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  • Wall Street guru struck speechless by Trump insider stock trades

    Wall Street guru struck speechless by Trump insider stock trades

    On a live Monday broadcast of CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, one of Wall Street’s most high-profile media personalities, Jim Cramer, was left visibly stunned and speechless for 10 full seconds when a co-host brought up the staggering wave of stock trading executed by former President and current U.S. President Donald Trump in the first quarter of 2026. After Cramer’s prolonged incoherent mumbling left viewers confused, fellow co-host David Faber stepped in to clarify that the program was not experiencing any technical glitches — Cramer, it turned out, had simply been rendered speechless by the revelation of Trump’s controversial trading activity.

    The scope of Trump’s trading first came to light last week, when ethics disclosures published by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics confirmed that Trump completed more than 3,700 separate stock transactions between January and March 2026. Among these trades, more than 30 individual purchases each exceeded $1 million in value. The Financial Times first highlighted a striking connection: many of the top stocks Trump traded are owned by major corporations whose chief executives accompanied Trump on his official diplomatic trip to China just one week before the disclosures were released, including industry giants Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Meta, Visa, Citi, Boeing, Qualcomm, and GE Aerospace.

    Independent journalists and ethics watchdogs have since uncovered multiple clear patterns that raise urgent red flags for potential illegal insider trading. In a detailed analysis published Monday, reporter Judd Legum documented multiple instances where Trump purchased shares in a company either immediately before or on the exact same day that he publicly praised the firm to move its share price. For example, Trump bought tens of thousands of dollars in stock of biotech manufacturer Thermo Fisher Scientific on the exact same day he toured one of the company’s production facilities. He acquired hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Apple shares the same day he delivered a public speech lauding the firm as “a great company” and praising then-CEO Tim Cook. Just one day after purchasing a large stake in Micron Technology, Trump called the company “one of the hottest companies” during a national Fox News interview. Nine days after acquiring millions of dollars in Dell stock, Trump urged a crowd of supporters at a Georgia rally to “go out and buy a Dell computer.”

    Legum’s analysis emphasized that Trump has systematically dismantled every remaining ethical guardrail designed to prevent sitting U.S. presidents from using their public office for personal financial gain. Unlike previous presidents who have placed their assets in qualified blind trusts to remove themselves from active investment decision-making, Trump transferred his holdings to a trust controlled directly by his son, Donald Trump Jr., after returning to the White House. This structure leaves no legal or practical barriers to Trump directing trading activity based on non-public information he accesses as president.

    Investigative journalist Ryan Grim argued that Cramer’s stunned on-air reaction was entirely understandable, noting that many of the companies whose stock Trump traded have already directly profited from Trump’s controversial foreign policy decisions, including the ongoing military conflict with Iran that the Trump administration initiated. “Cramer here is having what should be the normal reaction to Trump actively insider trading on his own decisions,” Grim noted. “Just sputtering speechlessness.”

    New York Representative Dan Goldman, a Democrat, has already sounded the alarm over the trading activity, calling it “blatant and criminal insider trading.” In a social media post, Goldman warned all parties involved that records of the trades will eventually be subject to congressional investigation, noting that congressional Republicans have signaled they will ignore the scandal. “Anyone involved in these trades should preserve their records for my investigation in January 2027,” Goldman added.

    The stock trading scandal is not the only ethics controversy engulfing the Trump administration this week. On the same day Cramer’s viral on-air reaction made headlines, 93 House Democrats filed an official legal challenge to block a $1.77 billion taxpayer-funded settlement between the Trump administration and the Internal Revenue Service that critics say is a blatant grift to create a slush fund for Trump’s political allies.

    The settlement grew out of a $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS after his personal tax returns were leaked during the 2024 campaign. As part of a deal to dismiss the lawsuit, the Trump administration created what it calls an “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which the acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche has framed as a mechanism to compensate what the administration calls “victims of lawfare” allegedly carried out by the Department of Justice during the prior Biden administration.

    But Democrats and ethics watchdogs have condemned the deal as an unprecedented abuse of power, noting that Trump is currently the head of the executive branch that oversees the IRS — meaning he is effectively both the plaintiff and the defendant in the lawsuit he arranged to “settle.” “No president can concoct a fake case for $10 billion in damages against the government so he can be plaintiff and defendant and then ‘settle’ his bogus case against himself as a judge,” said Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, calling the deal “pure fraud and highway robbery.” Raskin added that the fund is nothing more than a racket to divert taxpayer money to Trump’s most loyal supporters, including those convicted of violent felonies during the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection.

    The amicus brief filed by Democrats with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, where the case is being heard by Judge Kathleen Williams, seeks to have the entire settlement thrown out. The filing notes that the fund could be used to compensate roughly 1,600 individuals already charged or convicted of crimes connected to the Capitol attack, including seditious conspiracy, assault on law enforcement, and other violent felonies.

    Richard Neal, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, called the entire scheme “another self-enrichment scheme on the backs of hard-working taxpayers.” “Reporting detailing Trump’s interest in a billion-dollar slush fund for the J6 criminals and permanent immunity from any further IRS scrutiny only deepens the stench of corruption,” Neal added. Lawyers for the Democrats, Matt Platkin and Norm Eisen, noted that “it’s against the law for the president to in effect sue himself — and then settle for a huge sum. The court has the power to put a stop to these shenanigans and should do so.”

    This latest controversy follows a pattern of ethics violations from Trump since his return to the White House, where he issued blanket pardons to hundreds of January 6 rioters on his first day in office. According to the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, dozens of those pardoned rioters have since been charged or convicted of additional serious crimes, including child sex offenses, rape, grand theft, burglary, illegal weapons possession, and threats against public officials.

    Progressive advocacy groups and legal ethics experts have joined Democrats in condemning both the stock trading scandal and the IRS settlement. “Donald Trump and his compromised Department of Justice have created a slush fund to make payouts to Trump supporters and cronies,” said Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman, co-presidents of the public interest group Public Citizen. “This scheme amounts to the creation of a January 6 payment fund.”

    Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and public affairs at the advocacy group Stand Up America, argued that the scandal lays bare the true nature of the Trump administration’s priorities at a time when many U.S. households are struggling with economic instability. “While Americans struggle with rising costs fueled by his economic mismanagement and war with Iran, Donald Trump is teaching a masterclass in grift,” Edkins said. “He’s negotiated with himself to create a $1.7 billion tax-dollar slush fund with no oversight, no transparency, and no accountability. In simple terms, Trump is stealing $1.7 billion in taxpayer dollars to hand out to himself, his cronies, his donors, or anyone he deems sufficiently loyal—including supporters who were convicted by juries of assaulting police officers on January 6, 2021. This is truly unprecedented corruption, and American taxpayers will foot the bill.”

  • Three killed in suspected hate crime at San Diego mosque

    Three killed in suspected hate crime at San Diego mosque

    On a Monday morning in San Diego, California, a brutal shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego left three people dead, in what federal authorities are investigating as a targeted hate crime. The two attackers, a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old, died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds shortly after the assault, law enforcement officials confirmed.

    The tragic sequence of events unfolded nearly two hours before the mosque attack, when the mother of one of the teens placed an emergency call to local police. She reported that her son had fled home, taken multiple of her firearms and her car, and left behind a handwritten note filled with generalized hate rhetoric. She added that her son was accompanied by another young person, and both were wearing full camouflage clothing. Initially dispatched to follow up on a report of a potentially suicidal runaway, investigators quickly noted the teen’s behavior did not align with the profile of a person in acute suicidal crisis, and began searching local sites including the high school where one of the suspects was enrolled and a shopping mall where the vehicle had last been spotted.

    At 11:43 a.m. local time, as responding officers were still interviewing the suspect’s mother just blocks from the Islamic Center, dispatch received a new call reporting an active shooting at the mosque. Arriving officers found three fatally shot victims lying outside the building’s entrance. Among the deceased was an on-site security guard who law enforcement credits with heroic action that prevented a higher death toll, though no additional details on his intervention have been released at this time. No officers fired their weapons during the response, and no active shooter was found on the premises when police swept the building per active shooter protocol.

    Minutes after officers secured the mosque, a second report of gunfire came in from a nearby location. The two suspects had opened fire from their vehicle on a local landscaper working in the area. Miraculously, the landscaper escaped without injury; law enforcement says preliminary reports suggest a bullet aimed at his head was deflected by his protective hard hat, though this detail is still under verification. When officers arrived at the second scene, they found both suspects already dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

    The Islamic Center of San Diego campus is also home to the Al Rashid School, which offers religious and language instruction, meaning children were present on the grounds when the attack began. Aerial footage captured by local news outlets shows children being escorted hand-in-hand out of the campus by emergency personnel through the center’s parking lot, while all nearby schools were immediately placed on full lockdown as a safety precaution.

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed it is treating the incident as a hate crime, after the handwritten note left by one suspect was recovered. San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl told reporters that while the note contained no explicit threat targeting the mosque or any other specific site or individual, the targeting of a major Islamic place of worship, combined with the hate-filled content of the note, leads investigators to presume the attack was motivated by bias.

    One retired local witness, who was eating lunch at his home near the mosque when the shooting began, told reporters he counted roughly 30 shots total from what he described as a semi-automatic weapon, split between two bursts of around a dozen shots separated by a short pause. He noted that the mosque is far more crowded on Fridays and during major religious holidays, saying “It’s a good thing it didn’t happen on a Friday, because the streets would be full of people.”

    The attack comes just days before Eid al-Adha, the “Festival of Sacrifice,” one of the two holiest major holidays in the Islamic faith, when Muslim communities gather with family to commemorate the prophet Ibrahim’s obedience to God. Imam Taha Hassane, director of the Islamic Center of San Diego, called the attack on a house of worship “extremely outrageous” in a press conference, emphasizing “this facility is a house of worship, not a battlefield.”

    California Governor Gavin Newsom released a statement condemning the violence, saying he was horrified by the attack on a space where “families and children gather, and neighbors worship in peace and fellowship.” He added that the state of California “will not tolerate acts of terror or intimidation against communities of faith.” At an unrelated White House event Monday, US President Donald Trump called the shooting a “terrible situation,” saying he had received early briefings and that authorities would conduct a full, thorough review of the incident.

    As of Monday, the investigation remains ongoing, and the FBI has issued a public call for any member of the community with relevant information, including photos or video from the area taken that morning, to contact investigators to assist with the case.

  • Why Elon Musk lost in the OpenAI court battle against Sam Altman

    Why Elon Musk lost in the OpenAI court battle against Sam Altman

    In a high-stakes legal showdown that has gripped the global tech industry, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has emerged on the losing end of his courtroom battle against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, rooted in a bitter dispute over the AI research lab’s dramatic transformation from a non-profit entity to a for-profit enterprise. BBC technology correspondent Lily Jamali was present inside the courtroom to observe the proceedings as Musk laid out his core allegation: that Altman had violated the terms of the original non-profit founding agreement that shaped OpenAI’s creation when he oversaw the company’s transition to a for-profit operating model.

    The conflict traces back to OpenAI’s founding in 2015, when it was launched as a non-profit research organization with a stated mission of developing artificial general intelligence that benefits all humanity. Musk was an early founding investor and board member, though he stepped down from the board in 2018 and eventually cut ties with the organization he helped bring to life. After OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022 and rapidly grew its user base and commercial valuation, Musk renewed his public criticism of the company, arguing that it had abandoned its original non-profit, public-benefit roots in pursuit of corporate profit.

    Musk’s lawsuit centered on the claim that Altman and other OpenAI leaders breached the binding founding contract that committed the company to remaining non-profit and open in its research activities. The legal battle has been closely watched across the technology sector, as it raises fundamental questions about the governance of high-stakes AI development, the fiduciary duties of founders of mission-driven tech organizations, and the balance between commercial innovation and public benefit in the rapidly growing AI industry. With the court’s ruling siding with Altman and OpenAI, the decision clears a key legal hurdle for the company as it continues its commercial expansion, while leaving Musk’s public campaign to hold OpenAI to its original founding mission without a legal victory.

  • Trump v Massie: Could president’s Republican nemesis survive $20m attack to oust him?

    Trump v Massie: Could president’s Republican nemesis survive $20m attack to oust him?

    As voters head to the polls for Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District Republican primary on Tuesday, the nation is watching one of the most explosive intraparty showdowns of the 2026 election cycle: a test of whether sitting Congressman Thomas Massie can defy former president Donald Trump and hold onto his seat. The contest has become a defining referendum on Trump’s unchallenged grip over the modern Republican Party, with national consequences for any other GOP lawmakers considering breaking with the party’s leader.

    The conflict between Massie and Trump stems from the Kentucky congressman’s repeated breaks with the White House on high-profile issues core to Trump’s agenda. Massie voted against Trump’s landmark 2025 tax and spending package, arguing it added trillions of dollars to the national debt; he backed efforts to roll back Trump’s tariffs on Canada; he supported measures to curtail Trump’s military operations in the Caribbean targeting suspected drug trafficking vessels and the ongoing U.S. military deployment in Iran. Most notably, Massie joined a bipartisan coalition that successfully pressured Trump’s own Department of Justice to release the full, unredacted files on deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a move that infuriated the president.

    Trump’s response has been unrelenting. He has branded Massie with a barrage of vicious insults, calling him a “moron,” “lowlife,” “loser” and “major sleazebag,” even attacking other Republican politicians who dare to stand with the Kentuckian. When Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert campaigned alongside Massie earlier this month, Trump called her “weak-minded” and “dumb” on his Truth Social platform, threatening to yank his endorsement of her re-election bid – a threat that carried little practical weight, as Colorado’s primary filing deadline had already passed, but sent a clear warning to any would-be dissenters. By March, Trump had handpicked his own challenger to unseat Massie: retired Navy Special Forces veteran Ed Gallrein, who has centered his entire campaign on being the president’s preferred candidate.

    The race has deepened divides within Kentucky’s local GOP, with officials and voters split sharply over Massie’s brand of uncompromising libertarian small-government conservatism. To his supporters, Massie is a principled lawmaker who keeps his word even when it costs him politically. “He’s one of the most consistent congressmen,” said Rex Morgan, a attendee of a Massie meet-and-greet in Shelbyville. “Even if it were to cost him his job, he will not go back on his word.” But to critics within the party, Massie’s intransigence is nothing more than political grandstanding, designed to grab media attention at the expense of the GOP’s broader agenda. With Republicans holding only a razor-thin majority in the House during Trump’s second term, Massie’s breaks have repeatedly delayed or derailed the president’s legislative priorities. “It’s not that you have to agree on every single issue, but at a certain point you’ve got to look at the big picture and say, how can we move this ball forward?” said Allen Volz, vice-chair of the Boone County Republican Party.

    Massie has walked a careful line to court the district’s deeply pro-Trump electorate – Trump won Kentucky’s 4th District by 35 points over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. He emphasizes that he has voted with the Trump administration 90% of the time, framing his occasional breaks as pushes to hold the Republican Party accountable to its small-government promises. “The problem we have is not that I’m voting against the Republican Party up there, it’s that the Republican Party up there is sometimes voting against Republican people back home. That’s the 10% of the time,” Massie explained at his Shelbyville event. He argues that his opposition to bloated spending packages improves final legislation, noting “the negotiation starts when one person says no. And if nobody says no, then you get the whole standing pile of crap.”

    By contrast, Gallrein’s campaign strategy has been straightforward: he leans entirely on Trump’s endorsement, printing it on yard signs, featuring it front-and-center on his website and social media, and making it the core of every ad buy. The former Navy SEAL, who owns a farm and events venue in Shelbyville, has run an unusually low-profile campaign: he has skipped nearly all primary debates, holds small, unannounced events, and declines almost all national media requests. “At the end of the day, Gallrein’s best argument is that Trump wants him,” said Trey Grayson, a former Kentucky secretary of state and Republican strategist. “I think their theory is there are enough folks for whom that’s enough that you get to 51%.”

    The race has attracted a raucous cast of national supporters on both sides, and has become the most expensive House primary in U.S. history, with total spending surpassing $32 million. Most of the outside money opposing Massie comes from three high-profile billionaires: Las Vegas casino magnate Miriam Adelson, and hedge fund managers Paul Singer and John Paulson, whose funding has been funneled through a pro-Trump super PAC called Kentucky MAGA and pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, which opposes Massie’s criticism of U.S. military aid to Israel. Anti-Massie ads have flooded local airwaves, including one controversial spot that used artificial intelligence to generate fake images of Massie with progressive Democratic lawmakers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, falsely framing the trio as a threat to Trump’s agenda. Massie has fought back, outraising his opponent in large part thanks to a national grassroots donor base energized by his push for the Epstein files, and has run ads framing Gallrein as a puppet of wealthy special interests.

    As election day arrives, recent polling shows the race is a statistical dead heat. Political analysts note that Kentucky’s 4th District has demographic features that could work in Massie’s favor: it includes large swathes of more affluent, educated suburban voters around Louisville and Cincinnati, a demographic that is less reliably pro-Trump than the lower-income rural voters that have formed the core of the president’s recent base. Trump’s sagging national approval ratings, dragged down by rising gas prices and divisions within the GOP over his ongoing military campaign in Iran, also bolster Massie’s non-interventionist foreign policy brand. A Massie win would send shockwaves through the Republican Party, proving that it is possible for a sitting GOP lawmaker to break with Trump and survive. “A single house member going against the president of the US and prevailing?” said Grayson. “That’s a tell that maybe you can stand up and get away with it.” A loss for Massie, however, would cement Trump’s control over the party, sending a clear message that dissent from the president’s agenda will not be tolerated.

  • American who contracted Ebola in DR Congo evacuated for treatment, CDC says

    American who contracted Ebola in DR Congo evacuated for treatment, CDC says

    In a development that has drawn global public health attention, U.S. health officials confirmed Monday that an American national working with a medical missionary organization in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has tested positive for the Ebola virus. The infected individual, identified by mission leadership as Dr. Peter Stafford, a physician with the Christian medical outreach group Serge, contracted the virus while caring for patients at Nyankunde Hospital in Bunia, located in eastern DRC’s Ituri Province – the current epicenter of the ongoing outbreak.

    After displaying the first characteristic Ebola symptoms over the weekend, the infected American will be transferred to Germany for specialized medical care, according to Dr. Satish Pillai, incident manager for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Ebola response team. Beyond the confirmed case, the CDC is coordinating the evacuation of at least six other American citizens who were also exposed to the virus during their time in the affected region. Two additional exposed Serge group members, including Stafford’s wife, remain asymptomatic and are adhering strictly to monitored quarantine protocols, the organization confirmed in an official statement.

    The scale of the ongoing outbreak has already reached alarming levels: John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), revealed in comments to the BBC that the outbreak has claimed at least 100 lives so far, with more than 390 suspected cases recorded across the affected region.

    In response to the confirmed case and ongoing outbreak risks, the CDC issued a new public health order Monday barring entry to the United States for all non-citizen travelers who have visited any Ebola-affected country – including the DRC, neighboring Uganda, and South Sudan – within the previous 21 days. The order is enacted under Title 42, a decades-old public health statute that allows U.S. authorities to impose temporary entry bans on non-citizens to prevent the spread of dangerous communicable diseases.

    Despite the new entry restrictions, CDC officials stressed that the overall risk of widespread Ebola transmission to the general U.S. public remains extremely low. To support frontline response efforts in the DRC, the agency is deploying additional specialized response staff from its Atlanta headquarters to the outbreak’s core zone to assist with containment, contact tracing, and treatment operations.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) already designated the DRC outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), the organization’s highest level of public health alert, though it has not met the formal criteria to be classified as a pandemic. The current outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo Ebola strain, a variant for which no specifically approved antiviral treatments or licensed vaccines currently exist, complicating global response efforts. WHO officials have repeatedly warned that the actual size of the outbreak is likely far larger than officially reported cases indicate, with substantial risk of further spread to local communities and across regional borders.

    To contextualize the current risk, the 2014–2016 West African Ebola outbreak remains the largest on record since the virus was first identified in 1976. That outbreak infected more than 28,600 people across multiple West African nations and spread to Europe and the United States, killing a total of 11,325 people globally.

    Ebola is a zoonotic virus, meaning it circulates naturally in wild animal populations – most commonly fruit bats – with human outbreaks typically initiated when humans handle or consume infected bushmeat. After exposure, symptoms develop between 2 and 21 days, beginning abruptly with flu-like symptoms including fever, headache, and fatigue before progressing to more severe, life-threatening complications.

  • Trump says he called off new Iran attack at request of Gulf states

    Trump says he called off new Iran attack at request of Gulf states

    Less than 24 hours before a planned American military assault on Iran was set to launch, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday he had paused the operation following appeals from three key Gulf Arab nations, saying that constructive negotiations are now underway to reach a widely acceptable deal.

    In a public statement posted to his Truth Social platform, Trump clarified that the heads of state of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates personally requested the delay in military action. He added that U.S. officials have been told a final agreement that meets Washington’s core demands is within reach, emphasizing a non-negotiable red line: “NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR IRAN!”

    Even as he paused the strike, Trump maintained a firm posture of deterrence. He warned that all branches of the U.S. military remain on high alert, ready to execute a large-scale, full-scale attack against Iran on extremely short notice if negotiations fail to deliver a satisfactory outcome.

    As of Friday evening, Iranian officials had not issued any public response to Trump’s latest comments.

    The current tension traces back to late February, when joint Israeli and United States forces launched extensive air strikes across Iranian territory. In retaliation, Tehran deployed drones and missiles to target Israeli positions and American military assets located across Gulf nations.

    An April ceasefire, negotiated to create space for diplomatic talks aimed at ending the open conflict, has broadly held. While occasional cross-border exchanges of fire have been reported, neither side has resumed large-scale offensive operations since the truce went into effect.

    One major sticking point remains the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy chokepoint. Iran has maintained effective control of the waterway, effectively closing it to commercial transit since the outbreak of hostilities. Approximately 20% of global oil supplies and a large share of the world’s liquefied natural gas pass through the strait, and Iran’s closure in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli strikes has caused a sharp spike in global energy prices.

    In response to the Hormuz closure and to pressure Tehran into concessions, the United States has implemented a strict naval blockade of major Iranian ports, cutting off much of the country’s normal maritime trade.

  • Alex Murdaugh sues court clerk over jury tampering after murder convictions overturned

    Alex Murdaugh sues court clerk over jury tampering after murder convictions overturned

    The high-profile legal saga of disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh has entered a new chapter, days after the state’s Supreme Court threw out his 2023 convictions for the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul. On Wednesday, Murdaugh filed a civil lawsuit against Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill, the court official at the center of the judicial misconduct that invalidated his original guilty verdict.

    Last week, the South Carolina Supreme Court issued a unanimous 5-0 ruling ordering a new trial for Murdaugh, concluding that Hill had deliberately undermined his constitutional right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. The high court documented multiple inappropriate interactions between Hill and seated jurors during the six-week 2023 trial, including statements where she urged jurors not to be swayed by evidence presented by the defense.

    Within months of the guilty verdict, Hill released a commercially published tell-all book about the high-profile proceedings, which drew international media attention and drew crowds of true crime observers to the televised trial. In his new civil filing, Murdaugh’s legal team argues that Hill’s improper jury interference was driven entirely by personal financial gain. Court documents allege Hill sought a guilty verdict specifically to boost book sales, with the end goal of purchasing a lake house. The suit quotes the Supreme Court’s own finding that Hill believed a conviction would maximize profits from her planned publication.

    Murdaugh is seeking monetary damages to cover the hundreds of thousands of dollars he spent on his criminal defense during the first trial, totaling $600,000 in claimed compensation for the harms he suffered as a result of Hill’s actions. This is not Hill’s first run-in with legal consequences: Last December, she pleaded guilty to multiple felony charges including misconduct in public office, obstruction of justice, and perjury connected to unrelated allegations that she misappropriated public funds during her tenure as clerk and leaked sealed court records to a journalist.

    Murdaugh, once a prominent member of a powerful local legal family, has maintained his complete innocence in the 2021 killings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. Prosecutors have announced plans to retry the double murder case, though no new trial date has been scheduled. He is currently serving consecutive 27-year and 40-year sentences for separate state and federal convictions for financial crimes, including years of stealing millions of dollars from his law firm and clients to fund an opioid addiction and extravagant lifestyle. Prosecutors argued at the original trial that the killings were an attempt to cover up this years-long pattern of financial corruption. The case has drawn global public interest, spawning multiple documentaries, podcasts, and book deals long before Hill entered the publishing space.

  • Jury tosses Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and its boss Sam Altman

    Jury tosses Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and its boss Sam Altman

    In a landmark legal ruling that closes one chapter of a high-stakes feud over the future of artificial intelligence, a California jury has delivered a unanimous verdict dismissing Elon Musk’s major lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman. The case was thrown out entirely on the grounds that Musk filed his legal claims well after the legally mandated statute of limitations for such disputes had expired.

    Musk, one of the original co-founders of OpenAI, launched the suit accusing Altman of breaking a foundational non-profit agreement that guided the company’s early days. When OpenAI was launched in 2015, Musk contributed $38 million in initial funding to support the organization’s stated mission: developing AI technology for the collective benefit of humanity, rather than private profit. Musk alleged that Altman deliberately deceived him by accepting his charitable seed funding, then abandoned the original non-profit mission to transition OpenAI—the creator of the wildly popular ChatGPT—into a for-profit entity. He also named Microsoft and its CEO Satya Nadella as co-defendants, claiming the tech giant aided in what Musk framed as a breach of agreement.

    Over the course of three weeks, jurors pored over thousands of pages of internal OpenAI correspondence and heard testimony from all key parties to the dispute. Both Musk and Altman took the stand to present their competing accounts of the company’s origins and trajectory, while Nadella also appeared as a witness to address Musk’s allegations against Microsoft. Following the close of evidence, jurors deliberated for roughly two hours on Monday before reaching their unanimous decision to dismiss the case.

    During his opening testimony on the first day of the trial, Musk appeared in court in a dark suit and tie, framing his legal action as a defense of the principle of charitable giving. When asked by his legal team to explain the core of his complaint, Musk told the court: “It’s actually very simple. It’s not OK to steal a charity… If it’s okay to loot a charity, the entire foundation of charitable giving will be destroyed.”

    Altman pushed back forcefully against Musk’s narrative during his own testimony, arguing that Musk not only supported the push to convert OpenAI to a for-profit structure—he also pushed for long-term personal control of the company. Altman recalled a pivotal early meeting where Musk’s stance on control became clear, telling jurors: “A particularly hair-raising moment was when my co-founders asked, ‘If you have control, what happens when you die?’ He said something like, ‘maybe it should pass to my children.’”

    Following the jury’s ruling on the claims against OpenAI, Musk’s remaining allegations against Microsoft were also dismissed as a matter of law. The long-running rift between Musk and Altman dates back to 2018, when Musk stepped down from OpenAI’s board after co-founders rejected his request for full control over the organization. The dismissal of the suit brings a definitive legal end to this particular clash between two of the most influential figures in global AI development, though ongoing industry competition between their respective AI projects is expected to continue.

  • Trump drops $10bn lawsuit against IRS in exchange for a settlement fund

    Trump drops $10bn lawsuit against IRS in exchange for a settlement fund

    In a surprising legal development that has ignited fierce partisan controversy across Washington, former president and current U.S. President Donald Trump has agreed to dismiss his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the 2020 leak of his personal tax returns. The settlement paves the way for the creation of a $1.776 billion federal fund to compensate individuals who claim they were improperly targeted by government law enforcement actions.

    Trump first launched the legal action in January, arguing that the IRS failed to intervene to stop a former agency contractor, Charles “Chaz” Littlejohn, from leaking years of confidential tax documents to national media outlets during his first term in office. The dismissal came just 48 hours before a critical May 20 court deadline, where both sides were scheduled to argue over whether a valid legal standing for the case even existed — a question raised given Trump now leads the executive branch that oversees the IRS.

    Almost immediately after Trump’s legal team filed the motion to dismiss, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the terms of the broader settlement agreement. Under the deal, a new “anti-weaponisation fund” will be established to create a formal process for reviewing and resolving claims from people who say they were harmed when government law enforcement was improperly politicized. Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization, all named plaintiffs in the original suit, will receive a formal apology from the department but no financial compensation, officials confirmed.

    The fund will be managed by a five-member commission, four of which will be appointed directly by the U.S. Attorney General, and is allocated nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer funding to resolve eligible claims. Quarterly public reports on all disbursements from the fund will be submitted to the Attorney General, per the agreement. “The machinery of government should never be weaponised against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement announcing the deal.

    A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team framed the president’s decision to settle as a move driven by public interest, saying “the president is entering into this settlement squarely for the benefit of the American people. He will continue his fight to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable,” the spokesperson added.

    However, congressional Democrats have decried the agreement as an unconstitutional abuse of power, labeling the new fund an unaccountable “slush fund” that will be used to reward Trump’s political allies. More than 90 House Democrats have already filed a legislative motion to block the settlement from taking effect. Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin issued a blistering statement calling the deal a corrupt racket, arguing it would divert $1.7 billion in public funds to pay allies of Trump, including people convicted for their role in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot and supporters of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

    Legal experts consulted by the judge overseeing the original suit last week had already described Trump’s legal action as historically unusual. “This case is unprecedented: A sitting president seeks monetary damages for alleged harm to his personal interests from an executive agency that he controls,” the experts wrote in their analysis, noting that Trump has publicly acknowledged he exercises control over both the IRS and the Department of Justice attorneys handling the litigation.

    The controversy traces back to the 2020 leak of Trump’s tax records, which formed the basis of a landmark New York Times investigation published weeks before that year’s presidential election. The investigation confirmed that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he won the presidency, and paid no federal income tax at all in 10 of the 15 years prior to that election. Trump voluntarily released his tax records publicly in 2022, two years after the leak. Littlejohn, the contractor responsible for the leak, pleaded guilty in 2023 to stealing confidential tax data from Trump and thousands of other high-income Americans, and was sentenced to five years in federal prison in 2024.

  • Judge rules gun and writings are admissible in Luigi Mangione’s New York murder trial

    Judge rules gun and writings are admissible in Luigi Mangione’s New York murder trial

    In a landmark pre-trial ruling released Monday, New York State Supreme Court Judge Gregory Carro has carved out a narrow middle ground in the high-profile murder case against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in late 2024. The judge approved the admission of a handgun and handwritten writings found in Mangione’s backpack during a post-arrest search at a Pennsylvania police station, but barred prosecutors from using multiple other pieces of evidence collected during an initial warrantless search at a local Altoona McDonald’s, citing constitutional violations.

    The 26-year-old suspect stands accused of fatally shooting Thompson on a busy Manhattan street in December 2024, just days before law enforcement tracked him to the western Pennsylvania McDonald’s following a multi-state nationwide manhunt. When officers responded to a tip from a member of the public who recognized Mangione from publicly released suspect photos, they approached the suspect to question his identity. Roughly 48 minutes after the initial interaction began, officers read Mangione his Miranda rights, the standard U.S. criminal procedure warning that informs suspects of their right to remain silent and avoid self-incrimination.

    During the pre-Miranda interaction at the restaurant, an officer conducted an unwarranted search of Mangione’s backpack, uncovering a loaded gun magazine, a passport, a cellphone, a wallet, a computer chip, and a Faraday bag designed to shield electronic devices from external signal monitoring. After Mangione was taken into custody, law enforcement conducted a second, more comprehensive inventory search of his belongings at the Altoona police station, where they found the handgun that prosecutors intend to present as the murder weapon, along with a red journal containing Mangione’s writings.

    Mangione’s defense team launched an aggressive pre-trial motion to suppress all evidence collected from the McDonald’s encounter, as well as all statements Mangione made to officers during the initial questioning. They argued that the warrantless search of the defendant’s personal property violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures, and that the pre-Miranda questioning violated his due process rights. Prosecutors countered that all police actions followed lawful protocol and that the evidence should be admissible at trial.

    After hearing several days of pre-trial arguments in late 2024, Judge Carro ruled in favor of the defense on multiple key points. All evidence recovered during the initial McDonald’s search—including the loaded magazine, cellphone, passport, wallet, and computer chip—must be suppressed, he ruled, because the search was deemed improper and conducted without a valid warrant. In addition, all statements Mangione made to officers before he was read his Miranda rights, including answers to questions about lying about his identity and whether he carried fake identification, are also excluded from the state trial.

    However, the ruling handed prosecutors a critical victory by clearing the way for them to present the handgun and red journal found during the police station inventory search—two of the most high-stakes pieces of evidence in the case. While the suppression of multiple pieces of evidence marks a significant win for the defense, the ability to introduce the murder weapon and the defendant’s own writings leaves prosecutors with core evidence to present to the jury.

    Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all state charges, which include second-degree murder, multiple firearms offenses, and stalking. He also faces separate federal charges in connection with Thompson’s killing, and has entered a not guilty plea in that case as well. During Monday’s brief hearing, Mangione appeared in court dressed in a navy blue suit, whispering to one member of his legal team as lead defense attorneys Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo conferred with the judge and prosecution at the front of the courtroom. The back of the courtroom was filled with multiple rows of spectators and supporters of Mangione, several of whom wore printed shirts calling for his exoneration.

    The state murder trial is scheduled to begin in September 2025, and the ruling has now cleared up the major pre-trial evidence dispute that had dominated procedural proceedings in the case for months.