WASHINGTON — A veteran FBI employee training to become a special agent was fired last month for displaying at his workspace an LGBTQ+ flag, which had previously flown outside a field office, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.
David Maltinsky had worked at the FBI for 16 years and was nearly finished with special agent training in Quantico, Virginia, when he was called into a meeting last month with FBI officials, given a letter from Director Kash Patel and told he was being “summarily dismissed” over the inappropriate display of political signage, Maltinsky’s lawsuit said.
The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District court in Washington, said Maltinsky had been a decorated intelligence specialist working in the Los Angeles field office and most recently was pursuing a longtime dream of becoming a special agent.
In June 2021, the Los Angeles field office displayed a “Progress Pride” flag, which consists of a rainbow-colored horizontal stripes and a chevron with black, brown, pink, light blue, and white colors. It’s meant to represent people of color, as well as the LGBTQ+ community. Maltinsky was given that flag after it had come down and was then displayed at his Los Angeles field office workstation with the support and permission of his supervisors, according to the lawsuit.
In April, he began training at the FBI Academy to become a special agent and had successfully completed 16 of the 19 weeks of training at the time of his firing, the lawsuit stated.
Maltinsky said in the suit he helped lead diversity initiatives during his time at the bureau as well. President Donald Trump issued an exeuctive order in January ending all diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the government.
The suit names Patel, the FBI, Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department as defendants.
The FBI declined to comment. A message seeking comment on behalf of the Justice Department wasn’t immediately returned Wednesday.
Among other things, Maltinsky is seeking reinstatement to his position along with an order declaring that the defendants violated his First Amendment rights to speech and Fifth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law.
Maltinsky’s attorney Christopher M. Mattei called the firing an unlawful attack.
“This case is about far more than one man’s career — it’s about whether the government can punish Americans simply for saying who they are,” Mattei said in a statement.
Other lawsuits challenging the bureau’s personnel moves have been filed since President Donald Trump’s second term began. In September, three high-ranking FBI officials said in a lawsuit they were fired in a “campaign of retribution” carried out by a director who knew better but caved to political pressure from the Trump administration.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Closing arguments in the murder trial of an Ohio officer charged in the shooting death of a pregnant Black mother killed in a supermarket parking lot after being accused of shoplifting are set for Wednesday.
Prosecutors have told jurors that 21-year-old Ta’Kiya Young wasn’t a threat to anyone at the time she was shot. Defense attorneys for Blendon Township police officer Connor Grubb have emphasized that Young’s vehicle carried deadly force when she accelerated it near the 31-year-old officer, rendering his use of force within the standard of being “objectively reasonable.”
Grubb is charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault in connection with Young’s death on Aug. 24, 2023. He faces up to life in prison. Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David Young, no relation to Ta’Kiya, dropped four of 10 counts against him Tuesday that related to the death of Young’s unborn daughter, agreeing with his attorneys that prosecutors failed to present proof that Grubb knew Young was pregnant when he shot her.
The prosecution and defense both rested Tuesday after a roughly two-week trial. Jurors were shown the bodycam footage of the shooting on the first day of testimony, with testimony following over the trial’s course including from a use-of-force expert, an accident reconstructionist, the officer who responded to the scene with Grubb and a police policy expert.
They never heard from Grubb, whose side of the story was contained in a written statement read into the record by a special agent for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
Sean Walton, an attorney representing Young’s family, Nadine Young, Ta’Kiya’s grandmother, and an aunt, Michelle White, said they expected Grubb to take the stand.
“It is curious that he did not testify. But the video speaks for itself and if he wants the video to speak for him, then so be it,” Walton said.
Young and White appeared emotionally tired while taking questions from reporters Tuesday. White said that the verdict will allow the family “to finally be able to start the healing process.” At various times, Nadine held back tears while talking about the toll of the trial.
“I just gotta hold on to God and just know, God, he’s in control,” Nadine said.
In the body camera footage, the officer said he observed Young arguing with his fellow officer and positioned himself in front of her vehicle to provide backup and to protect other people in the parking lot. He said he drew his gun after he heard Young fail to comply with his partner’s commands. When she drove toward him, he said in the statement, he felt her car hit his legs and shins and begin to lift his body off the ground.
Grubb and another officer approached Young’s car outside a Kroger in suburban Columbus about a report that she was suspected of stealing alcohol from the store. She partially lowered her window, and the other officer ordered her out. Instead, she rolled her car forward toward Grubb, who fired a single bullet through her windshield into her chest, video footage showed.
The video showed an officer at the driver’s side window telling Young she was accused of shoplifting and ordering her out of the car. Young protested, and both officers cursed at her and yelled at her to get out. Young could be heard asking them, “Are you going to shoot me?”
Then she turned the steering wheel to the right, the car rolled slowly forward and Grubb fired his gun, footage showed. Moments later, after the car came to a stop against the building, they broke the driver’s side window. Police said they tried to save her life, but she was mortally wounded. Young and her unborn daughter were subsequently pronounced dead at a hospital.
A full-time officer with the township since 2019, Grubb was placed paid administrative leave after the shooting.
WASHINGTON — Both the House and Senate acted decisively Tuesday to pass a bill to force the Justice Department to publicly release its files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a remarkable display of approval for an effort that had struggled for months to overcome opposition from President Donald Trump and Republican leadership.
When a small, bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced a petition in July to maneuver around House Speaker Mike Johnson’s control of which bills reach the House floor, it appeared a longshot effort — especially as Trump urged his supporters to dismiss the matter as a “hoax.”
This page requires Javascript.
Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on the government of El Salvador to protect three Salvadoran men deported by the United States in a decision published Tuesday that said they had been held without the ability to communicate with their lawyers or relatives since arriving.
The Salvadoran government said in the case that William Alexander Martínez Ruano, 21, and José Osmín Santos Robles, 41, where being held in a prison in Santa Ana and the third, Brandon Bladimir Sigarán Cruz, 22, who the government said was an active member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, had been held in the country’s new gang prison since March.
This has been a generalized problem for the nearly 90,000 people arrested under emergency powers granted to President Nayib Bukele in March 2022, to fight the country’s powerful street gangs.
Relatives and a lawyer filed habeas corpus petitions in El Salvador on behalf of the men, and the nongovernmental Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy requested the protective measures from the human rights commission.
The commission, which is an arm of the regional Organization of American States, said it decided to grant the request because of a “serious risk to their rights to live and personal well being.” The commission grants such protections in cases to prevent irreparable harm.
El Salvador responded to the commission about the status of the men, but the commission said the government did not deny the men were being held incommunicado despite a specific request that it provide information about the possibility of visits with their relatives and lawyers. The country is supposed to follow the commission’s instructions and report back, but El Salvador gave no indication of being willing to bend to the demands.
The commission noted that it had granted protective measures in September to two Salvadoran lawyers, Ruth López and Enrique Anaya, critics of the government who were arrested and held without contact.
Lawyer Jayme Magaña of the Wings for Freedom movement, who is not representing any of those arrested, said that people being held in El Salvador under the ongoing state of emergency generally do not have contact with relatives or their lawyers. “It is something that (the commission) has been saying since the start of the state of emergency,” which began in March 2022, he said.
El Salvador’s government told the commission that it should avoid being used by people with criminal histories.
A federal bankruptcy court judge on Tuesday formally approved OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s plan to settle thousands of lawsuits over the harms of opioids.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane gave reasoning Tuesday for approving the plan, which requires members of the Sackler family who own the company to contribute up to $7 billion over 15 years. Most of the money is to go to government entities to fight the opioid crisis that has been linked to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999.
A portion of the money is to be distributed next year to some people who had OxyContin prescriptions and their survivors.
“My heart goes out to all those who have suffered such pain,” Lane said.
The new agreement replaces one the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last year, finding it would have improperly protected members of the family against future lawsuits. Under the current agreement, entities that do not opt into the payments can still sue members of the family.
The deal, which the judge said he would accept last week, is among the largest in a series of opioid settlements brought by state and local governments against drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies that totaled about $50 billion.
Sackler family members agreed to pay up to $7 billion over 15 years, providing most of the cash involved in the settlement.
The funds distributed to state, local and Native Americans is to be used mostly to address the opioid crisis, as has been the case with other opioid settlements.
About $850 million of that is to go to individual victims, including children born with opioid withdrawal.
People with addiction and survivors of those who died must prove they were prescribed OxyContin to participate. Those who do could receive payments of around $8,000 or around $16,000, depending on how long they received the drug and how many other people qualify. The money for individual victims is to be distributed next year.
Members of the Sackler family are agreeing to give up ownership of Purdue.
For them, that won’t be a major change since no family member has served on Purdue’ board or received money from the company since 2018. The plan calls for Purdue to be replaced with a new company, Knoa Pharma, to be controlled by a board appointed by states and with a mission of benefiting the public.
Sackler family members are also agreeing not to have their name put on institutions in exchange for contributions — something they’ve done often in the past, though many institutions have cut ties with them.
The company has also agreed to make public a trove of internal documents that could shed additional light into how the company promoted and monitored opioids.
One feature that won’t be repeated under this new deal that was in a previous one: forcing members of the Sackler family to hear directly from people harmed by OxyContin.
Purdue filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 when it was facing thousands of opioid-related lawsuits from state and local governments and others.
A judge approved a settlement two years later. But the U.S. Supreme Court later rejected that plan because it gave members of the Sackler family protection from lawsuits over opioids even though they were not personally declaring bankruptcy.
The latest plan allows lawsuits against Sackler family members by those who don’t opt into the deal. That change was a key to getting the new version approved in the aftermath of the high court’s ruling.
This time, few parties objected to the settlement, although some people who represented themselves and who were addicted to opioids — or had loved ones who were — raised concerns during the three-day confirmation hearing last week.
One of those self-represented people told Lane during the virtual hearing Tuesday that she planned to appeal.
Roblox is stepping up its age verification system for users who want to privately message other players and implementing age-based chats so kids, teens and adults will only be able to message people around their own age.
The moves come as the popular gaming platform continues to face criticism and lawsuits over child safety and a growing number of states and countries are implementing age verification laws.
The company had previously announced the age estimation tool, which is provided by a company called Persona, in July. It requires players to take a video selfie that will be used to estimate their age. Roblox says the videos are deleted after the age check is processed. Users are not required to submit a face scan to use the platform, only if they want to chat with other users.
Roblox doesn’t allow kids under 13 to chat with other users outside of games unless they have explicit parental permission — and unlike different platforms, it does not encrypt private chat conversations, so it can monitor and moderate them.
While some experts have expressed caution about the reliability of facial age estimation tools, Matt Kaufman, chief safety officer at Roblox, said that between the ages of about five to 25, the system can accurately estimate a person’s age within one or two years.
“But of course, there’s always people who may be well outside of a traditional bell curve. And in those cases, if you disagree with the estimate that comes back, then you can provide an ID or use parental consent in order to correct that,” he said.
After users go through the age checks, they will be assigned to age groups ranging from under nine, nine to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18 to 20 and over 21. Users will then be able to chat with their age group or similar age groups, depending on their age and the type of chat.
Roblox said it will start enforcing age checks in Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands in the first week of December and the rest of the world in early January.
A growing number of tech companies are implementing verification systems to comply with regulations or ward off criticism that they are not protecting children. This includes Google, which recently started testing a new age-verification system for YouTube that relies on AI to differentiate between adults and minors based on their watch histories. Instagram is testing an AI system to determine if kids are lying about their ages.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department says it’s investigating a new sexual battery allegation against hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is serving a four-year prison sentence on prostitution-related convictions
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Monday it’s investigating a new sexual battery allegation against hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is serving a four-year prison sentence on prostitution-related convictions.
A male music producer and publicist said he was asked to come to a photo shoot in 2020 at a Los Angeles warehouse, where Combs exposed himself while masturbating and told the accuser to assist, according to NBC News, citing a police report. Combs then tossed a dirty shirt at the man, the producer said.
The accuser, whose name is redacted in the police report, said he did not tell anyone for several years because he felt embarrassed. He came forward to police in Largo, Florida, this September, shortly after Combs was convicted on other charges.
Combs’ lawyer did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment on the latest allegations.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it received an official copy of the report from the Florida department on Friday, and will be investigating the allegations.
The report also details an incident from March 2021 in which the accuser claims two men covered his head before Combs came into the room and called him a snitch, according to NBC.
Combs was convicted in July of flying his girlfriends and male sex workers around the country to engage in drug-fueled sexual encounters in multiple places over many years. However, he was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering charges that could have put him behind bars for life.
He is set to be released in May 2028, though he can earn reductions in his time behind bars through his participation in substance abuse treatment and other prison programs.
A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge is set to give his reasoning Tuesday for approving OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s plan to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids.
The deal calls for members of the Sackler family who own the company to pay up to $7 billion over time.
Judge Sean Lane said last week that he would accept the plan, which ranks among the largest opioid settlements ever and would do something other major ones don’t: Pay some victims of the crisis.
Sackler family members agreed to pay up to $7 billion over 15 years, providing most of the cash involved in the settlement.
The funds distributed to state, local and Native Americans is to be used mostly to address the opioid crisis, as has been the case with other opioid settlements.
About $850 million of that is to go to individual victims, including children born with opioid withdrawal.
People with addiction and survivors of those who died must prove they were prescribed OxyContin to participate. Those who do could receive payments of around $8,000 or around $16,000, depending on how long they received the drug and how many other people qualify. The money for individual victims is to be distributed next year.
Members of the Sackler family are agreeing to give up ownership of Purdue.
For them, that won’t be a major change since no family member has served on Purdue’ board or received money from the company since 2018. The plan calls for Purdue to be replaced with a new company, Knoa Pharma, to be controlled by a board appointed by states and with a mission of benefiting the public.
Sackler family members are also agreeing not to have their name put on institutions in exchange for contributions — something they’ve done often in the past, though many institutions have cut ties with them.
The company has also agreed to make public a trove of internal documents that could shed additional light into how the company promoted and monitored opioids.
One feature that won’t be repeated under this new deal that was in a previous one: forcing members of the Sackler family to hear directly from people harmed by OxyContin.
Purdue filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 when it was facing thousands of opioid-related lawsuits from state and local governments and others.
A judge approved a settlement two years later. But the U.S. Supreme Court later rejected that plan because it gave members of the Sackler family protection from lawsuits over opioids even though they were not personally declaring bankruptcy.
The latest plan allows lawsuits against Sackler family members by those who don’t opt into the deal.
This time through, few parties objected to the settlement, though some people who represented themselves and who were addicted to opioids — or had loved ones who were — raised concerns during the three-day confirmation hearing last week.
LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — “That ’70s Show” actor Danny Masterson filed a petition Monday for his two rape convictions and long prison sentence to be thrown out, saying that his trial lawyer failed to call key witnesses and introduce essential evidence that might have exonerated him.
The petition for habeas corpus filed with California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal argues that lawyer Philip Cohen did not represent Masterson properly at the 2023 retrial that ended with the actor being convicted of raping two women at his Los Angeles home in 2003. He was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.
The petition also argues that the trial judge demonstrated a bias against the Church of Scientology, allowing an “unconstitutional intrusion” into the church’s doctrine and a misinterpretation of its scripture.
Masterson is a member of the church, whose practices were a major issue at his trial, and the women are former members.
The petition says that Cohen spoke to only two of the 20 potential witnesses brought to his attention by his co-counsel and an investigator. It says the witnesses included some who would have testified that the women spoke favorably of the sexual relationships they had with Masterson. And they included psychological and pharmacological experts who would have testified about the effects of alcohol and drugs on memory.
The court filing says there was “unexpected and unreasonable failure of trial counsel to present any of the mountain of exculpatory evidence” that had been amassed by Masterson’s pretrial attorney Shawn Holley, and the result was a violation of his constitutional rights.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo declined to delay Masterson’s first trial to accommodate Holley’s representation of former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer against his own allegations of sexual misconduct. Cohen then took over as lead attorney.
Masterson’s first trial ended in a mistrial with a jury unable to reach consensus on any of three rape counts against him. He was promptly retried, and a jury found him guilty of two counts while failing to reach a verdict on the third.
Cohen did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the petition, nor did an attorney for the women.
“The unfairness of the second Masterson trial was the result of prosecutorial misconduct, judicial bias, and the failure of defense counsel to present exculpatory evidence,” Eric Multhaup, the attorney who filed the petition for Masterson, said in a statement. “The jury heard only half the story – the prosecution’s side. Danny deserves a new trial where the jury can hear his side as well.”
The petition says Olmedo erred in allowing the prosecution to negatively cast the Church of Scientology as a force of intimidation. It alleges that Cohen also did not present available evidence that would countered the portrayal.
Masterson’s new motion is separate from his main appeal to the same court, a process that is pending.
Masterson, 49, is serving his sentence at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo. He will not be eligible for parole for more than 20 years.
Masterson starred with Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis and Topher Grace in “That ’70s Show” from 1998 until 2006. He had reunited with Kutcher on the 2016 Netflix comedy “The Ranch,” but was written off the show when the Los Angeles Police Department investigation was revealed the following year.
The Trump administration is calling its new immigration sweep in North Carolina’s largest city “Operation Charlotte’s Web.”
But the granddaughter of E.B. White, the author of the classic 1952 children’s tale “Charlotte’s Web,” said the wave of immigration arrests goes against what her grandfather and his beloved book stood for.
“He believed in the rule of law and due process,” Martha White said in a statement. “He certainly didn’t believe in masked men, in unmarked cars, raiding people’s homes and workplaces without IDs or summons.”
White, whose grandfather died in 1985, works as his literary executor. She pointed out that in “Charlotte’s Web,” the spider who is the main character devoted her life on the farm to securing the freedom of a pig named Wilbur.
The Trump administration and Republican leaders have seized on a number of catchy phrases while carrying out mass deportation efforts — naming their holding facilities Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, Speedway Slammer in Indiana and Cornhusker Clink in Nebraska.
Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official now on the ground in Charlotte, was the face of the “Operation At Large” in Los Angeles and “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago, two enforcement surges earlier this year. As the Charlotte operation got underway, Bovino quoted from “Charlotte’s Web” in a social media post: “We take to the breeze, we go as we please.”
NEW YORK — Three men were arrested Monday for allegedly trying to pay up to $100,000 in cash to a juror at the Brooklyn drug trial of a former heavyweight boxer, leading a judge to abruptly dismiss the jury as it was about to hear opening statements.
John Marzulli, a spokesperson for federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, said an anonymous jury will be chosen when the trial of Goran Gogic resumes in a month.
Gogic, of Montenegro, was set to stand trial for allegedly conspiring to smuggle 20 tons (18.1 metric tons) of cocaine to Europe from Colombia through U.S. ports using commercial cargo ships. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Law enforcement officials have described Gogic as a “major drug trafficker” and said he operated on a “mammoth scale.”
A former heavyweight boxer, Gogic fought professionally in Germany from 2001 to 2012, compiling a 21-4-2 record, according to boxing website Sport & Note. He was listed as 6-foot-5 (1.96 meters) and weighed in at anywhere from 227 pounds (103 kilograms) to 250 pounds (113 kilograms).
In a criminal complaint in Brooklyn federal court, an FBI agent wrote that the bribery scheme unfolded between Thursday and Sunday.
According to the court papers, one of the men charged in the plot — Mustafa Fteja — already knew a juror described in the complaint as “John Doe #1” and called him multiple times on his cellphone Thursday before the juror agreed to meet him in Staten Island.
During the meeting, which took place Thursday, Fteja told the juror that associates in the Bronx were willing to pay him to return a not guilty verdict, the complaint said.
Two days later, Fteja told the juror during a second meeting that they were willing to pay him between $50,000 and $100,000 to corrupt the trial, the complaint said.
It was not immediately clear who will represent Fteja and two others accused in the alleged jury tampering scheme when they appear in court later Monday.
According to the complaint, investigators secured several recorded conversations of the defendants planning the juror corruption plot as the men spoke in Albanian and English.
At his trial, Gogic is charged with violating and conspiring to violate the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. If convicted, he faces a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
According to prosecutors, Gogic and his co-conspirators worked with the ships’ crew members to smuggle cocaine in shipping containers, hoisting loads of the drug from speedboats that approached the cargo vessels along their route, including near ports in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
Three shipments were intercepted by U.S. law enforcement agents, prosecutors said, including 1,437 kilograms (3,168 pounds) of cocaine aboard the MSC Carlotta at the Port of New York and New Jersey in February 2019 and 17,956 kilograms (39,586 pounds) of cocaine — with a street value of over $1 billion — aboard the MSC Gayane at the Port of Philadelphia in June 2019.
Surveillance video shows Tennessee Titans cornerback L’Jarius Sneed driving a Lamborghini Urus at a suburban Dallas dealership and nearby gas station minutes before two men allege that shots were fired at them from that vehicle last December.
Sneed, 28, was indicted Tuesday by a Dallas County grand jury on a misdemeanor charge of failing to report felony aggravated assault to law enforcement. The indictment does not include details of the alleged incident on Dec. 6.
In the video, Sneed can be seen getting out of the Lamborghini, then using crutches to walk past the men and up stairs into the dealership at 3:22 p.m. on that date. Sneed walks out about a minute later in the video, which was shared Thursday with The Associated Press by attorney Levi McCathern, who represents the two men in a civil lawsuit against Sneed over the shooting.
The Titans cornerback, who was on injured reserve, also can be seen in separate surveillance video at a gas station at the same time as the two men. In the video, Sneed walks in from a gas pump, goes to a register and then walks back to the same car when Christian Nshimiyimana and Avi Ahmed were inside.
Minutes later, Nshimiyimana and Ahmed say in their lawsuit that they were shot at while sitting in a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon at the dealership. The surveillance video shows a vehicle driving past with four loud pops heard and an arm out the passenger side window at 3:42 p.m. That vehicle then speeds off.
A probable cause affidavit from the Carrollton Police Department dated Dec. 11 said Ahmed asked employees about two men he had seen earlier and that Sneed was identified as one of those men. The dealership also provided Sneed’s phone number.
Detectives also confirmed Sneed’s identity from surveillance video from several locations.
“It was apparent that Sneed was the only person they had seen getting out of and into the driver seat of the Lamborghini. He also was the last person seen getting into the driver seat at the RaceTrac (gas station) approximately eight minutes before the shooting,” according to the affidavit.
The police affidavit also noted: “Combined with the rapid acceleration away from the scene proved that Sneed knew what he was doing when assisted the shooter in fleeing the scene.”
Nshimiyimana and Ahmed allege that Sneed and another man, Tekonzae Williams, were inside the Lamborghini when the shots were fired. Williams was indicted Tuesday on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Court records did not list an attorney for Williams.
McCathern, of McCathern Law, said Thursday his clients were pleased that Sneed and his associate were indicted.
“Hopefully, this will be the beginning of getting justice for my clients,” McCathern said. “As the video clearly shows, they are very lucky to be alive after Mr. Sneed’s actions.”
Sneed’s attorney, Michael J. Todd, did not return a message left by the AP on Thursday. Sneed’s agent had no comment Wednesday.
No people were hit by bullets, though the lawsuit says bullets did hit the Mercedes-Benz as well as a building at the car lot. The lawsuit against Sneed and Williams seeks at least $1 million in damages.
The Titans said in a statement they were aware of the “legal matter” with Sneed and are in contact with NFL security per league protocol. The statement says the team had no further comment.
Sneed was placed on injured reserve last month with a quadriceps injury, and he was in the Titans’ locker room Thursday. Players on injured reserve do not talk to reporters.
This is the second straight season the Titans have put him on injured reserve. He played only five games in 2024 after Tennessee traded with Kansas City for him, giving Sneed a contract that made him the NFL’s fifth-highest-paid cornerback at the time.
Sneed was drafted from Louisiana Tech in the fourth round in 2020 by Kansas City. He won back-to-back Super Bowls with the Chiefs in 2022 and 2023.
___
Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.
LONDON — The BBC has issued a public apology to U.S. President Donald Trump over a misleading edit of his speech on Jan. 6, 2021, but said it “strongly disagreed there is a basis for a defamation claim.”
Since it was established more than a century ago, Britain’s public broadcaster has been no stranger to controversy. Over the past week, it has been embroiled in one of its deepest-ever crisis as its director general stepped down, its head of news quit, questions were raised over the veracity of its journalism and Trump said he is mulling a billion-dollar lawsuit.
Here’s what to know.
Pressure on the broadcaster has been growing since the right-leaning Daily Telegraph newspaper published parts of a dossier compiled by the BBC’s adviser on standards and guidelines on Nov. 3.
As well as criticizing the BBC’s coverage of transgender issues and raising concerns of anti-Israel bias in the BBC’s Arabic service, the dossier said that an edition of the BBC’s flagship current affairs series “Panorama” — titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” — broadcast days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election was misleading.
Specifically, it showed how the third-party production company that made the film spliced together three quotes from two sections of the Jan. 6, 2021 speech into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.”
By doing so, it made it look like Trump was giving the green light to his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.
The outcry from opponents of the BBC — and there are many both in the U.K. and abroad — was immediate and vociferous.
The broadcaster, which is funded by an annual license fee of 174.50 pounds ($230) paid by all U.K. households who watch live TV or any BBC content, was accused of bias against Trump, symptomatic of they say an inherent liberal bias within the organization.
For days, the BBC said very little, saying it did not report to leaked reports. Many thought that was a misjudgement as it allowed the narrative around the edit to be led by its opponents.
It was also revealed that Trump was demanding a retraction, apology and compensation over the sequence. “I guess I have to,” Trump said when asked about whether he would go through with his legal threat. “Because I think they defrauded the public and they’ve admitted it.”
Trump had set a deadline of Friday, Nov. 14 for the BBC to respond to his challenge.
While the BBC said earlier in the week that the edited portion in the program was an “error of judgement,” it did not apologize to Trump directly until Thursday evening.
In a statement, it said its chair, Samir Shah, had personally sent a letter via a letter from its chair over the misleading edit but said it had not defamed him.
While the BBC statement doesn’t respond to Trump’s demand that he be compensated for “overwhelming financial and reputational harm,” the headline on its news story about the apology said it refused to pay compensation.
The U.S. president has yet to respond to the BBC’s apology and its rejection of of his demands for compensation.
Legal experts have said that Trump would face challenges taking the case to court in the U.K. or the U.S. They said that the BBC could show that Trump wasn’t harmed because he was ultimately elected president in 2024.
While many legal experts have dismissed the president’s claims against the media as having little merit, he has won some lucrative settlements against U.S. media companies and he could try to leverage the BBC mistake for a payout, potentially to a charity of his choice.
However this latest crisis pans out in the days and weeks ahead, the heat will remain on the BBC, especially in its newsrooms where any mistake, or seeming bias, will no doubt be picked up opponents.
As a public broadcaster, the BBC has to be impartial in the way it covers news events. It’s a fine balancing act that often gets the BBC into trouble. Some think it leans too much to the right, while others think it goes the other way. Whatever the truth of the matter, many think that the BBC is often cowed in its coverage, particularly on domestic political matters.
Not only does it need to find a new director-general and head of news, it has to negotiate its future with the government.
The left-of-center Labour government, which is considered to one of the most pro-BBC political parties in the U.K., will soon start the once-a-decade process of reviewing the BBC’s governing charter, which expires at the end of 2027.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the government would ensure the BBC is “sustainably funded (and) commands the public’s trust,” but did not say whether the license fee might be scaled back or scrapped.
LONDON — Google has offered to make major changes to its business practices to resolve a European Union antitrust case targeting its ad-tech business, but they don’t include breaking up the company.
The compliance plan Google submitted to the European Commission — the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer — includes “immediate product changes” to end specific practices, the company said in a blog post.
“Our proposal fully addresses the EC’s decision without a disruptive break-up that would harm the thousands of European publishers and advertisers who use Google tools to grow their business,” the company said Friday.
Google also said it’s appealing the commission’s decision to slap the company with a 2.95 billion euro ($3.4 billion) fine in September for breaching the bloc’s competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services. It accused Google of abusing its dominance by favoring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of competitors, online advertisers and publishers.
As part of the punishment, Google was also required to come up with proposals to end what the Commission called “self-preferencing practices” and stop “conflicts of interest.”
The Commission said it would force Google to sell off parts of its business if it wasn’t satisfied with the company’s proposed remedies.
Google’s changes include giving publishers more pricing options on its ad management platform. To address conflicts of interest, the company is modifying its ad tools to give publishers and advertisers more choice and flexibility.
“We will now analyse Google’s proposed measures to assess whether they effectively bring the self-preferencing practices to an end and address the situation of inherent conflicts of interest,” the Commission said in a statement.
A former Customs and Border Protection officer has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to working with Mexican traffickers to bring drugs into the U.S. Diego Bonillo pleaded guilty in July to multiple charges, including conspir…
LOS ANGELES — A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was sentenced to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to working with Mexican traffickers to bring drugs into the U.S., officials said Thursday.
Diego Bonillo, 30, pleaded guilty in July to multiple charges, including conspiracy to import controlled substances such as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin.
As part of his plea deal, he admitted to using his position to allow drug-filled cars into the U.S. from Mexico without inspection. He allowed at least 75 kilograms of fentanyl, 11.7 kilograms of methamphetamine, and more than 1 kilogram of heroin into the country, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego said in a news release Thursday.
Prosecutors said in sentencing documents that Bonillo was using a secret phone to alert the drug trafficking group which lanes he would be overseeing at the Tecate and Otay Mesa border crossings so he could ensure their entry without inspection.
Agents determined that Bonillo was part of the scheme no later than October 2023 and continued until April 2024, allowing at least 15 vehicles to enter uninspected, prosecutors said.
Bonillo used his payments to travel internationally, purchase luxury gifts, attempt to purchase property in Mexico, and spend time at the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club in Tijuana, Mexico, prosecutors said.
He was sentenced Nov. 7 to 15 years in federal prison.
NEW YORK (AP) — AT&T has reached a combined $177 million settlement over two data breaches. And impacted consumers have a little over a month left to file a claim for their chunk of the money.
Several lawsuits emerged across the U.S. — and were later consolidated — after AT&T notified millions of customers that information ranging from Social Security numbers to call records were compromised in these breaches last year. Plaintiffs alleged that the telecommunications giant “repeatedly failed” to protect consumer data. While AT&T has continued to deny wrongdoing, it opted to settle earlier this year.
“We have agreed to this settlement to avoid the expense and uncertainty of protracted litigation,” AT&T said in a Thursday statement, adding that the company remains “committed to protecting our customers’ data and ensuring their continued trust in us.”
Eligible consumers have until Dec. 18 to file for a settlement payment — which will still need a judge’s final stamp of approval early next year. Here’s what you should know.
What data breaches does the AT&T settlement cover?
The settlement covers two different breaches. Both were disclosed in 2024 — but involve data belonging to millions of current and former AT&T customers dating as far back as 2019 or earlier.
AT&T disclosed the first of these breaches in March 2024, after the company said it found that customer information from 2019 or earlier had been released on the “dark web” weeks earlier. At the time, AT&T said the breach impacted roughly 7.6 million current and 65.4 million former account holders — with leaked data including some sensitive info like Social Security numbers and passcodes.
The other breach involved call and text records of nearly all AT&T customers from May through October of 2022, as well as a small subset from Jan. 2, 2023. AT&T said it learned that data was “illegally downloaded from our workspace on a third-party cloud platform” in April of last year — and began notifying customers in July 2024, after launching an investigation. The company maintained that the leaked records included information like phone numbers, but not content of the calls or texts, or other personally identifiable information.
Several lawsuits emerged over both of these data breaches — which were later consolidated. The settlement was reached earlier this year in U.S. District Court in Texas.
How much money could impacted customers get?
The settlement’s cash funds total $177 million to pay those impacted by both of these breaches — which divvies up to $149 million for the first “settlement class” and another $28 million for the second, per a preliminary approval order filed in June.
According to the settlement administrator’s website, consumers impacted by the first breach may be eligible to up to $5,000. And those affected by the second breach may be eligible for up to $2,500. It’s also possible to be an “overlap settlement class member,” which would mean you may be eligible for payments from both of these funds.
Final payment amounts will vary depending on losses documented from each person — as well as the total number of claims received and added costs like attorney fees. And the court still has to give the settlement its final stamp of approval, in a hearing currently scheduled for Jan. 15, 2026.
When is the deadline to file a claim?
In the meantime, consumers have a little over a month left to file a claim online or by mail. The deadline is Dec. 18.
To learn more, you can visit the website of the settlement administrator, Kroll Settlement Administration. Class members can also opt-out or make an objection before Nov. 17.
NEW YORK — AT&T has reached a combined $177 million settlement over two data breaches. And impacted consumers have a little over a month left to file a claim for their chunk of the money.
Several lawsuits emerged across the U.S. — and were later consolidated — after AT&T notified millions of customers that information ranging from Social Security numbers to call records were compromised in these breaches last year. Plaintiffs alleged that the telecommunications giant “repeatedly failed” to protect consumer data. While AT&T has continued to deny wrongdoing, it opted to settle earlier this year.
“We have agreed to this settlement to avoid the expense and uncertainty of protracted litigation,” AT&T said in a Thursday statement, adding that the company remains “committed to protecting our customers’ data and ensuring their continued trust in us.”
Eligible consumers have until Dec. 18 to file for a settlement payment — which will still need a judge’s final stamp of approval early next year. Here’s what you should know.
The settlement covers two different breaches. Both were disclosed in 2024 — but involve data belonging to millions of current and former AT&T customers dating as far back as 2019 or earlier.
AT&T disclosed the first of these breaches in March 2024, after the company said it found that customer information from 2019 or earlier had been released on the “dark web” weeks earlier. At the time, AT&T said the breach impacted roughly 7.6 million current and 65.4 million former account holders — with leaked data including some sensitive info like Social Security numbers and passcodes.
The other breach involved call and text records of nearly all AT&T customers from May through October of 2022, as well as a small subset from Jan. 2, 2023. AT&T said it learned that data was “illegally downloaded from our workspace on a third-party cloud platform” in April of last year — and began notifying customers in July 2024, after launching an investigation. The company maintained that the leaked records included information like phone numbers, but not content of the calls or texts, or other personally identifiable information.
Several lawsuits emerged over both of these data breaches — which were later consolidated. The settlement was reached earlier this year in U.S. District Court in Texas.
The settlement’s cash funds total $177 million to pay those impacted by both of these breaches — which divvies up to $149 million for the first “settlement class” and another $28 million for the second, per a preliminary approval order filed in June.
According to the settlement administrator’s website, consumers impacted by the first breach may be eligible to up to $5,000. And those affected by the second breach may be eligible for up to $2,500. It’s also possible to be an “overlap settlement class member,” which would mean you may be eligible for payments from both of these funds.
Final payment amounts will vary depending on losses documented from each person — as well as the total number of claims received and added costs like attorney fees. And the court still has to give the settlement its final stamp of approval, in a hearing currently scheduled for Jan. 15, 2026.
In the meantime, consumers have a little over a month left to file a claim online or by mail. The deadline is Dec. 18.
To learn more, you can visit the website of the settlement administrator, Kroll Settlement Administration. Class members can also opt-out or make an objection before Nov. 17.
STARKE, Fla. — A former Marine convicted of killing a 6-year-old girl more than four decades ago is scheduled Thursday to be executed in Florida, which would be the record 16th death sentence carried out under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Barring a last-minute reprieve, Bryan Frederick Jennings, 66, is set to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at Florida State Prison near Starke. Jennings was convicted and sentenced to death twice for the 1979 murder in Brevard County, both of which were reversed on appeal. The final trial in 1986 resulted in a third death sentence.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal Wednesday.
According to court records, Jennings was a 20-year-old on leave from the Marine Corps on May 11, 1979, when he took down a screen at the bedroom window of 6-year-old Rebecca Kunash while her parents were in another room.
Jennings abducted the girl, took her in his car to a canal and raped her, trial testimony showed. He then “swung her by her legs to the ground with such force that she fractured her skull,” court records show. The girl was then drowned in the canal, where her body was found later that day.
Jennings was arrested a few hours later on a traffic warrant, where investigators found he matched the description of a man seen near the Kunash home when Rebecca disappeared. Shoe prints found at the home matched those Jennings was wearing, his fingerprints were found on the girl’s windowsill, and his clothes and hair were wet.
DeSantis has ordered more executions in a single year than any Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions. After Jennings, executions this year are scheduled Nov. 20 for Richard Barry Randolph and Dec. 9 for Mark Allen Geralds, which would bring the year’s total so far to 18.
At a recent news conference, DeSantis explained the unprecedented number of executions by saying his goal is to bring justice to victim families who have waited decades for the death sentences to be carried out.
“Some of these crimes were committed in the ’80s,” DeSantis said. “Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt I owed it to them to make sure this ran very smoothly. If I honestly through someone was innocent, I would not pull the trigger.”
Jennings has filed numerous appeals in state and federal courts, most recently contending that he went months without a lawyer prior to DeSantis signing his death warrant in violation of his right to counsel. His current attorneys also say Jennings has improperly not had a clemency hearing since 1988.
An anti-capital punishment group, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, sought U.S. Supreme Court review of the issues and what it called the politicization of the process.
“Florida’s death penalty system has become unrecognizable from the one the law promises,” said Maria DeLiberato, legal and policy director for the group. “Bryan Jennings was left without a state court lawyer for years, denied a clemency review in this century, and then selected for execution because of favorable political timing.”
In addition to the murder conviction, Jennings was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary.
A total of 40 men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and at least 18 other people are scheduled to be put to death during the remainder of 2025 and next year.
Florida’s lethal injections are carried out with a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state Department of Corrections.
BOZEMAN, Mont. — A jury has found a man with links to white supremacists guilty of murder in a brutal killing at a southwestern Montana campsite last year that was initially reported as a possible bear attack.
Daren Christopher Abbey attacked Dustin Kjersem with a block of wood, an axe and a screwdriver after they met at Kjersem’s campsite near Big Sky, Montana in October, 2024, according to prosecutors.
The defendant later admitted to taking Kjersem’s guns, cooler, cellphones and other belongings and concealing evidence.
Abbey was linked to the murder scene by DNA found on a beer can inside the tent. He claimed the killing was in self-defense after Kjersem threatened him. Authorities said there were inconsistencies in his story, and pointed to multiple chop wounds in the attack.
The victim’s girlfriend and another friend found his body and reported it as a possible bear attack. It turned into a homicide investigation after wildlife agents found no sign of a bear in the area.
Kjersem had two children and worked as a self-employed contractor, building homes and learning other trades, according to his sister. Abbey told authorities that he arrived at the campsite intending to stay the night and was welcomed by Kjersem, who didn’t know him, according to Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer.
Following a six-day trial the jury found Abbey guilty on Monday of deliberate homicide and tampering with evidence, court records show.
An inmate information document from Gallatin County last year said the defendant listed an organizational affiliation with white supremacists. State Department of Corrections records said his tattoos included an iron cross with a swastika.
Abbey faces a Dec. 30 sentencing before state District Judge Peter Ohman.
Deliberate homicide is a capital offense in Montana but prosecutors will not seek the death penalty in the case, said Jack Veil with the Gallatin County Attorney’s Office.
A former Connecticut police officer accused of mistreating prisoner Richard “Randy” Cox after he was paralyzed in the back of a police van pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor Wednesday and received no jail time, while three other officers chose to take their cases to trial.
Betsy Segui, a former New Haven sergeant who supervised the city police station lockup, pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment in exchange for a 60-day suspended jail term. Another former officer, Ronald Pressley, took the same plea deal and received an identical sentence last week.
Cox, 39, who did not attend the New Haven Superior Court hearing, was left paralyzed from the chest down on June 19, 2022, when the police van he was riding in without a seat belt braked hard, sending him head-first into a metal partition while his hands were cuffed behind his back. He had been arrested on charges of threatening a woman with a gun, which were later dismissed.
“I can’t move. I’m going to die like this. Please, please, please help me,” Cox said in the van minutes after the crash, according to police video. He later was found to have broken his neck.
Once at the police station, officers mocked Cox and accused him of being drunk and faking his injuries, according to surveillance and body-worn camera footage. Officers dragged Cox out of the van and around the police station before placing him in a holding cell before his eventual transfer to a hospital.
When Cox told the officers that he thought he had cracked his neck, Segui responded, “You ain’t crack nothing. You just drank too much,” according to an internal affairs investigation report.
Segui did not speak about Cox’s treatment during the court hearing. She only answered standard questions from the judge about her guilty plea.
Her lawyer, Gregory Cerritelli, said Segui wanted to put the criminal case behind her.
“She’s no longer working in law enforcement and has no desire to, so I think from her perspective this just gives her closure and lets her move on with her life and focus on her new career,” he said in an interview after the hearing. He declined to say what Segui’s new career is.
Three other officers involved in Cox’s transport, Oscar Diaz, Jocelyn Lavandier and Luis Rivera, rejected plea deals proposed by prosecutors and chose to take their cases to trial. All three are charged with cruelty to persons and reckless endangerment.
Prosecutors said Cox was informed about Segui’s plea deal beforehand and gave his consent. In 2023, the city of New Haven agreed to settle a lawsuit by Cox for $45 million.
Louis Rubano, a lawyer for Cox, said Cox and his family had hoped the criminal cases would end as quickly as possible with plea bargains by all five officers.
“I think bringing a conclusion to this tragic situation is what the family wants, and the fact now that there’s going to be potentially a trial for the other remaining officers forces Randy and his family to have to kind of re-live the events of that tragic day,” Rubano said.
Rubano said Cox has bought a home and is living there with his mother, who is caring for him with the help of medical professionals.
The case drew outrage from civil rights advocates including the NAACP, along with comparisons to the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore. Cox is Black, while all five officers who were arrested are Black or Hispanic. Gray, who also was Black, died in 2015 after he suffered a spinal injury while handcuffed and shackled in a Baltimore police van.
New Haven police fired Segui, Diaz, Lavandier and Rivera for violating police conduct policies, while Pressley retired. Diaz appealed his firing and got his job back. Diaz, who was driving the van when Cox got injured, said he had to brake hard to avoid an accident with another vehicle.