legal

In one corner is bnb-side, a six-room bed and breakfast on the Isle of Portland – a tiny wedge of limestone tied by a narrow ribbon of shingle to the Dorset coast – that was created to help secure the future of the rock’s much-loved arts festival, b-side.

On the other is Airbnb, the San Francisco-based booking colossus. The battle between them is over the three little letters they share.

b-side says the “bnb” in bnb-side means what it has always meant: bed and breakfast. But lawyers for the Silicon Valley titan say the name of the guesthouse, perched on an outcrop just 4 miles long by 1.5 miles wide, threatens the global brand of the $100bn heavyweight.

“We thought the name was both really obvious and really cool,” said Rocca Holly-Nambi, director of b-side. “b-side was founded almost 20 years ago, so when we set up our BnB in 2024 to raise money for the festival, we just popped the ‘bn’ in front because it’s a universally recognised description of what we’re offering.”

Airbnb doesn’t agree. In May, it sent the first of three legal letters to the tiny social enterprise to demand it cease its attempt to register the B&B using the name it had used since it opened its doors.

“They won’t let us compromise by using a different case, an ampersand or an ‘and’,” said Holly-Nambi. “According to Airbnb, we can’t describe our BnB as a BnB at all.”

For bnb-side, losing the argument could mean more than abandoning a clever name. It would mean replacing signage and rewriting websites, social media and all other material referencing and advertising the B&B.

“That’s not just a huge waste of money – of which we don’t have much – and of the equally valuable time of our volunteers, but it would throw b-side’s core income stream into chaos,” said Holly-Nambi. “We’d have to painstakingly build our reputation and brand back up from scratch all over again.”

Raina Summerson, chair of b-side, is fuming and incredulous. “We opened bnb-side because we were completely dependent on public funding and wanted to be more financially secure,” she said. “bnb-side now generates almost half the festival’s annual £250,000 turnover. If it loses its name, we risk having to establish it all over again.”

Airbnb has opposed the name on three separate legal grounds: that consumers will confuse the two brands, that bnb-side could benefit from or damage Airbnb’s reputation, and that bnb-side will financially profit by misrepresenting itself as an official Airbnb service.

b-side is asking the Intellectual Property Office to reject Airbnb’s opposition in full, with costs awarded in their favour. The case is still under way, with no ruling having yet been made.

Airbnb’s claim has hit a nerve on the proud, windswept outcrop. Cat Wightman, manager of bnb-side, said: “It’s pretty bitter. We’ve watched other small, local hospitality businesses go under, and local people unable to afford homes here, who have been negatively affected by the force with which the Airbnb market has conquered Portland. One person owns eight properties on the island, all of which are rented out on Airbnb.”

b-side obtained pro bono advice and is working with the law firm Stevens Hewlett & Perkins to defend them, but the process is still intimidating. “It’s terrifying but we’re not going to back down,” said Holly-Nambi. “We do things differently here in Portland.”

Craig Beaumont, a trademark attorney and senior associate at Barker Brettell, a law firm that specialises in intellectual property, said that for all Airbnb’s might, this would not be an easy or straightforward win for them.

“This feels like an uphill battle they’re embarking on,” he said. “BnB has long been widely understood as shorthand for a descriptive phrase, and descriptive phrases are available for the public to use.”

bnb-side are not the only company who agree with Beaumont: Companies House records show that in the past decade 14 accommodation companies with “bnb” in their name successfully registered their businesses.

Darren Meale, a partner and trademark litigation specialist at Simmons & Simmons, said it was no surprise the term was used so often. “It’s quite punchy of Airbnb to say they’re so well-known that they can monopolise a term that they only incorporated into their name in the first place because it was a descriptive one that everyone immediately understood, and then say that someone else using the term is going to confuse customers and damage them.”

Lee Curtis, a partner and chartered trademark attorney at IP law firm HGF, agreed that Airbnb “may be testing the limits” of the law. But he pointed to another risk for the lodging colossus.

“There’s a public relations angle to take into account,” he said. “Some companies may welcome getting a reputation for aggressive enforcement but that can backfire when the target is a community organisation, like this one.”

Airbnb has been approached for comment.

AN AMERICAN heavy metal group has confirmed they are locked in a legal battle with the estate of their late bandmate.

The Blood and Thunder hitmakers have been forced to release a statement to their Instagram page addressing the previously-unearthed feud and how they will proceed.

Oblivion singers Mastodon, a Grammy-nominated band formed in Atlanta, told how what they deem a “meritless lawsuit” is centred on their late Brent Hinds.

The band’s guitarist Brent quit the group in March 2025 after 25 years together, prior to his death in a motorcycle crash in the August.

The group’s founding member passed aged 51, after his Harley-Davidson collided with a BMW SUV.

Prior to his death it appeared there were frictions between the musician and the band, and this only seems to have developed a year since the tragedy.

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Mastodon have now told of the fresh legal woe and uploaded a statement which read: “Sadly, a private business dispute with the estate of our dear departed friend Brent Hinds was made public.

“We strongly deny allegations of ill intent on our part and intend to vigorously defend what we believe is a meritless lawsuit.

“We don’t intend to speak publicly on this going forward, as we feel this wouldn’t honour Brent’s memory or the legacy of his musical gifts”.

Fans were quick to respond to support the group, who now are formed of Troy Sanders, Bill Kelliher, Brann Dailor, Nick Johnston and João Nogueira.

One wrote: “Nobody’s business but yours. The fans are here for the music my guys. Congrats on the excellent new album”.

A second put: “We love Brent, we love Mastodon”.

A third posted: “This is really disheartening. Hoping things can be resolved”.

Last year, Brent told Billboard that his departure from the group was not mutual.

He then said the remaining members “kicked me out”.

This came after the band said they had “mutually decided to part ways”.

The new lawsuit has seen a civil complaint filed by the Hind estate, against the band’s members, on behalf of the late musician on September 3 according to loudwire.com.

As per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the lawsuit claims Mastodon failed to pay Brent for his share of the business after his exit.

It claims although the wheels were in motion for the group to buy him out of his share in “band related business” he had not in fact signed the paperwork prior to his passing.

As such, it claims his stake remains valid.

Representatives for his estate also suggest Brent’s image was also used to present the band’s Marrow Deep album, in the same legal challenge.

The lawsuit claimed: “Defendants selected and placed a recognizable image of Brent on the album cover of Marrow Deep and disseminated that cover to advertise, market, distribute and sell physical albums, digital downloads and streams, merchandise and related goods or services”.

Jamaica’s campaign for reparations from the United Kingdom is part of a broader push for countries to pay for their roles in the transatlantic slave trade and hundreds of years of slavery.

Momentum is building. In March, a United Nations resolution said the claims represent a step towards a remedy for the descendants of enslaved people. Most Western countries abstained from the vote, and the United States opposed it.

In June, African and Caribbean nations met in Ghana – where hundreds of thousands of people were forced onto slave ships. They put together a plan for reparatory justice, which would include debt relief and other support for African nations.

Last month, a UN committee said governments are obliged by law to consider paying damages.

So, will the legal argument boost the case for reparations?

Presenter: Dareen Abughaida

Guests:

Hilary Beckles – vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies and chairman of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) Reparations Commission

Lawrence Goldman – emeritus fellow in history at St Peter’s College, University of Oxford, and former editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Patrick Vernon – British historian and social commentator knighted in 2026 for his services to racial equality and social justice

US sanctions Turkish bank over alleged IRGC ties, accusing it of facilitating millions in transactions for Iran.

The United States Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on a Turkish bank and its subsidiaries over alleged ties to Iran, as Washington seeks to economically isolate Tehran.

The Treasury Department accused Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi Anonim Sirketi (Golden Global Bank) on Friday of facilitating “tens of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force” and providing the Iranian government with banking access to move its funds internationally.

Washington alleged the bank “was established for the purpose of enabling Iran’s rahbar network [shadow banking system] to transfer oil revenues from China to Turkey” using gold and cash.

Golden Global Bank responded on Friday, saying it fulfilled all local and international banking compliance rules and would take legal action against the US-imposed sanctions.

There are no transactions conducted by Golden Global Bank that could substantiate the claims made by the US, the bank said in a news release.

“We will exercise all our rights of objection and legal recourse in the most effective manner and will take the necessary actions at the earliest against these allegations and the decision,” the Turkish bank added.

“Financial institutions continue to find out the hard way that we are serious about Operation Economic Outcast,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent in a statement published by the department on Friday.

The sanctions place the bank and its two subsidiaries on the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)’s Specially Designated Nationals list, cutting off access to the US financial system.

The bank said individuals and entities named in the OFAC decision “have never been and are not currently customers” of Golden Global.

US Ambassador to Turkiye Tom Barrack said on Saturday that it would be a mistake for Turkish officials “to read [the US’s] narrow measure as a judgement upon Turkiye”.

“The health of the Turkish financial system is not in question; the conduct of one institution was,” Barrack said on X.

Last week, the US took steps towards severing the UAE operations of Egypt’s second-largest bank from financial access after accusing it of processing transactions for companies linked to Iran’s shadow-banking system.

Bessent said on Tuesday on the sidelines of a G20 summit that Washington would likely announce a bank sanction this week and another next week, as it ramps up its economic campaign against Tehran.

The actor will be joined by a string of professionals as he unpacks how the system got people wrongfully convicted.

Will Mellor will be hearing from those falsely accused in a brand new series.

True crime fans are in for a treat as the actor, who has starred in the likes of Broadchurch, The Teacher and A Woman of Substance, will be taking a closer look at how the legal system has failed some people.

After investigating Cops Who Kill and Cops Gone Bad in the past, he’s now returning to Crime+Investigation for Convictions Gone Bad. The five-part series will see Will delve into some of the most shocking miscarriages of justice in legal history.

Throughout the series, Will is joined by a range of professionals, including a seasoned former detective, a top forensic scientist and a legal expert. In the programme, he’ll be unpacking how the system got it so disastrously wrong.

The star will also reveal the crucial new evidence that finally set the wrongfully convicted free. A synopsis for the show reveals that in the episodes, Will will be hearing from those falsely accused.

In their own words, they’ll be ‘Providing an insight into what it’s like to be arrested, tried and convicted of the most horrendous of crimes; and the subsequent battle to clear their name.’ One of the people Will speaks to is Justin Plummer, who served over 27 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit and Kevin Richardson of the Central Park 5.

Other cases featured include Andrew Malkinson, Sam Hallam, and Angela Cannings, who collectively served over 25 years in prison whilst maintaining their innocence.

An overview reads: “Alongside former Detective Inspector Howard Groves , Will takes a fresh look at the original crime, retracing the steps of the investigators and exploring how the case was built.

“Will meets forensic scientist Carol Rogers to examine the crucial evidence used by the prosecution to secure a conviction. They break down the complex science, revealing where the evidence was flawed and the expert advice was unsafe.

“He’s joined by legal expert Professor Claire McGourlay to chart the twists and turns of the appeal, until finally – the wrongfully convicted get their day in court.”

The programme, which has been produced by ITN for Crime+Investigation, will see the actor examine what happens when the justice system fails, and the wrong person ends up going to prison for a crime they didn’t commit.

In the past, Will has also delved into cops who have killed, but also fraudsters, swindlers, sexual predators and drug dealers. In the seven-part series at the time, he looked into former metropolitan police officer David Carrick, former Cheshire police constable Martin Forshaw, former Metropolitan police officer Rodney Whitchelo and a former Met officer, Kashif Mahmood.

It also looked into Michael Coulton, a police officer assigned to royal protection duties at Buckingham Palace, who hatched an elaborate plan to murder his wife. The programme also went abroad to shine a spotlight on US cop Drew Peterson and ex-chief investigative officer Mark Standen from Australia.

Speaking about his true crime series, Will commented: “I’m really pleased to be back for Cops Gone Bad. In this series, we’ll be examining cases of corrupt officers from the UK, US and Australia, and whilst the majority of cops do an amazing job every day, it’s important to hold those that don’t, to account.”

Convictions Gone Bad with Will Mellor premieres on Monday, October 5 and airs 9pm weekly exclusively on CRIME+INVESTIGATION

WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Trump to finish building his new White House ballroom with mostly private money and without approval from Congress.

By a 5-4 vote. the justices granted an emergency appeal from Trump and his lawyers on Monday and set aside a judge’s order that would stop the construction.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented, along with the court’s three liberals.

The outcome turned on standing.

The conservative majoritysaid the National Trust for Historic Preservation and its members were not personally injured by the White House ballroom project and therefore, did not have to standing to sue Trump or the National Park Service.

They also said Trump and his appointees had stressed the new ballroom was needed for national security and said the lower courts judges should not have interfered.

The decision in effect gives a green light to Trump’s go-it-alone approach which is in keeping with his history as a hotel builder. He believed the White House needed a grand ballroom that could seat hundreds of dignitaries. And he ordered the East Wing torn down in October to make room of his larger ballroom.

He also said most of the project would be paid for by $400 million in private donations.

But the Constitution gave Congress the power to manage property belonging to the United States. A 1912 law says new buildings “shall not erected…on public grounds within the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.”

Trump chose to ignore the law and did not seek approval from Congress which is led by Republicans.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued in December, contending Trump was a “temporary tenant, not the owner” of the White House.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled Trump had no authority to build a new ballroom on the White House grounds without the approval of Congress, and he ordered a halt to the above-ground construction.

The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed his decision by a 2-1 vote.
“Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the Executive Branch to dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstruct the White House—the People’s House—to fit a particular President’s desires,” wrote Judge Patricia Millett for the appeals court.

Trump’s lawyers sent a fast-track appeal to the Supreme Court on Aug. 14.

The court’s majority allowed Trump to fend off the legal challenge by concluding the historic preservationists could not show they were harmed by a huge new ballroom that may dwarf the historic Executive Mansion.

WASHINGTON — In firing up a trade war with Canada, President Trump turned to a 96-year-old statute so obscure that many trade lawyers didn’t even know it was still on the books.

Trump invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 on Aug. 24 to slap a 50% tax on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports. The move prompted dollar-for-dollar retaliation from Ottawa and strained already-tense relations between the neighbors and longtime allies.

The president’s Section 338 tariff authority has never been used, let alone tested in court. “This law is literally a blank canvas because it’s never been litigated,’’ said Ryan Majerus, a partner at law firm King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official.

So it’s unclear whether Trump’s latest Canada tariffs could survive a legal challenge, and some lawyers argue that the Depression-era law has been rendered obsolete by more recent trade laws.

Trump raises Section 338 from the dead

To sanction Canada allegedly for discriminating against U.S. dairy, auto and alcoholic beverage exports this summer, the Trump administration reached back to the Great Depression.

The 1930 tariff legislation is known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act after its congressional sponsors. With the U.S. and world economies in collapse, Congress raised tariffs on hundreds of imports in an attempt to protect American farmers and manufacturers.

The tariffs are notorious among economists and historians for shutting down world commerce and making the Great Depression worse. (Trump, who proudly calls himself “Tariff Man,” has a different view, arguing that the Smoot-Hawley levies simply came too late to rescue the American economy.)

In addition to raising tariffs themselves, lawmakers in 1930 gave the president new power to impose them himself: Section 338 authorizes presidential tariffs of up to 50% on imports from countries that have discriminated against U.S. businesses.

Before Trump, no president had actually used the statute.

“Until Trump’s second term, few trade lawyers were aware that Section 338 remained on the books or understood what it did,” legal scholars Peter Harrell and Jennifer Hillman of Georgetown University wrote this month in the libertarian magazine Reason.

Harrell and Hillman cite State Department records to show that the U.S. considered using Section 338 in trade disputes — against Spain in 1932 and against newly communist China in 1949 — but never did. After the Depression, U.S. policy focused more on using negotiations — rather than sanctions — to open foreign markets.

So Section 338 sat moldering in the law books.

Other laws take hold

As the years went by, the United States passed new trade laws. Some of them ceded to the president tariff power, which the Constitution originally granted to Congress. But the new laws also limited the president’s authority to certain circumstances — including dealing with national security threats and foreign currency crises — and required the government to carry out investigations and meet other procedural requirements beforehand.

“There is a very strong argument that [Section 338] was superseded,” said Sara Albrecht, chief executive of the Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian advocacy group that represented businesses that successfully challenged the earlier Trump tariffs with the Supreme Court.

If Congress wanted the president to retain Section 338 power, Albrecht asks, why did lawmakers pass the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allowed for national security tariffs? And the Trade Act of 1974, which gives the president power to go after other countries’ unfair trade practices?

Battling over Canada’s dairy market

Legal experts see other weaknesses in the Section 338 tariffs.

Harrell and Hillman, for instance, write in Reason that Section 338 authorizes only tariffs that “offset” the harm that a foreign country’s trade practices do to American companies. But in targeting Canada, they note, the Trump administration made no attempt to calculate the dollar amount of damage arising from discrimination against U.S. farmers, automakers and marketers of alcoholic beverages. And the U.S. went after Canadian imports unconnected to those trouble spots, including hockey sticks and cement.

Harrell and Hillman also say that Canada’s protection of its dairy market does not single out U.S. farmers for discrimination; the rules apply to many other Canadian trading partners as well.

Moreover, the United States agreed to the Canadian system — in which Canada imposes stiff tariffs on dairy imports that exceed a quota — in a North America trade pact Trump himself negotiated with Canada and Mexico in his first term. Harrell and Hillman write that it is “incongruous, to say the least, for the United States to denounce as discriminatory the very terms it agreed to.”

But John Veroneau, former general counsel for the U.S. Trade Representative, said the Section 338 tariffs are straightforward: They are justified when another country discriminates against U.S. imports by taxing them more than it taxes imports from other countries.

And in a “perverse irony,” Veroneau said, Canada did just that when it responded to tariffs Trump imposed on Canadian products last year with its own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports. “Courts will rightly feel obliged in the face of any challenge [to decide]: Are the statutory requirements met or are they not met, however ludicrous the broader context might be,” said Veroneau, adjunct professor at the University of Maine School of Law.

Plaintiffs are so far hard to find

Trump’s other tools to impose his protectionist agenda already have floundered in court. The Supreme Court in February threw out his boldest gambit: invoking a 1977 national security law to hit almost every country on Earth last year with double-digit tariffs.

When Trump tried to replace the revenue lost to the Supreme Court defeat with a new set of tariffs, a specialized trade court in New York rejected those too — though the government was allowed to continue collecting the import taxes while the case works its way through the court system.

No one has filed a lawsuit challenging the Section 338 tariffs. The Liberty Justice Center has been looking for businesses willing to sue the government over the levies.

“I haven’t had a lot of response from plaintiffs,” Albrecht said. “Anytime you want to sue the government, it’s a hard proposition.” The Section 338 tariffs on Canada are also far smaller — just 5% of Canadian imports — than Trump’s 2025 worldwide tariffs, meaning that fewer companies have to pay them and can claim to have been injured by them.

There’s also a chance, Albrecht said, that the two countries will resume the talks they broke off Aug. 21 and reach a compromise to end a standoff neither country wants. “I’m hopeful that somebody blinks, that they come to some agreement and it all goes away,” she said.

Aug. 25 (UPI) — Colombian President Abelardo De la Espriella ordered police and immigration authorities to begin to identify and deport migrants without legal status, starting in Barranquilla, the president’s office said.

De la Espriella issued the order during a security council meeting in the Caribbean city, where he announced measures to combat homicide, extortion, drug trafficking and other crimes, according to an official statement.

“The order to Migration is clear: coordinated operations with the police must begin in Barranquilla to find illegal immigrants,” De la Espriella said.

The president said authorities would first target foreign nationals committing crimes and then those who have not regularized their immigration status in Colombia.

“This is a presidential order that must begin to be carried out this week,” he said. “I will not accept illegal immigrants, regardless of where they come from, who are committing crimes in Colombia. They will leave, and we will deport them.”

De la Espriella said the measure was a political and administrative decision by his government. However, the announcement did not include a decree, an enforcement protocol or a deportation target.

The government also has not explained whether the order changes existing legal standards or seeks to intensify enforcement already carried out by Colombia’s immigration authority.

Deportations and expulsions were already part of Colombia’s immigration policy. Between August 2022 and June, Migration Colombia documented 3,389 deportations and 2,576 expulsions — a total of 5,965 people.

The leading reasons for deportation during that period were remaining in the country without legal status, with 1,380 cases, and entering or leaving the country illegally, with 1,315, according to Migration Colombia.

Other cases involved fraudulent documents, false statements, unauthorized activities, court orders and threats to national security or public order. The immigration authority said deportations and expulsions require individual administrative proceedings.

The decision fulfills a campaign promise. In June, when he was still a candidate, De la Espriella said foreign nationals who entered Colombia legally would receive guarantees, while those who violated immigration rules would be returned to their home countries, El Colombiano reported.

Colombia is home to more than 2.8 million Venezuelans, the country’s largest foreign population. Migration Colombia had registered 2,831,561 Venezuelan nationals intending to settle in Colombia as of Aug. 31, 2025, according to an official report.

The Association of Venezuelans in Barranquilla called on authorities to respect due process and the right to a defense during the new operations.

“Anyone who commits a crime must answer to the justice system, regardless of whether they are Colombian, Venezuelan or any other nationality,” the organization said. However, it warned that “irregular immigration status is not synonymous with criminality,” according to Caracol Radio.

The first time that artist and filmmaker James Spooner heard Patti Smith’s song “Rock n Roll N—,” he cringed and reflected on the years of racism, microaggressions and abuse he dealt with as a young Black punk rocker in California’s high desert and later, New York.

According to Spooner’s new book, “It Starts With Anger,” this moment of reflection is a catalyst that prompts him to pursue a closer examination of the experiences and challenges Black people face in punk rock and alternative music scenes that are predominantly white.

“If there was such a thing as a ‘Rock n Roll N—’ Patti Smith wasn’t going to be the one to define it. Right then, I decided I was going to make a movie,” Spooner writes in his book.

In 2003, Spooner started working on a documentary called “Afro-Punk,” which took him across the country as he interviewed Black artists, musicians and fans to talk about their experiences in punk rock. “Afro-Punk” starts by calling out Smith’s controversial song before diving into what it means to be Black in a music scene intended to welcome outsiders, but which nonetheless alienates and projects harmful values toward people who are not white.

“I don’t think she’s a bad person, I think she’s a white person who was trying to be edgy and then just like doubled down her whole career,” Spooner told The Times. “I’m all for and have always been understanding of people who make mistakes, people should have an opportunity to correct themselves.”

The punk rock documentary is being rereleased this month after Spooner launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to remaster the film. The rerelease coincides with the publication of Spooner’s new book, “It Starts With Anger,” which covers the author’s personal history, the creation of the documentary, the larger Afropunk brand (it does not use a hyphen like the film), and the eventual demise of his brainchild at the hands of corporate ventures. “Afro-Punk” will premiere in Los Angeles and New York, with a special screening and book talk on Sunday at the Skirball Cultural Center with former S.O.A. and Black Flag vocalist Henry Rollins.

“Young people at the time needed it,” Spooner says about his documentary “Afropunk.” They needed that connection to see that there were other young Black punk rockers, they needed to hear from them and know that they had common experiences.”

(Lisa Nola )

“Before there was anything negative attached to it and before there was any corporate interest attached to it, people saw the movie and were like, ‘Oh, that’s my story, I guess I’m an Afropunk and didn’t even know it,’ and then they started calling themselves that,” Spooner said. “I helped define an experience for a group of people in the underground, I inadvertently helped to define an experience for a lot of people who feel othered and ostracized.”

Spooner, who upheld punk’s DIY ethos by shooting, producing, directing and editing the entire project himself, recently regained the rights to his film after a contentious years-long legal battle against his former business partner, Matthew Morgan, and Essence Ventures, the current owners of the Afropunk brand.

“The way that it all turned out in the end, it’s like, not everybody gets to see the long arc of justice in their lifetime, but to be so hurt and slighted and then watch karma do its thing is like, why waste time with being pissed off anymore? There are still things that I wished wouldn’t have happened, but I’m lucky in the end,” the Afropunk founder said.

After Spooner made his documentary, he realized how much the film resonated with Black punks who yearned for community and acceptance. Damon Locks, a visual artist and musician who was featured in the documentary and later worked as a publicist for the Afropunk festival, said he was “really impressed” with the film when it first came out, and that “James’ instincts were correct” when it came to the vision and execution.

“Young people at the time needed it, they needed that connection to see that there were other young Black punk rockers, they needed to hear from them and know that they had common experiences,” he said.

Eager to extend the reach of “Afro-Punk” beyond the documentary, Spooner began organizing a series of DIY underground punk shows known as “The Liberation Sessions,” with the goal of developing this concept into a major festival. He also decided to enter a business relationship with Morgan, who offered to manage Spooner’s creative affairs and help him take “Afro-Punk” to the next level.

According to Spooner, Morgan wanted to bring in corporate sponsors and feature music genres outside of punk to generate more interest and maximize profits. Spooner said he reluctantly compromised, yet after several years of working with Morgan, Spooner grew disillusioned with what Afropunk the festival became.

Maurice “Moe” Mitchell, vocalist for hardcore band Cipher and national director of the Working Families Party, was featured in the documentary and performed at several Afropunk shows and festivals. He said what happened with Afropunk is “a tale as old as time” and Morgan being outside of the movement led to “moneyed interests” altering what Spooner had created.

“At some point, those interests figure out how to co-opt, how to monetize, how to profit, how to take over this thing and it becomes a shell of itself, no longer owned or operated by the original originators, just a product or a marketing scheme for some company,” Mitchell said. “And that is rinse and repeat what happens to really good art and really good movements, and it’s what happened with Afropunk.”

By 2008, Spooner decided he wanted to walk away. He moved to Los Angeles and signed over the Afropunk rights and trademark to Morgan.

“My priority was to the kids … and I didn’t want for them to not have Afropunk just because I was over it, just because I moved on to the other side of the country, I could have just been like, ‘F— you, everything’s in my name, if you want it, sue me,’ I could have done that and I probably would have won because everything is in my name,” the punk filmmaker said. “I also was incredibly broke, I was not only broke when I moved to L.A., I was like $20,000 in debt on credit cards, so it was not like I was in a good place to continue this thing.”

As “Afro-Punk” returns to screens in Los Angeles and New York, Spooner leans into punk’s rebellious ethos, reclaiming his work and spotlighting Black liberation in loud, uncompromising ways.

(Lisa Nola )

In 2020, Spooner sued Morgan for failing to make contractual annual payments and failing to observe a clause in their 2010 agreement that mandated that if more than 50% of the company was sold, Spooner was entitled to a share of the profit. In 2020, Essence Ventures acquired the Afropunk LLC, but Spooner was not made aware of the sale. After a complicated legal battle against both Morgan and Essence Ventures, Spooner settled, successfully recovering the rights to the film in 2025, which he says was more important to him than financial compensation.

Representatives for Essence Ventures did not immediately return requests for comment.

“I didn’t start ‘Afro-Punk’ with money in mind, I wanted people to see my film,” Spooner said. “I wanted people to see my film, and then people saw the film, and then I wanted those people to stay in the room together and become friends, and all of that happened.”

Mitchell, who ended up becoming friends with Spooner after participating in the documentary, said he is “very happy” that Spooner “came out vindicated” in the legal struggle. The Cipher frontman believes “Afro-Punk” is an important documentary that shows “what it means to be a person of color in America,” and which makes visible the identity issues Black people experience beyond the punk rock community.

“That’s also the story of Black people when we lean into our liberation, right?” Mitchell said. “Like we are expressing ourselves in very loud and uncompromising ways that challenge the status quo and so I’m really happy that this film is coming out because this is a moment where we need as many people, as many Black people, to lean into who we are in loud and uncompromising ways, because we have a whole political structure that is demanding our compromise.”

As Spooner celebrates the release of his new book and the premiere of his remastered film — which he says still needs distribution — he hopes that he can continue shedding light on the Black experience and sharing the legacy of what he created as a young Black punk rocker.

“It’s wild to me that I made something when I was 25 that people still care about, and I hope that it keeps reaching another generation and proves itself to be valuable in some kind of way,” he said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is pitching a plan to help shield local police officers who make immigration arrests from possible financial consequences if they are accused of on-duty misconduct.

The agency is proposing to subsidize liability insurance for state and local officers who are trained and deputized to enforce federal immigration laws, according to a planning document published Friday.

ICE’s partnerships with local departments have soared since President Trump returned to the White House last year and may get an additional boost with liability insurance by removing a hurdle that has made some local police departments reluctant to join. The Associated Press is the first to report on this insurance proposal.

Under the plan, officers would purchase insurance covering up to $500,000 in personal liability, which typically funds legal fees, settlements and judgments. Officers would be reimbursed up to $250 annually — roughly what the insurance is expected to cost.

One prominent critic of ICE’s immigration crackdown said the program would be yet another way for officers to avoid personal accountability for misconduct.

“The concern here is that ICE is going above and beyond to guarantee law enforcement does not have even the slightest risk of liability for violating Americans’ rights while helping ICE arrest people,” said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, who has called on Congress to make it easier to sue ICE agents for wrongdoing.

ICE outlined the plan in a document informing industry officials that it is considering hiring a contractor to help provide outreach, training and communications support for its so-called 287(g) partnerships with local departments, which are named for a section of a 1996 immigration law. The contractor would hire the insurance vendor and process the reimbursements, among other tasks.

ICE has asked for industry feedback by Thursday. The proposed timeline for launching the program and its estimated cost are unclear.

ICE had no immediate comment on the plan.

Arrests by ICE’s local partners have spiked since last year

During Trump’s second term, ICE has offered generous financial incentives to participating local agencies, increasing the number who have partnered with the federal government, as well as the number of arrests.

Nearly 1,600 agencies in 32 states now have agreements to participate in ICE’s task force model, in which trained local officers can interrogate, arrest and charge people suspected of being in the country illegally, according to ICE data.

Departments qualify for funding to help cover expenses like their officers’ pay, equipment and vehicles. With encouragement from state and local Republican officials, agencies in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and Georgia have been among the leaders.

Arrests made through such programs jumped to an average of 3,000 per month in the first two months of 2026, according to the most recent ICE data provided to the University of California Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project. That compares to a monthly average of 250 in 2024 under President Biden.

Local departments, officers worried about liability for ICE work

As local officers increasingly carry out federal immigration work, they and their departments have expressed concerns about the civil liability that could result from claims alleging excessive use of force, wrongful arrest and illegal search and seizure, among other things.

That’s because insurance policies that cover their local work may not apply. Pennsylvania’s risk pool, for instance, recently made clear that it would exclude “proactive immigration enforcement activities” from coverage, forcing several participating counties to search for other insurance options.

Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe said he found insurance to cover his 13 deputies participating in the program at a cost of $20,000 in annual premiums.

“I want to make sure the guys are additionally covered, so we had to spend the money,” he said, adding that federal funding would cover the cost.

Federal officers usually enjoy legal immunities and a government-funded defense when they face lawsuits. But those protections may not always apply to local officers, which has heightened their concerns over liability and the need for insurance.

Although civil lawsuits are the main concern, professional liability insurance typically helps cover legal fees for officers facing criminal investigations as well.

Sheriffs’ group says ICE’s insurance idea sounds promising

Justin Smith, a former Colorado sheriff who is executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Assn., said ICE’s plan sounds promising and that he was eager to speak with ICE about how the plan would work.

Smith said he has shared concerns with ICE that some sheriffs are reluctant to join the partnerships because of the potential liability at a time when immigration enforcement faces intense public protests and media scrutiny. Smith said others who are partnering with ICE have already started facing legal claims tied to their immigration work, which can be costly whether or not deputies are ultimately found to have done anything wrong.

“Right now, any time you are working on immigration there is going to be a much higher potential for there being problems and having suits and issues,” he said. “They’re recognizing that it is a different environment. And I think trying to be good partners with us as best they can.”

Under their agreements, ICE warns local departments that they are responsible for the costs of incidents that give rise to liability. But it seeks to reduce the risk by saying local officers performing ICE-authorized functions are “acting under color of federal authority,” which would bar lawsuits against individual officers.

The agreements also state that local officers who face civil lawsuits can ask the U.S. Department of Justice to represent them, and that ICE will generally support their requests. But the final decision on whether to do so rests with the department.

Foley writes for the Associated Press.