violence

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Former FBI Director James Comey appeared in court on Wednesday, kick-starting a criminal case against him that legal experts say presents significant hurdles for the prosecution and will likely be a challenge for the Justice Department to win.

Comey, who didn’t enter a plea, was indicted in North Carolina on Tuesday on charges of making threats against President Trump related to a photograph he posted on social media last year of seashells arranged in the numbers “86 47.” The Justice Department contends those numbers amounted to a threat against Trump, the 47th president. Comey has said he assumed the numbers reflected a political message, not a call to violence against the Republican president, and removed the post as soon as he saw some people were interpreting it that way.

The indictment is the second against Comey, a longtime adversary of Trump dating back to his time as FBI director, over the past year. The first one, on unrelated false-statement and obstruction charges, was tossed out by a judge last year. Now prosecutors pursuing the threats case face their own challenge of proving that Comey intended to communicate a true threat or at least recklessly discounted the possibility that the statement could be understood as a threat.

The indictment accuses Comey of acting “knowingly and willfully,” but its sparse language offers no support for that assertion. Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche declined to elaborate at a news conference on what evidence of intent the government has. But broad 1st Amendment protections for free speech, Supreme Court precedent and Comey’s public statements indicating that he did not intend to convey a threat will likely impose a tall burden for the government.

“Here, ‘86’ is ambiguous — it doesn’t necessarily threaten violence and the fact that it was the FBI Director posting this openly and notoriously on a public social media site suggests that he didn’t intend to convey a threat of violence,” John Keller, a former senior Justice Department official who led a task force to prosecute violent threats against election workers, wrote in a text message.

The case was charged in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the location of the beach where Comey has said he found the shells. He is set to make his first court appearance Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., the state where he lives.

What the law says on threats

The Supreme Court has held that statements are not protected by the 1st Amendment if they meet the legal threshold of a “true threat.”

That requires prosecutors to prove, at a minimum, that a defendant recklessly disregarded the risk that a statement could be perceived as threatening violence. In a 2023 Supreme Court case, the majority held that prosecutors have to show that the “defendant had some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements.”

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has found that hyperbolic political speech is protected. In a 1969 case, the justices held that a Vietnam War protester did not make a knowing and willful threat against the president when he remarked that “If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J,” referring to President Lyndon B. Johnson. The court noted that laughter in the crowd when the protester made the statement, among other things, showed it wasn’t a serious threat of violence.

Regarding the current case, Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by the Associated Press, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” It notes: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”

Comey deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

What the government will try to prove

John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney in the Western District of Virginia, said the government will likely try to prove that Comey should have known better as a former FBI director.

“I think they’re going to try to circumstantially say that you were head of the FBI, you knew what these terms meant and you said them out to the whole world as a threat to the president,” Fishwick said, though he noted that such an argument would be challenging in light of Comey’s obvious 1st Amendment defenses.

Comey was voluntarily interviewed by the Secret Service last year, and the fact that he was not charged with making a false statement suggests that prosecutors do not have evidence that he lied to agents, Fishwick said.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday that “despite being one of Comey’s longest critics, the indictment raises troubling free speech issues. In the end, it must be the Constitution, not Comey, that drives the analysis and this indictment is unlikely to withstand constitutional scrutiny.”

“If it did,” he added, “it would allow the government to criminalize a huge swath of political speech in the United States.”

Tucker, Richer and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press. Kunzelman reported from Alexandria, Va.

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted Tuesday in an investigation over a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said constituted a threat against President Trump, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and confirmed the indictment to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The charge or charges against Comey were not immediately known.

It’s the second criminal case the Justice Department has brought against the longtime Trump foe, who said he assumed the arrangement of shells he saw on a walk, reading “86 47,” was a political message, not a call to violence. Comey is among multiple foes of the Republican president to come under scrutiny by the Justice Department over the last year, as acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche aims to position himself as the right person to hold the job permanently.

Comey was interviewed by the Secret Service in May after Trump administration officials asserted that he was advocating the assassination of Trump, the 47th president. Comey deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment Tuesday.

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by the Associated Press, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” It notes: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”

Trump, in a Fox News Channel interview in May, accused Comey of knowing “exactly what that meant.”

“A child knows what that meant,” Trump said. “If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear.”

The fact that the Justice Department pursued a new case against the ex-FBI director months after a separate and unrelated indictment was dismissed will likely spark defense claims that the Trump administration is going out of its way to target Comey, who had overseen the early months of an investigation into whether the Republican president’s 2016 campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of that year’s election.

The former FBI director was indicted in September on charges that he lied to and obstructed Congress related to testimony he gave in 2020 about whether he had authorized inside information about an investigation to be provided to a journalist. He denied any wrongdoing, and the case was subsequently dismissed after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who brought the indictment was illegally appointed.

Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s Republican administration.

But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty to the president — an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, would ultimately find that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.

The department, for instance, is also pursuing a criminal investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan, another key figure in the Russia investigation — one of Trump’s chief grievances and a saga for which he and his supporters have long sought retaliation.

CNN was the first to report the second indictment against Comey.

Richer and Tucker write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Southern Poverty Law Center says it’s the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department and faces possible charges over its past use of paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups.

The civil rights group made the announcement on Tuesday, saying President Trump’s administration appears to be preparing legal action against it or some of its employees.

“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement.

The Justice Department had no immediate comment.

The SPLC previously paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups and gather information on their activities, often sharing it with local and federal law enforcement, Fair said. It was used to monitor threats of violence, he said, adding that the program was kept quiet to protect the safety of informants.

“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” Fair said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”

He said the organization “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work.”

The SPLC, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama, was founded in 1971 and used civil litigation to fight white supremacist groups. The nonprofit has become a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.

The investigation could add to concerns that Trump’s Republican administration is using the Justice Department to go after conservative opponents and his critics. It follows a number of other investigations into Trump foes that have raised questions about whether the law enforcement agency has been turned into a political weapon.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has faced intense criticism from conservatives, who have accused it of unfairly maligning right-wing organizations as extremist groups because of their viewpoints. The SPLC regularly condemns Trump’s rhetoric and policies around voting rights, immigration and other issues.

The SPLC came under fresh scrutiny after the assassination last year of conservative activist Charlie Kirk brought renewed attention to its characterization of the group that Kirk founded and led. The SPLC included a section on that group, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as “A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said last year that the agency was severing its relationship with the SPLC, which had long provided law enforcement with research on hate crime and domestic extremism. Patel said the SPLC had been turned into a “partisan smear machine,” and he accused it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States.

House Republicans hosted a hearing centered on the SPLC in December, saying it coordinated efforts with President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration “to target Christian and conservative Americans and deprive them of their constitutional rights to free speech and free association.”

Binkley and Richer write for the Associated Press.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Louisiana community in shock as domestic violence incident leaves eight children dead and two others injured.

Eight children have been killed in a shooting spree in the southern US state of Louisiana, in what police said appears to have been an incident of domestic violence.

The gunman, who was not immediately identified, was fatally shot by police after a car chase early Sunday, officials said.

The incident occurred in Shreveport, northwestern Louisiana.

“This is a rather extensive crime scene spanning between two residences,” Shreveport Police Corporal Chris Bordelon told a press conference, adding that a third residence was also part of the scene being combed by investigators.

The victims ranged in age from one to 14, Bordelon said.

“Some of the children inside were his descendants,” he added.

Two other people were struck by gunfire, but their conditions were not immediately known.

Officials said they were still gathering details about the crime scene, which extended across three locations. Police Chief Wayne Smith said the suspected shooter was fatally shot by police during a vehicle chase.

“This is an extensive scene, unlike anything most of us have ever seen,” Smith added.

Louisiana State Police say their detectives have been asked by Shreveport police to investigate. In a statement, state police say no officers were harmed in the shooting that involved an officer after a police pursuit into Bossier City on Sunday morning.

State police are asking anyone with pictures, video or information to share it with state police detectives.

The attacker has been identified as a “58-year-old Moscow man”, but no motive has been established.

A gunman who killed at least six people in Kyiv and took hostages has been shot dead by Ukrainian police, officials said.

The attack occurred on Saturday in the capital’s Holosiivskyi district, where the assailant opened fire on civilians in the street before barricading himself inside a nearby supermarket, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.

Special tactical police units stormed the supermarket after roughly 40 minutes of failed negotiations, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram. The gunman shot at police officers during the standoff.

“We tried to persuade him, knowing that there was likely a wounded person inside,” Klymenko told The Associated Press news agency. “We even offered to bring in tourniquets to stop the bleeding, but he did not respond.”

Ultimately, authorities were given the order to “neutralise” the attacker, he said.

At least 10 others were hospitalised, including one child, and four hostages were rescued, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said the attacker was a 58-year-old born in Moscow.

Klymenko said the man was carrying a legally registered gun and had approached licensing authorities as recently as December 2025 to renew his weapons permit, submitting a valid medical certificate at the time. He added that investigators would determine which medical institution issued the document.

Zelenskyy offered his condolences to the families of the victims, saying he had instructed officials to make all verified information publicly available. “We expect a swift investigation,” he wrote.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, leading a Pentagon prayer meeting, quoted a fictional bible verse taken from a violent monologue in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film “Pulp Fiction,” originally delivered by actor Samuel L. Jackson just before his character shoots a helpless man to death.

The secretary used the prayer to frame the war in Iran as an act of divine justice, the same justification Jackson’s character cites in the film before pulling the trigger.

Hegseth told the audience at a monthly Pentagon worship service held Wednesday that he learned the prayer from the lead mission planner of a team called “Sandy 1,” which recently rescued downed Air Force crew members in Iran.

Hegseth said the verse is frequently spoken by combat search-and-rescue crews, who call the prayer “CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17” from the Bible.

“And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother,” Hegseth recited. “And you will know my call sign is Sandy 1, when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

The infamous Ezekiel 25:17 speech from “Pulp Fiction” is almost entirely a screenwriter’s creation; only the final refrain is loosely inspired by the actual biblical verse. The majority of the monologue in Tarantino’s film is adapted from the opening of the 1976 Japanese martial arts film “The Bodyguard,” with action star Sonny Chiba.

Hegseth’s minute-long prayer closely followed those scripts, with only the last two lines resembling language from the Bible. In Hegseth’s version, he replaced “and they shall know that I am the Lord,” from the book of Ezekiel with the call sign for a U.S. A-10 Warthog aircraft.

Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said some outlets accused Hegseth of mistaking Jackson’s Golden Globe-winning performance with actual scripture, and called that narrative “fake news.”

“Secretary Hegseth on Wednesday shared a custom prayer, referenced as the CSAR prayer, used by the brave warfighters of Sandy-1 who led the daylight rescue mission of Dude 44 Alpha out of Iran, which was obviously inspired by dialogue in Pulp Fiction,” Parnell wrote on X. “However, both the CSAR prayer and the dialogue in Pulp Fiction were reflections of the verse Ezekiel 25:17, as Secretary Hegseth clearly said in his remarks at the prayer service. Anyone saying the Secretary misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is peddling fake news and ignorant of reality.”

Hegseth has frequently used his prayer sessions to call for violence in the ongoing Iran war. In last month’s sermon, he asked God to “grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence.”

The services are not mandatory, a senior defense analyst with knowledge of Pentagon operations told The Times, but some who work closely with Hegseth’s office feel an “implied pressure” to attend and “fill seats.”

The effect — some feel — is less attention on the Pentagon’s wartime efforts, and more on supporting political stunts, according to the source, who is not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity.

“We have managers and leaders that are missing mission critical work to go listen to ‘Pulp Fiction’ quotes,” the source said. “It delays our ability to make operational, mission related war-fighting decisions.”

The prayer came amid an ongoing clash between the Trump administration and Pope Leo XIV, who has spoken out in recent weeks against the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. Statements from the Vatican were met with a series of reprisals from President Trump, who said he doesn’t “want a pope” who criticizes the president of the United States.

On Thursday, the pope released a statement against military leaders who conflate war with divinity.

“Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,” he said.

Death toll rises to 10 after shooting by 14-year-old student at the Ayser Calik School in Kahramanmaras.

Mourners have gathered in Turkiye’s southern province of Kahramanmaras for the funerals of victims killed in the second of two school shootings that rocked the nation this week.

Funerals were held on Thursday for eight students and maths teacher Ayla Kara, 55, who were killed in Wednesday’s shooting, The Associated Press news agency reported.

A 10th victim died while being treated in hospital on Thursday, authorities said. Six of those wounded in the attack were in critical condition, officials said.

Isa Aras Mersinli, 14, opened fire on two classrooms in the Ayser Calik School in Kahramanmaras city on Wednesday. The attacker was later found dead.

Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said the attacker is believed to have used guns that belonged to his father, a former police officer.

At a funeral for four of the victims held near Kahramanmaras city’s main mosque on Thursday, one father sat motionless beside the coffin of his daughter, 10‑year‑old Zeynep, the AFP news agency reported.

“Our grief is endless. These children were like our own. They were all innocent,” said Vezir Yucel, father of a student named Yusuf, who lost his close friend, 10-year-old Bayram, in the shooting.

Nilgun Ruci, a 55‑year‑old homemaker, told AFP that she rushed to Ayser Calik School after hearing gunshots. When she arrived, she saw the daughter of a neighbour lying gravely wounded.

“She had been shot in the leg and the shoulder,” Ruci said. “At first, I thought she had fainted. Today I learned that she died.”

Second attack in two days

The attack was the country’s second school shooting in two days, coming after Tuesday’s attack at a high school in Sanliurfa province in the southeast, which was carried out by a former student who wounded 16 people.

As of Thursday, 20 people had been detained in connection with Tuesday’s shooting in Sanliurfa.

The interior and education ministries held a joint school security meeting in the capital, Ankara, on Thursday, which was attended by both ministers and all 81 of Turkiye’s provincial governors, as well as police chiefs and provincial education directors.

Until this week, school shootings were rare in Turkiye. But dozens of students were arrested Thursday over alleged social media posts implying they might stage similar attacks.

Justice Minister Akin Gurlek announced that 67 social media users were detained over posts targeting 54 different schools.

Taylor Frankie Paul won’t face criminal charges in connection with alleged domestic violence incidents between her and her ex-boyfriend, the Salt Lake County district attorney’s office said Tuesday.

The embattled “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” star’s cases were reviewed by multiple attorneys due to their high-profile nature, according to the district attorney’s office.

“After reviewing reports and evidence submitted to the Draper Police Department and West Jordan Police Department, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office has declined to file charges against Taylor Frankie Paul,” the statement reads.

According to the news release, Dakota Mortensen, Paul’s ex and the father of her youngest child, reported several domestic violence incidents, “some of which occurred more than three years ago.”

“Any incidents of misdemeanor offenses which are alleged to have occurred more than two years ago are barred by the statute of limitations,” the district attorney’s office wrote, adding that “several incidents that were submitted do not rise to the level of criminal offenses.” The remaining incidents lack sufficient evidence to support filing criminal charges, according to the district attorney’s office.

Mortensen filed a report with the West Jordan Police Department in Utah in February alleging an incident of domestic violence that he said occurred in early to mid-2024. Utah’s Draper Police Department was also looking into a separate incident involving the former couple.

Days before the premiere of Season 22 of “The Bachelorette,” in which Paul was set to star, a leaked video of a 2023 domestic dispute between Paul and Mortensen circulated online.

That 2023 incident resulted in Paul being arrested. She eventually pleaded guilty in abeyance to aggravated assault, and Paul’s arrest was featured in the first season of “Secret Lives.”

Although the incident had already been addressed publicly and dealt with in court, the leaked video featured previously unseen footage of the dispute. As a result, Paul was hit with a restraining order, she temporarily lost custody of Ever, the 2-year-old son she shares with Mortensen, and ABC pulled “The Bachelorette.” Production on the hit reality series had already wrapped and the premiere was slated for March 22.

Last week, a Utah judge ruled that Paul can have supervised visits with Ever, until another hearing for a protective order later this month.

The exes are also ordered to appear remotely at a court hearing April 30 to review the merits of Mortensen’s protective order against Paul. Paul has also filed her own protective order against Mortensen, which a Utah judge signed off on last week.

Mortensen sought a protective order after two incidents in February that involved “grabbing, scratching, shoving, and striking” that allegedly left Mortensen with marks on his neck, according to police documents. A judge granted the order last month.