lawsuit

A former executive at Live Nation, the world’s largest live entertainment company, is suing the company, alleging that he was wrongfully terminated after he raised concerns about alleged financial misconduct and improper accounting practices.

Nicholas Rumanes alleges he was “fraudulently induced” in 2022 to leave a lucrative position as head of strategic development at a real estate investment trust to create a new role as executive vice president of development and business practice at Beverly Hills-based Live Nation.

In his new position, Rumanes said, he raised “serious and legitimate alarm” over the the company’s business practices.

As a result, he says, he was “unlawfully terminated,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

“Rumanes was, simply put, promised one job and forced to accept another. And then he was cut loose for insisting on doing that lesser job with integrity and honesty,” according to the lawsuit.

He is seeking $35 million in damages.

Representatives for Live Nation were not immediately available for comment.

The lawsuit comes a week after a federal jury in Manhattan found that Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary had operated a monopoly over major concert venues, controlling 86% of the concert market.

Rumanes’ lawsuit describes a “culture of deception” at Live Nation, saying its “basic business model was to misstate and exaggerate financial figures in efforts to solicit and secure business.”

Such practices “spanned a wide spectrum of projects in what appeared to be a company-wide pattern of financial misrepresentation and misleading disclosures,” the lawsuit states.

Rumanes says he received materials and documents that showed that the company inflated projected revenues across multiple venue development projects.

Additionally, Rumanes contends that the company violated a federal law that requires independent financial auditing and transparency and instead ran Live Nation “through a centralized, opaque structure” that enables it to “bypass oversight and internal checks and balances.”

In 2010, as a condition of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, the newly formed company agreed to a consent decree with the government that prohibited the firm from threatening venues to use Ticketmaster. In 2019 the Justice Department found that the company had repeatedly breached the agreement, and it extended the decree.

Rumanes contends that he brought his concerns to the attention of the company’s management, but his warnings were “repeatedly ignored.”

April 17 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday blocked a lawsuit against the state of Hawaii that the federal government filed to prevent it from suing oil companies.

The Department of Justice last year sued Hawaii to stop a suit against fossil fuel companies for the impact of climate change on the state, but Senior Judge Helen Gillmor of the U.S. District Court in Hawaii said they it has no standing, The Hill and The New York Times reported.

In the ruling, Gillmor said that an “abstract, theoretical future harm” is not a valid basis for a lawsuit because stating an intention to file suit — which the state’s governor declared on television that he planned to do — does not amount to “concrete harm” that would allow an entity to sue.

Gillmor blocked the lawsuit because the DOJ’s theory of harm would require predicting claims brought against unknown companies; predicting that the lawsuit would be successful; “guessing” that oil companies would react in specific way; and then hypothesizing that the reaction would somehow harm the United States’ commerce and future energy policy, she wrote in the 30-page decision.

The DOJ’s suit, which was filed by now-former Attorney General Pam Bondi, alleged that Hawaii’s action was a “burdensome and ideologically motivated” lawsuit that could cause “crippling damages” with the energy and climate policies the state allegedly is pursuing.

“We disagree with the Hawaii District Court’s ruling, which ignored Supreme Court precedent regarding the United States’ interest in the supremacy of federal law,” the DOJ’s principal deputy assistant attorney general Adam Gustafson said in a statement. “We are exploring all options.”

Court filings have indicated that lawyers for President Donald Trump are seeking a resolution with the Department of Justice over a $10bn lawsuit he filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

But the trouble, critics say, is that such a settlement would leave Trump essentially negotiating with an executive branch under his control.

Friday’s court filing, however, emphasises the efficiency of seeking a settlement.

In the document, Trump’s lawyers call for the case to be paused for 90 days to allow a resolution to be hammered out.

“This limited pause will neither prejudice the parties nor delay ultimate resolution,” the filing says. “Rather, the extension will promote judicial economy and allow the Parties to explore avenues that could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently.”

How did the case start?

The case stems from an incident that began in 2017, when a worker named Charles “Chaz” Littlejohn was re-hired as a contractor through the government consulting firm Booz Allen.

While working on IRS files, Littlejohn stole copies of Trump’s tax returns, which had been the source of prolonged public scrutiny.

Until Trump, every president since Richard Nixon had released their tax returns as a gesture of transparency. Trump, however, claimed he could not, citing ongoing audits.

The tax returns Littlejohn stole were ultimately released to the media, and in 2020, The New York Times released a series of articles that showed Trump paid no income taxes in 10 of the 15 preceding years.

Other years, he paid relatively small sums, like $750, because he reported more losses than gains. ProPublica also ran stories based on the leaked tax returns, highlighting inconsistencies and Trump’s low tax payments.

Privacy law protects taxpayer information from being released by the IRS without explicit permission. Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison in 2024.

But in late January of this year, Trump filed a lawsuit arguing that he, his businesses and his sons Eric and Donald Jr had suffered “significant and irreparable harm” from the leaks.

The defendants in the lawsuit were the IRS and its overseeing body, the Treasury Department, both of which are part of the executive branch.

“Defendants have caused Plaintiffs reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing,” the lawsuit reads.

Questions of ethics and legality

But experts have warned that the lawsuit contains flaws that would normally prompt the Justice Department, also under Trump’s control, to seek dismissal.

The lawsuit, for instance, arrives at its whopping $10bn sum by supposedly tallying up media references to Trump’s leaked tax returns.

However, experts say the formula for damages is calculated by the number of unauthorised disclosures by a government employee, not by media re-printings.

Then there is the question of Littlejohn’s employment status. He was an outside contractor, not a government employee.

Trump also has to contend with the two-year statute of limitations in the case. The lawsuit contends that “President Trump did not discover the numerous violations” of his tax returns until January 29, 2024.

But critics point out he had posted on social media about his tax information being “illegally obtained” as far back as 2020, when The New York Times published its series.

Opponents say the lawsuit should be dismissed or at least delayed until Trump is no longer president. Otherwise, they argue it represents a conflict of interest, with Trump fundamentally negotiating with his own administration for a payout.

Controlling ‘both sides of the litigation’

Trump himself has acknowledged that such a payment would “never look good”. But he has justified the sum by saying it would be donated to charity.

“Nobody would care because it’s going to go to numerous very good charities,” he said in February.

Even that, legal experts argue, could run afoul of the Emoluments Clause in the US Constitution, which prohibits the president from profiting off his position, apart from his salary.

Government watchdogs have attempted to stop a settlement from unfolding. On February 5, for instance, the group Democracy Forward filed an amicus brief arguing the court should act to prevent an abuse of power.

“This case is extraordinary because the President controls both sides of the litigation, which raises the prospect of collusive litigation tactics,” the brief explains.

“To treat this case like business as usual would threaten the integrity of the justice system and the important taxpayer and privacy protections at the heart of this case.”

But the $10bn IRS lawsuit is not the only case Trump is seeking to settle with his own government. In 2023 and 2024, Trump filed administrative complaints seeking compensation for federal investigations he considered to be unfair.

One complaint concerns an FBI investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the other is about the FBI’s raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate after he refused a subpoena to return classified documents.

For those complaints, Trump is reportedly seeking additional damages to the tune of $230m.

A federal judge has blocked Nexstar Media Group’s $6.2-billion acquisition of its rival, upending the already consummated union of the nation’s two largest television station groups.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Troy L. Nunley on Friday issued a preliminary injunction that forbids Nexstar, which owns KTLA-TV Channel 5 in Los Angeles, and its takeover-target, Tegna Inc., from combining operations amid a legal dispute with California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and seven other state attorneys general.

The order takes effect Tuesday.

“Nexstar must permit Tegna to continue operating as a separate and distinct, independently managed business unit from Nexstar,” Nunley wrote in his 52-page order. “And Nexstar must put measures in place to maintain Tegna as an ongoing, economically viable, and active competitor.”

The injunction is Nexstar’s latest setback in the controversial deal championed by President Trump.

Bonta and the others are opposed to the merger, arguing it violates a 112-year-old U.S. antitrust law by knocking out a major competitor. The deal would give Irving, Texas-based Nexstar control of 265 television stations across the country, up from 164. And, in dozens of markets, including San Diego and Sacramento, Nexstar would own multiple TV network affiliates.

That duplication has raised concerns about staff consolidations and widespread newsroom layoffs.

“This is a critical win in our case,” Bonta said in a statement. “This merger is illegal, plain and simple. The federal government may have thrown in the towel, but we’ll keep fighting for consumers, for workers, for affordability and for our local news.”

Nexstar, in a statement, said that it will appeal the ruling, but that it has taken steps to comply with the court order.

“For nearly thirty years, Nexstar has provided free over-the-air access to all its broadcast stations — local news, weather, and community-focused programming alongside major network programming,” Nexstar said. “This procompetitive transaction will make local stations stronger and support continued investment in local journalism and fact-based news.”

Bonta and other state attorneys general sued to block the merger March 18. The state officials, all Democrats, alleged the union would create “a broadcast behemoth” with the “power to raise prices for television consumers” and diminish “local news and sports,” their lawsuit stated.

El Segundo-based DirecTV separately sued. It alleged the merger would dramatically tilt the pay-TV playing field, forcing DirecTV to pay dramatically higher fees for the rights to carry Nexstar-Tegna station programming, including local news and NFL football. Those costs, DirecTV said, would be passed along to its 10 million customers.

Trump had been agitating for the deal, writing in a February social media post: “GET THAT DEAL DONE!”

On March 19, the day after the lawsuits, the Trump administration approved the deal. The U.S. Justice Department terminated its antitrust review and the Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau authorized the transfer of Tegna’s station licenses to Nexstar.

Within an hour, Nexstar announced that it had finalized the purchase of its McLean, Va.-based rival.

Tegna was dissolved and its stockholders were paid out — raising questions about the fate of Tegna’s stations.

“Nexstar must not influence the management of the held-separate TEGNA business unit,” Nunley wrote. “Tegna personnel must maintain control over Tegna’s decisionmaking, including … negotiations [with pay-TV partners], newsroom personnel, operations and programming, product and service offerings, product development, advertisement sales, and personnel.”

Nexstar has complained about the unusual nature of blocking a transaction after-the-fact. But the plaintiffs noted that Nexstar had been aware of the state attorneys general concerns since at least March 10 — more than a week before DirecTV and the state regulators sued.

Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia have joined California in the lawsuit.

The merger was not approved by the full FCC commission, prompting two U.S. senators — Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) — to question the FCC’s handling of the matter.

“This decision raises serious concerns about the Commission’s use of delegated authority in matters involving significant legal, policy, and economic consequences,” the two lawmakers wrote in a March 30 letter to the FCC. “The transaction is unprecedented in scale, resulting in the largest local broadcast television group in U.S. history.”

Nexstar has built itself into a colossus through a series of acquisitions, including its $6.2-billion takeover of Tribune Broadcasting, the longtime owner of KTLA, in 2019 — during the first Trump term.

Opponents have argued that Nexstar’s proposed purchase of Tegna gives Nexstar stations in 44 states covering 80% of the U.S. population — exceeding a 39% ownership cap set by Congress.

DirecTV has argued that the combination of the nation’s two largest television station groups could harm its pay-TV business by raising prices for consumers and potentially increasing programming blackouts.

The judge late last month combined the two lawsuits.

During a two-hour hearing earlier this month, Nexstar attorneys argued against the injunction, saying it had obtained the necessary federal approvals to take control of the Tegna stations.

“Setting aside the unusual FCC clearance process here, the Court does not find Defendants’ arguments persuasive,” Nunley wrote.

Nexstar contends the deal would strengthen TV station economics, allowing stations to bolster their news gathering and expand the number of newscasts. But DirecTV countered that in markets where Nexstar owns two stations, it relies on just one newsroom to program both channels.

“We commend the Court’s decision, which reinforces the coalition of states’ and our shared belief that unchecked station consolidation will force consumers to pay more for less by reducing the quality and variety of local news coverage,” DirecTV said in a statement.

Nexstar attorney Alexander Okuliar said the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the merger posed an immediate threat to the public.

Nunley, who was appointed by former President Obama, wrote in his order that the plaintiffs demonstrated they had a path to prevail at a trial due to the merits of their arguments.

Nexstar had asked the judge to require the plaintiffs to post a $150-million bond to compensate it for damages it would suffer from any delays in closing the deal.

But the judge denied that request, writing that Nexstar did not offer a “financial analysis or documentary evidence to support a bond in this amount” or any evidence that it would incur financial losses should the injunction be overturned.

WASHINGTON — Lawyers for President Trump are engaged in talks with the IRS to resolve a $10-billion lawsuit the president filed against his own tax collection agency over the leak of his tax information to news outlets between 2018 and 2020.

In a federal court filing Friday, Trump asks a judge to pause the case for 90 days while the two sides work to reach a settlement or resolution.

“This limited pause will neither prejudice the parties nor delay ultimate resolution,” the filing says. “Rather, the extension will promote judicial economy and allow the Parties to explore avenues that could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently.”

Tax and ethics experts say the lawsuit raises a plethora of legal and ethical questions, including the propriety of the leader of the executive branch pursuing scorched-earth litigation against the very government he oversees.

Earlier this year, Trump filed a lawsuit in a Florida federal court, alleging that a previous leak of his and the Trump Organization’s confidential tax records caused “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”

The president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, are also plaintiffs in the suit.

In 2024, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn, of Washington — who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense and national security tech firm — was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking tax information about President Trump and others to two news outlets between 2018 and 2020.

The outlets were not named in the charging documents, but the description and time frame align with stories about Trump’s tax returns in the New York Times and reporting about wealthy Americans’ taxes in the nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica. The 2020 New York Times report found Trump paid $750 in federal income tax the year he first entered the White House, and no income tax at all some years, thanks to reported colossal losses.

When asked in February how he would handle any potential damages from the case, Trump said, “I think what we’ll do is do something for charity.”

“We could make it a substantial amount,” he said at the time. “Nobody would care because it’s going to go to numerous very good charities.”

Several ethics watchdog groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs challenging the president’s lawsuit.

The watchdog group Democracy Forward’s February filing states that the case is “extraordinary because the President controls both sides of the litigation, which raises the prospect of collusive litigation tactics,” and “the conflicts of interest make it uncertain whether the Department of Justice will zealously defend the public fisc in the same way that it has against other plaintiffs claiming damages for related events.”

Hussein writes for the Associated Press.

Ye, the controversial rapper formerly known as Kanye West, faces more legal backlash amid his latest efforts to mount a comeback.

The Grammy-winning “Bully” and “All of the Lights” musician, 48, has been accused of battery and intentional inflection of distress in a lawsuit submitted Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. An alleged altercation in April 2024 involving Ye and a man — identified in court documents as John Doe — is at the core of the complaint. The civil suit, reviewed by The Times, accuses Ye of punching Doe in the face and repeatedly punching him while he was unconscious, leading Doe to suffer “serious” physical injuries, incur medical expenses and experience a blow to his professional reputation.

Doe seeks a jury trial and is suing for an unspecified amount in damages including loss of earnings.

A representative for Ye did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The complaint resurfaces allegations that Ye punched a man in the late evening of April 16, 2024, in West Hollywood. At the time, TMZ reported the “Vultures” musician got physical after the unnamed man allegedly grabbed his wife, Bianca Censori, at Chateau Marmont. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that officers had responded to the 8200 block of Sunset Boulevard at around 12:30 a.m. for a “battery investigation” but did not confirm the suspect’s identity. A representative for Ye at the time denied the rapper was a suspect in the battery case and claimed in an email that “police aren’t even investigating.”

The complaint describes the unidentified plaintiff as someone whose business relies on “personal reputation, professional relationships, and public perceptions.” Ye’s accuser is also willing to disclose his identity, the filing said, under “an appropriate protective order,” though numerous outlets reported on the victim’s suspected identity around the original incident two years ago.

According to the suit, the altercation began when Ye approached the plaintiff’s table and punched him in the face, knocking the accuser “to the ground where he hit his head and lost consciousness.” Ye allegedly proceeded to “repeatedly” punch the man as he lay on the ground, the complaint says. The plaintiff said he did nothing to provoke the rapper’s “cowardly” attack, adding that the musician “acted with malice and oppression.”

The lawsuit alleges Ye fled the scene to the protection of his security detail, leaving his accuser injured on the floor. After the incident, Ye also allegedly “falsely” accused the plaintiff of inappropriate behavior toward a woman in his party. Ye then allegedly “embellished” his claims against the plaintiff during his appearance on a “widely viewed” podcast, though the lawsuit does not explicitly name the program.

“These false statements were republished and circulated widely across social media platforms,” the lawsuit says, “exposing Plaintiff to public scorn, suspicion, and ridicule.”

In a footnote, the plaintiff clarified that his brother was also present at the time of the incident and that neither of them engaged in inappropriate conduct toward the unidentified woman. The lawsuit also mentioned the existence of video from the scene of the alleged attack.

The lawsuit said the plaintiff has suffered “severe emotional distress, including anxiety, humiliation, loss of standing in his community and harm to his professional relationships” as a result of his squabble with Ye.

The latest allegations against Ye come less than two weeks after he delivered his first full live performance in Los Angeles since 2021 at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium on April 3. Notably, Ye fell out of public favor in recent years for a number antisemitic controversies including threatening violence to Jewish people on social media and selling T-shirts emblazoned with swastikas. He issued an apology for the scandals in January, taking out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal that attributed his behavior to his bipolar disorder.

Dismissed lawsuit follows Wall Street Journal’s report on a letter allegedly signed by Trump for Epstein’s 50th birthday.

A United States federal judge has dismissed US President Donald Trump’s $10bn defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its owner Rupert Murdoch over a story on Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Miami-based ‌US District Judge Darrin Gayles said on Monday that Trump did not meet the “actual malice” standard that public figures must clear in defamation cases.

That means public figures must prove not only that a public statement about them was false, but also that the media outlet or person who made the statement ‌acted with reckless disregard for the truth or should have known that it was false.

“This complaint comes nowhere close to this standard,” Gayles wrote. “Quite the opposite.”

The judge noted that reporters from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reached out to Trump for comment beforehand and printed his denial. That allowed readers to decide for themselves what to conclude, cutting against Trump’s assertion that the newspaper acted with actual malice, the judge said.

Gayles said Trump could file an amended version of ⁠the lawsuit by April 27.

In ⁠his lawsuit, Trump called a birthday greeting that he allegedly sent to Epstein, a convicted sex offender, a “fake”. The US president sought $10bn for what he called damage to ‌his reputation. News Corp’s Dow Jones & Company, the WSJ’s parent company, defended the accuracy of its July ‌17, ‌2025 article.

Trump filed the lawsuit after promising to sue the paper almost immediately after it put a new spotlight on his well-documented relationship with Epstein by publishing an article that described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper said bore Trump’s signature and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday.

The letter was subsequently released publicly by the US Congress, which subpoenaed the records from Epstein’s estate.

The ruling marks yet another blow in the Trump administration’s efforts to manage fallout over its release of the Epstein files and the president’s attempts to use the legal system to curb reporting that he finds critical of him.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request by AP for comment.

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice seeking Massachusetts’ state voter rolls, marking the latest setback in a wide-ranging effort by the Trump administration to collect detailed data on the nation’s voters.

The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin marks at least the fifth time a judge has rejected similar attempts by the Justice Department. Sorokin, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said the U.S. attorney general’s office did not take the necessary steps required to access voter rolls, as outlined in federal law.

“Put simply, the statute requires a statement of why the Attorney General demands production of the requested records,” Sorokin wrote. That statement has to be factual, “not just a conceivable or possible basis.”

In an emailed response, the Justice Department said it “does not comment on ongoing litigation.”

It has said it’s seeking the voter data as part of an effort to ensure election security, but Democratic and Republican officials in several states have refused, saying the demand violates state and federal privacy laws. Some have raised concerns that federal officials will use the sensitive data for other purposes, such as searching for potential noncitizens.

During a hearing last month in Rhode Island, a Justice Department attorney told a federal judge that the department was seeking unredacted voter roll information so it could be shared with the Department of Homeland Security to check citizenship status. Homeland Security over the past year has beefed up the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, program, for just this purpose.

“Our intention is to run this against the DHS SAVE database,” Department of Justice attorney Eric Neff told U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy during a March 26 hearing challenging the federal government’s authority to access the voter data.

The Justice Department has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking to force release of the data, which includes dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

At least 12 states have either provided or promised to provide their detailed voter registration lists to the department, according to the Brennan Center: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

In the Massachusetts case, the the judge found that the Justice Department failed to follow the requirements for demanding the voter rolls set by a 1960 civil rights law.

That law, enacted as part of an effort to end racial discrimination in elections, says state voter records must be made available for inspection by the U.S. attorney general if the office includes a statement outlining why the information is being demanded and how it will be used.

The department’s letter demanding Massachusetts’ voter data made no reference to the Civil Rights Act and didn’t cite any concerns about the way Massachusetts complied with federal voting laws, the judge said. Most importantly, it didn’t include any factual basis for the demand, Sorokin wrote.

In court documents, the Justice Department said it was demanding the data to check for “Massachusetts’ possible lack of compliance” with federal voter registration list requirements. It also said the Civil Rights Act was designed to be an investigatory tool to identify federal election law violations and argued that the U.S. attorney general can’t be required to prove a violation before seeking evidence of one.

“These arguments miss the point,” Sorokin wrote.

Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Andrea Joy Campbell called the ruling a decisive win for voters and the rule of law.

“The privacy of our voters is not up for negotiation, and I will continue to defend the integrity and security of our elections from the Trump Administration’s cruel and harmful agenda,” she said in a news release.

Four federal judges in other states have dismissed similar lawsuits from the Department of Justice.

A federal judge in Michigan found the laws cited by the Justice Department do not require the disclosure of the voter records sought by the federal government. A federal judge in California said the administration “may not unilaterally usurp the authority over elections,” which the Constitution gives to the states and Congress. A federal judge in Oregon said the federal government was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists containing sensitive data.

A federal judge in Georgia dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit because he found it had been filed in the wrong city. The federal government then refiled the lawsuit in the city specified by the judge; that case is ongoing.

The Justice Department has appealed the Oregon, California and Michigan dismissals.

Boone writes for the Associated Press. Boone reported from Boise, Idaho. AP writer Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.

The disciplinary files of Los Angeles police officers are closely guarded secrets, protected by some of the nation’s strictest confidentiality laws.

But now, many of those secret files have been splashed across the internet, along with tens of thousands of other sensitive records from the L.A. city attorney’s office.

The extent of the data breach is still unclear, and city officials have said they are investigating to find out what was taken, who was responsible and how the city’s cybersecurity was compromised.

A ransomware hacking collective called WorldLeaks, which has gained a reputation for extorting private and public entities by threatening to disclose confidential files on the internet, has claimed responsibility.

The group first announced the breach on March 20. City and LAPD officials did not comment on whether the hackers requested a ransom in return for not releasing the information — or whether the city paid one. Some reports suggest that the group was behind a hack of L.A. Metro last month that forced it to shut down part of its transit network.

The Times spoke with several sources familiar with the investigation into the data breach who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly, and reviewed a partial inventory of the leaked files, including screenshots of some materials.

Here’s what we know so far.

How did hackers get the LAPD files?

The hacking group appears to have exploited vulnerabilities in a system used by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, enabling the group to make off with nearly 340,000 files, according to the sources familiar with the case.

In the wake of the George Floyd protests, the sources said, the city was flooded with dozens of lawsuits from protesters who had been injured by LAPD officers. To handle the deluge of new cases, the city created a file-sharing system so that attorneys on both sides could access discovery materials, including some considered private under court orders.

It was akin to Dropbox or Google Drive, the sources said, and access was supposed to be restricted to just authorized users.

But the system, according to two sources familiar with the investigation, was not password-protected because city officials believed that it needed to be accessible to other parties, including outside attorneys hired to assist with civil litigation.

The sources said the system expanded far beyond its initial scope and came to include records from hundreds of lawsuits involving the LAPD.

In a statement issued to The Times on Wednesday, Ivor Pine, a spokesperson for the city attorney’s office, described the hack as “unauthorized access to a third-party tool used by the City Attorney’s Office to transfer discovery to opposing counsel and litigants.”

How did the LAPD and city officials find out?

Few inside the LAPD knew about the extent of the leak until The Times published a story Tuesday revealing files that appeared online.

After the news broke on Tuesday, the department released a brief public statement acknowledging the disclosure of “discovery documents from previously adjudicated or settled LAPD civil litigation cases.” The department noted that the “breach does not involve any LAPD systems or networks.”

Pine said that once the city attorney’s office realized its file-sharing system was compromised, it “took immediate steps to secure the tool and investigate what information was accessed.”

“No other City applications or systems were involved in this incident,” Pine said. “The information was self contained in this application without any links or access to any department records or systems.”

What are the consequences of the massive leak?

The data breach could have political ramifications for embattled City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, who is up for reelection.

Last week, she earned the endorsement of the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents rank-and-file LAPD officers. But union officials contend that Feldstein Soto failed to mention the leaked documents to them until they learned of the hack Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday, the union issued a scathing statement.

“To say we are disappointed by the lack of urgency and forthrightness from the City Attorney’s office is an understatement,” the union’s statement said. “We will keep asking the tough questions and once we receive answers we will take appropriate action.”

Feldstein Soto’s challenger in the city attorney’s race, John McKinney, said the public deserves immediate answers.

“The lack of transparency isn’t just concerning, it’s unacceptable,” said McKinney, who currently leads the major crimes bureau at the L.A. County district attorney’s office. “By keeping the public in the dark, witnesses and Los Angeles Police Department families may have been put at risk.”

Lawyers for police officers reported numerous calls from clients worried their personnel and medical records were exposed, raising the prospect of more costly litigation. About 900 officers are currently suing the department over the 2023 release of mugshot-style images and other materials in response to a public records request.

How much information was snatched and what’s in it?

In all, according to posts about the data breach, 7.7 terabytes of information was available for download.

The LAPD statement described the files in the recent hack as coming from closed cases, but at least one of the files reviewed by The Times involved a lawsuit over an alleged sexual assault by a police officer that was set for trial next week.

Also disclosed were personnel files from dozens of current and former officers. Every officer’s personnel records are contained within a system called TEAMS II.

It is a detailed history that includes records on arrests they have made, training sessions they have attended, citizen complaints received against them and lawsuits they have been involved in, along with any history of traffic collisions, shootings or other uses of force, commendations, assignments, workers’ compensation claims and more.

Such records can be turned over as discovery in civil cases, but almost always under a protective order that restricts them from being shared publicly.

An untold number of internet users have downloaded the terabytes of data in the weeks since its release. What surfaces next remains to be seen.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Governors in Florida and Mississippi signed into law measures that require officials to verify the citizenship of voters, just as similar legislation being pushed by President Trump has stalled in Congress.

The law signed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was immediately challenged in court by civil rights organizations that said it will make it harder for Floridians to vote.

The citizenship provision of the law goes into effect Jan. 1. It requires voters to provide a birth certificate, passport or naturalization certificate as proof of citizenship if their eligibility to vote is challenged by government officials through cross-referencing voter registration applications with motor vehicle records.

“Many eligible voters do not have these documents and cannot obtain them for a variety of reasons — including because they were born without a birth certificate in the segregated South, because their documents were destroyed in a hurricane, or because they cannot afford the hundreds of dollars it costs to replace them,” the civil rights groups said in a lawsuit filed in federal court in South Florida.

The voting legislation being pushed aggressively by Trump in Congress would mandate that people provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, such as a U.S. passport, citizen naturalization certificate or a combination of a birth certificate and government-issued photo identification. It passed the House but was stalled in the Senate before lawmakers took a spring recess.

Under the Florida law, credit cards, student IDs and retirement community identifications can no longer be used as IDs when voting, and the citizenship status of a driver must be reflected on driver’s licenses starting in July 2027.

DeSantis said the law improves the security and transparency of Florida’s election system.

“In Florida, we will always stand up for election integrity,” the Republican governor said.

The new Mississippi law signed Wednesday requires local officials registering people to vote to run additional citizenship checks if applicants don’t have or can’t provide driver’s license numbers on their voter application. The law, which takes effect July 1, also requires the secretary of state to run annual checks of the voter rolls against an online database from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to flag any potential noncitizens who could be asked to provide proof of their eligibility.

“This is another win for election integrity in Mississippi [and America],” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, said in a social media post. “We will continue to do everything in our power to make it infinitely harder — with a goal to make it impossible — to cheat in our elections!”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has said that the law could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Mississippians who don’t have a passport, lack a birth certificate or whose last names don’t match their birth certificates because of name changes due to marriage.

Four Republican-led states — Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota and Utah — have enacted laws this year to strengthen proof-of-citizenship requirements for voters. In Michigan, supporters of voter citizenship documentation have submitted 750,000 petition signatures in a bid to get a constitutional amendment on the November ballot.

The Republican-led Kansas Legislature also has passed legislation, though it still must go before the Democratic governor. Gov. Laura Kelly has until next week to decide whether she’ll sign the bill and hasn’t said publicly what she will do, though she has regularly vetoed past GOP-election bills. Supporters would need a two-thirds majority to override a veto — and thanks to Republican dissenters, the bill appeared to be a few votes short of that in the House.

Any efforts in Kansas to prevent noncitizens from registering to vote are shadowed by one of the state’s biggest political fiascos in recent memory — a requirement imposed in 2013 that people registering to vote in the state for the first time provide documentation of their U.S. citizenship.

That law ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote, or 12% of everyone seeking to register in Kansas for the first time. Federal courts ultimately declared the law an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, and it hasn’t been enforced since 2018.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press. AP writers David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Mo., and John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., contributed to this report.

BLAKE Lively’s sexual harassment lawsuit against Justin Baldoni has been dismissed, just weeks before going to trial.

The actress alleged that her It Ends with Us co-star and director, Justin, engaged in inappropriate conduct during filming.

On Thursday, a judge threw out her sexual harassment claims, according to TMZ, which broke the story.

However, Blake’s numerous other allegations, including retaliation, will go to trial next month.

The Gossip Girl alum claimed that Justin attempted to harm her reputation after she asserted he had created a problematic work environment.

Meanwhile, Justin alleged that Blake and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, tried to tarnish his reputation, engaged in extortion, and hijacked creative control of the romance film.

Read More on Blake Lively

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Travis ‘stressed’ Taylor wedding may be CANCELED if dragged into Blake trial

He initially filed a $400 million defamation lawsuit against Blake, though that was dismissed by a judge in November.

Blake and Justin are set to appear in court on May 18.

The legal dispute has also involved Blake’s BFF, Taylor Swift, and is reported to have caused tension between the two.

In January, The U.S. Sun exclusively revealed that Taylor’s upcoming wedding to NFL star Travis Kelce could be impacted by Blake’s ongoing court battle with Justin.

Shocking personal texts between Taylor and Blake discussing Blake’s challenges with Justin were unsealed in the lawsuit.

According to TMZ, the singer could be called as a hostile witness for the defense in court, which is scheduled to take place shortly before her fairytale wedding to Travis.

The U.S. Sun exclusively revealed that Travis has urged Taylor to distance herself from the situation and to set firm boundaries.

Blake and Justin’s feud began when they started filming It Ends with Us in May 2023, in which they played love interests.

The movie premiered in August 2024, and Blake made her complaint about Justin’s behavior shortly after.

At the time of publishing, neither Blake nor Justin has commented on the dismissal.

Last week, Blake shared an Instagram post about her “emotional roller coaster” after traveling to Wales to watch Wrexham AFC play.

Her husband, Ryan, has co-owned the team with fellow actor Rob McElhenney since 2021.

Blake posted a slideshow of photos of her smiling at various locations during the trip.

The life of a showgirl wouldn’t be complete without a few lawsuits, and who knows that better than Taylor Swift and Elizabeth Taylor?

On Monday, the “Bad Blood” singer was hit with a trademark infringement lawsuit regarding her most recent album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” Real-life Las Vegas showgirl and writer Maren Wade, born Maren Flagg, alleges that Swift knowingly disregarded her claim to a similar name.

According to the lawsuit, Wade launched the column “Confessions of a Showgirl” in the Las Vegas Weekly in 2014. The column eventually became a live show, which became a touring production. “Over the course of a decade, Confessions of a Showgirl grew into a brand encompassing performances, writing, and digital media — built by one person, city by city and show by show,” reads the lawsuit, which adds that Wade took the show across the country, and used the brand when appearing on television and podcasts.

Wade as a performer herself respects Swift’s right to creative expression, according to the suit, “and nothing in this action challenges it.” The filing argues that “whatever [legal] protection might attach to creative expression, it does not immunize Swift’s separate decision to adopt a confusingly similar designation as a trademark, affix it to goods, and deploy it as a source identifier in commerce.”

In 2015, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office registered “Confessions of a Showgirl” and named Maren Flagg as the owner. And according to the suit, in November 2025, the office refused an attempt by Swift’s team to register “The Life of a Showgirl” based on a likelihood of confusion with Wade’s established brand.

Patent attorney JD Harriman told The Times in a statement that although the trademark office did reject Swift’s mark, she voluntarily suspended the “Life of a Showgirl” application while a separate trademark application for “Showgirl” moved forward.

“This case isn’t about the music, and it may not even be about confusion,” Harriman said. “Wade’s own complaint concedes she’s not challenging the album itself — only merchandise. And before filing, she was publicly hashtagging Swift’s album and calling herself a fan.”

Jaymie Parkkinen, an attorney for Wade, told The Times in an emailed statement that Maren spent more than a decade building Confessions of a Showgirl.

“She registered it. She earned it. When Taylor Swift’s team applied to register The Life of a Showgirl, the Trademark Office refused, finding Swift’s mark confusingly similar,” Parkkinen said. “We have great respect for Swift’s talent and success, but trademark law exists to ensure that creators at all levels can protect what they’ve built. That’s what this case is about.”

Wade’s team argues that since Swift’s 12th album dropped last year, search results are dominated by Swift, and even though Wade established her own showgirl brand a decade ago, her brand is now seen as affiliated with Swift’s.

“The Life of a Showgirl is one designation among more than 170 active or pending trademark registrations managed by Defendant TAS on behalf of Swift, spanning names, phrases, and commercial designations across one of the most extensive trademark portfolios in the entertainment industry,” reads the suit.

Swift’s broader enterprise “does not depend on the continued use of any single designation,” the suit continues. “By contrast, Confessions of a Showgirl is the sole trademark under which [Wade] has built her professional identity for more than a decade. It is not one mark among hundreds. It is the only one she has. The continued erosion of that mark threatens the entirety of Wade’s brand.”

In other Swift news, the Grammy winner dropped the music video for “Elizabeth Taylor” on Tuesday.

The video features archival film clips of the latter starlet — also known for high-profile legal battles, media scrutiny aimed at her love life and larger-than-life fame — rather than the songstress herself, who does not appear in the video.

The video, which has been exclusively released via Spotify Premium and Apple Music, includes scenes from “Father of the Bride,” “Rhapsody,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Cleopatra,” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” among other classic films starring Taylor. The homage also has old press footage of the Oscar winner.

Back in October, Swift told BBC radio that if she mentions a real person in her songs, she warns them ahead of time, and in the case of someone like the late movie star, she asked the Taylor estate for permission to pay homage with the song.

“If it’s Elizabeth Taylor,” she said, “we go to their family and her estate and let them know, and they were lovely about it.”

A U.S. District Court judge dismissed a wrongful termination suit filed by a Fox News producer who claimed he was fired in retaliation for calling out the network’s reporting on President Trump’s erroneous charges of 2020 election fraud and the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Jason Donner, who worked at the network’s Washington bureau as a reporter and producer was fired on Sept. 28, 2022, two days after calling in sick. He was told he had been terminated for his absence.

In 2023, Donner filed a lawsuit in a Washington, D.C., court that contended his dismissal was linked to several instances in which he challenged the veracity of the network’s coverage.

But U.S. District Judge Amir Ali determined in his ruling issued Monday that Donner failed to meet the company rules and that his conduct was not protected by the District of Columbia’s sick leave law.

Donner’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit noted that Fox News bosses criticized the network’s journalists for not considering the feelings of its pro-Trump audience following the election that sent Joe Biden to the White House.

Those comments are supported by the depositions and evidence collected for the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit against Fox News, which was settled in April for $787.5 million.

But Ali also said Donner was an at-will employee and that his case failed to identify “a public policy that precluded Fox from firing him over his ardent objections to the network’s programming, no matter their validity.”

The same point was raised when U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper dismissed that portion of Donner’s claim in 2024.

“As we have maintained, this lawsuit was entirely without merit, and we are pleased with the court’s ruling on the matter,” a Fox News representative said in a statement.

The Grammy-winning composer behind the signature opening chant in the song “Circle of Life” for “The Lion King” movies is taking a comedian to court for allegedly damaging his reputation by misrepresenting the song’s meaning on a viral podcast episode.

In a federal lawsuit filed this month seeking millions in damages, Lebohang Morake, known as Lebo M, accused Zimbabwean comedian Learnmore Jonasi of intentionally botching the translation of the lyrics, central to both the Disney films and the musical theater adaptations.

“I’m getting sued for $27 million and to make matters worse, I got served the lawsuit while I was performing,” Jonasi said in a post on social media Tuesday. The post included a clip of the comedian performing at the Laugh Factory when a manila envelope is tossed onstage.

“Right now, I’m looking for a lawyer. … I can’t believe I’m getting sued for telling a joke. What kind of stupid world do we live in?” he added.

It all started when Jonasi’s appearance on the “One54” podcast went viral late last month. In the episode of “One54” cited in the lawsuit, one of the podcast’s Nigerian hosts, Akbar Gbajabiamila, prompts the comedian with “I heard you had a problem with the ‘Lion King,’ why?” He then breaks into song, trying his hand at the chant and butchering the delivery.

“That’s not how you sing it, don’t mess up our language like that,” Jonasi says, before singing the correct lyrics in Zulu. When the hosts ask what it means, he says it translates to: “Look, there’s a lion. Oh, my God.”

The hosts erupt with laughter, saying that they’d always thought the chant was something more “beautiful and majestic.”

Jonasi often uses the same “Lion King” bit in his stand-up routines. He translates the song’s lyrics from Zulu and Xhosa, two of South Africa’s 12 national languages, and offers a broader critique on the film.

In Season 19 of “America’s Got Talent,” the comedian won over audiences by joking about how American movies about Africa often confuse Africans, asking, “Why do the lions have American accents?”

The civil lawsuit accuses Jonasi of intentionally mocking “the chant’s cultural significance with exaggerated imitations,” according to the complaint.

Disney’s official translation of the opening phrase “Nants’ingonyama bagithi Baba” is “All hail the king, we all bow in the presence of the king.”

“Hay! baba, sizongqoba,” the chant continues. It translates to “Through you we will emerge victoriously,” according to Lebo M.

Lebo M’s lawyers acknowledged in the complaint that “ingonyama” can literally translate to “lion,” but said it’s used in the song as a “royal metaphor” that invokes kingship, and that Jonasi intentionally misrepresented “an African vocal proclamation grounded in South African tradition.”

Jonasi “received a standing ovation” for a similar joke he made about the song during a March 12 stand-up performance in Los Angeles, according to the lawsuit. Such viral statements, it says, are interfering with Lebo M’s business relationships with Disney and his income from royalties, causing more than $20 million in actual damages. The lawsuit also seeks $7 million in punitive damages.

The complaint also argues that Jonasi presented his translation “as authoritative fact, not comedy,” so it shouldn’t get the 1st Amendment protections afforded to parody and satire.

Jonasi and reps for Lebo M didn’t respond to emails seeking comment, but the two have been busy on social media, making alternating statements and sub-posting each other for weeks.

Earlier this month, Jonasi revealed that he’d been receiving threats on social media for offending his fellow Africans. “It was never my intention to disrespect anybody,” he said in the video posted to Instagram. “When I went on that podcast, my intention was actually to talk about African identity. … I’d like to apologize to anybody that I hurt. But my comedy was a way to crack open a window for a conversation.”

“I had no idea the chant from ‘The Lion King’ was a royal welcoming song … I speak a little bit of Zulu, so I directly translated the words, and I even spoke to some of my South African friends, and most of them don’t even know what it means. And the rest of the world thought it was actually gibberish.”

A few days later, Lebo M posted his own Instagram video, saying he had attempted to speak with Jonasi privately, but claimed the comedian had disrespected him. “You are riding a huge wave of going viral on negativity,” he said in the video.

“I would like to encourage you to please slow down. You have a long way to go. I wish you success, but you cannot disrespect other people’s cultures that gave you the first opportunity to start with and claim it’s comedy. … You continue making a mockery of my work … the likes and the viral things won’t be there when it’s just you.”

After exchanging a few more public statements via Instagram, Jonasi was served with court papers.

He shared the news online and announced he’s selling merchandise and launching a GoFundMe to raise money for his defense. The shirts and hoodies for sale feature two different designs — one reads “Look it’s a lion,” and the other “Look it’s a lawsuit, Oh, my God.” As of Friday afternoon, Jonasi’s GoFundMe raised more than $17,000.

The tense situation seemed to be cooling on Friday morning, when Lebo M posted a lengthy statement to Instagram signaling a shift from an impending courtroom showdown to what his team is calling a “white flag moment.”

According to the post, Lebo M’s team has contacted Jonasi to “explore the possibility of a structured settlement.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Singer-songwriter FKA twigs is suing her ex-boyfriend, actor Shia LaBeouf, claiming that he is trying to “silence” her from speaking out against sexual abuse through the use of an “unlawful” nondisclosure agreement.

The complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, seeks a court order to prohibit LeBeouf from enforcing sections of an NDA which Tahliah Barnett — the Grammy Award-winning singer’s legal name — says violates California law.

“Shia LaBeouf has tried to control Tahliah Barnett for the better part of a decade,” the filing states.

“This action was taken in response to Mr. LaBeouf’s attempt to bully and intimidate twigs through a frivolous and unlawful secret arbitration he filed against her in December in which he sought to extract money from her,” said the singer’s attorney Mathew Rosengart, national co-chair of media & entertainment litigation at Greenberg Traurig in Century City, in a statement.

Rosengart added that twigs “refuses to be bullied anymore. She is instead standing up for herself and other survivors of sexual abuse who have improperly been silenced. This is the unusual case that is not about money but about justice and upholding and enforcing California law and policy designed to protect survivors by nullifying illegal NDAs.”

LaBeouf’s attorney Shawn Holley of Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir denied the claims.

“When Ms. Barnett and Mr. LaBeouf both decided to resolve their differences and move on with their lives, no one forced her or ‘bullied’ her to stay silent,” Holley said in a statement.
“As a woman with agency, she decided to settle the case and accepted money to dismiss her lawsuit.”

The suit arises out of litigation that Barnett brought against LaBeouf in 2020, when she accused the actor of “physical, sexual, and mental abuse” during their relationship,” as well as “knowingly infect[ing]” Barnett with a sexually transmitted disease.” That case was settled last year.

In a response to the suit, the actor told the New York Times that “many of these allegations are not true.”

But he added, “I am not in the position to defend any of my actions. I owe these women the opportunity to air their statements publicly and accept accountability for those things I have done.”

In the statement Thursday, Holley added that the claim of sexual battery “was disputed, as were the other claims made in Ms. Barnett’s lawsuit.”

Shia LaBeouf poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film “The Phoenician Scheme” at the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival May 18, 2025.

(Lewis Joly / Invision / AP)

According to the new lawsuit, LaBeouf filed a secret arbitration complaint and “improperly sought exorbitant monies” from Barnett last December, claiming she had breached their agreement by violating its nondisclosure provisions after she gave an interview to the Hollywood Reporter in October.

In the interview, Barnett was asked if she felt safe and answered that as a woman of color in the entertainment industry, she “wouldn’t feel safe” and discussed her involvement with organizations that support survivors, saying, “I think it’s less about me at this point and more about looking forward. Just, you know, moving on with my life.”

The agreement Barnett reached with LaBeouf “contained a deficient and unlawful NDA that is unenforceable,” under California’s Stand Together Against Non-Disclosure Act, according to the complaint. The law forbids NDAs from being used to silence victims of sexual misconduct.

“As the California Legislature has made clear, survivors should have the right to tell their stories without fear or coercion, and California law does not and must not allow abusers and bullies to silence them through secret agreements containing unconscionable, unlawful gag orders,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit further alleges that while LaBeouf has sought to prohibit Barnett from talking about her abuse, he has “repeatedly brought up his relationship with Ms. Barnett—on his own and without being directly asked about her—materially breaching the very confidentiality provisions that he had just contended were fully enforceable against Ms. Barnett.”

While the actor agreed to drop the arbitration in February, he has “refused to acknowledge, however, that the NDA provisions are illegal and unenforceable,” the filing states.

The latest round in LaBeouf’s legal battle with Barnett comes just weeks after a New Orleans judge ordered the actor to begin substance abuse treatment and undergo weekly drug testing after he was arrested on suspicion of assaulting two men in the city’s French Quarter. LaBeouf was also required to post $100,000 bond as part of the conditions of his release. He was charged with two counts of simple battery, the Associated Press reported.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has settled for roughly $1.2 million a lawsuit from Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor to President Trump who pleaded guilty during the Republican’s first term to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a top Russian diplomat and was later pardoned.

Court papers filed Wednesday do not reveal the settlement amount, but a person familiar with the matter, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose nonpublic information, confirmed the total as about $1.2 million.

The settlement resolves a 2023 lawsuit in which Flynn sought at least $50 million and asserted that the criminal case against him amounted to a malicious prosecution. It also represents a stark turnabout in position for a Justice Department that during the Biden administration had pressed a judge to dismiss Flynn’s complaint. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, a former personal lawyer for the president, has openly criticized the Russia investigation in which Flynn was charged and the Justice Department in the last year has opened investigations into former officials who participated in that inquiry.

The Justice Department cast the settlement as an “important step in redressing” what it says was a “historic injustice” of the Russia investigation that shadowed Trump for much of his first term.

“This Department of Justice will continue to pursue accountability at all levels for this wrongdoing. Such weaponization of the federal government must never be allowed to happen again,” a spokesperson said.

In a separate statement, Flynn said: “Nothing can fully compensate for the hell that my family and I have endured over these many years — the relentless attacks, the destruction of reputations, the financial ruin, and the profound personal toll inflicted upon us all. No amount of money or formal resolution can erase the pain caused by a prosecution that should never have been brought.”

The settlement is the latest turn in the long-running legal saga involving Flynn, one of six Trump associates charged as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. That investigation found Russia interfered in the election on Trump’s behalf and that the Trump campaign eagerly welcomed the help, but it ultimately found insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy.

Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who vigorously campaigned at Trump’s side, served for weeks as his first national security advisor before being pushed out of his position. He remained a Trump ally even after agreeing to cooperate with Mueller’s team. He was pardoned in the final weeks of the president’s first term.

Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI when he said he had not discussed with the Russian envoy, Sergey Kislyak, sanctions that the outgoing Obama administration had just imposed on Russia for election interference. During that conversation, Flynn advised that Russia be “even-keeled” in response to the punitive measures, and assured him “we can have a better conversation” about relations between the countries after Trump became president.

The conversation alarmed the FBI, which at the time was investigating whether the Trump campaign and Russia had coordinated to sway the election. In addition, White House officials were stating publicly that Flynn and Kislyak had not discussed sanctions, which the FBI knew was untrue.

Flynn was ousted from his position in February 2017 after news broke that Obama administration officials had warned the White House that Flynn had indeed discussed sanctions with Kislyak and was vulnerable to blackmail. He pleaded guilty months later to a false statement charge.

But Flynn later sought to withdraw his guilty plea, saying federal prosecutors had acted in “bad faith” and broken their end of the bargain when they sought prison time for him.

The Justice Department in 2020 moved to dismiss the case, asserting that the FBI had no basis to interview Flynn about Kislyak and that any statements he made during the interview were not material to the FBI’s broader counterintelligence probe.

Flynn was pardoned by Trump in November 2020, ending the court case and the legal wrangling.

In his lawsuit, Flynn maintained his innocence and said he was targeted by the “virulently anti-Trump leadership” of the FBI’s Russia investigation. He contended that investigators pursued him despite knowing there was no evidence of a crime and coerced his guilty plea.

“He was falsely branded as a traitor to his country, lost at least tens of millions of dollars of business opportunities and future lifetime earning potential, was maliciously prosecuted and spent substantial monies in his own defense,” says the lawsuit, adding that Flynn will continue to suffer “mental and emotional pain.”

Tucker and Richer write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Minnesota officials sued the Trump administration on Tuesday for access to evidence they say they need to independently investigate three shootings by federal officers, including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

The lawsuit claims that the federal government reneged on its promise to cooperate with state investigations after the surge of federal law enforcement in Minneapolis, and are seeking a court order demanding that the Trump administration comply.

“We are prepared to fight for transparency and accountability that the federal government is desperate to avoid,” Hennepin County Atty. Mary Moriarty told reporters.

The lawsuit marks an escalation in the clash between Minnesota leaders and the Trump administration over the investigations into the high-profile shootings by federal officers that sparked public outcry and protests. The Trump administration has suggested that Minnesota officials don’t have jurisdiction to investigate, but state officials insist they need to conduct their own probes because they don’t trust the federal government to investigate itself.

“There has to be an investigation any time a federal agent or a state agent takes the life of a person in our community,” Moriarty said.

The administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area for the immigration crackdown as part of President Trump’s national deportation campaign. The Department of Homeland Security considered its largest immigration enforcement operation ever a success but was staunchly criticized by Minnesota’s leaders who raised questions over officers’ conduct.

There continues to be fallout from Operation Metro Surge in the form of a Homeland Security shutdown, as Democrats in Congress hold up funding in an effort to secure restraints on Trump’s immigration agenda.

Minnesota’s lawsuit said the federal government is not permitted to “withhold investigative evidence for the purpose of shielding law enforcement officers from scrutiny where a State is investigating serious potential violations of its criminal laws, targeting its citizens, within its borders.”

Moriarty said Tuesday that the federal government “has adopted a policy of categorically withholding evidence,” calling the practice unprecedented and alarming. She said the lawsuit followed formal demands for evidence after the federal government blocked Minnesota investigators from accessing evidence related to the shootings.

In addition to the Pretti and Good cases, the lawsuit demands access to evidence in the case of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, who was shot and wounded in his right thigh by a federal agent in January.

Federal officials initially accused Sosa-Celis and another man of beating an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel. But federal prosecutors later dropped all charges against the men and authorities opened a criminal investigation into whether two immigration officers lied under oath about the shooting.

Emails seeking comment were sent to DHS and the Justice Department.

The Justice Department in January said it was opening a federal civil rights investigation into Pretti’s killing but has said a similar federal probe was not warranted in the killing of Good. The decision in Good’s case marked a sharp departure from past administrations, which moved quickly to investigate shootings of civilians by law enforcement officials for potential civil rights offenses.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche has said that the department’s Civil Rights Division does not investigate every law enforcement shooting and that there have to be circumstances and facts that “warrant an investigation.”

Moriarty has said a lack of confidence in the federal government’s review of these incidents makes the state’s independent investigations into the shootings, as well as officers’ actions during the immigration enforcement operation altogether, especially important. The county office received over 1,000 tips from the public on the shootings of Good and Pretti via an online portal they opened to collect evidence. Earlier this month, Moriarty initiated a second portal and said her office was investigating a number of incidents of potentially unlawful action by officers over the course of the immigration enforcement operation.

Fingerhut and Richer write for the Associated Press. Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

Comic and television host Stephen Colbert knows the feeling William Person recounts in his new lawsuit alleging that USA Bobsled/Skeleton was negligent by concealing knowledge that the repeated sub-concussive blows sledders endure could cause permanent brain damage.

Shortly after taking a bobsled run with Team USA in Lake Placid, N.Y., in 2009, Colbert described the experience.

“It felt like I was being hit in the head with ice hammers,” he said . “It was like losing the worst snowball fight of your life.”

Person can relate, according to his attorneys, who wrote in the suit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court that the symptoms of brain injury have a name among bobsled and skeleton athletes : “Sled Head.”

“This action seeks justice for a decorated American athlete who, in his pursuit of Olympic glory, was knowingly sacrificed to a silent epidemic of brain injury,” the court filing said.

Person says he experienced chronic headaches, migraines, fogginess, vertigo and blackouts during his career.

“[He] currently suffers from traumatic brain injury and latent neurodegenerative disease,” the filing said. “Memory loss, cognitive decline, emotional instability, and chronic pain. These injuries have required, and will continue to require, extensive medical care.”

The action is the second brought on behalf of Person, who competed internationally for the United States from 1999 to 2007. He filed a lawsuit in December 2021 that asked USA Bobsled/Skeleton to implement a medical monitoring system to identify and treat sledders with sled head symptoms.

That lawsuit, which languished in court for five years, included a class-action component and accumulated several hundred plaintiffs. Person’s new lawyers, Kamau Edwards and Christopher Perry, are taking a different approach. They plan to file separate lawsuits and seek monetary damages for each plaintiff based on their circumstances and diagnosis.

Edwards and Perry also added new defendants. In addition to USA Bobsled/Skeleton, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Anschutz Southern California Sports Complex and former bobsledding supervisor Tracy Lamb are named.

Anschutz owns the Home Depot Center, where the U.S. bobsled and skeleton teams train. The lawsuit says the venue is responsible for premises liability and Lamb for negligent hiring and supervision.

The defendants have yet to be served with the lawsuit and declined to comment. Once served, they will have 30 days to respond through the court.

Edwards and Perry also filed personal injury lawsuits last week on behalf of two other former USA sledders — Joe Sisson and Rick Baird. Through their court filings, both recount head injuries sustained while sledding and lingering symptoms.

The New York Times published stories several years ago about former bobsled and skeleton athletes who struggled with symptoms similar to what Person, Sisson and Baird describe. A handful were posthumously diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the progressive, degenerative brain disease found in people with a history of repetitive head impacts.

Dr. Ann McKee, director of Boston University’s CTE Center, studied the brain of former Olympic bobsledder Pavle Jovanovic, who killed himself in 2020 at 43, and determined he had CTE.

Jovanovic wasn’t the first elite bobsledder to commit suicide. Steven Holcomb, who piloted the American bobsled known as the “Night Train” to the Olympic gold medal in 2010, was found dead in Lake Placid, N.Y., in 2017 from an apparent overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills.

Also, Sisson’s sledding mentor Travis Bell killed himself in 2012 at 27 after experiencing years of debilitating symptoms that Sisson believes stemmed from his career as a driver on the U.S. bobsled team.

“I’ve got survivor’s guilt big time,” Sisson told the New York Times in 2022.

Person’s lawsuit alleges that Lamb and USABS coaches witnessed his symptoms during training sessions but failed to intervene.

“They did not pull [Person] from the sled. They did not refer him for a neurological evaluation. They did not institute a concussion protocol,” the lawyers wrote. “Instead, fostering a culture of silence, they encouraged [him] to continue training through the injury, exacerbating the damage to his brain.”

The lawsuit asserts that the link between sledding and brain injury has been known since the 1980s and that officials intentionally concealed the information because “a full disclosure of the risks of CTE and permanent brain damage would deter top-tier athletes like [Person} from competing,” the suit said. “By suppressing this information, they robbed [him] of his ability to make an informed choice about his own life and health.”

Person was a track and field athlete at Weber State in Utah when he was recruited by USA Bobsled/Skeleton. He represented the United States in the America’s Cup, World Cup, Olympic Trials and World Championships from 1999 through 2007.

The dangers of sliding sports took center stage at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics when 11 crashes occurred in two days of bobsled training ahead of the Games. Gold medal bobsled favorite Beat Hefti of Switzerland suffered a concussion and luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died after being ejected from the track at nearly 90 mph during the final training run.

Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted a former waitress in 1972 after escorting her to one of his shows, a civil jury in California concluded Monday, awarding the woman $19.25 million in damages.

The verdict was the latest turn in a series of legal battles the disgraced entertainer, now 88, has faced since allegations that he repeatedly drugged and raped women exploded publicly about a decade ago. Since then, he served about three years in a Pennsylvania prison on sexual assault charges before the case was overturned in 2021.

Donna Motsinger, now 84, said in her lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court that Cosby had given her wine and a pill that left her unable to move, and that she woke up in her house wearing nothing but her underwear, according to court records, and that “she knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby.”

Cosby has denied the allegations, as well as those brought by dozens of other women who claimed they had been drugged and raped. Coming in the early years of the #MeToo movement, a broad social media-inspired campaign to name and prosecute men accused of sexual misconduct, Cosby’s attorneys painted him as an unfair target of mass vigilantism gone awry.

Motsinger sued Cosby in 2023, alleging that, at the time, she was working at a Sausalito restaurant called The Trident that was popular with celebrities, including Cosby, according to the complaint her attorneys filed Sept. 27 of that year. One night, Motsinger accepted Cosby’s invitation to go with him to his show at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos. Cosby picked her up at her home in a limousine, according to her complaint, and, on the way to the venue, gave her the wine and a pill that she thought was aspirin.

“Next thing she knew, she was going in and out of consciousness while two men attending to Mr. Cosby were putting her in the limousine,” the complaint said. “The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light,” before waking up in her house in nothing but underwear.

Motsinger didn’t consent to Cosby’s sexual contact and, having been rendered unconscious by drugging, she couldn’t consent to it to begin with, according to the complaint. As a consequence of her ordeal, her complaint says she suffered lost wages, medical bills, pain and suffering and emotional distress.

Afroman has emerged victorious from an invasion of privacy and defamation case filed against him by seven members of Ohio’s Adams County Sheriff’s Office over mocking videos and social media posts the rapper put out after a failed 2022 raid on his home.

“We did it, America! Yeah, we did it! Freedom of speech! Right on! Right on! Yeah! God bless America!” the 51-year-old rapper, born Joseph Foreman, shouted outside the courthouse after the Wednesday evening verdict as supporters rallied behind him. In the clip, under a white fur coat, he was rocking the same American flag shades and red, white and blue suit and tie he had worn on the stand Tuesday.

Four deputies, two sergeants and a detective with the Adams County sheriff filed the lawsuit in March 2023, seeking to reclaim any money the rapper made from what they said was unauthorized use of their likenesses. The group wanted nearly $4 million in damages. Foreman used footage from the raid in videos for songs including “Lemon Pound Cake” to make money to pay for the damage done to his home during the raid, when his front gate was broken down and his front door smashed in.

The plaintiffs said in their lawsuit that the posts and videos caused them “humiliation, ridicule, mental distress, embarrassment and loss of reputation” and made it difficult to do their law enforcement work.

At trial, all seven plaintiffs testified about the harassment they had suffered because of the rapper’s music and videos. One, Deputy Lisa Phillips, had her gender identity called into question in Foreman’s videos and social media posts. She cried on the stand as a video suggesting she enjoyed sex with other women was played for the court.

The jury apparently agreed with the argument that the sheriff’s officers were acting in a public capacity during the raid and therefore were not shielded from criticism of their behavior.

“No reasonable person would expect a police officer not to be criticized. They’ve been called names before,” defense lawyer David Osborne said in closing arguments for the rapper and comedian, known for his breakout 2000 hit, “Because I Got High.”

In 2022, the sheriff’s team was acting on a warrant showing probable cause that drugs and drug paraphernalia would be found on the property and alleging that trafficking and kidnapping had happened there. No evidence of a crime was found, and no charges were filed.

Foreman wasn’t home during the raid but was able to see at least part of it via a video recorded by his ex-wife and footage captured on his home security system before law enforcement turned off those cameras. He said on the stand that the raid traumatized his children, who were 10 and 12 at the time.

“The whole raid was a mistake. All of this is their fault,” Foreman testified Tuesday. “If they hadn’t wrongly raided my house, there would be no lawsuit, I would not know their names, they wouldn’t be on my home surveillance system, and there would be no songs, nothing.”

Foreman also defended his right to use the raid footage as fodder for his work.

“After they left, I had the right to kick the can and to do what I had to do to repair the damage they brought to my house. Yes, I did,” he testified. “I have freedom of speech. I’m a rapper. I entertain.”

Foreman discussed his reaction to the lawsuit with local station WCPO Channel 9 in 2023. “From the first 10 seconds, I was offended. I was appalled. I was like ‘What?’ Then I started laughing,” he said. “These guys with their rifles are crying about my comedy songs.”

Meanwhile, as the jury deliberated Wednesday, an entirely different Adams County Sheriff’s Office was feeling online heat linked to the trial: the office in Colorado’s Adams County.

“The Adams County Sheriff’s Office has received a flood of social media comments, DMs, and phone calls about the #Afroman defamation trial,” the Colorado department said on X. “It’s clear this is important to a lot of people. There’s just one small issue: that’s the ACSO in Ohio. We are the ACSO in #Colorado. Different states, same name.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

March 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of allowing a so-called street preacher in Mississippi to challenge a law prohibiting where he can protest.

The high court said Gabriel Olivier can file a civil suit in response to a law in Brandon, Miss., that prevents public protests outside of designated areas. He said the law violates the 1st Amendment’s free speech protection.

Police in Brandon, Miss., arrested Olivier in 2021 as he and a group of protesters shouted slurs and insults at concertgoers as they entered an amphitheater. Some members of the group also held up graphic signs showing aborted fetuses.

He was convicted of violating the city’s laws banning protesters from coming within about 265 feet away of the amphitheater and from using loudspeakers that can be heard from more than 100 feet away, CNN reported.

Olivier pleaded no contest to the charges and was ordered to pay a fine and serve a year of unsupervised probation. Following his sentence, he sued the city, saying its law violated his free speech rights.

A 1994 Supreme Court ruling — Heck v. Humphrey — though says that a defendant convicted of a crime can’t then sue over the legality of their conviction. Otherwise, he and other defendants could be cleared of their convictions outside of the normal criminal appeals process, The Washington Post reported.

Olivier’s lawyers said his case should be allowed to proceed because success wouldn’t affect the result of his conviction, for which he wasn’t imprisoned. The Supreme Court agreed with a unanimous vote.

The ruling did not pass judgment on the constitutionality of the city of Brandon’s laws, only that Olivier is allowed to challenge them.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department filed a new lawsuit Friday against Harvard University, saying its leadership failed to address antisemitism on campus, creating grounds for the government to freeze existing grants and seek repayment for grants already paid.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, is another salvo in a protracted battle between the administration of President Trump and the elite university.

“The United States cannot and will not tolerate these failures,” the Justice Department wrote in the lawsuit. It asked the court to compel Harvard to comply with federal civil rights law and to help it “recover billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies awarded to a discriminatory institution.”

The lawsuit also asks a judge to require that Harvard call police to arrest protesters blocking parts of campus and to appoint an “independent outside monitor,” approved by the government, to ensure it complies with court orders.

Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit comes after negotiations appear to have bogged down in the months-long battle with the Trump administration that has tested the boundaries of the government’s authority over America’s universities. What began as an investigation into campus antisemitism escalated into an all-out feud as the Trump administration slashed more than $2.6 billion in research funding, ended federal contracts and attempted to block Harvard from hosting international students.

In a pair of lawsuits filed by the university, Harvard has said it’s being unfairly penalized for refusing to adopt the administration’s views. A federal judge agreed in December, reversing the funding cuts and calling the antisemitism argument a “smokescreen.”

Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, a major association of colleges and universities, accused the administration of launching a “full scale, multi-pronged” attack on Harvard. Friday’s lawsuit, he said, is just the latest attempt to pressure Harvard to agree to changes favored by the administration.

“When bullies pound on the table and don’t get they want, they pound again,” Mitchell said.

The Trump administration began investigating allegations of discrimination against Harvard’s Jewish and Israeli students less than two weeks after the president took office. The allegations focus on Harvard’s actions during and after pro-Palestinian demonstrations during the Israel-Hamas war.

Officials concluded Harvard did not adequately address concerns raised about antisemitism that drove some students to conceal their religious skullcaps and avoid classes. During protests of the war, Trump officials said, Harvard permitted students to demonstrate against Israel’s actions in the school library and allowed a pro-Palestinian encampment to remain on campus for 20 days, “in violation of university policy.”

In its lawsuit Friday, the Justice Department also accused Harvard of failing to discipline staff or students who protested or tacitly endorsed the demonstrations, such as by canceling or dismissing classes that conflicted with protests.

“Harvard University has failed to protect its Jewish students from harassment and has allowed discrimination to wreak havoc on its campus,” White House press secretary Liz Huston said Friday on X. “President Trump is committed to ensuring every student can pursue their academic goals in a safe environment.”

Despite their bitter dispute, Harvard and the Trump administration have held some negotiations, and the two sides have reportedly been close to reaching an agreement on multiple occasions. Last year, the administration and the university were reportedly approaching a deal that would have required Harvard to pay $500 million to regain access to federal funding and to end the investigations. Almost a year later, Trump upped that figure to $1 billion, saying that Harvard has been “behaving very badly.”

At the same time, the administration was taking steps in a civil rights investigation that had the potential to jeopardize all of Harvard’s federal funding.

In June, the Trump administration made a formal finding that Harvard tolerated antisemitism.

In a letter sent to Harvard, a federal task force said its investigation had found the university was a “willful participant” in antisemitic harassment of Jewish students and faculty. The task force threatened to refer the case to the Justice Department to file a civil rights lawsuit “as soon as possible,” unless Harvard came into compliance.

When colleges are found in violation of federal civil rights law, they almost always reach compliance through voluntary agreements. When the government determines a resolution can’t be negotiated, it can try to sever federal funding through an administrative process or, as the Trump administration has done, by referring the case to the Justice Department through litigation.

Such an impasse has been extraordinarily rare in recent decades.

Last summer, Harvard responded that it strongly disagreed with the government’s investigative finding and was committed to fighting bias.

“Antisemitism is a serious problem and no matter the context, it is unacceptable,” the university said in a statement. “Harvard has taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism in its community.”

In a letter last spring, Harvard President Alan M. Garber told government officials that the school had formed a task force to combat antisemitism, which released a detailed report of what unfolded on campus after Hamas militants stormed Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel retaliated with an offensive that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population — prompting pro-Palestinian demonstrations at colleges around the country.

After the demonstrations at Harvard, Garber said the university had hired a new provost and new deans and that it had reformed its discipline policies to make them “more consistent, fair and effective.”

Since he took office, Trump has targeted elite universities he believes are overrun by left-wing ideology and antisemitism. His administration has frozen billions of dollars in research grants, which colleges have come to rely on for scientific and medical research.

Several universities have reached agreements with the White House to restore funding. Some deals have included direct payments to the government, including $200 million from Columbia University. Brown University agreed to pay $50 million toward state workforce development groups.

Balingit and Casey write for the Associated Press.