discrimination

RALEIGH, N.C. — An Army veteran has been charged with sharing classified information about an elite commando unit with a journalist, which one official said put the country, members of the U.S. military and the nation’s allies at risk.

Courtney Williams, 40, of Wagram, N.C., is accused of violating federal law, as well as multiple nondisclosure agreements, by sharing details of her work with a “special military unit” at Fort Bragg, N.C.

“Anyone divulging information they vowed to protect to a reporter for publication is reckless, self-serving and damages our nation’s security,” Reid Davis, the FBI special agent in charge in North Carolina, said in a U.S. Justice Department news release.

Williams “swore an oath to safeguard our nation’s secrets as an employee supporting a Special Military Unit of the Army, but she allegedly betrayed that oath by sharing classified information with a media outlet and putting our nation, our warfighters, and our allies at risk,” Roman Rozhavsky, an assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, said in the statement.

Williams, who is specifically charged with violating a provision of the Espionage Act, appeared Wednesday in Raleigh federal court, where a magistrate judge unsealed the case against her, initially filed late last week, according to online court records. She was ordered held by the U.S. Marshals Service pending hearings set for early next week.

Court records didn’t immediately name Williams’ lawyer. A man who answered a phone and identified himself as a family member of Williams declined to comment on the charges Wednesday.

Although the reporter and unit are not named in the court filings, dates and details match an article and book about the Army’s secretive Delta Force written by Seth Harp.

Williams was the focus of a 2025 Politico article with the headline: “My Life Became a Living Hell: One Woman’s Career in Delta Force, the Army’s Most Elite Unit.” It coincided with the release of Harp’s book, “The Fort Bragg Cartel,” which alleges sexual harassment and discrimination.

In a statement published by WRAL-TV, Harp called Williams “a brave whistleblower and truth-teller.”

“Former Delta Force operators disclose `national defense information’ on podcasts and YouTube shows every day, but the government is going after Courtney for the sole reason that she exposed sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the unit,” Harp’s statement read. “This is a vindictive act of retaliation, plain and simple.”

According to an FBI affidavit attached to the complaint, Williams was cleared as a defense contractor in April 2010 and became a Department of Defense employee in November 2010.

She performed duties within the special military unit as an operational support technician responsible for “Tactics, Techniques and Procedures” used in preparation for and during “sensitive missions,” Special Agent Jocelyn Fox wrote in the affidavit.

According to Fox, Williams’ access to classified information was suspended “based on an internal investigation.” Fox said Williams was debriefed in September 2015 and signed a nondisclosure agreement.

The government alleges that Williams had been in contact with the unnamed journalist between 2022 and 2025.

“During this period, Williams and the Journalist had over 10 hours of telephone calls and exchanged more than 180 messages,” the news release said.

Fox cited a text between the two she said occurred on or about the day the book and article were published.

“Other than a few factual errors, I would definitely have been concerned with the amount of classified information being disclosed,” Williams’ text read, according to the affidavit. “I thought things I was telling you so you could have a better general understanding of how the (SMU) was set up or operated would not be published and it feels like an entire TTP (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) was sent out in my name giving them a chance to legally persecute me.”

Fox also cited an alleged exchange between Williams and her mother.

”`I might actually get arrested, and I don’t even get a free copy of the book,’” the affidavit read. “When her mother asked why she may be arrested, Williams responded `for disclosing classified information.’”

Fox wrote that the investigation so far has identified at least 10 batches of documents gathered that Williams intended to provide to the journalist.

Breed and Robertson write for the Associated Press. AP writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

Southwest Airlines has come under fire for its controversial policy change which can require plus-size passengers to purchase an extra seat at the airline’s “sole discretion”, with furious travellers branding it “discrimination”

A so-called “fat tax” aimed at plus-size airline passengers has left travellers furious and feeling “stressed”. Major carrier Southwest Airlines has found itself at the centre of controversy over its contentious new policy, which can compel passengers to shell out for an additional seat at its “sole discretion”.

The policy change comes after 30 years of letting plus-sized passengers request a complimentary extra seat at the gate, and reimbursing those who purchased one in advance – a practice that has now been scrapped.

Under the new rules, customers will only receive a refund for a second seat if their flight departs with at least one empty seat, while those who failed to book ahead can be forced to purchase another ticket on the spot.

In a statement addressing the policy change, a Southwest spokesperson said: “To ensure space, we are communicating to customers who have previously used the extra seat policy that they should purchase it at booking.”

On the airline’s website, the updated “customer of size” policy reads: “Customers who encroach upon the neighboring seat(s) must purchase the number of seats needed. Customers should purchase the seats prior to travel to ensure adjacent seats are available.

“The armrest is considered to be the definitive boundary between seats; you may review information about the width of Passenger seats. In addition, Southwest may determine, in its sole discretion, that an additional seat is necessary for safety purposes.”

But passengers are far from happy. Influencer Samyra Miller turned to TikTok to criticise the policy, branding it a “fat tax”.

She said: “They’ve been doing this way before their little new policy was even supposed to go into effect because, remember, they kicked me off my flight in December.”

She revealed a Southwest representative privately messaged her after she shared her negative experience online and continued: “My primary concern with that whole back and forth with Southwest was for how they were about to treat their plus size customers in changing their customer of size policy.”

Samyra referred to the wording of the policy on the Southwest website but claimed, at the airport, “they’re just eyeing people”. The content creator went on: “There is no criteria that they are using to determine who has to pay for an extra seat.”

Describing it as “discrimination”, Samyra continued: “It is literally just at the discretion of and fatphobia of whoever is working that day.”

In the comments section, people were eager to share their opinions. One TikTok user said: “This is absolutely horrible!”

Another said: “We have a company trip in May and I told my boss to use any other airline BUT Southwest.”

A third posted: “I have a flight in 5 days I AM STRESSED I DON’T have more money to buy an extra seat”.

While another added: “This isn’t fair at all”.

Fellow TikTok user Sassa Ésmith uploaded a video prior to a Southwest flight and added text overlay which read: “Shoutout to Southwest for contributing to my traveling anxiety with your superfluous ‘customer of size policy'”.

In the caption, she said: “Spent my entire lobby time mentally preparing for a random gate agent to tell me I gotta buy an additional seat for a 40 minute flight”.

California and a coalition of other states sued the Trump administration Monday over its efforts to roll back fair housing rules that bar certain types of discrimination by landlords, including against LGBTQ+ people.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rule change threatening funding for states that offer housing protections for LGBTQ+ and other marginalized individuals who are not explicitly covered by federal law is illegal, undermines state efforts to combat discrimination and would push vulnerable people onto the streets.

“In effect, the Trump administration is attempting to roll back civil rights enforcement in housing at the federal level, and pressure states to weaken their own protections as well,” Bonta said during a news conference Monday. “That’s not just bad policy, it’s unlawful.”

Representatives from HUD and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The federal Fair Housing Act explicitly bans discrimination based on seven traits: race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability. Under rules set forth during the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has for years interpreted the law as banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Many states, including California, also have adopted laws explicitly banning discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups not mentioned in the federal law, with California also banning discrimination based on marital status, ancestry, source of income and veteran or military status.

In September, HUD issued new guidance threatening to decertify state housing agencies — stripping their federal funding and ability to investigate discrimination claims — if they provide anti-discrimination protections other than those spelled out in the Fair Housing Act. The guidance also barred state agencies from using federal funds to “promote gender ideology,” “fund or promote elective abortions” or promote illegal immigration, according to the lawsuit.

The guidance followed that of HUD Secretary Scott Turner, a former NFL player and Trump loyalist, who announced last year that HUD would no longer adhere to a 2016 Obama-era rule protecting transgender people from housing discrimination, which Turner said “tied housing programs, shelters and other facilities funded by HUD to far-left gender ideology.”

“We, at this agency, are carrying out the mission laid out by President Trump on January 20th [2025] when he signed an executive order to restore biological truth to the federal government,” Turner said in a statement, referring to Trump’s order calling on federal agencies across the government to rescind protections for transgender Americans.

“This means recognizing there are only two sexes: male and female,” Turner said. “It means getting government out of the way of what the Lord established from the beginning when he created man in His own image.”

Among other things, the administration said rules barring discrimination against transgender people allowed “biological men to enter shelters intended for women impacted by trauma, domestic abuse and violence.”

LGBTQ+ advocacy groups condemned the move, noting that transgender Americans face heightened discrimination in a slate of areas — including housing — and need protections. They also contended that HUD’s new policies violate a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision barring employment discrimination based on gender or gender identity.

Bonta said the Fair Housing Act “set a floor, not a ceiling, for protections against discrimination,” which means that states “have the authority to go further and protect more people,” as California has endeavored to do.

He said HUD has supported the state’s anti-discrimination work for decades through the Fair Housing Assistance Program, which provides funding to state and local agencies to investigate and enforce laws against housing discrimination. HUD’s new guidance “threatens to undermine that system” by demanding an end to state protections not just for LGBTQ+ people, but for military veterans, immigrants as well as women receiving abortions and other reproductive healthcare, he said.

“Families across California are already struggling to find homes they can afford, and the last thing they need is for the federal government to make it harder,” Bonta said. “At its core, this lawsuit is about protecting a fundamental civil right: the right to rent, buy, or live in housing without discrimination.”

Bonta said California interprets the Fair Housing Act’s ban on sex discrimination as protecting LGBTQ+ people, but the Trump administration doesn’t agree — making the state’s more explicit protections important.

He said about $3 million in federal funding is currently at stake for California, with millions more at stake in other states.

Illinois Atty. Gen. Kwame Raoul, who is helping lead the lawsuit and spoke alongside Bonta Monday, said states with robust antidiscrimination laws “will not go backwards and we will not give in to threats” from the Trump administration.

“These actions are part of a broader, ongoing pattern by this administration to subvert the legal protections our country has put in place to combat discrimination, and to tear down the hard fought progress we have made for civil rights,” Raoul said. “It is also just the latest page in the president’s illegal playbook to use funding and programs created by Congress to try to strong arm states into adopting Trump’s preferred policies.”

The states allege that HUD’s targeting of state antidiscrimination policies comes after it downsized its own workforce and significantly reduced its ability to investigate housing discrimination complaints and enforce fair housing laws. They say the new guidance violates multiple federal laws, including laws that govern federal spending and rule changes, and are asking the federal court to immediately invalidate the guidance as unlawful.

Bonta and Raoul are joined in the lawsuit by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.