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Kanye West, the rapper now known as Ye, is suing his former project manager and his lawyers, alleging they wrongfully put a $1.8 million lien on his former Malibu mansion.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, alleges that Tony Saxon, Ye’s former project manager on the property, and the law firm West Coast Trial Lawyers, “wrongfully” placed an “invalid” lien on the property “while simultaneously launching an aggressive publicity campaign designed to pressure Ye, chill prospective transactions, and extract payment on disputed claims already being litigated in court.”

Saxon’s lawyers were not immediately available for comment.

Saxon, who was also employed as West’s security guard and caretaker at the Malibu property, sued the controversial rapper in Los Angeles Superior Court in Sept. 2023, claiming a slate of labor violations, nonpayment of services and disability discrimination.

In Jan. 2024, Saxon placed the $1.8 million “mechanics” lien on the property in order to secure compensation for his work as project manager and construction-related services, according to court filings.

A mechanics lien, also referred to as a contractor’s lien, is usually filed by an unpaid contractor, laborer or supplier, as a hold against the property. If the party remains unpaid, it can prompt a foreclosure sale of the property to secure compensation.

Ye has denied Saxon’s allegations. In a Nov. 2023 response to the complaint, Ye disputed that Saxon “has sustained any injury, damage, or loss by reason of any act, omission or breach by Defendant.”

According to Ye’s recent complaint, he listed the property for sale in December 2023. A month later, he alleged, Saxon and his attorneys recorded the lien and “immediately” issued statements to the media.

The suit cites a statement Saxon’s attorney, Ronald Zambrano, made to Business Insider: “If someone wants to buy Kanye’s Malibu home, they will have to deal with us first. That sale cannot happen without Tony getting paid first.”

“These statements were designed to create public pressure and to interfere with the Plaintiffs’ ability to sell and finance the Property by falsely conveying that Defendants held an adjudicated, enforceable right to block a transaction and divert sale proceeds,” the complaint states.

The filing contends that last year the Los Angeles Superior Court granted Ye’s motion to release the lien from the bond and awarded him attorneys fees.

The Malibu property’s short existence has a long history of legal and financial drama.

In 2021, West purchased the beachfront concrete mansion — designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando — for $57.3 million. He then gutted the property on Malibu Road, reportedly saying “This is going to be my bomb shelter. This is going to be my Batcave.”

Three years later, the hip hop star sold the unfinished mansion (he had removed the windows, doors, electricity and plumbing and broke down walls), at a significant loss to developer Steven Belmont’s Belwood Investments for $21 million.

Belmont, who spent more money to renovate the home, had spent three years in prison after being charged with attempted murder for a pitchfork attack in Napa County. He promised to restore the architectural jewel to its former glory.

However, the property has been mired in various legal and financial entanglements including foreclosure threats.

Last August, the notorious mansion was once again put on the market with a $4.1 million price cut after a previous offer reportedly fell through, according to Realtor.com.

The legal battle surrounding Ye’s former Malibu pad is the latest in a series of public and legal dramas that the music impresario has been involved in recent years.

In 2022, the mercurial superstar lost numerous lucrative partnerships with companies like Adidas and the Gap, following a raft of antisemitic statements, including declaring himself a Nazi on X (which he later recanted).

Two years later, Ye abruptly shut down Donda Academy, the troubled private school he founded in 2020.

Ye, the school and some of his affiliated businesses faced faced multiple lawsuits from former employees and educators, alleging they were victims of wrongful termination, a hostile work environment and other claims.

In court filings, Ye has denied each of the claims made against him by former employees and educators at Donda.

Several of those suits have been settled.

Jan. 7 (UPI) — President Donald Trump‘s first pick to serve as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia has been ordered to explain why she is still using the title despite her appointment being ruled unlawful.

U.S. District Judge David Novak ordered Lindsey Halligan to give an explanation of her continued use of the U.S. attorney title within seven days. Novak said her use of the title, including in court documents, may amount to false or misleading statements.

False and misleading statements in a court of law can result in punishment, including charges of perjury, fines and imprisonment.

Halligan, a Trump loyalist, was the president’s original pick to serve in the Eastern District of Virginia last year. A federal judge determined that the Department of Justice illegally appointed Halligan and barred her from assuming the role.

U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ruled in November that Halligan was never eligible to hold the position of U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Her appointment had circumvented the standard appointment process, including a Senate confirmation. She also has no experience as a prosecutor.

Despite the ruling, the Justice Department has kept Halligan in office.

On Tuesday, Novak said that Halligan and the department cannot continue to ignore the ruling.

“It remains the binding precedent in this district and is not subject to being ignored,” Novak said in his order.

Erik Siebert, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia prior to Halligan’s appointment, resigned in September after refusing to prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James.

After her appointment, Halligan filed charges against James and former FBI Director James Comey, who investigated Trump’s ties to Russia during Trump’s first term.

Both cases were dismissed when Currie ruled that Halligan was not qualified for the U.S. attorney role.

Jan. 6 (UPI) — The man accused of vandalizing Vice President JD Vance’s home in Cincinnati has a history of mental health issues, his defense attorney said in court Tuesday.

William DeFoor, 26, was arrested and is accused of vandalizing the Vance home at 12:15 a.m. EST on Monday while the vice president and second lady Usha Vance were in Washington, D.C.

DeFoor’s attorney, Paul Laufman, made the mental health claim during his client’s arraignment hearing in Hamilton County Municipal Court on Tuesday.

Laufman said the vandalism was not politically motivated, and Judge Janaya Trotter Bratton ordered DeFoor to post an $11,000 bond to be released from custody.

DeFoor writes “peaceful” prose in his poems, and his using a hammer to damage a vehicle driven by a federal agent watching Vance’s home and then several windows on the home were not intended as a political statement, Laufman told the court.

“I just don’t think there’s anything political going on,” Laufman said.

DeFoor is accused of felony damage, criminal trespass, criminal damage and obstructing official business.

He has a history of mental health-related cases heard by the Hamilton County Mental Health Court and has been arrested multiple times for vandalism.

When DeFoor arrived outside of Vance’s home, he tried to break the windows of a Secret Service vehicle that was blocking the driveway, according to a criminal complaint filed by FBI Assistant Special Agent Gavin Hartsell.

A Secret Service agent and Cincinnati police announced their presence and ordered DeFoor to “stop and drop the weapon” he was holding, Hartsell wrote.

“DeFoor ignored all commands and began to use a hammer to break glass windows,” located on the front of Vance’s home, he said.

Hartsell described the windows as “large, historic windows” that contained “enhanced security assets” owned by the federal government. He estimated the cost of damage at $28,000.

Vance on Monday said a “crazy person tried to break in by hammering the windows” on his family’s home and thanked the Secret Service and Cincinnati police for quickly responding to the matter in a social media post.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a March presidential memorandum to revoke the security clearance of prominent Washington attorney Mark Zaid, ruling that the order — which also targeted 14 other individuals — could not be applied to him.

The decision marked the administration’s second legal setback on Tuesday, after the Supreme Court declined to allow Trump to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area, capping a first year in office in which President Trump’s efforts to impose a sweeping agenda and pursue retribution against political adversaries have been repeatedly slowed by the courts.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington granted Zaid’s request for a preliminary injunction, after he sued the Trump administration in May over the revocation of his security clearance. Zaid’s request called it an act of “improper political retribution” that jeopardized his ability to continue representing clients in sensitive national security cases.

The March presidential memorandum singled out Zaid and 14 other individuals who the White House asserted were unsuitable to retain their clearances because it was “no longer in the national interest.” The list included targets of Trump’s fury from both the political and legal spheres, including former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former President Joe Biden and members of his family.

The action was part of a much broader retribution campaign that Trump has waged since returning to the White House, including directing specific Justice Department investigations against perceived adversaries and issuing sweeping executive orders targeting law firms over legal work he does not like.

In August, the Trump administration said it was revoking the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials. Ordering the revocation of clearances has been a favored retributive tactic that Trump has wielded — or at least tried to — against high-profile political figures, lawyers and intelligence officials in his second term.

Zaid said in his lawsuit that he has represented clients across the political spectrum over nearly 35 years, including government officials, law enforcement and military officials and whistleblowers. In 2019, he represented an intelligence community whistleblower whose account of a conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy helped set the stage for the first of two impeachment cases against Trump in his first term.

“This court joins the several others in this district that have enjoined the government from using the summary revocation of security clearances to penalize lawyers for representing people adverse to it,” Ali wrote in his order.

Ali emphasized that his order does not prevent the government from revoking or suspending Zaid’s clearance for reasons independent of the presidential memorandum and through normal agency processes. The preliminary injunction does not go into effect until January 13.

Zaid said in a statement, “This is not just a victory for me, it’s an indictment of the Trump administration’s attempts to intimidate and silence the legal community, especially lawyers who represent people who dare to question or hold this government accountable.”

Cappelletti writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

The University of Oklahoma has fired an instructor who was accused by a student of religious discrimination over a failing grade on a psychology paper in which she cited the Bible and argued that promoting a “belief in multiple genders” was “demonic.”

The university said in a statement posted Monday on X that its investigation found the graduate teaching assistant had been “arbitrary” in giving 20-year-old junior Samantha Fulnecky zero points on the assignment. The university declined to comment beyond its statement, which said the instructor had been removed from teaching.

Through her attorney, the instructor, Mel Curth, denied Tuesday that she had “engaged in any arbitrary behavior regarding the student’s work.” The attorney, Brittany Stewart, said in a statement emailed to the Associated Press that Curth is “considering all of her legal remedies.”

Conservative groups, commentators and others quickly made Fulnecky’s failing grade an online cause, highlighting her argument that she’d been punished for expressing conservative Christian views. Her case became a flashpoint in the ongoing debate over academic freedom on college campuses as President Trump pushes to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and restrict how campuses discuss race, gender and sexuality.

Fulnecky appealed her grade on the assignment, which was worth 3% of the final grade in the class, and the university said the assignment would not count. It also placed Curth on leave, and Oklahoma’s conservative Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, declared the situation “deeply concerning.”

“The University of Oklahoma believes strongly in both its faculty’s rights to teach with academic freedom and integrity and its students’ right to receive an education that is free from a lecturer’s impermissible evaluative standards,” the university’s statement said. “We are committed to teaching students how to think, not what to think.”

A law approved this year by Oklahoma’s Republican-dominated Legislature and signed by Stitt prohibits state universities from using public funds to finance DEI programs or positions or mandating DEI training. However, the law says it does not apply to scholarly research or “the academic freedom of any individual faculty member.”

Home telephone listings for Fulnecky in the Springfield, Mo., area had been disconnected, and her mother — an attorney, podcaster and radio host — did not immediately respond Tuesday to a Facebook message seeking comment about the university’s action.

Fulnecky’s failing grade came in an assignment for a psychology class on lifespan development. Curth directed students to write a 650-word response to an academic study that examined whether conformity with gender norms was associated with popularity or bullying among middle school students.

Fulnecky wrote that she was frustrated by the premise of the assignment because she does not believe that there are more than two genders based on her understanding of the Bible, according to a copy of her essay provided to The Oklahoman.

“Society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth,” she wrote, adding that it would lead society “farther from God’s original plan for humans.”

In feedback obtained by the newspaper, Curth said the paper did “not answer the questions for the assignment,” contradicted itself, relied on “personal ideology” over evidence and “is at times offensive.”

“Please note that I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs,” Curth wrote.

Hanna writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Attorneys for President Trump urged a federal judge on Friday to rule that Trump is entitled to presidential immunity from civil claims that he instigated a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta didn’t rule from the bench after hearing arguments from Trump attorneys and lawyers for Democratic members of Congress who sued the Republican president and allies over the Jan. 6. 2021, attack.

Trump spoke to a crowd of his supporters at the “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House before the mob’s attack disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Trump’s attorneys argue that his conduct leading up to Jan. 6 and on the day of the riot is protected by presidential immunity because he was acting in his official capacity.

“The entire point of immunity is to give the president clarity to speak in the moment as the commander-in-chief,” Trump attorney Joshua Halpern told the judge.

The lawmakers’ lawyers argue Trump can’t prove he was acting entirely in his official capacity rather than as an office-seeking private individual. And the U.S. Supreme Court has held that office-seeking conduct falls outside the scope of presidential immunity, they contend.

“President Trump has the burden of proof here,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Joseph Sellers. “We submit that he hasn’t come anywhere close to satisfying that burden.”

At the end of Friday’s hearing, Mehta said the arguments gave him “a lot to think about” and he would rule “as soon as we can.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chaired the House Homeland Security Committee, sued Trump, his personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani and members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers extremist groups over the Jan. 6 riot. Other Democratic members of Congress later joined the litigation.

The civil claims survived Trump’s sweeping act of clemency on the first day of his second term, when he pardoned, commuted prison sentences and ordered the dismissal of all 1,500-plus criminal cases stemming from the Capitol siege. Over 100 police officers were injured while defending the Capitol from rioters.

Halpern said immunity enables the president to act “boldly and fearlessly.”

“Immunity exists to protect the president’s prerogatives,” he said.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers argue that the context and circumstances of the president’s remarks on Jan. 6 — not just the content of his words — are key to establishing whether he is immune from liability.

“You have to look at what happened leading up to January 6th,” Sellers said.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

MILWAUKEE — A jury found a Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant dodge federal authorities guilty of obstruction Thursday, marking a victory for President Trump as he continues his sweeping immigration crackdown across the country.

Federal prosecutors charged Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan with obstruction, a felony, and concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor, in April. The jury acquitted her on the concealment count, but she still faces up to five years in prison on the obstruction count.

The jury returned the verdicts after deliberating for six hours. Dugan faces up to five years in prison when she’s sentenced, but no date had been set as of late Thursday evening.

The case inflamed tensions over Trump’s immigration crackdown, with his administration branding Dugan an activist judge and Democrats countering that the administration was trying to make an example of Dugan to blunt judicial opposition to the operation.

Dugan and her attorneys left the courtroom, ducked into a side conference room and closed the door without speaking to reporters. Steve Biskupic, her lead attorney, later told reporters that he was disappointed with the ruling and didn’t understand how the jury could have reached a split verdict since the elements of both charges were virtually the same.

U.S. Atty. Brad Schimel denied the case was political and urged people to accept the verdict peacefully. He said courthouse arrests are safer because people are screened for weapons and it isn’t unfair for law enforcement to arrest wanted people in courthouses.

“Some have sought to make this about a larger political battle,” Schimel said. “While this case is serious for all involved, it is ultimately about a single day, a single bad day, in a public courthouse. The defendant is certainly not evil. Nor is she a martyr for some greater cause.”

U.S. Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche praised the verdict on X, saying nobody is above the law, even judges.

According to court filings that include an FBI affidavit and a federal grand jury indictment, immigration authorities traveled to the Milwaukee County courthouse on April 18 after learning 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

Dugan learned that agents were in the corridor outside her courtroom waiting for Flores-Ruiz. She left the courtroom to confront them, falsely telling them their administrative warrant for Flores-Ruiz wasn’t sufficient grounds to arrest him and directing them to go to the chief judge’s office.

While the agents were gone, she addressed Flores-Ruiz’s case off the record, told his attorney that he could attend his next hearing via Zoom and led Flores-Ruiz and the attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in November he had been deported.

Prosecutors worked during Dugan’s trial to show that she directed agents to the chief judge’s office to create an opening for Flores-Ruiz to escape.

An FBI agent who led the investigation testified that after agents left the corridor, she immediately moved Flores-Ruiz’s case to the top of her docket, told him that he could appear for his next hearing via Zoom and led him out the private door.

Prosecutors also played audio recordings from her courtroom in which she can be heard telling her court reporter that she’d take “the heat” for leading Flores-Ruiz out the back.

Her attorneys countered that she was trying to follow courthouse protocols that called for court employees to report any immigration agents to their supervisors and she didn’t intentionally try to obstruct the arrest team.

Richmond writes for the Associated Press.

Republicans and Democrats squared off in court Monday in a high-stakes battle over the fate of California’s Proposition 50, which reconfigures the state’s congressional districts and could ultimately help determine which party controls the U.S. House in the 2026 midterms.

Dozens of California politicians and Sacramento insiders — from GOP Assembly members to Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell — have been called to testify in a Los Angeles federal courtroom over the next few days.

The GOP wants the three-judge panel to temporarily block California’s new district map, claiming it is unconstitutional and illegally favors Latino voters.

An overwhelming majority of California voters approved Prop. 50 on Nov. 4 after Gov. Gavin Newsom pitched the redistricting plan as a way to counter partisan gerrymandering in Texas and other GOP-led states. Democrats admitted the new map would weaken Republicans’ voting power in California, but argued it would just be a temporary measure to try to restore national political balance.

Attorneys for the GOP cannot challenge the new redistricting map on the grounds that it disenfranchises swaths of California Republicans. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that complaints of partisan gerrymandering have no path in federal court.

But the GOP can bring claims of racial discrimination. They argue California legislators drew the new congressional maps based on race, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment, which prohibits governments from denying citizens the right to vote based on race or color.

On Monday, attorneys for the GOP began by homing in on the new map’s Congressional District 13, which currently encompasses Merced, Stanislaus, and parts of San Joaquin and Fresno counties, along with parts of Stockton.

When Mitchell drew up the map, they argued, he over-represented Latino voters as a “predominant consideration” over political leanings.

They called to the stand RealClearPolitics elections analyst Sean Trende, who said he observed an “appendage” in the new District 13, which extended partially into the San Joaquin Valley and put a crack in the new rendition of District 9.

“From my experience [appendages] are usually indicative of racial gerrymandering,” Trende said. “When the choice came between politics and race, it was race that won out.”

Republicans face an uphill struggle in blocking the new map before the 2026 midterms. The hearing comes just a few weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Texas to temporarily keep its new congressional map — a move that Newsom’s office says bodes poorly for Republicans trying to block California’s map.

“In letting Texas use its gerrymandered maps, the Supreme Court noted that California’s maps, like Texas’s, were drawn for lawful reasons,” Brandon Richards, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in a statement. “That should be the beginning and the end of this Republican effort to silence the voters of California.”

In Texas, GOP leaders drew up new congressional district lines after President Trump openly pressed them to give Republicans five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. A federal court blocked the map, finding racial considerations likely made the Texas map unconstitutional. But a few days later the Supreme Court granted Texas’ request to pause that ruling, signaling they view the Texas case, and this one in California, as part of a national politically-motivated redistricting battle.

“The impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California),” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. argued, “was partisan advantage pure and simple.”

The fact that the Supreme Court order and Alito’s concurrence in the Texas case went out of their way to mention California is not a good sign for California Republicans, said Richard L. Hasen, professor of law and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law.

“It’s hard to prove racial predominance in drawing a map — that race predominated over partisanship or other traditional districting principles,” Hasen said. “Trying to get a preliminary injunction, there’s a higher burden now, because it would be changing things closer to the election, and the Supreme Court signaled in that Texas ruling that courts should be wary of making changes.”

Many legal scholars argue that the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Texas case means California will likely keep its new map.

“It was really hard before the Texas case to make a racial gerrymandering claim like the plaintiffs were stating, and it’s only gotten harder in the last two weeks,” said Justin Levitt, a professor of law at Loyola Marymount University.

Hours after Californians voted in favor of Prop. 50 on Nov. 4, Assemblymember David J. Tangipa (R-Fresno) and the California Republican Party filed a lawsuit alleging that the map enacted in Prop. 50 for California’s congressional districts is designed to favor Latino voters over others.

The Department of Justice also filed a complaint in the case, arguing the new congressional map uses race as a proxy for politics and manipulated district lines “in the name of bolstering the voting power of Hispanic Californians because of their race.”

Mitchell, the redistricting expert who drew up the maps, is likely to be a key figure in this week’s battle. In the days leading up to the hearing, attorneys sparred over whether Mitchell would testify and whether he should turn over his email correspondence with legislators. Mitchell’s attorneys argued he had legislative privilege.

Attorneys for the GOP have seized on public comments made by Mitchell that the “number one thing” he started thinking about” was “drawing a replacement Latino majority/minority district in the middle of Los Angeles” and the “first thing” he and his team did was “reverse” the California Citizens Redistricting Commission’s earlier decision to eliminate a Latino district from L.A.

Some legal experts, however, say that is not, in itself, a problem.

“What [Mitchell] said was, essentially, ‘I paid attention to race,’” Levitt said. “But there’s nothing under existing law that’s wrong with that. The problem comes when you pay too much attention to race at the exclusion of all of the other redistricting factors.”

Other legal experts argue that what matters is not the intent of Mitchell or California legislators, but the California voters who passed Prop. 50.

“Regardless of what Paul Mitchell or legislative leaders thought, they were just making a proposal to the voters,” said Hasen, who filed an amicus brief in support of the state. “So it’s really the voters’ intent that matters. And if you look at what was actually presented to the voters in the ballot pamphlet, there was virtually nothing about race there.”