lawyer

Fans of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs might want to hold their ears when the wrongful death trial brought by his widow and parents against the Angels resumes Monday.

The Angels are about to present their defense and, according to people with knowledge of the Angels’ strategy, their attorneys plan to portray Skaggs as a selfish, secretive opioid addict who for years manipulated teammates and team communications director Eric Kay into obtaining illicit pills for him to chop up and snort.

Skaggs, a first-round draft pick of the Angels in 2009 out of Santa Monica High, was one year away from free agency when he died of an overdose July 1, 2019. He died after snorting a counterfeit opioid pill laced with fentanyl in his hotel room during an Angels trip to play the Texas Rangers in Arlington.

The left-handed starter was 27 and in the midst of his best season of seven in the big leagues when he died. His performance has been pointed to by Skaggs family lawyers as evidence he wasn’t a drug addict, but instead an athlete who took pain pills to stay on the field.

So far, testimony in a small, spare courtroom on the ninth floor of the Orange County Superior Court has favored the plaintiffs — Skaggs’ widow, Carli, and parents, Debbie Hetman and Darrell Skaggs.

Their lawyers called 21 witnesses over 24 days in court, attempting to establish that the pitcher’s fatal overdose was the result of the Angels’ negligent supervision of Kay, an admitted longtime opioid addict who is serving 22 years in prison for providing Skaggs with the pill.

The plaintiffs are asking for about $120 million in future earnings as well as additional millions for pain and suffering and punitive damages. Neither side is optimistic that a settlement can be reached ahead of a verdict.

Transcripts of trial testimony and interviews with people on both sides not authorized to speak publicly about the case provided a glimpse of the Angels’ defense strategy and what the plaintiffs have accomplished so far.

The Angels pared down their witness list at the request of Judge H. Shaina Colover, who has insisted the case go to the jury by Dec. 15. The Angels complained that two weeks might not be long enough to present their case, giving the plaintiffs an unfair advantage, even suggesting the issue could lead to a mistrial.

Skaggs’ lawyers, however, pointed out that the defense has taken longer to cross-examine witnesses than it took them to conduct the direct examinations. And Colover said a reason for the difference in the number of witnesses is that 12 people called by Skaggs’ lawyers were on the witness lists of both sides.

Like an MLB manager constructing a lineup, Skaggs lawyers led by Rusty Hardin were purposeful in the order they presented witnesses. They began their case by calling a string of Angels executives to poke holes in the team’s contention that they knew nothing about Kay’s addiction. Key witnesses refuting those denials included Kay’s wife, Camela, and Hetman.

Skaggs’ lawyers also presented text messages that indicated Kay’s supervisor, Tim Mead, and Angels traveling secretary Tom Taylor not only were aware of Kay’s addiction, but did not act decisively to isolate him, get him into inpatient rehab or terminate his employment.

The plaintiffs called witnesses to establish that not only were the Angels negligent on how they dealt with Kay’s addiction, they put his interest ahead of other employees and the organization by allowing him to continue working despite his bizarre behavior on the job.

The last witness before the court went into recess until Dec. 1 was human resources expert Ramona Powell, who testified that the Angels did not follow their own policies in evaluating and responding to Kay’s behavior. She said that had the team done so, Kay could have been terminated well before 2019.

Expect Angels lead attorney Todd Theodora to counter that Skaggs violated his contract and was guilty of fraud by concealing his drug problem for years. Furthermore, Skaggs allegedly continued to pressure Kay to procure opioids for him even after Kay completed drug rehab shortly before the fateful trip to Texas.

During opening arguments, Theodora stated that the Angels “know right from wrong,” but he is expected to assert that the case is more about what the team didn’t know. Kay and Skaggs have been described as masters at concealing their drug use. The Angels contend that had the team known of their addiction, officials could have provided them with treatment and perhaps Skaggs would be alive.

Testimony has already established that the Angels immediately informed MLB that Kay told co-worker Adam Chodzko that he was in Skaggs’ hotel room the night the pitcher died. Expect the Angels attorneys to take it a step further and assert that Kay might not have been prosecuted if the Angels hadn’t acted so swiftly.

Witnesses expected to be called by the defense include Angels president John Carpino and former MLB general manager Dan Duquette. The jury will view video of depositions given by former Angels players C.J. Cron, Matt Harvey, Cam Bedrosian and Blake Parker if they cannot testify in person.

The testimony of players can cut both ways, as evidenced by statements made by two players who testified for the plaintiffs — current Angels outfielder and three-time most valuable player Mike Trout and former relief pitcher Mike Morin.

Trout testified that Skaggs was “like a brother” to him, that he cried when told he’d died and that he had no clue about drug use. But Trout also hedged when asked whether he had offered to pay for Kay’s rehab, saying he just told him he’d help any way he could.

Morin, who pitched for the Angels from 2014 to 2017, said Kay sold him opioids “five to eight times” after an arm injury made him desperate to overcome pain and return to the mound. Yet under cross examination, Morin conceded that Skaggs was responsible for his own actions.

Carpino is responsible for the Angels’ day-to-day operations and his office is adjacent to those of Mead, Taylor and formerly Kay. Duquette, former general manager of the Montreal Expos, Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles, is expected to testify that Skaggs’ future career earnings would have been no more than $30 million because of his drug use and history of injuries.

Skaggs’ lawyers called earnings expert Jeff Fannell, a former labor lawyer for the MLB Players Assn., who testified that Skaggs would have earned between $109 million and $120 million and could still be pitching.

NEW YORK — Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, pleaded not guilty Monday to charges he profited from rigged poker games involving several Mafia figures and at least one other ex-NBA player.

Billups, a five-time All Star and onetime Clippers player and assistant coach who won a championship with the Detroit Pistons, was arraigned in a federal court in Brooklyn on money laundering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy charges involving a scheme to rig mob-backed illegal poker games in Manhattan, Las Vegas, Miami and the Hamptons.

Both charges carry a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison. Others implicated face charges of running an illegal gambling business, robbery conspiracy and extortion conspiracy.

Prosecutors said Monday that plea negotiations have begun with some defendants, though they didn’t name them.

U.S. District Court Judge Ramon Reyes said he hoped to bring the sprawling case to trial by next September, urging lawyers in the courtroom to “do what you have to do.”

Billups, who wore a dark gray suit during Monday’s brief arraignment, spoke only to answer the judge’s yes or no questions. His lawyer, Marc Mukasey, entered his not guilty plea.

They declined to comment to reporters afterward, but one of Billups’ lawyers has called him a “man of integrity” and said he denies the charges.

“To believe that Chauncey Billups did what the federal government is accusing him of is to believe that he would risk his Hall of Fame legacy, his reputation and his freedom. He would not jeopardize those things for anything, let alone a card game,” Chris Heywood said after Billups appeared in federal court in Portland, Ore., when prosecutors first announced the indictment on Oct. 23.

Billups, 49, was released on a $5-million bond secured by his family’s Colorado home. He must refrain from gambling and can have no contact with other defendants or alleged victims. He has surrendered his passport and can only travel to seven states, including Oregon and New York, and Washington, D.C.

Inducted last year into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, Billups was arguably the most prominent among more than 30 people charged in last month’s sprawling federal takedown of illegal gambling operations linked to professional sports.

In addition to his arraignment, Billups and his co-defendants, including ex-NBA player and assistant coach Damon Jones, appeared for a status conference on Monday and are due back in court on March 4.

Prosecutors say the poker-rigging scheme utilized sophisticated technology such as altered card-shuffling machines, hidden cameras in chip trays, special sunglasses and X-ray equipment built into the table to read cards.

Jones, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and others are also charged with allegedly scheming to allow gamblers to exploit insider information about players to win NBA bets.

Prosecutors say the poker scheme Billups was involved in defrauded victims of an estimated $7 million starting in at least 2019.

They say he served as a celebrity “face card” that could draw wealthy, unsuspecting players to the games. Prosecutors said during one game, the scheme’s organizers exchanged messages saying one of the victims “acted like he wanted Chauncey to have his money” because he was “star struck.”

Prosecutors say Billups, who earned about $106 million from his playing days, received a portion of the ill-gotten gains. After one rigged game in October 2020, for example, they say he was directly wired $50,000.

The scheme organizers also had to share a portion of their proceeds with the Gambino, Genovese and Bonanno mob families for operating within the illegal poker games run by the New York criminal enterprises, prosecutors said.

Mafia members, in turn, helped commit violent acts, including assault, extortion and robbery, to ensure repayment of debts and the continued success of the operation, they said.

Billups was selected as the third overall pick in the 1997 draft by the Boston Celtics after starring in college for the Colorado Buffaloes. He played 17 years in the NBA, with stints with the Toronto Raptors, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, New York Knicks and Clippers.

But he is perhaps most beloved in the Motor City, where he earned the nickname “Mr. Big Shot” for his knack of making clutch shots.

Billups was named the NBA Finals MVP during the Pistons’ title run in 2004 and had his No. 1 jersey retired by the team.

After retiring in 2014, Billups embarked on a career as a TV analyst before pivoting to coaching.

He was hired as Portland’s coach in 2021 and signed a multiyear extension with the Trail Blazers earlier this year after the team missed out on the playoffs for the fourth straight season in 2024. Billups previously served as an assistant coach for the Clippers.

After his arrest, he was placed on unpaid leave and the Trail Blazers named assistant coach and former NBA player Tiago Splitter as interim coach.

Marcelo writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press reporter Michael R. Sisask contributed to this story.

WASHINGTON — No one seems to know what happened to Vicente Ventura Aguilar.

A witness told his brother and attorneys that the 44-year-old Mexican immigrant, who doesn’t have lawful immigration status, was taken into custody by immigration authorities on Oct. 7 in SouthLos Angeles and suffered a medical emergency.

But it’s been more than six weeks since then, and Ventura Aguilar’s family still hasn’t heard from him.

The Department of Homeland Security said 73 people from Mexico were arrested in the Los Angeles area between Oct. 7 and 8.

“None of them were Ventura Aguilar,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant Homeland Security public affairs secretary.

“For the record, illegal aliens in detention have access to phones to contact family members and attorneys,” she added.

McLaughlin did not answer questions about what the agency did to determine whether Ventura Aguilar had ever been in its custody, such as checking for anyone with the same date of birth, variations of his name, or identifying detainees who received medical attention near the California border around Oct. 8.

Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center who is representing Ventura Aguilar’s family, said DHS never responded to her inquiries about him.

The family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar, 44, says he has been missing since Oct. 7 when a friend saw him arrested by federal immigration agents in Los Angeles. Homeland Security officials say he was never in their custody.

(Family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar)

“There’s only one agency that has answers,” she said. “Their refusal to provide this family with answers, their refusal to provide his attorneys with answers, says something about the lack of care and the cruelty of the moment right now for DHS.”

His family and lawyers checked with local hospitals and the Mexican consulate without success. They enlisted help from the office of Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles), whose staff called the Los Angeles and San Diego county medical examiner’s offices. Neither had someone matching his name or description.

The Los Angeles Police Department also told Kamlager-Dove’s office that he isn’t in their system. His brother, Felipe Aguilar, said the family filed a missing person’s report with LAPD on Nov. 7.

“We’re sad and worried,” Felipe Aguilar said. “He’s my brother and we miss him here at home. He’s a very good person. We only hope to God that he’s alive.”

Felipe Aguilar said his brother, who has lived in the U.S. for around 17 years, left home around 8:15 a.m. on Oct. 7 to catch the bus for an interview for a sanitation job when he ran into friends on the corner near a local liquor store. He had his phone but had left his wallet at home.

One of those friends told Felipe Aguilar and his lawyers that he and Ventura Aguilar were detained by immigration agents and then held at B-18, a temporary holding facility at the federal building in downtown Los Angeles.

The friend was deported the next day to Tijuana. He spoke to the family in a phone call from Mexico.

Detainees at B-18 have limited access to phones and lawyers. Immigrants don’t usually turn up in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement online locator system until they’ve arrived at a long-term detention facility.

According to Felipe Aguilar and Toczylowski, the friend said Ventura Aguilar began to shake, went unconscious and fell to the ground while shackled on Oct. 8 at a facility near the border. The impact caused his face to bleed.

The friend said that facility staff called for an ambulance and moved the other detainees to a different room. Toczylowski said that was the last time anyone saw Ventura Aguilar.

She said the rapid timeline between when Ventura Aguilar was arrested to when he disappeared is emblematic of what she views as a broad lack of due process for people in government custody under the Trump administration and shows that “we don’t know who’s being deported from the United States.”

Felipe Aguilar said he called his brother’s cell phone after hearing about the arrests but it went straight to voicemail.

Felipe Aguilar said that while his brother is generally healthy, he saw a cardiologist a couple years ago about chest pain. He was on prescribed medication and his condition had improved.

His family and lawyers said Ventura Aguilar might have given immigration agents a fake name when he was arrested. Some detained people offer up a wrong name or alias, and that would explain why he never showed up in Homeland Security records. Toczylowski said federal agents sometimes misspell the name of the person they are booking into custody.

Vicente Ventura Aguilar, who has been missing since Oct. 7, had lived in the United States for 17 years, his family said.

(Family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar)

But she said the agency should make a significant attempt to search for him, such as by using biometric data or his photo.

“To me, that’s another symptom of the chaos of the immigration enforcement system as it’s happening right now,” she said of the issues with accurately identifying detainees. “And it’s what happens when you are indiscriminately, racially profiling people and picking them up off the street and holding them in conditions that are substandard, and then deporting people without due process. Mistakes get made. Right now, what we want to know is what mistakes were made here, and where is Vicente now?”

Surveillance footage from a nearby business reviewed by MS NOW shows Ventura Aguilar on the sidewalk five minutes before masked agents begin making arrests in South Los Angeles. The footage doesn’t show him being arrested, but two witnesses told the outlet that they saw agents handcuff Ventura Aguilar and place him in a van.

In a letter sent to DHS leaders Friday, Kamlager-Dove asked what steps DHS has taken to determine whether anyone matching Ventura Aguilar’s identifiers was detained last month and whether the agency has documented any medical events or hospital transports involving people taken into custody around Oct. 7-8.

“Given the length of time since Mr. Ventura Aguilar’s disappearance and the credible concern that he may have been misidentified, injured, or otherwise unaccounted for during the enforcement action, I urgently request that DHS and ICE conduct an immediate and comprehensive review” by Nov. 29, Kamlager-Dove wrote in her letter.

Kamlager-Dove said her most common immigration requests from constituents are for help with visas and passports.

“Never in all the years did I expect to get a call about someone who has completely disappeared off the face of the earth, and also never did I think that I would find myself not just calling ICE and Border Patrol but checking hospitals, checking with LAPD and checking morgues to find a constituent,” she said. “It’s horrifying and it’s completely dystopian.”

She said families across Los Angeles deserve answers and need to know whether something similar could happen to them.

“Who else is missing?” she said.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Lawyers for two of President Trump’s foes who have been charged by the Justice Department asked a judge on Thursday to dismiss the cases against them, saying the prosecutor who secured the indictments was illegally installed in the role.

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie didn’t immediately rule from the bench but said she expects to decide by Thanksgiving on challenges to Lindsey Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The requests are part of multiprong efforts by former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James to get their cases dismissed before trial.

At issue during Thursday’s arguments are the complex constitutional and statutory rules governing the appointment of the nation’s U.S. attorneys, who function as top federal prosecutors in Justice Department offices across the country.

The role is typically filled by lawyers who have been nominated by a president and confirmed by the Senate. Attorneys general do have the authority to get around that process by naming an interim U.S. attorney who can serve for 120 days, but lawyers for Comey and James note that once that period expires, the law gives federal judges of that district exclusive say over who can fill the vacancy.

But that’s not what happened in this instance.

After then-interim U.S. attorney Erik Siebert resigned in September while facing Trump administration pressure to bring charges against Comey and James, Attorney General Pam Bondi, at Trump’s public urging, installed Halligan to the role.

Siebert had been appointed by Bondi in January to serve as interim U.S. attorney. Trump in May announced his intention to nominate him and judges in the Eastern District unanimously agreed after his 120-day period expired that he should be retained in the role. But after the Trump administration effectively pushed him out in September, the Justice Department again opted to make an interim appointment in place of the courts, something defense lawyers say it was not empowered under the law to do.

Prosecutors in the cases say that the law does not explicitly prevent successive appointments of interim U.S. attorneys by the Justice Department and that, even if Halligan’s appointment is deemed invalid, the proper fix is not the dismissal of the indictment.

Comey has pleaded not guilty to charges of making a false statement and obstructing Congress, and James has pleaded not guilty to mortgage fraud allegations. Their lawyers have separately argued that the prosecutions are improperly vindictive and motivated by the president’s personal animus toward their clients, and should therefore be dismissed.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

LONDON — President Trump’s threat to bring a billion-dollar lawsuit against the BBC has cast a shadow over the British broadcaster’s future, but it could also be a bluff with little legal merit.

The president’s lawyer sent the threat to the BBC over the way a documentary edited his Jan. 6, 2021, speech before a mob of his followers stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s history of suing news media companies — sometimes winning multimillion-dollar settlements — is part of a long-running grievance against the industry he describes as “fake news” that has often focused a critical eye on his actions.

But Trump faces fundamental challenges to getting a case to court, never mind taking it to trial. He would also have to deal with the harsh glare of publicity around his provocative pep talk the day Congress was voting to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.

“If he sues, he opens a Pandora’s box and inside is every damning quote he’s ever uttered about the ‘steal,’” said attorney Mark Stephens, an international media lawyer who practices in the U.S. and U.K.

The BBC documentary

The BBC’s “Panorama” series aired the hourlong documentary titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The third-party production company that made the film spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

BBC Chairman Samir Shah apologized Monday for the misleading edit that he said gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action.”

Director-General Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness quit Sunday over accusations of bias and misleading editing.

From letter to lawsuit

A lawsuit in England is unlikely because the one-year deadline to bring one expired two weeks ago, experts said. If successful in overcoming that barrier, libel awards in the High Court rarely exceed 100,000 pounds ($132,000), experts said.

Trump could still bring a defamation claim in several U.S. states, and his lawyer cited Florida law in a letter to the BBC.

Filing a lawsuit and demanding money is one thing, but prevailing in court is much different. To succeed, Trump would have to clear many hurdles to get a case before a jury.

Before any of that could happen, Trump faces a more fundamental challenge: The BBC program was not aired in the U.S., and the BBC’s streaming service is also not available there. Americans could not have thought less of him because of a program they could not watch, Stephens said.

“The other ticklish problem for Trump’s lawyer was that Trump’s reputation was already pretty battered after Jan. 6,” he said. “Alleging ‘Panorama’ caused additional harm when your reputation is already in tatters … is a tough sell.”

Trump was impeached on a charge of inciting insurrection over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by some of his supporters, though he was acquitted by the Senate.

The demands

Trump’s lawyer Alejandro Brito threatened the BBC with a defamation lawsuit for “no less than” $1 billion. The letter spelled out the figure and used all nine zeros in numeric form.

The letter demanded an apology to the president and a “full and fair” retraction of the documentary along with other “false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading or inflammatory statements” about Trump.

It also said the president should be “appropriately” compensated for “overwhelming financial and reputational harm.”

The letter cites Florida’s defamation statute that requires a letter be sent to news organizations five days before any lawsuit can be filed.

If the BBC does not comply with the demands by 5 p.m. EST Friday, then Trump will enforce his legal rights, the letter said.

“The BBC is on notice,” it said.

While many legal experts have dismissed the president’s claims against the media as having little chance of success, he has won some lucrative settlements against U.S. media companies.

In July, Paramount, which owns CBS, agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over a “ 60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump alleged that the interview was edited to enhance how Harris, the Democratic nominee for president in 2024, sounded.

That settlement came as the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission launched an investigation that threatened to complicate Paramount’s need for administration approval to merge with Skydance Media.

Last year, ABC News said it would pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos ’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. A jury found that he was liable for sexually abusing her. Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday to throw out that jury’s finding.

Litigation threat could leverage payout

London lawyer David Allen Green dismissed the litigation letter for failing to spell out any actual harm Trump suffered. But he said Trump’s willingness to use lawsuits as a form of deal making could leverage a payout because the edit was indefensible.

“Putting aside the theatrics of a bombastic letter with its senseless $1 billion claim, there is a power play here which Trump has done many times before,” Green said on the Law and Policy Blog. “The real mistake of the BBC (and the production company) was opening itself up to such a play of power.”

Stephens said if Trump were somehow to win billions from the BBC, it could crush the news organization that is mostly funded through a fee charged to all television owners in the U.K.

But he said that outcome was unlikely and the broadcaster should stand its ground. He recommended Trump take the public relations win and avoid the damage from revisiting the Jan. 6 events that would be dredged up at trial.

He said Trump was due an apology, which Shah offered, for the BBC not upholding high journalistic standards.

“The question is, ‘Did it cause harm in people’s minds?’” he said. “Because he was elected afterwards, it doesn’t appear it did.”

Melley writes for the Associated Press.

LONDON — Britain’s government rallied to the defense of the BBC on Tuesday after allegations of bias from its critics and the threat of a lawsuit from President Trump over the way the broadcaster edited a speech he made after losing the 2020 presidential election

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the national broadcaster faces “challenges, some of its own making,” but is “by far the most widely used and trusted source of news in the United Kingdom.”

With critics in media and politics demanding an overhaul of the BBC’s funding and governance, Nandy said that “the BBC as an institution is absolutely essential to this country.

“At a time when the lines are being dangerously blurred between facts and opinions, news and polemic, the BBC stands apart,” she said in the House of Commons.

Trump threatens to sue

A lawyer for Trump is demanding a retraction, apology and compensation from the broadcaster over the allegedly defamatory sequence in a documentary broadcast last year.

Fallout from the documentary has already claimed the BBC’s top executive, Tim Davie, and head of news Deborah Turness, who both resigned over what the broadcaster called an “error of judgment.”

The BBC has apologized for misleading editing of a speech Trump delivered on Jan. 6, 2021, before a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington.

Broadcast days before the November 2024 U.S. election, the documentary “Trump: A Second Chance?” spliced together three quotes from two sections of the speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

BBC chair Samir Shah said the broadcaster accepted “that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action.”

The BBC has not yet formally responded to the demand from Florida-based Trump attorney Alejandro Brito that it “retract the false, defamatory, disparaging and inflammatory statements,” apologize and “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused” by Friday, or face legal action for $1 billion in damages.

Nigel Huddleston, media spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party, said the BBC should “provide a fulsome apology to the U.S. president” to avoid legal action.

Legal experts say Trump is likely too late to sue the BBC in Britain, because a one-year deadline to file a defamation suit has expired. He could still bring a defamation claim in several U.S. states, and his lawyer cited Florida law in a letter to the BBC, but faces considerable legal hurdles.

An embattled national institution

The publicly funded BBC is a century-old national institution under growing pressure in an era of polarized politics and changing media viewing habits.

Funded through an annual license fee of 174.50 pounds ($230) paid by all households who watch live TV or any BBC content, the broadcaster is frequently a political football, with conservatives seeing a leftist slant in its news output and some liberals accusing it of having a conservative bias.

Governments of both left and right have long been accused of meddling with the broadcaster, which is overseen by a board that includes both BBC nominees and government appointees.

Some defenders of the BBC allege that board members appointed under previous Conservative governments have been undermining the corporation from within.

Pressure on the broadcaster has been growing since the right-leaning Daily Telegraph published parts of a dossier compiled by Michael Prescott, who had been hired to advise the BBC on standards and guidelines. As well as the Trump edit, Prescott criticized the BBC’s coverage of transgender issues and raised concerns of anti-Israel bias in the BBC’s Arabic service.

Near the BBC’s London headquarters, some passersby said the scandal would further erode trust in a broadcaster already under pressure.

Amanda Carey, a semi-retired lawyer, said the editing of the Trump speech is “something that should never have happened.”

“The last few scandals that they’ve had, trust in the BBC is very much waning and a number of people are saying they’re going to refuse to pay the license (fee),” she said.

A growing number of people argue that the license fee is unsustainable in a world where many households watch little or no traditional TV.

Nandy said the government will soon start the once-a-decade process of reviewing the BBC’s governing charter, which expires at the end of 2027. She said the government would ensure the BBC is “sustainably funded (and) commands the public’s trust,” but did not say whether the license fee might be scaled back or scrapped.

Davie, who announced his resignation as BBC director-general on Sunday, acknowledged that “we have made some mistakes that have cost us.”

But, he added: “We’ve got to to fight for our journalism.”

Lawless writes for the Associated Press. AP journalist Kwiyeon Ha contributed to this story.

NEW YORK — A federal appeals court on Thursday gave new life to President Trump’s bid to erase his hush money conviction, ordering a lower court to reconsider its decision to keep the case in state court instead of moving it to federal court.

A three-judge panel in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein erred by failing to consider “important issues relevant” to Trump’s request to move the New York case to federal court, where he can seek to have it thrown out on presidential immunity grounds.

But, the appeals court judges said, they “express no view” on how Hellerstein should rule.

Hellerstein, who was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton, twice denied Trump’s requests to move the case. The first time was after Trump’s March 2023 indictment; the second followed Trump’s May 2024 conviction and a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that presidents and former presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts.

In the later ruling, at issue in Thursday’s decision, Hellerstein said Trump’s lawyers had failed to meet the high burden of proof for changing jurisdiction and that Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records involved his personal life, not official actions that the Supreme Court ruled are immune from prosecution.

Hellerstein’s ruling, which echoed his previous denial, “did not consider whether certain evidence admitted during the state court trial relates to immunized official acts or, if so, whether evidentiary immunity transformed” the hush money case into one that relates to official acts, the appeals court panel said.

The three judges said Hellerstein should closely review evidence that Trump claims relate to official acts.

If Hellerstein finds the prosecution relied on evidence of official acts, the judges said, he should weigh whether Trump can argue those actions were taken as part of his White House duties, whether Trump “diligently sought” to have the case moved to federal court and whether the case can even be moved to federal court now that Trump has been convicted and sentenced in state court.

Ruling came after oral arguments in June

Judges Susan L. Carney, Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and Myrna Pérez made their ruling after hearing arguments in June, when they spent more than an hour grilling Trump’s lawyer and the appellate chief for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which prosecuted the case and wants it to remain in state court.

Carney and Lohier were nominated to the court by Democratic President Barack Obama. Pérez was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden.

“President Trump continues to win in his fight against Radical Democrat Lawfare,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement. “The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be immediately overturned and dismissed.”

Bragg’s office declined to comment.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose allegations of an affair with Trump threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies her claim, said he did nothing wrong and has asked a state appellate court to overturn the conviction.

It was the only one of the Republican’s four criminal cases to go to trial.

Trump team cites Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity

In trying to move the hush money case to federal court, Trump’s lawyers argued that federal officers, including former presidents, have the right to be tried in federal court for charges arising from “conduct performed while in office.” Part of the criminal case involved checks that Trump wrote while he was president.

Trump’s lawyer, Jeffrey Wall, argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision. He also said they erred by showing jurors evidence that should not have been allowed under that ruling, such as former White House staffers describing how Trump reacted to news coverage of the hush money deal and tweets he sent while president in 2018.

“The district attorney holds the keys in his hand,” Wall told the three-judge panel in June. “He doesn’t have to introduce this evidence.”

In addition to reining in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts, the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling restricted prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.

Wall, a former acting U.S. solicitor general, called the president “a class of one,” telling the judges that “everything about this cries out for federal court.”

Steven Wu, the appellate chief for the district attorney’s office, countered that Trump was too late in seeking to move the case to federal court. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment. Exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown.

Hellerstein concluded that Trump hadn’t shown “good cause” to request a move to federal court as such a late stage. But the three-judge panel on Thursday said it “cannot be confident” that the judge “adequately considered issues” relevant to making that decision.

Wall, addressing the delay at oral arguments, said Trump’s team did not immediately seek to move the case to federal court because the defense was trying to resolve the matter by raising the immunity argument with the trial judge, Juan Merchan.

Merchan rejected Trump’s request to throw out the conviction on immunity grounds and sentenced him Jan. 10 to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.

CHICAGO — A judge heard testimony Tuesday about overflowing toilets, crowded cells, no beds and water that “tasted like sewer” at a Chicago-area building that serves as a key detention spot for people rounded up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Three people who were held at the building in Broadview, just outside Chicago, offered rare public accounts about the conditions there as U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman considers ordering changes at a site that has become a flashpoint for protests and confrontations with federal agents.

“I don’t want anyone else to live what I lived through,” said Felipe Agustin Zamacona, 47, an Amazon driver and Mexican immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for decades.

Zamacona said there were 150 people in a holding cell. Desperate to lie down to sleep, he said he once took the spot of another man who got up to use the toilet.

And the water? Zamacona said he tried to drink from a sink but it “tasted like sewer.”

A lawsuit filed last week accuses the government of denying proper access to food, water and medical care, and coercing people to sign documents they don’t understand. Without that knowledge, and without private communication with lawyers, they have unknowingly relinquished their rights and faced deportation, the lawsuit alleges.

“This is not an issue of not getting a toilet or a Fiji water bottle,” attorney Alexa Van Brunt of the MacArthur Justice Center told the judge. “These are a set of dire conditions that when taken together paint a harrowing picture.”

Before testimony began, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman said the allegations were “disgusting.”

“To have to sleep on a floor next to an overflowing toilet — that’s obviously unconstitutional,” he said.

Attorney Jana Brady of the Justice Department acknowledged there are no beds at the Broadview building, just outside Chicago, because it was not intended to be a long-term detention site.

Authorities have “improved the operations” over the past few months, she said, adding there has been a “learning curve.”

“The conditions are not sufficiently serious,” Brady told the judge.

The building has been managed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for decades. But amid the Chicago-area crackdown, it has been used to process people for detention or deportation.

Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who has led the Chicago immigration operation, said criticism was unfounded.

“I think they’re doing a great job out there,” he told the Associated Press during an interview this week.

Testifying with the help of a translator, Pablo Moreno Gonzalez, 56, said he was arrested last week while waiting to start work. Like Zamacona, he said he was placed in a cell with 150 other people, with no beds, blankets, toothbrush or toothpaste.

“It was just really bad. … It was just too much,” Moreno Gonzalez, crying, told the judge.

A third person, Claudia Carolina Pereira Guevara, testified from Honduras, separated from two children who remain in the U.S. She said she was held at Broadview for five days in October and recalled using a garbage bag to clear a clogged toilet.

“They gave us nothing that had to do with cleaning. Absolutely nothing,” Guevara said.

For months advocates have raised concerns about conditions at Broadview, which has drawn scrutiny from members of Congress, political candidates and activist groups. Lawyers and relatives of people held there have called it a de facto detention center, saying up to 200 people have been held at a time without access to legal counsel.

The Broadview center has also drawn demonstrations, leading to the arrests of numerous protesters. The demonstrations are at the center of a separate lawsuit from a coalition of news outlets and protesters who claim federal agents violated their First Amendment rights by repeatedly using tear gas and other weapons on them.

Fernando writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Throwing a sandwich at a federal agent turned Sean Charles Dunn into a symbol of resistance against President Trump’s law-enforcement surge in the nation’s capital. This week, federal prosecutors are trying to persuade a jury of fellow Washington, D.C., residents that Dunn simply broke the law.

That could be a tough sell for the government in a city that has chafed against Trump’s federal takeover, which is entering its third month. A grand jury refused to indict Dunn on a felony assault count before U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro’s office opted to charge him instead with a misdemeanor.

Securing a trial conviction could prove to be equally challenging for Justice Department prosecutors in Washington, where murals glorifying Dunn’s sandwich toss popped up virtually overnight.

Before jury selection started Monday, the judge presiding over Dunn’s trial seemed to acknowledge how unusual it is for a case like this to be heard in federal court. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, said he expects the trial to last no more than two days “because it’s the simplest case in the world.”

A video that went viral on social media captured Dunn hurling his subway-style sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent outside a nightclub on the night of Aug. 10. That same weekend, Trump announced his deployment of hundreds of National Guard troops and federal agents to assist with police patrols in Washington.

When Dunn approached a group of CBP agents who were in front of the club, which was hosting a “Latin Night,” he called them “fascists” and “racists” and chanted “shame” toward them. An observer’s video captured Dunn throwing a sandwich at an agent’s chest.

“Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Dunn shouted, according to police.

Dunn ran away but was apprehended. He was released from custody but rearrested when a team of armed federal agents in riot gear raided his home. The White House posted a highly produced “propaganda” video of the raid on its official X account, Dunn’s lawyers said. They noted that Dunn had offered to surrender to police before the raid.

Dunn worked as an international affairs specialist in the Justice Department’s criminal division. After Dunn’s arrest, U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi announced his firing in a social media post that referred to him as “an example of the Deep State.”

Before trial, Dunn’s lawyers urged the judge to dismiss the case for what they allege is a vindictive and selective prosecution. They argued that the posts by Bondi and the White House prove Dunn was impermissibly targeted for his political speech.

Julia Gatto, one of Dunn’s lawyers, questioned why Trump’s Justice Department is prosecuting Dunn after the Republican president issued pardons and ordered the dismissal of assault cases stemming from a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“It’s an obvious answer,” Gatto said during a hearing last Thursday. “The answer is they have different politics. And that’s selective prosecution.”

Prosecutors countered that Dunn’s political expressions don’t make him immune from prosecution for assaulting the agent.

“The defendant is being prosecuted for the obvious reason that he was recorded throwing a sandwich at a federal officer at point-blank range,” they wrote.

Dunn is charged with assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating and interfering with a federal officer. Dozens of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol were convicted of felonies for assaulting or interfering with police during the Jan. 6 attack. Trump pardoned or ordered the dismissal of charges for all of them.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

DETROIT — Two men who had acquired high-powered weapons and practiced at gun ranges were scouting LGBTQ+ bars in suburban Detroit for a possible attack, authorities said Monday in filing terrorism-related charges against the pair.

Momed Ali, Majed Mahmoud and co-conspirators were inspired by Islamic State extremism, according to a 72-page criminal complaint unsealed in federal court. Investigators say a minor, identified only as Person 1, was deeply involved in the discussions.

“Our American heroes prevented a terror attack,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said on X.

The men, described as too young to drink alcohol, had looked at LGBTQ+ bars in Ferndale as a possible attack, according to the complaint.

FBI agents had surveilled the men for weeks, even using a camera on a pole outside a Dearborn house, according to the court filing. Investigators also got access to encrypted chats and other conversations.

FBI Director Kash Patel had announced arrests Friday, but no details were released at the time while agents searched a home in Dearborn and a storage unit in nearby Inkster.

The FBI said the men repeatedly referred to “pumpkins” in their conversations, a reference to a Halloween attack.

Ali and Mahmoud were charged with receiving and transferring guns and ammunition for terrorism. Mahmoud had recently bought more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition that could be used for AR-15-style rifles, and they practiced at gun ranges, the government alleged.

They will appear in court Monday for their initial appearance. Mahmoud’s lawyer, William Swor, declined to comment. Messages seeking comment from Ali’s lawyer, Amir Makled, were not immediately answered.

Over the weekend, Makled seemed to wave off the allegations, saying they were the result of “hysteria” and “fear-mongering.”

It’s the second case since May involving alleged plots in the Detroit area on behalf of the Islamic State. The FBI said it arrested a man who had spent months planning an attack against a U.S. Army site in Warren. Ammar Said has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody.

White writes for the Associated Press.

Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi has reportedly acknowledged that her office released a video of troops abusing a Palestinian detainee.

Israeli police have arrested a former military prosecutor after she leaked a video appearing to show soldiers abusing a Palestinian detainee.

Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was detained overnight on Monday, according to the country’s national security minister, following a scandal that erupted after she leaked a video, resigned and then disappeared.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the leaking of the video perhaps the most “severe public relations attack” on Israel since its founding.

Tomer-Yerushalmi disappeared for several hours on Sunday after she announced her resignation, sparking speculation of a possible suicide attempt.

According to a copy of her resignation letter published by Israeli media on Friday, Tomer-Yerushalmi acknowledged that her office had released the video to the media last year. Five reservists were later charged with mistreating prisoners.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Monday on Telegram: “It was agreed that in light of last night’s events, the prison service would act with extra vigilance to ensure the detainee’s safety in the detention centre where she has been placed in custody.”

The statement did not indicate what charges she faced.

According to Israeli media, a Tel Aviv court ordered Tomer-Yerushalmi’s remand in custody until noon on Wednesday.

Public broadcaster Kan reported that she was suspected of “fraud and breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice and disclosure of information by a public servant”.

Former chief military prosecutor Colonel Matan Solomesh was also arrested overnight in connection with the case and was appearing in court Monday, reported Israeli Army Radio.

‘Severe violence’

On Friday, the Israeli military announced that Tomer-Yerushalmi had resigned from her post pending an investigation into leaked footage taken at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel last year.

The case began in August 2024 when Israel’s Channel 12 broadcast footage from Sde Teiman, which has been used to hold Palestinians taken during the war in Gaza.

The surveillance camera footage indicated that soldiers had committed illicit acts, without explicitly showing it, as it appeared to take place behind troops holding up shields.

The video was picked up by several media outlets, triggering international outrage and protests within Israel.

The Israeli military said in February that it had filed charges against five reservist soldiers connected with mistreatment at Sde Teiman.

They were charged with “acting against the detainee with severe violence, including stabbing the detainee’s bottom with a sharp object, which had penetrated near the detainee’s rectum”.

It added “the acts of violence have caused severe physical injury to the detainee, including cracked ribs, a punctured lung and an inner rectal tear”.

The indictment said that the abuse took place on July 5, 2024 during a search of the detainee.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu blasted the leak of the video, labelling it as perhaps the most “severe public relations attack” on Israel in the country’s history.