agreement

Former USC and NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez plans to enter a guilty plea in connection with his physical altercation with a 69-year-old truck driver in Indianapolis last October, according to online court records.

Attorneys for both sides entered a joint motion Thursday requesting that the judge “set this matter for a guilty plea and sentencing hearing,” according to WTHR-TV in Indianapolis, which has viewed the filing.

A jury trial had been scheduled to start Tuesday. The filing asks instead for a sentencing trial to be scheduled for November.

“The parties have reached a resolution that will obviate the need for the jury trial,” the document reads.

Sanchez was in town during the first weekend of October to cover a Colts game for Fox Sports. According to a police affidavit, Sanchez accosted Perry Tole after the Indiana resident had backed his truck into the loading docks of a downtown Indianapolis hotel.

Sanchez was charged with a level five felony of battery involving serious bodily injury, as well as the misdemeanors of battery resulting in injury, unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle and public intoxication. It is not clear the charges to which Sanchez will be pleading guilty.

In a civil suit against Sanchez, Tole alleged that he suffered “severe permanent disfigurement, loss of function, other physical injuries, emotional distress, and other damages.” Sanchez was hospitalized with stab wounds to his upper right torso following the incident.

“This is a positive development. We are finalizing an agreement with the prosecutor’s office that provides a path toward resolving the state’s case,” Nick Sanchez Jr., the former quarterback’s brother and legal advisor, said Thursday in a statement obtained by multiple media outlets. “We’re also encouraged by the constructive conversations taking place regarding the related civil matter. There is real momentum toward bringing this entire chapter to a close.”

Tole’s attorney, Matt Golitko, said Thursday in a statement: “We are pleased with the constructive and professional conversations we’ve had with Mr. Sanchez’s team. Our discussions have been productive and we’re on a positive path toward an agreement that will allow the parties to move forward. Mr. Tole appreciates the progress we have achieved and looks forward to an amicable resolution.”

Sanchez played for the New York Jets, Philadelphia, Dallas and Washington during his eight-year NFL career. Fox Sports confirmed in November that Sanchez is no longer employed by the network.

“Obsession,” the indie horror movie written and directed by Curry Barker, has proved to be one of this year’s most successful films. Made for a reported budget of about $750,000, it has earned more than $500 million at the global box office since Focus Features released it in May — the biggest hit in the distributor’s history, according to a new lawsuit.

But one of its producers, Leonora Ann Darby, is claiming she hasn’t received her share of the profit.

Darby, who rose to become one of three producers at Tea Shop Productions, the U.K. company behind the movie, sued Tea Shop, its Delaware affiliate The Tea Shop & Film Company, and co-founders James Harris and Mark Lane in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The 135-page complaint lays out 10 causes of action — among them, breach of contract, retaliation for wage complaints, whistleblower retaliation and unfair competition — and describes a seven-year pattern of “unequal treatment and broken compensation promises.” Darby has demanded a jury trial.

Harris and Lane allegedly treated Darby “as their subordinate, including in a highly demeaning and gendered manner,” and continually refused to compensate her properly, “culminating in ruthlessly cutting Darby out of the overall net profits” for “Obsession,” the lawsuit says.

“Ms. Darby has brought serious and substantial claims, supported by a detailed factual record,” Darby’s lawyer Thomas K. Richards of the Beverly Hills firm Singh, Singh & Trauben, said in a statement. “She is confident in her case and intends to pursue it fully.”

Tea Shop has already rejected the core of her claim. In an Aug. 13 letter attached to the complaint as an exhibit, the company’s lawyer wrote that Darby “was an employee and, subsequently, a consultant” who has never been a member, shareholder or owner of Tea Shop, and therefore has no right to inspect the company’s financial records. The parties’ written agreement, the letter says, does not entitle her to profit participation or collection-account status on “Obsession” or on any other film not previously identified in writing, and she “has been compensated in accordance with the parties’ agreement.” Tea Shop Productions did not respond to a request for comment.

Darby is credited on screen as an executive producer of “Obsession,” rather than as a producer — a decision she says the company made despite Lane’s absence from the production in 2025 and limited involvement with the film. She claims she functioned as a lead producer under Tea Shop’s own internal definition, a distinction at the center of the case, because the profit deal she is suing over applies only to films she lead-produced.

The complaint alleges that she stepped in at a point when the edit had been taken away from Barker and handed to a new editor, leaving the movie “mired in an edit that was not working.” She “provided fundamental and critical creative and structural notes that changed the course of the film,” “advocated heavily” for the edit to be returned to Barker, and recommended the reshoots that followed, according to the suit. She then took on the post-production, credits, clearance and delivery work that got the film finished in time for its Toronto International Film Festival premiere, where Focus bought it for about $16.2 million — well above the $14 million to $15 million that trades were reporting during negotiations.

Once the value of the movie became apparent, the lawsuit alleges, she was iced out. She wasn’t invited to the Los Angeles premiere and was “deliberately” cut out of major trade articles and interviews, the suit says, including a May profile of Harris and Lane that didn’t name her. Her name was added to that piece in August, after she complained.

Darby first started working at the company in 2019, as a development and production executive. In this role, the lawsuit said, she was responsible for originating and developing projects, attaching filmmakers, assembling financing and producing films from preproduction through delivery. She originated and produced movies including “A Banquet,” “Tornado” and “The Surfer,” which stars Nicolas Cage.

In 2024, she and Tea Shop allegedly reached an agreement raising her salary to 100,000 pounds and entitling her to a third of the net profits Tea Shop itself receives on films she lead-produced, “together with direct participation in the applicable collection account management agreements” — the deals that govern how money from a film is divided among its participants.

Tea Shop has allegedly honored that arrangement on other films. On “Obsession,” the complaint says, Darby was paid $300,000 out of the film’s initial minimum guarantee after Tea Shop directed her company, Runt Productions, to invoice for “Services: Obsession.” That payment, the suit argues, was fixed compensation for her producing services — not a settlement, release or buyout, with no writing calling it full and final.

In addition to her share of Tea Shop’s profits on “Obsession,” Darby is seeking a full accounting for several projects as well as unpaid wages, expenses and relief for retaliation.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday said the U.S. has entered an agreement with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels of the South American country’s oil reserves.

Trump in a social media post announced the agreement he said was negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez.

“The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!” Trump wrote.

The Venezuelan government’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The announcement of the deal comes nearly nine months after the U.S. military at Trump’s direction carried out an operation to capture Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face federal narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges.

Trump faces mounting pressure to address high gas prices as the war in Iran on Friday reached a six-month milestone with no conclusion in sight. The U.S. has tapped its strategic petroleum reserves, which in early August fell below 300 million barrels, down by more than 100 million barrels since the start of 2026.

The U.S.-Israel war against Iran has led to a dramatic slowdown of Gulf oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz, which about 20% of the world petroleum passed through prior to the conflict.

The average price of gas in the U.S. stood at about $4.09 a gallon on Friday, according to AAA. The average price was $3.21 at the same time last year.

Trump in his social media post Friday evening alluded to the Venezuela deal being part of a private partnership. The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the private sector partners involved in the deal, and details on how the arrangement would work were not provided.

Persuading big American oil companies to return the region could face headwinds given and decades of badly damaged infrastructure.

Days after the ouster of Maduro, Trump gathered oil executives at the White House and called on them to rush back into Venezuela. Executives expressed interest in the opportunity but there was also a measure of caution given their past experience in the country.

Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company, said at that moment he saw the country as “un-investable.”

But Trump has insisted that his administration has brought a measure of stability to Venezuela.

He has argued that Venezuela stole U.S. oil when former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s moved decades ago to nationalize hundreds of foreign-owned assets, including those owned by American oil companies.

Rodríguez, in one of her early moves after taking power, signed a law that opens the nation’s oil sector to privatization and reversed a bedrock tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that had ruled the country for more than two decades.

Rubio said on X that the agreement would usher in $100 billion in private investment into Venezuela and lead to lower gas prices in the United States.

“This deal is a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people,” Rubio posted.

Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world, with an estimated 303 billion barrels of crude oil in the ground. That’s about 17% of the world’s supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Madhani and Binkley write for the Associated Press. Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas contributed to this report.