday, months after becoming the first state to put a person to death with the previously untested method.
The Alabama Supreme Court granted the state attorney general’s request to authorize the execution of Carey Dale Grayson, one of four teenagers convicted in the 1994 killing of Vickie Deblieux in Jefferson County. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey will set Grayson’s execution date.
In January, the state put Kenneth Smith to death in the nation’s first nitrogen gas execution. A second execution using the protocol is set for Sept. 26 for Alan Eugene Miller. Miller recently reached a lawsuit settlement with the state over the execution method.
Alabama and attorneys for people in prison continue to present opposing views of what happened during the first execution using nitrogen gas. Smith shook for several minutes on the death chamber gurney as he was put to death Jan. 25. While Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall described the execution as “textbook,” lawyers for inmates said it was the antithesis of the state’s prediction that nitrogen would provide a quick and humane death.
Grayson has an ongoing lawsuit seeking to block the state from using the same protocol that was used to execute Smith. His attorneys argued the method causes unconstitutional levels of pain and that Smith showed signs of “conscious suffocation.”
“We are disappointed that the Alabama Supreme Court has authorized the setting of an execution date before the federal courts have had a chance to review Mr. Grayson’s challenge to the constitutionality of Alabama’s current nitrogen protocol, and before Mr. Grayson has had an opportunity to review any changes to the protocol brought about by the recent Alan Miller settlement,” Matt Schulz, an assistant federal defender who is representing Grayson, wrote in an email.
Earlier this month, Miller reached a “confidential settlement agreement” with the state to end his lawsuit over the specifics of the state’s nitrogen gas protocol. A spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Corrections declined to comment on whether the state is making procedural changes for Miller.
The state has asked a judge to dismiss Grayson’s lawsuit, arguing that the execution method is constitutional and that his claims are speculative.
Marshall’s office did not immediately comment on the court setting the execution date.
Grayson was charged with torturing and killing Deblieux, 37, on Feb. 21, 1994. Prosecutors said Deblieux was hitchhiking from Tennessee to her mother’s home in Louisiana when four teenagers, including Grayson, offered her a ride. Prosecutors said they took her to a wooded area, attacked and beat her and threw her off a cliff. The teens later mutilated her body, prosecutors said.
Grayson, Kenny Loggins and Trace Duncan were all convicted and sentenced to death. However, Loggins and Duncan, who were under 18 at the time of the crime, had their death sentences set aside after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 banned the execution of offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of the crime. Grayson was 19.
The fourth teenager was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Schulz noted that Alabama, in a 2004 Supreme Court brief opposing an age cutoff for the death penalty, wrote that it would be nonsensical to allow Grayson to be executed but not the codefendants whom the state described as “plainly are every bit as culpable — if not more so — in Vickie’s death and mutilation.” The state was seeking to allow all the teens to be executed.
Lethal injection remains Alabama’s primary execution method but gives inmates the option to choose the electric chair or nitrogen gas. Grayson had previously selected nitrogen gas as his preferred execution method, but that was before the state had developed a process to use it.
NEW YORK — Does signing up for Disney’s popular streaming service mean you have agreed to never sue the entertainment giant over anything forever?
That is what Disney argues in a wrongful death lawsuit involving a 42-year-old New York doctor whose family claims had a fatal allergic reaction after eating at an Irish pub in Disney Springs in October.
Disney is asking a Florida court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Jeffrey Piccolo, the husband of Kanokporn Tangsuan, a family medicine specialist with NYU Langone’s office in Carle Place, on Long Island.
The company argues Piccolo had agreed to settle any lawsuits against Disney out of court through the arbitration process when he signed up for a one-month trial of Disney+ in 2019 and acknowledged that he had reviewed the fine print.
“The Terms of Use, which were provided with the Subscriber Agreement, include a binding arbitration clause,” the company wrote in its motion. “The first page of the Subscriber Agreement states, in all capital letters, that ‘any dispute between You and Us, Except for Small Claims, is subject to a class action waiver and must be resolved by individual binding arbitration’.”
But Piccolo’s lawyer, in a response filed earlier this month, argued that it was “absurd” to believe that the more than 150 million subscribers to Disney+ have waived all rights to sue the company and its affiliates in perpetuity — even if their case has nothing to do with the popular streaming service.
“The notion that terms agreed to by a consumer when creating a Disney+ free trial account would forever bar that consumer’s right to a jury trial in any dispute with any Disney affiliate or subsidiary, is so outrageously unreasonable and unfair as to shock the judicial conscience, and this court should not enforce such an agreement,” Brian Denney, Piccolo’s attorney, wrote in the Aug. 2 filing.
Spokespersons for the Walt Disney Company and Raglan Road, the pub in Disney Springs where Tangsuan dined, didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment Wednesday.
But Disney, in its May 31 filing, argued that whether Piccolo actually reviewed the service terms is “immaterial.” It also noted the arbitration provision “covers ‘all disputes’ including ‘disputes involving The Walt Disney Company or its affiliates’.”
Arbitration allows people to settle disputes without going to court and generally involves a neutral arbitrator who reviews arguments and evidence before making a binding decision, or award.
Piccolo’s lawsuit, which was filed in February, claims that he, his wife and his mother ate at the Raglan Road Irish Pub in Disney Springs, an outdoor shopping, dining and entertainment complex at Disney World, on Oct. 5, 2023.
After informing their server numerous times that she had a severe allergy to nuts and dairy products and required “allergen-free food,” Tangsuan ordered the vegan fritter, scallops, onion rings and a vegan shepherd’s pie.
The waiter then “guaranteed” that the food was allergen-free even though some of the items were not served with “allergen free flags,” the lawsuit states.
About 45 minutes after finishing their dinner, Tangsuan had difficulty breathing while out shopping, collapsed and eventually died at the hospital, despite self-administering an EpiPen during the allergic reaction, according to the lawsuit.
A medical examiner’s investigation determined later she died as a result of “anaphylaxis due to elevated levels of dairy and nut in her system,” the lawsuit said.
An Oct. 2 hearing has been scheduled on Disney’s motion in county court in Orlando. Piccolo seeks more than $50,000 in his lawsuit.
LAS VEGAS — A former professional football player was sentenced Tuesday to prison in the April 2019 death of his girlfriend’s 5-year-old daughter at his Las Vegas apartment.
The sentencing came after Cierre Wood, a former NFL and Canadian Football league running back, reached a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in April to second-degree murder and felony child abuse, court records show.
Wood, 33, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 10 years for the murder charge. Clark County District Court Judge Jacqueline Bluth also ordered him to serve between 28 months and six years for the child abuse charge. He must serve the sentences consecutively.
According to a copy of the plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed the remaining felony counts of child abuse that they initially had filed against Wood. He entered what is known as an Alford plea, a formal admission of guilt in criminal court that allows a defendant to still claim innocence.
The Associated Press sent an email to his lawyer seeking comment Tuesday.
Wood played for the University of Notre Dame before brief NFL stints with three teams and the Montreal Alouettes in Canada.
Court records show that the child’s mother, Amy Taylor, 31, also pleaded guilty earlier this year to second-degree murder and felony child abuse as part of a deal with prosecutors.
The coroner’s office in Las Vegas said the child, La’Rayah Davis, died on April 9, 2019, of blunt force injuries.
TOPEKA, Kan. — A former central Kansas police chief who led a raid last year on a weekly newspaper has been charged with felony obstruction of justice and is accused of persuading a potential witness for an investigation into his conduct of withholding information from authorities.
The single charge against former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody alleges that he knowingly or intentionally influenced the witness to withhold information on the day of the raid of the Marion County Record and the home of its publisher or sometime within the following six days. The charge was filed Monday in state district court in Marion County and is not more specific about Cody’s alleged conduct.
However, a report from two special prosecutors last week referenced text messages between Cody and the business owner after the raid. The business owner has said that Cody asked her to delete text messages between them, fearing people could get the wrong idea about their relationship, which she said was professional and platonic.
Cody justified the raid by saying he had evidence the newspaper, Publisher Eric Meyer and one of its reporters, Phyllis Zorn, had committed identity theft or other computer crimes in verifying the authenticity of a copy of the business owner’s state driving record provided to the newspaper by an acquaintance. The business owner was seeking Marion City Council approval for a liquor license and the record showed that she potentially had driven without a valid license for years. However, she later had her license reinstated.
The prosecutors’ report concluded that no crime was committed by Meyer, Zorn or the newspaper and that Cody reached an erroneous conclusion about their conduct because of a poor investigation. The charge was filed by one of the special prosecutors, Barry Wilkerson, the top prosecutor in Riley County in northeastern Kansas.
The Associated Press left a message seeking comment at a possible cellphone number for Cody, and it was not immediately returned Tuesday. Attorneys representing Cody in a federal lawsuit over the raid are not representing him in the criminal case and did not immediately know who was representing him.
Police body-camera footage of the August 2023 raid on the publisher’s home shows his 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, visibly upset and telling officers, “Get out of my house!” She co-owned the paper, lived with her son and died of a heart attack the next afternoon.
The prosecutors said they could not charge Cody or other officers involved in the raid over her death because there was no evidence they believed the raid posed a risk to her life. Eric Meyer has blamed the stress of the raid for her death.
HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s top court on Monday upheld the convictions of seven of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy activists over their roles in one of the biggest anti-government protests in 2019.
Jimmy Lai, founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper; Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the city’s Democratic Party; and five former pro-democracy lawmakers were found guilty in 2021 of organizing and participating in an unauthorized assembly.
Their convictions dealt a blow to the city’s flagging pro-democracy movement during a political crackdown on dissidents following the protests.
Last year, the activists partially won their appeal at a lower court, with their convictions quashed over the charge of organizing an unauthorized assembly. But their convictions over taking part in the assembly were upheld and they continued their legal battle at the city’s top court.
On Monday, judges at the Court of Final Appeal unanimously ruled against their appeal over the remaining convictions.
The defendants previously argued that the trial judge had failed to conduct an “operational proportionality” assessment when convicting them and quoted two non-binding decisions set out by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The defense also suggested the judge should have taken into account that the procession did not become violent.
But Chief Justice Andrew Cheung and Justice Roberto Ribeiro said in their written judgment that the two British cases should not be adopted in the city’s courts because the frameworks for human rights challenges in the two jurisdictions are different.
They ruled that the defendants’ proposition was “unsustainable” and “is contrary to all established principles governing constitutional challenges in Hong Kong.”
“A separate proportionality inquiry in relation to arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentence is inappropriate and un-called for,” they wrote.
After the court handed down its decision, barrister Margaret Ng, one of the defendants, declined to comment before reading the judgment.
“We just want to take this occasion to thank our legal teams, and all the people who have been supporting us all the time,” she said.
The convictions were linked to their involvement in a rally in August 2019 that drew an estimated 1.7 million people onto Hong Kong’s streets to call for greater police accountability and democracy. The march was relatively peaceful compared to other protests that often morphed into violent clashes between police and protesters that year.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to China in 1997. Its mini-constitution, the Basic Law, guarantees its people freedom of assembly.
When sentencing the seven activists in 2021, the trial judge at the District Court ruled that the right to such freedom is not absolute and is subject to restrictions ruled constitutional. She ordered Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho to be jailed between eight and 18 months. Martin Lee, Ng and Albert Ho were given suspended jail sentences.
When the appellate court partially overturned their convictions in 2023, it quashed part of the sentences for the four who were given jail terms on the record. The decision was made after they already served out their sentences.
Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung and Albert Ho still remained in custody as they were also prosecuted or convicted under a Beijing-imposed national security law, which critics said has all but wiped out public dissent. Lai was also serving a prison term for a separate fraud case.
The Beijing and Hong Kong governments said the security law was necessary to bring back stability to the city following the protests.
The movement five years ago was the city’s most concerted challenge to the Hong Kong government since the 1997 handover. It waned with massive arrests and exiles of democracy activists, the COVID-19 pandemic and the introduction of the security law.
Curtis McEwen, an IT professional facing federal wire fraud charges, is set to take a plea deal in court, filings this week show.
In charges filed last month, the DOJ alleged the now former IT director for the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities manufactured false expense reports and employee invoices to redirect millions to his own pockets at Saber Healthcare, where he worked for nearly two decades before being fired in March 2023.
He was hired months after by Cuyahoga County, which has previously said background checks and employer reference calls revealed no reasons to be concerned. He was asked to resign the day charges were filed and did so.
Court documents released on Tuesday show that McEwen agreed to a plea deal to two counts and was released under an unsecured bond of $20,000. On release, he had to surrender his passport, get a mental health evaluation and is barred from obtaining any new lines of credit.
According to the July indictment, from 2014 to 2023, McEwen allegedly “falsely represented” on expense reports that he had paid contracted companies for “IT-related products and services.” He then, the Feds say, created imitation invoices to “substantiate his payments.”
McEwen allegedly siphoned $80,006 to $182,808 for each monthly invoice, and rerouted that money intended for third party companies into his own assets, which grew to include a mansion, a $11,000 2017 BMW R Nine T motorcycle, a $15,000 2020 Ducati Diavel 1260 bike, a Rolex Submariner, a $44,000 Ressense Antwerp watch, a $10,000 Luminor Panerai Automatic Power Reserve watch and more.
McEwen’s allegedly long stint of wire fraud at Saber didn’t apparently extend to his IT work at the county.
“As a public entity,” a spokesperson told Scene in July, “we have many safeguards in place to ensure fiscal responsibility. We have reviewed all relevant records and are confident that our safeguards worked.”
McEwen should be sentenced in federal court sometime this fall.
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Police launched a manhunt in Barcelona on Thursday for fugitive Carles Puigdemont, a celebrated campaigner for Catalan independence who made a sensational return to Spain and an equally sensational getaway from a speech in the city with the alleged help of local police officers.
The events took place nearly seven years after the ex-Catalonia leader fled Spain after a failed independence bid, with an outstanding arrest warrant pending against him.
Puigdemont had previously announced his intention to be in Spain on the day that Catalonia’s parliament proclaimed a new president. The 61-year-old initially lived in Belgium after bolting from Spain in 2017, but his latest place of residence wasn’t known.
Puigdemont kept his travel plans secret before setting out to the wealthy Catalan region in northeastern Spain. He gave a speech in front of a large crowd of supporters in central Barcelona under the noses of police officers, who made no attempt to detain him.
AP correspondent Karen Chammas reports on the defiant return of an ex Catalan leader to Spain nearly 7 years after he fled.
After his speech, in a cloak-and-dagger moment, Puigdemont went into an adjacent marquee tent. There, he hurried out of an exit and jumped into a waiting car that sped away, according to an Associated Press photographer who witnessed his departure.
Catalan police arrested two of their own officers for their alleged involvement in Puigdemont’s getaway, suspecting that the former leader used the private car of one of them, the force’s press office told The Associated Press. No further details were available.
After Puigdemont vanished, Catalan police — called Mossos d’Esquadra — checked vehicles across the city of around 1.6 million people and others heading on highways to neighboring France in an effort to nab him. The checks were called off hours later.
Puigdemont shared later a video of his speech on Instagram with the message “We’re still here. Long live free Catalonia.”
Officers initially held back from swooping to arrest Puigdemont out of concern the move might “cause public disorder,” a police statement said. Officers tried to stop the fleeing vehicle, but were unable to do so, it said, though it added that further arrests were expected. The statement didn’t elaborate.
The Catalan police force operates separately from Spain’s Policía Nacional. At the time of the 2017 ballot, the Spanish government suspended the Mossos’ chief and placed the force under investigation for failing to stop the vote. The chief and his staff were eventually exonerated.
Puigdemont faces charges of embezzlement for his part in an attempt to break Catalonia away from the rest of Spain in 2017. As regional president and separatist party leader at the time, he was a key player in the independence referendum that was outlawed by the central government but went ahead anyway.
Those events triggered a political crisis that roiled Spain for months.
Puigdemont’s appearance in Barcelona, Catalonia’s capital, and his game of cat-and-mouse with police, stole the show on a day when a new president was being proclaimed at the regional parliament.
Local police were deployed in a security ring around a section of the park where Catalonia’s parliament building is located behind walls, and where Puigdemont was expected to go after his speech. Meanwhile, the politician, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and tie, walked with supporters to the nearby stage where he gave his speech.
Addressing the crowd in the park and at times pumping his fist, Puigdemont accused Spanish authorities of “a crackdown” on the Catalan separatist movement.
“For the last seven years we have been persecuted because we wanted to hear the voice of the Catalan people,” Puigdemont said. “They have made being Catalan into something suspicious.”
He added: “All people have the right to self-determination.”
The gripping turn of events, broadcast live on Spanish television channels, was likely to bring political recriminations.
The leader of the Popular Party, the main opposition to Spain’s left-of-center coalition government which has long rebuffed Catalonia’s independence movement, condemned Puigdemont’s return. Alberto Núñez Feijóo posted on X that Puigdemont’s reappearance was an “unbearable humiliation” that damaged Spain’s reputation.
Spain’s government encouraged a deal brokered after months of deadlock between Salvador Illa’s Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) and the other main Catalan separatist party and left-wing Esquerra Republicana (ERC). That deal ensured just enough support in Catalonia’s parliament for Illa to become the next regional president Thursday with 68 votes in the 135-seat chamber.
Illa’s new government is the first non pro-independence government in 14 years, since the PSC last held power.
Speaking to Catalan lawmakers before the vote, Illa called for reconciliation and respect for a controversial amnesty bill that could eventually clear Puigdemont of wrongdoing but which is being challenged in court. He vowed to govern for all Catalans after years of bitter divisions between those in favor of independence and those against it.
Puigdemont has dedicated his career to carving out a new country in northeast Spain, and has often thumbed his nose at authorities. His largely uncompromising approach has brought political conflict with other separatist parties as well as with Spain’s central government.
The contentious amnesty bill, crafted by Spain’s Socialist-led coalition government, could potentially clear hundreds of supporters of Catalan independence of any wrongdoing in the 2017 ballot. Spain’s central government and the Constitutional Court declared at the time that the referendum was illegal.
But the bill, approved by Spain’s parliament earlier this year, is being challenged by Supreme Court judges who say its provisions should not protect Puigdemont from prosecution over embezzlement charges that have been lodged against him.
Puigdemont could be placed in pretrial detention if he is arrested.
___
Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal. Associated Press photographer Emilio Morenatti in Barcelona and writer Teresa Medrano in Madrid contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden was hired by a Romanian businessman accused of corruption who was trying to “influence U.S. government policy” during Joe Biden’s term as vice president, prosecutors said in court papers Wednesday.
Special counsel David Weiss’ team said Hunter Biden’s business associate will testify at the upcoming federal tax trial of the president’s son about the arrangement with the executive, Gabriel Popoviciu, who was facing criminal investigation at the time in Romania.
An attorney for Hunter Biden didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Prosecutors plan to introduce evidence that Hunter Biden and his business associate “received compensation from a foreign principal who was attempting to influence U.S. policy and public opinion,” according to the filing. Popoviciu wanted U.S. government agencies to probe the Romanian bribery investigation he was facing in the hopes that would end his legal trouble, according to prosecutors.
Popoviciu is identified only in court papers as G.P., but the details line up with information released in the congressional investigation and media reporting about Hunter Biden’s legal work in Romania.
Popoviciu was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2017 after being convicted of real estate fraud. He denied any wrongdoing. An attorney who previously represented Popoviciu didn’t immediately respond to a phone message Wednesday.
Prosecutors say Hunter Biden agreed with his business associate to help Popoviciu fight the criminal charges against him. But prosecutors say they were concerned that “lobbying work might cause political ramifications” for Joe Biden, so the arrangement was structured in a way that “concealed the true nature of the work” for Popoviciu, prosecutors allege.
Hunter Biden’s business associate and Popoviciu signed an agreement to make it look like Popoviciu’s payments were for “management services to real estate prosperities in Romania.” However, prosecutors said, “That was not actually what G.P. was paying for.”
In fact, Popoviciu and Hunter’s business associate agreed that they would be paid for their work to “attempt to influence U.S. government agencies to investigate the Romanian investigation,” prosecutors said. Hunter Biden’s business associate was paid more than $3 million, which was split with Hunter and another business partner, prosecutors say.
The claims were made in court papers as prosecutors responded to a request by Hunter Biden’s legal team to bar from his upcoming trial any reference to allegations of improper political influence that have dogged the president’s son for years. While Republicans’ investigation has raised ethical questions, no evidence has emerged that the president acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or his previous office as vice president.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers have said in court papers that he has been “the target of politically motivated attacks and conspiracy theories” about his foreign business dealings. But they noted he “has never been charged with any crime relating to these unfounded allegations, and the Special Counsel should thus be precluded from even raising such issues at trial.”
Hunter Biden’s trial set to begin next month in Los Angeles centers on charges that he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years during a period in which he has acknowledged struggling with a drug addiction.
Prosecutors say they won’t introduce any evidence that Hunter Biden was directly paid by a foreign government “or evidence that the defendant received compensation for actions taken by his father that impacted national or international politics.”
Still, prosecutors say what Hunter Biden agreed to do for Popoviciu is relevant at trial because it “demonstrates his state and mind and intent” during the years he’s accused of failing to pay his taxes.
“It is also evidence that the defendant’s actions do not reflect someone with a diminished capacity, given that he agreed to attempt to influence U.S. public policy and receive millions of dollars” in the agreement with his business associate, prosecutors wrote.
The tax trial comes months after Hunter Biden was convicted of three felony charges over the purchase of a gun in 2018. Prosecutors argued that the president’s son lied on a mandatory gun-purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.
He could face up to 25 years in prison at sentencing set for Nov. 13 in Wilmington, Delaware, but as a first-time offender he is likely to get far less time or avoid prison entirely.
The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a 2023 state law that restores voting rights for felons once they have completed their prison sentences.
The new law was popular with Democrats in the state, including Gov. Tim Walz, who signed it and who is Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in the presidential race. The timing of the decision is important because early voting for next week’s primary election is already underway. Voting for the Nov. 5 general election begins Sept. 20.
The court rejected a challenge from the conservative Minnesota Voters Alliance. A lower court judge had previously thrown out the group’s lawsuit after deciding it lacked the legal standing to sue and failed to prove that the Legislature overstepped its authority when it voted to expand voting rights for people who were formerly incarcerated for a felony. The high court agreed.
Before the new law, felons had to complete their probation before they could regain their eligibility to vote. An estimated 55,000 people with felony records gained the right to vote as a result.
Minnesota Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison had been pushing for the change since he was in the Legislature.
“Democracy is not guaranteed — it is earned by protecting and expanding it,” Ellison said in a statement. “I’m proud restore the vote is definitively the law of the land today more than 20 years after I first proposed it as a state legislator. I encourage all Minnesotans who are eligible to vote to do so and to take full part in our democracy.”
Minnesota was among more than a dozen states that considered restoring voting rights for felons in recent years. Advocates for the change argued that disenfranchising them disproportionately affects people of color because of biases in the legal system. An estimated 55,000 Minnesota residents regained the right to vote because of the change.
Nebraska officials went the other way and decided last month that residents with felony convictions could still be denied voting rights despite a law passed this year to immediately restore the voting rights of people who have finished serving their felony convictions. That decision by Nebraska’s attorney general and secretary of state, both of whom are Republicans, has been challenged in a lawsuit.
The Pentagon chief was caught off guard by last week’s decision by prosecutors to offer deals to the men.
United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has defended his decision to revoke controversial plea deals agreed between prosecutors and three men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Speaking publicly for the first time about his decision on Tuesday, Austin said it “wasn’t a decision that I took lightly” and he did so to honour the scale of the loss that occurred that day.
“I have long believed that the families of the victims, our service members, and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commissions, commission trials carried out,” he said at an event with visiting Australian officials in Annapolis, Maryland.
The Pentagon announced on July 31 that plea agreements had been reached with three of five alleged plotters held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, where they stand accused of orchestrating the deadliest attack on US soil in the country’s history.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day as hijacked passenger planes struck targets in New York City and Washington, DC. A fourth crashed into a field as passengers tackled the hijackers.
The deals involved alleged mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad as well as accomplices Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. A fourth defendant did not agree to the terms, while a fifth man was ruled mentally unfit to continue facing trial last year.
In a statement, it described the deals as “pretrial agreements”, without offering further details. US media reports said the men would plead guilty in exchange for receiving a life sentence rather than the death penalty.
The defendants are due to face trial in a military court at the maximum-security facility in Cuba, but their cases have been held up for years amid legal wrangling.
The plea bargains had been welcomed by some as the only feasible way to resolve the long-stalled 9/11 cases, including J Wells Dixon, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Dixon, who has represented defendants at Guantanamo and other detainees who have been cleared of wrongdoing, accused Austin of “bowing to political pressure and pushing some victim family members over an emotional cliff” with the reversal.
The plea deals sparked outrage among some victims’ family members and Republican lawmakers, who accused the administration of President Joe Biden of treating the defendants too lightly.
Austin himself was also caught off guard by the decision, Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters on Monday.
“This is not something that the secretary [Lloyd Austin] was consulted on,” she said. “We were not aware that the prosecution or defence would enter the terms of the plea agreement.”
On Friday, a tersely-worded letter from the defence secretary said the plea deals had been withdrawn. Austin added that Susan Escallier, the official in charge of the military commission which had signed off on them, had also been relieved of her authority to enter into pre-trial agreements and he would now assume responsibility in the case.
“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024,” the letter said.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed that the Biden administration did not play a role in the plea bargains, saying the White House knew the “same day” they were announced.
“We had no role in that process. The president had no role. The vice president had no role. I had no role. The White House had no role,” Sullivan told journalists on Thursday, without explaining why the deals were agreed and announced without consultation.
WILMINGTON, Del. — Attorneys for Elon Musk and Tesla’s corporate directors are asking a Delaware judge to vacate her ruling requiring the company to rescind a massive and unprecedented pay package for Musk.
Friday’s hearing follows a January ruling in which Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick concluded that Musk engineered the landmark 2018 pay package in sham negotiations with directors who were not independent. The compensation package initially carried a potential maximum value of about $56 billion, but that sum has fluctuated over the years based on Tesla’s stock price.
Following the court ruling, Tesla shareholders met in June and ratified Musk’s 2018 pay package for a second time, again by an overwhelming margin.
Defense attorneys say the vote makes clear that Tesla shareholders, with full knowledge of the flaws in the 2018 process that McCormick pointed out in her January ruling, are adamant that Musk is entitled to the pay package.
“Honoring the shoulder vote would affirm the strength of our corporate system,” David Ross, an attorney for Musk and the other individual defendants, told McCormick. “This was stockholder democracy working.”
Ross told the judge that the defendants were not challenging the factual findings or legal conclusions in her ruling, but simply asking that she vacate her order directing Tesla to rescind the pay package.
McCormick, however, seemed skeptical of the defense arguments, peppering attorneys with questions and noting that there is no precedent in Delaware law for allowing a post-trial shareholder vote to ratify adjudicated breaches of fiduciary duty by corporate directors.
“This has never been done before,” she said.
Defense attorneys argued that, while they could find no case that is exactly comparable, Delaware law has long recognized shareholder ratification as a cure to corporate governance errors, and has long acknowledged the “sovereignty” of shareholders as the ultimate owners of a corporation.
“I candidly don’t see how Delaware law can tell the owners of the company that they’re not entitled to make the decision they made,” said Rudolf Koch, an attorney for Tesla.
Donald Verrilli, a lawyer for an induvial stockholder who owns more than 19,000 Tesla shares, suggested that it would be wrong for the lone shareholder who filed the lawsuit to thwart the will of the majority of Tesla shareholders. At the time the lawsuit was filed, the plaintiff owned just nine shares of Tesla stock.
“The voice of the majority of shareholders should matter…. This lawsuit is not representing the interest of the shareholders,” Verrilli said.
Thomas Grady, an attorney for a group of Florida objectors who own or manage almost 8 million Tesla shares with some $2 billion, argued that for McCormick to rule for the plaintiff, she has to “disenfranchise” all other Tesla shareholders.
Greg Varallo, an attorney for the plaintiff, urged McCormick not to give any credence to the June shareholder vote, saying it has no legal precedent in Delaware or anywhere else. There also is no reason for the court to reopen the trial record and admit new evidence, he said.
Under Delaware law, stockholders have no authority to overrule courts by trying to use a post-trial ratification vote as a “giant eraser,” Varallo argued.
“Ratification is not magic, and it never has been,” Varallo added. “This should end here and now.”
McCormick gave no indication on when she would rule. She also has yet to rule on a huge and unprecedented fee request by plaintiff attorneys, who contend that they are entitled to legal fees in the form of Tesla stock valued at more than $7 billion.
FILE – Montenegrin police officers escort South Korean citizen, Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon, center, in Montenegro’s capital Podgorica, March 23, 2024. A Montenegrin appeals court on Thursday, Aug. 1, upheld a ruling by a lower court to hand over the South Korean mogul known as “the cryptocurrency king” to his native country, rejecting a bid to extradite him to the United States. (AP Photo/Risto Bozovic, File)
